On the one hand, political scientists have long held that people’s political choices are formed by their childhood faith, which, for the most part, sticks with them.
On the other, 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, a thrice-married adulterer who rarely attends church.
A new book by University of Pennsylvania political scientist Michele Margolis argues that it’s political science that has it backward.
As she lays out in “From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity,” most Americans choose a political party before choosing the religion to follow in their adulthood — if they choose a religion at all.