If religious denominations were states, almost all of them would be considered “Safely Democratic” or “Safely Republican,” with relatively few swing states. The apparent imbalance between General Baptists and Pentecostal pastors and the public may be because the researchers’ pastors data may be missing a large group of African-American Baptist and Pentecostal pastors. It provides a sweeping view of the leadership of the country’s largest religious denominations, their political affiliations and their demographic composition. By compiling these estimates, Mr. Hersh and Ms. Malina effectively created a census of sorts of the nation’s religious leaders. No denomination’s religious leaders are older; the median age of the more than 16,000 priests identified by the researchers was 62.

Source: New York Times June 12, 2017 09:34 UTC