I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the internet is not real life. The most recent bit of evidence to this point comes from the Pew Research Institute’s newly released Religious Landscape Study. The data provided in the survey is a full-throat refutation of everything you learned on the internet about Orthodox Christianity in America. To wit:
- American Orthodox Christians are more likely to be immigrants or the children of immigrants than they were a decade ago. That is to say, for all the digital ink that has been spilled, the converts are not taking over, and Orthodoxy is no closer to being “American” (whatever that means) than it was a decade ago. We remain a decidedly immigrant church. In fact, in terms of immigration, Orthodox Christians look more like American Muslims than any other Christian group.
- American Orthodox Christians are 10% less white than they were before (so much for those racist TradBros over running our churches). This has two possible, perhaps co-existent, explanations. First, Orthodox immigrants from places like Ethiopia and the Middle East have shifted the demographic, and those converts are not as uniformly white as the New York Post might want you to believe.
- In terms of political ideology, Orthodox Christians look more like Mainline Protestants than Evangelicals, that is to say, pretty moderate.
- Fifty-eight percent of Orthodox Christians support marriage equality, and sixty percent believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. These measures have both increased from 2014.
- Ten percent are not heterosexual–just like the general population.
It seems impossible to look at this data and not wonder why the perception of the truth is so far from the truth. And as is most often the case when this sort of question is asked, the answer is easy: Just figure out who is asking the questions and what they have to gain from the answer. The portrait of an American Orthodox Christianity that is dominated by socially conservative converts is to the benefit both of those socially conservative converts and to their ideological adversaries, painting a portrait of either consensus or threat (depending on the artist) that serves their ideological ends. Add to this the fact that those “OrthoBros” make for great headlines, generating media attention, research funding, and things to argue about on the internet.
But don’t be fooled. This data suggests that Orthodox Christians in America look basically the way they always have: A church of immigrants and their children (and grandchildren). They are a bit on the conservative side, as all immigrants tend to be. Yet when it comes to those so-called “Culture War” issues, those things that are not in fact political issues, but actually asked, “And if it was your son?” or “What if that happened to your daughter?” they respond as those from family-oriented tight-knit ethnic communities often do, on the side of people, of accommodation, of keeping the peace and families together. If you turn away from the sideshow and those trying to manipulate you for whatever reason, that is what you shall see. Both mainstream and social media are mirrors of society, yes, but they are, by nature, distorted mirrors. As hard as it is to believe, it looks like someone said something untrue on the internet.