Despite the intensifying tension and high drama attending this year's U.S. election season, only 20 percent of evangelical Christians in the U.S. said they were "very interested" in watching 2016 election news.
This was one of the findings that came out from a new poll conducted by the Barna Group, an evangelical Christian polling firm based in Ventura, California, according to Charisma News.
Overall, only 31 percent of Americans said they were watching election news "very closely." Another 45 percent said they were watching it "somewhat closely." This may not come as a surprise since, according to Charisma News' Bob Eschliman, Americans have been known to be among the least engaged voters in the world.
When the respondents were broken down by their religious affiliation, it turned out that evangelical Christians were the least interested in U.S. election developments. Eschliman said this is the reason why Christian leaders are spending considerable effort to energise their flock and get them to vote.
The Barna Group poll showed that non-Christians—including Jews, Muslims and Buddhists—are the most engaged voters, with 41 percent of them saying they are "very interested" in U.S. election news.
Their group is followed by that of the sceptics (atheists, agnostics, and those without any faith interest), 36 percent of whom ticked the "very interested" box as far as U.S. election news is concerned.
Following them are the notional Christians—those who consider themselves Christian but are not saved—and born-again Christians who do not meet Barna's criteria for "evangelical." Both groups registered 30 percent high interest in U.S. election stories.
Next in line are Protestant Christians who do not meet Barna's criteria for "born-again" or "evangelical." They showed 26 percent high interest in U.S. poll news.
And then came the evangelical Christians at 20 percent.
But what the Barna pollsters truly found "even more shocking" was the evangelicals' view on the importance of the 2016 election. Although many of them do not bother to watch the election news, they proved to be the most aware of the election's significance. According to the poll results, 78 percent of evangelical Christians said the outcome of this year's presidential election will be "extremely important to the future of the United States."
That compares to 54 percent for non-evangelical born-agains and 52 percent for notional Christians. Slightly more—57 percent—of religious sceptics held the same view, while those aligned with non-Christian faiths were the least concerned about the election's importance (about 49 percent held the same view).
In a statement, the Barna Group expressed the belief that the evangelical Christians are just waiting to see what will happen in the upcoming Republican national convention when the party nominates its presidential candidate before they make up their mind.
"They admit this is a highly important election for the fate of the nation. They consistently strive to influence the direction of the nation. ... They are conscious of what is happening but not yet fully focused. We expect to see their attentiveness climb substantially over the next few months," the Barna Group said.
