Religious Makeup of the New U.S. Congress | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Donna Martinez.

    As the new U.S. Congress begins its work, Pew Research Center has created an interesting graphic to illustrate the religious makeup of the body. (see below).

• While about a quarter (26%) of U.S. adults are religiously unaffiliated — describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular" — just one member of the new Congress (Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.) identifies as religiously unaffiliated (0.2%).
• Nearly nine-in-ten members of Congress identify as Christian (88%), compared with two-thirds of the general public (65%). Congress is both more heavily Protestant (55% vs. 43%) and more heavily Catholic (30% vs. 20%) than the U.S. adult population overall.

    Pew reports that there's not much difference between this Congress and the last. There is an interesting note about North Carolina.

• Unitarian Universalists gained one seat, as Rep. Deborah K. Ross, D-N.C., joins California Democratic Reps. Ami Bera and Judy Chu.