A recent analysis by Ryan Burge on his Substack Graphs About Religion reveals that only one in four mainline Protestant and Catholic priests believe that Adam and Eve actually existed. Mainline Protestant refers to the more liberal branch of Protestantism. Burge ran an analysis of what types of things pastors and priests believe in, such as Adam and Eve were real people, Hell, Astrology, Jesus’s bodily resurrection, reincarnation, and physical healing. Astrology got the least amount of belief, with only 2% of Catholic and mainline Protestant pastors putting any real weight behind it. Jesus’s bodily resurrection had the greatest number of believers, with 99% of evangelical pastors believing in it and 92% of Catholic priests. 75% of mainline Protestant pastors believed in the actual physical resurrection of Jesus’s body. Only 45% of mainline Protestants believed in Hell while 93% of evangelicals did.

Burge also ran an analysis of several beliefs about the Bible such as: “The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word for word,” “the Bible is the inspired word of God, without errors. Some parts are meant to be symbolic, but all of it applies today,” and lastly, “the Bible is the inspired word of God that still speaks to us today, but not all of it is historically accurate, and some parts reflect the culture in which it was written and do not apply today.” 70% believed it is the inspired, inerrant word of God while only 26% of mainline Protestants believed so. The majority of mainline Protestants (69%) believed the third option.

Regarding how strongly the clergy felt about their faith, Burge analyzed the response to the question “My religion would be the best one for all people no matter their background or current religion.” 93% of evangelicals agreed with the statement while only 58% Catholic, and 51% mainline. In another analysis, Burge looked at the statement “It is important for me to try to persuade people in other religions to accept my religion instead of their own.” 82% of evangelicals agreed while only 32% of Catholics and mainline did. Burge stated such differences pointed to the higher certainty evangelical faith leaders had in their faith. “I think this graph and the prior one does an excellent job of illustrating how distinct evangelicalism is even inside American Christianity. It’s certainly a faith tradition that seems much more certain of its beliefs than leaders in other faith groups.”