Computational analysis by the Pew Research Center of nearly 50,000 sermons that 6,431 USA churches livestream or share on their websites each week reveals differences in content and length across major Christian traditions.
American preachers, in all major Christian traditions, are more likely to refer to books from the New Testament (90% of all online sermons do so) than the Old Testament (61%).
This pattern is especially pronounced in mainline Protestant and Catholic sermons: These two groups are, respectively, 39 percentage points and 40 percentage points more likely to mention a book of the New Testament than to mention a book of the Old Testament by name in any given sermon. This may reflect the fact that most ministers in the mainline Protestant and Catholic traditions preach on the day’s Gospel reading, which is always from the New Testament.
References to books of the Bible vary over time. For instance, the share of all sermons that mention a book of the Old Testament by name declined by 13 percentage points on the week of Easter Sunday (to 49% from 62% the previous week) and then rebounded the following week.
The sermons that American churches share online are heavily laced with Scripture: 95% reference at least one book, Gospel, or epistle of the Bible by name, and more than half (56%) cite particular books from both the Old Testament (also known as the Hebrew Scriptures) and the New Testament (which includes the Christian Gospels) in the same sermon. These numbers vary across Christian groups, with evangelical churches being the most likely to reference a book, Gospel, or epistle of the Bible by name—doing so in 97% of all sermons. Pastors across the country are more likely to reference the New Testament by name (90% do so) than to mention the Old Testament (61%).
Clergy in evangelical and historically black Protestant churches mention the names of books from the Old Testament most frequently. Roughly two-thirds of sermons delivered to these congregations mention specific books of the Old Testament, compared with 43% of mainline Protestant sermons and 28% of Catholic homilies.
Catholic and mainline Protestant sermons have the largest gap between references to the New and Old Testaments—sermons from these two groups are, respectively, 40 percentage points and 39 percentage points more likely to reference a book of the New Testament than a book of the Old Testament. Mainline sermons, however, reference Scripture more frequently: 88% of all mainline sermons mention the name of at least one book of the Bible, compared with 73% of Catholic homilies that cite a book of the Bible by name.
By comparison, evangelical sermons are 27 percentage points more likely to reference the New Testament (93%) than the Old Testament (66%). Historically black Protestant sermons exhibit the smallest gap, at 20 points (85% vs. 65%).
Evangelical sermons also are the most likely to name a book from both the Old and New Testaments in the same sermon: 62% of all sermons from evangelical churches did so in the study period, compared with 56% of historically black Protestant sermons, 37% of mainline Protestant sermons and 22% of Catholic homilies.
Scripture citations are likely influenced by calendars such as the common lectionary, which specifies which biblical passages should be read during weekly services for many groups. This influence can be seen most clearly on Easter Sunday, which occurred during the third of the study’s eight weeks for most US Christians. Mentions of books from the Old Testament across all Christian groups dropped by 13 points during the week that began on Easter Sunday (to 49% during the week of Easter Sunday from 62% a week earlier) before rebounding the following week. Mentions of books from the New Testament, however, stayed roughly steady throughout the study period.
The size of a congregation’s membership also is somewhat related to whether its sermons mention books of the Bible by name. But to the extent that differences exist between smaller and larger congregations, they tend to be dwarfed by the effect of that church’s Christian tradition (for example, evangelical or mainline).
For example, pastors at churches with 200 or fewer members cited specific books from the Old Testament in 6% more of their sermons, on average, than those at churches with more than 200 members. This tendency generally holds true within Christian traditions: For instance, smaller mainline congregations heard a reference to the Old Testament in 45% of their sermons, compared with 39% at larger mainline churches during the study period.
The churches with sermons included in the dataset are more likely to be in urban areas and tend to have larger-than-average congregations.
The median sermon scraped from congregational websites is 37 minutes long. But there are striking differences in the typical length of a sermon in each of the four major Christian traditions analyzed in this report: Catholic, evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, and historically black Protestant.
Catholic sermons are the shortest, at a median of just 14 minutes, compared with 25 minutes for sermons in mainline Protestant congregations and 39 minutes in evangelical Protestant congregations. Historically black Protestant churches have the longest sermons by far: a median of 54 minutes, more than triple the length of the median Catholic homily posted online during the Easter study period.
Several of the terms that distinguish sermons from historically black Protestant churches include the words “hallelujah” and “neighbor.” Both “neighbor … tell” and “tell … neighbor” rank among the 10 words and phrases most disproportionately used in historically black Protestant sermons.
The phrase that is most distinctive to historically black Protestant congregations is “powerful hand.” Some 34% of black Protestant churches used some variation of this expression in a sermon during the study period, compared with just 4% of other congregations. Two of the historically black Protestant tradition’s 10 most distinct phrases include the word “hallelujah.”
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