from WNYC studios. I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Monday, June 5th.

Here's a headline from a recent political article that caught our eye. the religious landscape is undergoing massive change.

It could decide the 2024 election. The article is by Eastern Illinois University Political

Science Professor Ryan Burge, who's an expert on religion in politics. He is research director

for a group called Faith Counts and author of the book The Nuns, which is not about

N-U-N-S-N-S-N-N-S, it's about N-O-N-E-S-N-N-S, as in none of the above, for what religion you belong to.

The full title of that book is the Nuns, where they came from, who who they are and where they are going.

So let's talk about all this in relation to 2024 with Ryan Burge.

Professor Burge, thanks for joining.

Welcome to WNYC.

Thanks so much for having me.

And you're right that one of the most significant shifts in American politics and religion

just took place over the past decade, and it barely got any notice.

What is it?

Yeah, the share of Americans who associate with religion dropped by 11 points between 2010 and 2020.

And that's just a continuation of a long-term trend of Americans leaving religion behind.

In 1972, 5% of Americans said they had no

religious affiliation on surveys, and now it's 30% of Americans say they have no religious

affiliation. And amongst Generation Z, which are people born 1996 or later, it's above

45% of Americans have no religious affiliation. And this deepens what you call the God gap

in American politics. What do you mean by the God gap? Yeah. So increasingly what's happened is that

the parties have sorted over almost everything, you know, geography, race, but also religion. So

...