54% of Protestant Churches Rely in Part on Armed Church Members for Security

So stories a 2022 survey by Lifeway analysis (and see this abstract, launched June 6). This was apparently a “stratified random pattern, drawn from an inventory of all Protestant church buildings,” and the outcomes had been:

The share (54%) is up from 2019 (45%), which seems statistically vital. The breakdowns amongst subcategories, as to probability of choosing armed church members as safety, are:

• Male pastors usually tend to choose than females (59% v. 36%)
• White pastors (56%) usually tend to choose than African American (33%)
• Pastors with no school diploma (60%) or a Bachelor’s Diploma (61%) aremore more likely to choose than these with a Grasp’s Diploma (50%)
• Evangelical pastors usually tend to choose than Mainline pastors (65% v.39%)
• Pastors within the South are the probably to pick out (65%)
• Baptists (73%), Pentecostals (68%), Christian/Church of Christ (54%), and Non-Denominational (66%) usually tend to choose than Lutherans (32%), Methodists (36%), and Presbyterian/Reformed (26%)
• Pastors at church buildings with attendance 250+ are the probably to pick out(74%)
• Pastors at church buildings with attendance of 100-249 (66%) and 250+ (74%) usually tend to choose than these with attendance 0-49 (41%) and 50-99 (53%)

I anticipate that many of those distinctions are related to possible political and cultural views, although others could stem from comfort (e.g., the bigger the church, the simpler it’s to enlist members who’re prepared and in a position to assist this manner). For a few examples of whether or not armed churchgoers did certainly cease an armed prison, see the Colorado Springs and Spartanburg incidents on this checklist.

Because of Crime Prevention Analysis Middle for the pointer.