Liberal church attendance booms in Trump era

Volunteers at Foothills Unitarian Church started pushing open the sliding partitions in the back of the room at about 9:30 a.m. on a recent Sunday.

The partitions opened to a new normal for the congregation: An overflow crowd for the mid-morning service wedged between the regular 8 a.m. gathering and an additional service pastors added to accommodate renewed interest in the church during the early months of President Donald Trump's America.

Foothills Unitarian is not an overtly political church, according to its pastors, though its inclusive message resonates with those on the left side of the political spectrum. Trump's election sent shock waves through many congregants and those who would go on to join the church in the early days of his presidency.

"I feel like a lot of folks have experienced what they describe as an earthquake in their lives," Assistant Minister Sean Neil-Barron said. Sunday service helps to settle nerves for people who, until Nov. 9, thought the country was bending along their moral arc. 

"I don't know if that's what people would say to why (they're) going to church," Neil-Barron said. "But it's what I'm witnessing."

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Mark and Susan Williams picked up their attendance in January after years of family life interrupting their former Sunday routine. Mark Williams wore a safety pin on his black sweatshirt, the symbol of being an ally with marginalized groups that took off in the days following Trump's election.

The election shook the Williamses into needing a sense of community, Susan Williams said. At just three weeks or so into the new routine, they were still working out how to add the service to their schedule.

"The people have open minds here," Susan Williams said. "And they ask more question than they have answers."

Unitarian churches often welcome a hodgepodge congregation that includes Christians, atheists and others seeking spiritual growth who are difficult to label as members of a specific religion. The come-as-you-are philosophy has resonated to those seeking community in recent months.

As congregants settled into their seats on that recent Sunday, Rev. Gretchen Haley took the stage to welcome the new and returning faces, including those renewing their attendance after years of absence.

"Find yourself among strangers," she said, pausing just a beat. "And friends."

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Attendance had been steadily increasing for sometime, Haley said, before getting a jolt in October and full-on surge in November. In addition to 65 new members, or an 11 percent increase from about October through January, Foothills Unitarian has seen a couple dozen visitors each Sunday, she said. 

Against the backdrop narrative of declining church attendance, she called it "an astounding growth rate." According to the Pew Research Center, the number of religiously unaffiliated adults in the United States jumped from 16 percent to almost 23 percent between 2007 and 2014, when weekly church attendance dropped from 39.5 percent to 35.7 percent.

Rev. Amanda Henderson, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado, said she doesn't know of any studies looking directly at attendance following the election, but anecdotally has heard growth stories similar to that of Foothills Unitarian.

Following the election, the church put up a row of signs down Drake Road to broadcast its inclusivity. Volunteers change them out, but a recent row proclaimed a love for the hopeful, the struggling, for Muslims and homeless people. The signs have acted as a beacon of sorts for those open to the church's message — even if the sign for immigrants was found broken in two the day after it was staked.

The inclusivity extends to Republicans as well, Haley said. The church even has a sign proclaiming as much. When writing sermons, Haley said she'll picture her Trump-voting in-laws in the audience and ask herself, "would they feel welcome?" But this also happens to be a time when a lot of moral questions, ones the church should tackle, end up being linked with politics, she said.

"Saying, 'we love our black neighbors,' is suddenly a political statement," Haley said, alluding to the Black Lives Matter movement. "A lot of people place that as a deeply political statement, when it shouldn't be."

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This story has a correction: The Foothills Unitarian Church is a denominational church and part of the Unitarian Universalist Association.