An update on the make-up of the EA for Christians community
by JD Bauman.
It’s been about a year since we last shared survey insights about the Christians and Effective Altruism Facebook Group, the primary gathering place globally for Christians who are interested in effective altruism.
As 2019 comes to a close, it’s fitting we share new insights about the group. As of writing this, the group consists of 570 members. The standing total of 156 survey responses suggests that one in four members took the survey. If we extrapolate survey findings to the group as a whole (not necessarily accurate, but our best approximation), we come to the following findings:
Religious Affiliation: 88% identify as Christian, 6% as atheist and 3% as agnostic.
Church Affiliation: among the Christian responses, we received 134 different answers; the largest groups are Church of England (24%), no affiliation (18%), and Roman Catholic (13%).
Christian Category: among further Christian associations, we received 112 different responses; the most common associations are Evangelical (51%), Progressive (30%), and Born-Again (29%).
Geographic distribution: UK 34%, US 30%, Switzerland 9%, and 36 other countries totaling 27%. Within the UK, all responses are from England.
Gender: 71% male, 28% female.
Age: The median age of the responders is between 25-29 years old.
Occupation: 38% are students or professors, and among the rest there is a wide variety of public and private sector occupations represented, with a relatively strong showing in the non-profit sector (21%).
Primary Field of Study: Social Sciences, Philosophy, and Natural Sciences are the top three.
59% of respondents identify as effective altruists, 7% do not, while the rest are unsure or gave a more nuanced answer.
In response to the question “How did you hear about effective altruism”, the most common answers were Personal Friend (35%), Social Media (12%) and Blog Post (9%).
Poverty remains the largest cause priority, with most reponses rating it “Extremely Important” (83) and everyone rating it at least “Somewhat Important”. This is followed in importance by Health, and the Environment. Christian Evangelism had the greatest polarity, with many votes for “Extremely Important” (45) but nonetheless a significant number of votes for “Not Important” (25). On the other hand, votes for Building the EA movement and for Animal Welfare were the most moderate, with a significant majority of responses voting “Very Important” or just “Somewhat Important”.
In summary, this year’s survey considers more responses than last year’s (156 vs 70) and the results are extremely similar. In terms of geography, Christians and Effective Altruism members are scattered throughout the globe, albeit with a concentration in England. Demographically, the group remains majority male and young, with the majority of the community’s members under 30 years old. Religiously, the group is extremely inter-denominational with about 50 different churches, while identifying primarily as evangelical, born-again, or progressive. With respect to the causes that members believe are most important, poverty and health remain at the top, with Christian evangelism remaining a somewhat polarizing issue.
As Mike pointed out in last year’s survey reflection, the survey hardly reflects one of the most important measures, namely the number of Christians who are sincerely trying to follow Jesus’ ethical teachings of love, with all their heart and mind. Surely, there are many millions of people in the world who meet this description, most of whom have never heard of “effective altruism”. Nonetheless, I am currently convinced that effective altruism can help such Christians to carry out their ministry and calling even better.