What happens when political identity becomes stronger than faith identity? Dr. Ryan Burge is a data scientist, professor, and pastor who watched his own 150-year-old congregation close its doors in 2024. In part one of this two-part conversation, Ryan brings the data to bear on one of the most urgent questions facing church leaders today: how faith and political identity have become so entangled in American life that millions of people now choose — or abandon — their church based on politics rather than theology.

Ryan walks Dwight and Alicia through what the numbers actually show about church decline, the rise of never-attending evangelicals, the disappearance of politically diverse congregations, and why churches that once held Republicans and Democrats side by side may be the most important institution vanishing from American life. If your congregation feels more politically sorted than it used to, this episode offers both an honest diagnosis and a vision for what the church can still be on the other side of polarization.