Evangelical churches in Switzerland have a better image with the general public and are seen as less moralizing now compared to eight years ago. This according to a survey conducted by the gfs-zürich research institute [sic], which involved market and social researchers contacting both German and French-speaking Swiss adults aged 18-and-above by telephone.
The focus expanded in comparison to the same survey, first done in 2016 and asking the same questions, when only the German-speaking Swiss were asked for their views. In all, this year's research involved 1,003 people from the period of April 18 to May 21.
In the new survey, about a third of Swiss people report a positive experience with evangelical churches, which are less likely to be described as bigoted and sectarian.
However, there is still concern about the social commitment and social awareness of evangelical churches, which have declined in the eyes of the survey respondents.
"Evangelical churches are less strongly opposed to moral issues, but there is still work to be done to make people aware of all their positive commitment to society," said Stéphane Klopfenstein, deputy director of Réseau évangélique suisse (RES), which represents 250 evangelical churches in French-speaking Switzerland.
RES, in a press release, pointed out the increasing secularization of Switzerland against which the survey was carried out. Negative media headlines reported in recent months, such as ‘Church exits reach record levels’ or ‘After the abuse scandal: one Catholic in 20 leaves the Church’ left a negative mark on the wider Church in the country.
“This trend is directly linked to the secularization of society,” said the RES statement. “Children are no longer baptized, people no longer get married in church, and funerals often take place in the closest family circle. In this way, society is losing the Christian foundation on which it was founded.”
General awareness of evangelicals has not increased since the first survey. 38 percent of German-speaking and 55 percent of French-speaking Swiss are completely unaware of any evangelical church near them.
"We're not very well known by the public, that's true,” said Christian Kuhn, RES director. “The media rarely talk about us.”
The Salvation Army overall remains by far the best-known evangelical church by German-speakers (86%) and French-speakers (85%).
Altogether German-speaking Swiss were most aware of the FEG (Freie Evangelische Gemeinde), Chrischona (now Église Viva / Viva Kirche) and the Salvation Army, as mentioned above. In French-speaking Switzerland, it was the Evangelical Methodist Church (EEM), and the Union évangélique d'Églises baptistes de Suisse romande and, again, the Salvation Army.
“The item ‘other evangelical churches’ attracted a large number of responses,” said the RES statement. “National churches, but also sects, are sometimes classified as evangelical churches. This is an indication that people are not always able to distinguish clearly between national churches, evangelical churches and sects.”
For positive experiences coming from personal contact with evangelical Christians, the figure stood at 27% overall, breaking down to 35% for German-speakers and 24% for French-speakers. Younger people aged 18 to 39 were more prone to report such positive encounters with evangelicals.The figure for this demographic response was 31%, a lot more than in 2016 when it was 18%.
About one in five respondents (20%) see evangelical churches making a positive contribution to society - no significant change from the 19% of 2016. The figure is slightly higher in French-speaking than German-speaking Switzerland and a tad higher in the countryside than in cities, and again, a little higher with people of a lower level than upper level of education (24% to 19%).
Evangelical churches appear less moralizing about the issues of abortion, homosexuality and premarital sex in 2024 than 2016, according to the survey results. Perceptions of moralizing “against premarital sex” fell almost by half with 21% in 2024, compared to 39% in 2016.
The perspective of evangelical churches being proactive in social issues slightly increased with "Against poverty and hunger in this world" (2024, 31%; 2016, 26%), "For the common good" (2024, 27%; 2016, 31%) and "For social justice" (2024, 23%; 2016, 20%).
Even so, the Swiss perceived evangelical churches as slightly less socially committed or relevant to society. A slight increase was also noted in people seeing these churches as “backward-looking.”
Yet the churches remain “committed to the community,” the same in 2024 as in 2016. There are also fewer descriptions of evangelical churches as bigoted, sectarian or fundamentalist than before.
Andrea Umbricht, project manager at gfs-zürich, noted a certain ambivalence on these points.
"Evangelical churches are polarizing - some agree with these characteristics of evangelical churches, others do not,” she said. “On a scale of 1 to 5, approval values are all around the middle. In 2024, they range from 2.4 to 3.3 points out of 5.”
RES, which commissioned the recent survey, was itself founded in 2006 after the merger of the Alliance Évangélique Romande, founded in Geneva in 1847 Henry Dunant who is also known as the founder of the Red Cross, and the Fédération Romande d'Églises et Œuvres Évangéliques, originally founded in 1983.
RES together with its German-speaking counterpart form the Swiss Evangelical Alliance that represents an estimated 250,000 evangelicals.
