How Many Christians, Jews and Muslims Will Be Part of the New Congress? Here's the Complete Religious Breakdown

With just one more day until the 114th Congress is officially sworn in, the Pew Research Center has published an in-depth look at the overarching religious affiliations of the men and women who will be representing American citizens in the nation's capitol this year.

While Republicans will be taking the helm of both houses for the first time since the 109th Congress, there will actually be very little change in the overall religious make-up of the House and Senate.

In fact, an overwhelming proportion of both houses — 92 percent, to be exact — will be Christian, with 57 percent being counted as Protestant and 31 percent as Catholic; these are similar proportions to what has been observed in the past.

If you're looking for the actual numbers, that's 491 Christians overall, with 306 Protestants and 164 Catholics, more specifically. The below chart digs even deeper:

The numbers become a bit more intriguing when juxtaposing these proportions against the percentage of adherents for each faith category found in American society. In that case, Christians are actually overrepresented in Congress.

As stated, nine-in-10 congressmen and women are Christians, but only 73 percent of U.S. adults report the same affiliation. Similarly, while 5 percent of House and Senate members slated to be sworn in Tuesday are Jewish, just 2 percent of the adult population reports the same.

Religiously unaffiliated Americans, though, are actually underrepresented in Congress, as 20 percent of citizens claim they are unattached to a specific faith compared to just .2 percent of 114th congressional members.

It is important to note, though, that unaffiliated does not necessarily mean atheist or agnostic; it simply indicates that a person is not officially a member of a specific denomination or category of faith, though the label does not speak to their belief in a higher power.

Some of the less populous religious groups are closer in representation, as Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims, combined, make up around 2 percent of the population and about 1 percent of Congress.

Pew also provided the partisan breakdown for each faith category, finding, for instance, that there will be more Protest Republicans than Democrats in both the House (164 vs. 87) and the Senate (38 vs. 17) — and while there will be slightly more Republican Catholics in the House than Democrats (70 vs. 68), there will be more Democratic Catholics in the Senate (15 vs. 11).

Read more about the results here.

(H/T: Pew Research Center)