Pew has published a new report showing that Americans' views on different religious groups have become warmer. Strikingly, Muslims and Atheists are now viewed almost neutrally, rather than negatively. (Wow, only 50% of Americans dislike people like me! Score!)
The new research, done with children in six countries (Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey, South Africa, and the United States), included 510 Muslim, 280 Christian, and 323 nonreligious children. The study, the first to take such a large-scale look at how religion and moral behavior intersect in children from across the globe, focused on one facet of moral behavior: altruism, or the willingness to give someone else a benefit that also comes with a personal cost....
[E]ach child was told they could put some of their 10 stickers in an envelope to be shared with other kids, who were described as being from the same school and ethnic group. The scientists used the number of stickers left in the envelope as a measure of altruism.There are a couple of theories of why this might be the case
The children from nonreligious households left 4.1 stickers on average, a statistically significant difference from Christian children (3.3) and Muslim ones (3.2). Also, the more religious the household, based on a survey of parents, the less altruistic the child. ..... In older children, the split was most stark, with religious youth increasingly unlikely to share.
[T]he pattern of religious children being less generous may be tied to a phenomenon called “moral licensing.” That’s when a person feels permitted—even unconsciously—to do something wrong, because they see themselves as a morally correct person.We see a lot of that in the do-as-I-say hypocrisy of many ostensibly devout people. Another take:
[T]he results are connected to the importance many religions place on an external authority and threats of divine punishment. Whereas children in religious households learn to act out of obedience to a watchful higher power, children raised in secular homes could be taught to follow moral rules just because it’s “the right thing to do,” he says. Then, “when no one is watching, the kids from nonreligious families behave better.”Again, a form of hypocrisy.
The news today is a new poll from Pew Research identifying a significant decline in the number of Americans who call themselves "Christian". Strikingly, the rate of decline is just as high for the catholics as for the Mainline. The Evangelicals are more or less holding their own, but the "unaffiliated" which includes atheists, agnostics, spiritual-but-not-religious, and whatevers, is now nearly 23%. The younger and better educated you are, the more likely you are a "none". The decline has been propelled in part by generational change, as relatively non-Christian millennials reach adulthood and gradually replace the oldest and most Christian adults. But it is also because many former Christians, of all ages, have joined the rapidly growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated or “nones”: a broad category including atheists, agnostics and those who adhere to “nothing in particular.”What explains this? One possibility:
The report does not offer an explanation for the decline of the Christian population, but the low levels of Christian affiliation among the young, well educated and affluent are consistent with prevailing theories for the rise of the unaffiliated, like the politicization of religion by American conservatives, a broader disengagement from all traditional institutions and labels, the combination of delayed and interreligious marriage, and economic development.The article continues,
Nearly a quarter of people who were raised as Christian have left the group, and ex-Christians now represent 19 percent of adults.There's a wealth of information here and you can break it out by denomination. For example, check out the demographics of the Episcopal/Anglican group here.
Attrition was most substantial among mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics, who have declined in absolute numbers and as a share of the population since 2007. The acute decline in the Catholic population, which fell by roughly 3 million, is potentially a new development. Most surveys have found that the Catholic share of the population has been fairly stable over the last few decades, in no small part because it has been reinforced by migration from Latin America.
It seems that there is a generation gap between the younger generation, the 18-22 year-olds that I'm teaching on a semester by semester basis, and they seem to be moving toward the direction of looking at the Christian tradition through the lens of love and compassion. And that any expression of love, of real love and compassion is consistent with the Gospel. Whether that's heterosexual love, whether that's homosexual love and even whether that's what is understood as asexual...or platonic love, that all of those are acceptable expressions and consistent with the Gospel message. They are less inclined — and maybe this is just students I'm teaching at this particular college, which is predominantly Roman Catholic, although that has shifted. But even among those Roman Catholics, there is a real disagreement around some of the questions of sexuality. So they're definitely moving in a direction that is away from the traditional or orthodox interpretation of the biblical text under the church's teachings.They look at the BIble differently too:
I think that they're looking at the Gospel in the way many biblical scholars look at the biblical text, which is that this is understood as a Word of God with infinite and eternal truth but filtered through the finite and limited experience of human beings. So they are making that distinction between God's Word as truth and God's Word as literal truth. And leaning more in the direction as God's Word as speaking some kind of truth, that has to then connect with their own experience. So experience is an important source for Christian ethics in general and it seems to be more of a predominant source in young people's understanding of their Christian ethics. So they're looking at the biblical text, they're looking at tradition, but they're also then kind of testing that out with experience.And then:
I ask the question to young people of how do they reconcile, or where are the places where there's been conflict between their inherited or lived out faith tradition and their sexuality.
And what I've heard over and over, overwhelmingly is they want to reconcile the two and they can't seem to. In the absence of that reconciliation there are no resources for them to be able to think about and live out an ethical sexual life and still be considered part of a faith tradition.
Religion constructs an “impractical” ideal for human sexuality and burdens people with ideas of sin if they fail to live up to its mandates on the topic… and instead of reexamining the impractical rules, their solution is to add new ones.Is it really just about sex?
Of course, it would also benefit churches if young people spent their early adulthood locking themselves into religious marriages, communities, and possibly new families, just as they were reaching a level of maturity and curiosity that might lead to questions that would prove uncomfortable to religion… particularly when such questions might imperil those new relationships.
When it comes right down to it, though, rushing into a lifelong commitment in order to avoid premarital sex seems like a terrible solution to a non-problem.
...we see between a one and three point rise in secularity since 2012, with 7.5 million more people never entering a church or other worship service than just two years earlier....The number of Americans who never darken a church door is also at a new high. Over a third of Americans (34 percent) never attend a worship service (other than weddings and other ceremonies). This is a 3.4 point increase from just a few years earlier. Put differently, the group of Americans who don’t attend church grew by a rate of over ten percent in two years.
There are only five states where the unaffiliated is NOT one of the top three religious traditions: Alabama, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
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| http://publicreligion.org/2015/03/top-three-religions-in-each-state/ |
1. For the first time ever, America is not a majority Protestant nation. Only 47 percent of America identified as Protestant in 2014. ...Only 25% of Californians are white Christians, for example. We're a majority-minority state now anyway.
2. White Christians are the minority in 19 states.
3. More than 1-in-5 Americans are religiously unaffiliated.This is the same number as are Catholic, and are disproportionately young (over 1/3 of young people are unaffilitated.) Wow, if they would just vote.....
4. In fact, the religiously unaffiliated is the largest religious groups in 13 states, including Oregon (37 percent), New Hampshire (35 percent), Washington State (33 percent), and Vermont (32 percent).No wonder Portland is so popular. Though there's a certain woo-woo element that goes with that "unaffiliated" -- not all are atheists, not by a long shot.
5. The Northeast is still Catholic country. Over one-third (34 percent) of Northeast residents identify as Catholic—and 77 percent of the Catholics are white. ....This is keeping the numbers up in Roman Catholicism. There's a real drop-off in the participation by cradle Catholics as they become adults; fewer weddings and baptisms, and more likely to marry outside the faith.
6. Consistent with national trends, Evangelical Protestants are becoming less white. Today, roughly two-thirds (66 percent) of Protestants who identify as evangelical or born again are non-Hispanic whites. ....
7. Hispanic Catholics make up an increasing proportion of Catholics...
8. White evangelical Protestants are facing a generational divide on same-sex marriage, but not abortion. ....Do you know any practicing Buddhists? The ones I know have all made vows of some sort.
9. Buddhists are the most likely to be single and Mormons are most likely to be married.
10. Unitarians and white evangelical Protestants are aging, while Hindus and Muslims tend to be younger. Unitarians have an average age of 55, 7 years older than the national average (48 years). White evangelical Protestants and white Catholics also tend to be older than average, with 54 years old as adherents’ average age. Hindus and Muslims, on the other hand, have an average age of 36.Great maps of the data at the Washington Post.
When the unchurched were asked to describe what they believe are the positive and negative contributions of Christianity in America, almost half (49%) could not identify a single favorable impact of the Christian community....When "Christian" becomes synonymous with "right wing politics", there's a problem.
Only 7 percent of these young adults who might have turned out Catholic can be called “practicing” Catholics—if “practicing” is tightly defined as attending Mass weekly, saying that faith is extremely or very important, and praying at least a few times a week. About 27 percent are at the other end of the spectrum, classified as “disengaged,” meaning that they never attend Mass and feel religion is unimportant.....[T]he most obvious factor identified in both the interviews and the survey data in Young Catholic America seems to be disaffection from Catholic sexual teaching, dramatically so with respect to both premarital sex and birth control.Pew Research tells us that those who identify are Catholic are overwhelmingly pro marriage-equality and LGBT rights. Indeed, even a majority of Catholics in their 50s support the freedom to marry.
We are far more likely to admit publically when we doubt certain long-held Christian beliefs. We are more likely to crowd-source our faith. We are more likely to evaluate what in our doctrine reflects more privilege than faithfulness.
This is not a sign that we have abandoned orthodoxy. It is a sign that we have abandoned certain presuppositions that limited the definition of Christian orthodoxy for too long. The demand for purity in faith looks more like a desire to conform to the image of Jesus — and not the image of a predominately white, male, middle-class denominational line.
[Physicist John Mather says] "We are discovering what the universe is really like, and it is totally magnificent, and one can only be inspired and awestruck by what we find. I think my proper response is complete amazement and awe at the universe that we are in, and how it works is just far more complicated than humans will ever properly understand." ...
In fact, that's precisely the attitude that religion -- of whatever tradition -- should be advocating. We humans are quite naturally curious about the world in which we live, and we should encourage one another to explore and draw conclusions about how things seem to work. But to imagine that we are capable of knowing the mind of God in some complete way is to turn the Benedictine virtue of humility on its head.
My hope is that faith-based educational institutions will encourage open and honest scientific exploration and not agenda-driven science that tries to prove religious teachings. To devote one's scientific energies to proving that Earth is only a few thousand years old is to go about science backward. Good science looks at the evidence for this or that hypothesis and then draws conclusions rather than first drawing a conclusion and then hunting for proof of it.
What religion can bring to the table is an openness to awe and wonder once scientists describe how they think things work.Sadly, it isn't working. From Religion News Service:
[A] new survey by The Associated Press found that religious identity -- particularly evangelical Protestant -- was one of the sharpest indicators of skepticism toward key issues in science.
The survey presented a series of statements that several prize-winning scientists say are facts. However, the research shows that confidence in their correctness varies sharply among U.S. adults. It found:
What is it about Evangelicals that make them so anti-intellectual?
- 51 percent of U.S. adults overall (including 77 percent of people who say they are born-again or evangelical) have little or no confidence that "the universe began 13.8 billion years ago with a big bang."
- 42 percent overall (76 percent of evangelicals) doubt that "life on Earth, including human beings, evolved through a process of natural selection."
- 37 percent overall (58 percent of evangelicals) doubt that the Earth's temperature is rising "mostly because of man-made heat-trapping greenhouse gases."
- 36 percent overall (56 percent of evangelicals) doubt "the Earth is 4.5 billion years old."
During testimony Tuesday, Schaefer said he would “not go back to being a silent supporter” of gay people. ...“I am a minister. I have to minister to those who hurt,” he had said on the witness stand.Five additional pastors will be tried this year.
“This is an effort to push out people who are in ministry with gay and lesbian people. It’s very sad,” said the Rev. Dean Snyder, the longtime pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church in Dupont Circle, who came from Washington with 10 congregants. Snyder has performed more than 20 same-sex weddings but has never had a complaint filed against him.Expect that to change. Seriously, the man performed a marriage of his SON. What kind of "family values" is the Methodist Church really promoting here?
“His preaching was unorthodox. It’s hard to pinpoint anything. The church just felt like it was changing,” said Kitty Mease, 85, who left two years ago after a half-century at Zion. While Schaefer didn’t preach explicitly on homosexuality, she said, general comments about inclusion felt coercive in a traditional community.Yeah, because inclusion is so against Christian tradition.... seriously, this is all tangled up in an angry congregation and bad church situation. Same sex marriage may just be a lightning rod for other things.
An exorcism, which often refers to a rite performed on an individual, is applicable in the case of same-sex marriage because the devil can appear “in various forms of opposition to and persecution of the church,” the diocese of Springfield said in statement.
“All politicians now have the moral obligation to work for the repeal of this sinful and objectionable legislation,” Paprocki said. “We must pray for deliverance from this evil which has penetrated our state and our church.”Bp. Paprocki has not identified how two gay guys marrying in Boystown has any effect whatsover on the church, let alone "persecution". Wouldn't it be something if they held an exorcism against the child abuse and coverups in the RC church. Or against the grinding inequality of our society
With the rift in the pews growing, the big question for religious institutions is whether the issue will lead to denominational splits as it did with slavery, which cleaved the Baptist Church and many other protestant denominations in two. A similar breakup occurred in the early 20th century over the doctrinal issue of Biblical inerrancy—the idea that the Bible contains the perfectly preserved word of God. Jones says that whether churches see similar schisms over same-sex marriage depends on how persistent the divide is. Given how quickly attitudes are changing, he thinks such a largescale schism is unlikely. "When you have big splits, the issue has to sit around for a while," he says. "But the issue is moving too quickly to produce settled coalitions that are facing off."
The Methodists don't appear poised for a similar schism—at least not yet. But as the number of Methodists who support gay rights creeps upward, it is bound to create friction. For Schaeffer, whose trial is scheduled to conclude tomorrow, the issue is not an abstract one. "Really, this isn't an issue of theology or doctrine," Shaeffer says. "This is about people. It's about the life of my child."
For most gay Americans in the 20th century, the church was a place of pain. It cast them out and called them evil. It cleaved them from their families. It condemned their love and denied their souls. In 2004, a president was elected when religious voters surged from their pews to vote against the legal recognition of gay relationships. When it came to gay rights, religion was the enemy.
A decade later, the story is very different. Congregations across the country increasingly accept, nurture, and even marry their gay brethren. Polls show majorities of major Christian denominations -- including American Catholics, despite their church's staunch opposition -- support legal gay marriage. ...
The votes, too, are going differently these days.Ballot measures, state legislatures, and Supreme Court decisions testify to a new public consensus on gay marriage, the political issue that currently serves as the chief proxy for attitudes toward gay rights and acceptance....
Gradually, and largely below the radar, religious Americans have powered this momentous shift. ... "This debate has gone from a debate between nonreligious and religious Americans to a debate dividing religious Americans," said Robert Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, who has closely tracked the evolution in public opinion.
This change -- from most religious Americans opposing gay rights to many of them supporting it -- didn't happen by accident. It is the fruit of an aggressive campaign by a determined gay-rights movement that realized, particularly in the wake of the 2004 elections, that you cannot win politically in America if you are arguing against religious faith. It is a recent development -- Jones dates the "tipping point" to 2011 -- and it has helped marginalize gay-marriage opponents by discrediting their most powerful claim: that they speak for the religious community.
All four of the successful state campaigns for gay-marriage ballot measures last fall -- Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, and Washington -- had dedicated organizers working in the faith community. Often they were greeted, like van Capelle, by an outpouring of pent-up support. Campaigners who invited faith leaders to an organizing meeting in Minneapolis in 2011 were stunned when the turnout of 700 more than tripled their expectations, packing a Methodist church and spilling out the doors. By the end, the campaign had the support of all six of the state's Lutheran bishops.
Central to this outreach has been a message that emphasizes religious teachings about compassion, tolerance, and humility. Religious leaders and followers want to feel that they're not choosing politics over religion but bringing the two into alignment.
Conservative religious leaders like Moore and Daly -- and indeed Pope Francis -- aren't backing down from their opposition to gay marriage. But the change in tone is progress from gay activists' point of view. The gay-rights movement has sought to assuage faith leaders' concerns by building guarantees into legislation that no church will be forced to perform a marriage it doesn't approve. Federal nondiscrimination legislation currently being considered by the Senate has a broad religious-liberty clause that exempts all churches and religious nonprofits. These concessions have been hard to swallow for some in the gay activist community, but most see them as a necessary compromise.
For faith leaders and LGBT activists alike, a reconciling, gradual but profound, is under way. "People have been told for decades that homosexuality is a sin, but they know really good LGBT people, and they don't know what to do," said Groves of the Human Rights Campaign. "We need to be going into those conservative religious spaces with messages like the pope -- who am I to judge? Once people see the humanity of LGBT people, it is very hard to hold onto a vitriolic stance."
But the debate can no longer be described as one between nonreligious and religious Americans. Support for same-sex marriage has risen by double digits in every major religious group since 2006. Today, solid majorities of Catholics (57 percent)—including equal proportions of white Catholics (58 percent) and Hispanic Catholics (59 percent)—and white mainline Protestants (55 percent) have joined the religiously unaffiliated (76 percent) in supporting same-sex marriage (PRRI, March 2013). The National Cathedral, which is affiliated with the mainline Episcopal Church, rang its bells at noon on Wednesday in support of the DOMA ruling and opened its doors for a special service for LGBT families and their allies “to celebrate the extension of federal marriage equality to all the same-sex couples modeling God’s love in lifelong covenants.”
....If there are literal bells ringing in support of same-sex marriage among mainline Protestants, these unheralded but significant numbers toll the fading future of religious opposition to same-sex marriage.
[quoting the Washington Post]
The Episcopal Church, a small but prominent Protestant denomination, has been generally in favor of gay equality for years but the Cathedral leadership has been raising the bar in the last few months.The Episcopal Church? "Generally in favor of gay equality"?
That has to be the understatement of the year!
It's not exactly "generally in favor" when you have institutional approval of LGBT people for ordination and marriage equality.
Oh, we are not in 100% agreement on much of anything - as it should be - but "generally in favor"? C'mon!But with 44% of LGBT people thinking the mainline is unfriendly--well, there's a way to go.
And, The Episcopal Church has been "raising the bar"? Oh, honey, we own the bar!
Over three-quarters of Americans (77%) say religion is losing its influence on American life, while 20% say religion's influence is increasing. These represent Americans' most negative evaluations of the impact of religion since 1970, although similar to the views measured in recent years.
It’s an often lonely place here in the quiet land of LGBT-loving, pro-choice, liberal Catholics. Some days I like to imagine it’s a little party just for Stephen Colbert, Joe Biden and me. But it’s not: 60 percent of American Catholics say they don’t strongly adhere to the church’s stance on abortion, and even more don’t subscribe to its position on same-sex marriage. Nearly 80 percent think you can practice birth control and not attend Mass regularly and still be a good Catholic, while only 20 percent believe in the necessity of an all-male, celibate clergy. You can call us Cafeteria Catholics if you like, but it doesn’t change our principles or our hopes for reform. And you can say the church is unchangeable, but it’s revised itself plenty over 2,000 years. This is a body that once decided slavery didn’t contradict natural law, so don’t rule out the possibility of further enlightenment.What she doesn't explain is how she's working to effect that enlightenment, however.
Meet an average—or maybe not so average, but instructive—Southern Baptist, the Rev. Jeff Hood. Four years out of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the denomination’ s preeminent training ground, the 29-year-old Hood supports LGBT rights (he actually prefers to the term “queer”) and favors immigration reform with UAFA. ... .
His denomination, Hood maintains, realizes it needs to change or face irrelevance. “No one’s listening to them now. They realize they are losing ground, losing their voice. They’re trying to figure out a way to gain it back and be relevant....The reason is—it’s hurtful to even say this—because they are concerned with patriarchy and control. By promoting Calvinism and all these theologies of exclusion, they are able to maintain control. To me, Christianty is not an exclusive deal.”Item: Joseph Ward in the Huff Po argues that LGBT families are expanding Christian love:
Don't get me wrong; Catholics are one of the most supportive religious communities on this issue. But as the policy discussions expand, the disconnect between the church leadership and the people has become sharper. On one hand many faithful Catholics are constantly interacting with their LGBT neighbors, workmates, children and parents; and on the other, the churches leaders struggle to understand the human stories of inequality...Know hope.
As a Christian community we have to ask ourselves: how can we live in a country that does not protect and defend LGBT families? How do some call themselves "Christian" and at the same time advocate for this blatant inequality?...
As gay, lesbian and transgender people emerge from the shadows, we see how the very policies created to "defend" marriage deny this sacrament to loving, committed couples.
Christians around the country are tired of watching their friends and families struggle. They're tired of a culture war that demands a separate but equal framework, and pained by bearing witness to the daily consequences it has on the lives of hardworking Americans.
They see how these couples struggle to find stability without the rights and protections granted to their heterosexual counterparts. Christians who were once conflicted are becoming new allies in the fight for equality knowing the radical love in the Gospels cannot allow them, in good conscience, to treat LGBT families as anything less than equal (Matthew 7:12).
The once near-universal brand of American Christianity is being associated with an ever-shrinking size of the American public. ...you may wake up one day and find that the overwhelming majority of the public has simply tuned out everything you have to say..... the window of opportunity where people might be willing to consider a more relevant form of modern Christianity is closing.Case in point: What we've heard lately from American "Christians". Such as Pastor Charles Worley
"Build a great big large fence 50 or 100 miles long," Worley said in a video..It's not the first time. Here's what he said 30 years ago:
"Put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. Have that fence electrified so they can't get out. You know what, in a few years, they'll die out. You know why? They can't reproduce."
"Forty years ago [LGBT people] would've hung, bless God, from a white oak tree!"Pastor Sean Harris
....Harris told parents they are “authorized,” and that he was “giving them a special dispensation” to attack their children. “Give them a good punch,” and “crack that wrist,” Harris told parents, if their four-year old boy, for example, “starts acting a little ‘girlish’.”Pastor Ron Baity
....Baity, founding pastor of Winston-Salem's Berean Baptist Church and head of the anti-marriage equality organization Return America, referred to homosexuality as "a perverted lifestyle" in a Sunday sermon before telling his congregation that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people should be prosecutedThen there's Pastor Curtis Knapp
“They should be put to death,” Knapp declared. “‘Oh, so you’re saying we should go out and start killing them, no?’ — I’m saying the government should. They won’t, but they should.”Pastor Dennis Leatherman at least stopped short of death, though he kinda likes the idea:
...
“[God] said put them to death,” he continued. “Shall the church drag them in? No, I’m not say that. The church has not been given the power of the sort; the government has. But the government ought to [kill them]. You got a better idea? A better idea than God?”
First of all, there is a danger of reacting in the flesh, of responding not in a scriptural, spiritual way, but in a fleshly way. Kill them all. Right? I will be very honest with you. My flesh kind of likes that idea. But it grieves the Holy Spirit. It violates Scripture. It is wrong.Even the Baptists are trying to distance themselves from the hatred expressed by some of their number .
Here’s a newspaper headline that might induce a disbelieving double take: “Christians ‘More Likely to Be Leftwing’ and Have Liberal Views on Immigration and Equality.” Sounds too hard to believe, right? Well, it’s true — only not here in America, but in the United Kingdom…
Here in the United States, those who self-identify as religious tend to be exactly the opposite of their British counterparts when it comes to politics. As the Pew Research Center recently discovered, “Most people who agree with the religious right also support the Tea Party” and its ultra-conservative economic agenda. Summing up the situation, scholar Gregory Paul wrote in the Washington Post that many religious Christians in America simply ignore the Word and “proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated union busting, minimal taxes, especially for wealthy investors, and plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations.”
… religion has become more of a superficial brand than a distinct catechism, and brands can be easily manipulated by self-serving partisans and demagogues.If you ask the Man on the Street what he thinks of when he hears the word "Christian", he will probably tell you he pictures a Bible-thumper who opposes health care reform, disbelieves in evolution, considers global warming a crock, and obsesses about homosexuals. Basically, he will tell you that he imagines a right-wing conservative Evangelical.
A 78-percent majority of Americans is Christian. Only about a third of them self-identify as evangelical, which is a very rough proxy for the Christian conservative minority that increasingly insists on being called, simply, “Christian.” Such totum pro parte synecdoche de-legitimizes mainline Protestantism, historically black Protestantism, and Catholicism, which account, combined, for most of the other two-thirds of all Christians. The de-legitimization is why Christian conservatives favor it. Mainstream news organizations like the New York Times, ever-fearful of being branded anti-religious, have allowed themselves to be bullied into accepting the Christian right’s implicit suggestion that the only true Christian is a Christian conservative member of an evangelical or fundamentalist congregation.
The findings confirm that despite growing public support for LGBT people across faith traditions, the media highlight a disproportionate number of anti-LGBT religious voices in the media. Three out of four religious messages about gay or transgender people come from religious groups that have formal policies, decrees, or culture opposing equality. Unsurprisingly, messages from those sources were overwhelmingly negative. Mainstream media uses far fewer voices from the gay-affirming, or even moderate, religious traditions. The vast majority of gay or pro-LGBT sources are presented without any religious affiliation whatsoever…..The media needs to stop promoting the false notion that being religious is synonymous with being anti-LGBT.
This is a deliberate, intentional attempt by a politicized faction of American evangelicals to do two things: 1) redefine “Christian” to mean “white evangelical Protestant,” and 2) redefine “evangelical Protestant” to mean “conservative Republican.”…
It’s deliberately insulting to every Christian who is not a white evangelical Protestant and to every white evangelical Protestant who is not a conservative Republican. The latter group is not a small category. ….
But for the most part, the fundraisers and vote-herders of the religious right have succeeded in getting the media to play along with the weird idea that these millions of people do not exist.
The de-legitimization Noah describes is the attempt by the self-appointed bishops of the religious right to exclude those millions from Christianity — and to prevent the remaining majority of white evangelical Protestants from being able to imagine that voting for anyone other than who they’re told to vote for is even a possibility.We talked previously about how Rick Santorum, fundamentalist Catholic, decried liberal Christians and claimed you aren't Christians at all. All part of the same cloth.
The power of these power-brokers depends on their being able to claim that they speak for all evangelicals — and for all “real” Christians. The very existence of Christians who are not white evangelical Protestants or of white evangelical Protestants who are not right-wing Republicans undermines their claim to speak as the voice of God and of all of God’s real people.
“Our study suggests that the less-educated are dropping out of the American religious sector, similarly to the way in which they have dropped out of the American labor market,” said W. Bradford Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, who was lead researcher on the project…..So, while many tend to think that religion is the pablum for the uneducated masses, that's too simplistic a view.
The study focuses on white Americans because church attendance among blacks and Latinos is less divided by education and income.
Lower church attendance among the less-educated may stem from a disconnect between them and modern church values, the study theorizes.This concern makes sense. A few weeks ago, I described how the bad economy is affecting marriage, particularly amongst those most likely to be suffering. And those are largely red-state citizens. Less likely to be married. Less likely to go to church. And the less educated you are, the more likely you are to be jobless.
Religious institutions tend to promote traditional middle-class family values like education, marriage and parenthood, but less-educated whites are less likely to get or stay married and may feel ostracized by their religious peers, the researchers said.
The researchers expressed concern about the falloff in church attendance among the less-educated.
“This development reinforces the social marginalization of less educated Americans who are also increasingly disconnected from the institutions of marriage and work,” said Andrew Cherlin, co-author of the study and a professor of sociology and public policy at Johns Hopkins University.
….with each additional year of education:
Of course, fundamentalists would probably rail at these more educated believers, who are able to grasp allegory, paradox, and mystery without wanting it all laid out in black and white. One might say, a more mature faith....
- •The likelihood of attending religious services increased 15%.
- •The likelihood of reading the Bible at least occasionally increased by 9%.
- •The likelihood of switching to a mainline Protestant denomination - Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian USA or United Methodist - increased by 13%.
“The more educated a person is in their faith, the more cosmopolitan they are in their religious outlook,” [D. Michael Lindsay] said. “They’re worldly in the very best sense of the term. They rub shoulders with people of different kinds of faiths every day and as a result they have different visions of what it means to express your faith in the public square.”
“They’re more open-minded, but here’s the thing: They’re no less faithful.”
Fully half of these top scientists are religious. Only five of the 275 interviewees actively oppose religion. Even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves "spiritual." One describes this spiritual atheism as being rooted in "wonder about the complexity and the majesty of existence," a sentiment many nonscientists -- religious or not -- would recognize. By not engaging with religion more fully and publicly, "the academy is really doing itself a big disservice," worries one scientist. ….I'm not interested in the "spiritual but not religious" identification which has been contentious on other blogs . Rather, I'd like you to focus on the fully half of the top scientists who consider themselves religious--including Francis Collins, the head of the NIH.
It turns out that nearly 50 percent of scientists identify with a religious label, and nearly one in five is actively involved in a house of worship, attending services more than once a month.....Ya think? THose stereotypes will bite you every time.
Unfortunately...most religious scientists do not feel comfortable talking about their scientific lives within their faith communities. They think discussing science within their house of worship might offend fellow parishioners who are not scientists. So they do not bring it up. Instead, they practice what I call "secret science."...[A]nother poll shows that 25 percent of Americans think scientists are hostile to religion...