Born Again And Democratic? -- An Interview With George Barna
Posted February 20, 2008 | 03:57 AM (EST)
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There's been a lot of talk of born again and evangelical Christian voters being up for grabs in 2008. All bets are off if Barack Obama (with his own conversion story as well as moral stands on poverty that connect with born agains) goes up against John McCain. But before jumping to any conclusions, one must understand some basic facts and definitions about this massive chunk of the U.S. population. For that, George Barna is the man to go to. He is the founder of the research and polling firm The Barna Group and an author of many books, including "Revolution," in which he argues that 20,000,000 American Christians are in the midst of radically redefining their their faith to bring it back to the original radicalism of Jesus and the earliest Christian communities.
In your latest research project, you report that 2/5th of registered Democrats are Born Again Christians. I think this will surprise a lot of people. Before we get into that, can you explain how that category is defined? Who are born again Christians? And what's the difference between Evangelical and Born Again Christians?
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So - what percent of America is Born Again or Evangelical?
About 44% are born again, and about 7% are evangelical.
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OK - so born again Christians believe that Jesus walked on water, healed the sick and rose from the dead; they mostly believe Adam, Eve, Noah and Satan are real. They believe prayer works. In the current DC conventional wisdom, those kinds of beliefs are associated with right wing stands on economics, law & order, foreign policy, social welfare and other policy areas. Is the DC conventional wisdom wrong?
In this case, it is wrong. There is a wide spectrum of beliefs within the born again constituency. There are segments on both sides of the arguments related to...
Read this terrific article at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/born-again-and-democratic_b_87519.html