Born Again And Democratic?

[kristopher]

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?

<snip>

So - what percent of America is Born Again or Evangelical?

About 44% are born again, and about 7% are evangelical.

<snip>

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

[YOY]

1. I don't buy that 44% crap.

Not for a second.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Probably the most devout born-again president we've had was . . .

Jimmy Carter.

[readmoreoften]

3. I hate this notion that people who "love the sinner and hate the sin" are somehow "reasonable."

This "I can love you even though you're wrong about yourself and you're sick and sinful" crap is more disgusting to me than someone who wants to fight me in the court of law. The fact that they get some sort of "credit" for wording their repugnant views in a gentle manner is maddening. As if those old jim crow grandmothers saying, "Now, deary, those nigras are just inferior to us whites, but you can't treat them like animals. You gotta show them the love of Jesus" is less offensive than the blunt politics of their white hooded sons.

It's not a more "tolerant" viewpoint. It's a different rhetorical strategy with the same primary goal.

[kristopher]

4. "reasonable" is your word, not Barna's

My takeaway from the interview is that the conventional wisdom re "Born Again" and "Evangelicals" needs to be revisited. I understand your point of view and to an extent I share it. However, the glass is half full view is that the bigotry you object to is diminishing as a force behind public policy. That diminution is made possible by this rhetorical compromise that you object to so strenuously. IMO the people embracing that logic are trying to maintain a core tenet of their belief system (the inerrancy of the bible) which is also central to their social lives. At the same time they are confronted daily with the absurdity of their intolerance. I personally think you should be celebrating the apparent recognition by many "fundies" that legislating morality is not an effective course for them to pursue. That sounds like a victory to me, albeit a small one.

I was actually more interested in the broader implications of the information.

[readmoreoften]

5. Yes, reasonable is my word, not Barnas. The word was in scare quotes to imply sarcasm.

I don't think it's any sort of victory. I think it's a different strategy. The young generation of Christians are wise enough to know that if you transform media and culture everything else will follow. BattleCry is a perfect example. The ex-gay movement which operates under the pretense of "love" and "tolerance" is funded by the same people who fund all the rest of the anti-gay nonsense. They do very well effecting the lives of gay people by coopting left protest strategies such as wearing tape over their mouths in protest.

However, those who are merely born-again in some casual sense and not committed evangelicals do indeed care less about so-called family values as do a good number of secular younger people.

[kristopher]

6. Hmmm...

Consider this from Barna:
"Maybe the insight to draw from all of this is that the mainstream media constantly try to simplify complex realities so that people can quickly understand the world. The problem is that some things get oversimplified, and understanding the faith community is one of those dimensions that gets misunderstood."

His 4 point summary seems a long term view:
1) ...there is an important distinction to be made between someone being a leader and a teacher. Some of the people who have the media platforms have their greatest influence as teachers of biblical principles rather than as sociopolitical leaders.

2) ...every issue I have ever studied - and I've been involved in political research for more than 30 years - suffers from constituency burnout at some point. Remember, Americans live in a fast-paced, immediate gratification culture, anchored by the postmodern view that moral values are situational rather absolute. Consequently, while many born again Christians are personally pro-life, they have lost some of the energy to fight that battle, and now say they are personally pro-life but are more galvanized by other issues and concerns.

3) ...the fact that many born again voters rank abortion and gay rights lower on their agenda does not so much indicate that those issues are unimportant to them as it reflects the increasing sophistication of many born again voters. They have morphed from single-issue voters to being more educated about a wider variety of national and global concerns. In that context, they may see other matters as possessing more immediate significance for our nation.

4)...realize that the younger generation of born again Christians tends to be less drawn to the "culture wars" and more drawn toward conversation and reconciliation. For better or worse, many of them express an interest in influencing the culture through their relationships and lifestyle choices rather than through political engagement.

Don't get me wrong, I'm an open atheist who thinks the monotheistic faiths are a detriment to society. But I also know that I ive in a world that is probably never going to escape the hardwired urges that cause those faiths to be so widely accepted. I'll take whatever victory I can get.

Don't let them get you down. Anger touches you more than it affects them; or as Buddha said: "You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by it."


If you haven't seen this, you should:
Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health
with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

It is great ammunition to help propel the fundamentalists in a different direction.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

7. Interesting Stuff...

Labeling is tricky here.

I'm a Lutheran, and the main branch of Lutheranism in America is the "Evangelical Lutheran Chuch in American" (ELCA). There's that word Evangelical and according to this article, we're 3-1 Republican and highly conservative. But that's not necessarily the case. The ELCA recently allowed churches "home rule" in regard to conducting "Ceremonies of Blessing" for gay couples and has urged synods (the geographical sub-units of the ELCA) to essentially adopt a "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" policy with regard to gay clergy. They're still not allowed by church law, but Synods have been urged to take no punative actions if a member of the clergy comes out.

So being "Evangelical" may not be indicative of being conservative.

Really interesting article, though. Thanks for posting it.

Recommended!