Are Millennials Killing Off the Religious Right?

[cbayer]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/07/22/religious_progressives_outnumber_religious_conservatives_ages_18_33_does.html

By Amanda Marcotte | Posted Monday, July 22, 2013, at 11:00 AM


Religious progressives are on the rise
Sean Gallup

Are we facing down the end of the conservative death grip on religion in America? It's true that religious progressives have always been a part of the conversation—it's not just Republican politicians who pay fealty to God in their public speeches and appearances—but by and large, when faith is discussed in public forums, it's almost always religious conservatives using it as a cudgel to attack women's rights, gay rights, and secularism. That may be changing, however, as the numbers of religious progressives are on the rise, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. In fact, for people ages 18-33, religious progressives outnumber religious conservatives. Think Progress reports:

According to the survey, 23 percent of people aged 18 to 33 are religious progressives, while 22 percent are nonreligious and 17 percent are religious conservatives. By contrast, only 12 percent of those aged 66 to 88 are religious progressives, whereas 47 percent are said to be religious conservatives.

This demographic shift might go a long way to explaining why anti-choice politicians have chosen now to be the time to drastically dial up the number of attacks on reproductive rights. Abortion has been legal for 40 years, and until recently, anti-choicers mostly chipped away at access quietly and without much notice from the press. Lately, however, anti-choicers have turned up the volume, attacking abortion access—and contraception—with a frenzy that seems as if they think this is the last chance they'll ever get. Numbers like the ones produced by this survey suggest that they aren't wrong to think they're running out of time.

I'm sure religious conservatives had a hunch that they were losing young people long before this polling data confirmed it, just by looking at the people sitting in their pews. Evangelical leaders have been fretting about this loss for a couple of years now, and it's an open secret that the youngest generation finds the reactionary politics and hostility towards science that marks religious conservatism to be repulsive. Some of the kids fleeing the flock just end up having no religious beliefs at all, but some clearly want to retain a connection to faith without having to sign off on the anti-feminism, homophobia, and creationism that comes with the more conservative churches.

more at link

[longship]

1. Self-inflicted Bar-B-Que.

They are cooking their own goose (to quote the ever brilliant Snagglepuss).

I am always uncomfortable with religion poisoning politics. But with what the religious right has done over the past decades it is comforting that they are finally being hoisted on their own petard. Their claims that their political positions come from god are as hollow as ever. Hopefully it is true that people are beginning to challenge that.

My only wish is that the challengers resist the claim that their alternative positions also originate from that source. I would prefer they frame things more from a plea for keeping governance as a secular enterprise, tolerant of religion but not beholden to it.

The best way to insure this is for the progressive theists to reach out to atheists, and vice versa. That could be an unbeatable coalition which could stamp out the utter lunacy which the Republican Party has become.

That time is long overdue. The damage the GOP has done in god's name is horrible. And make no mistake about this; GOP stands for God's Own Party and has for years.

A happy R&

[cbayer]

3. I agree, particularly about forming coalitions (as you know)

Saw a great Bill Moyers show last night. Two segments - one on farm workers and one on guns.

Both were great, but the Velasquez interview was particularly interesting to me. They talked in some detail about the role of religion in his life and how it drives his crusade in the name of migrant workers.

Highly recommended.

[rrneck]

2. Tough to say...

It seems to me that religious fundamentalism thrives in troubled times. The perception of troubled times doesn't necessarily to be accurate of course. The culture wars might well be understood as manufactured despair for profit. Of course it doesn't help that conservatives have created the bulk of actual despair from which fundamentalist religion profits. In the go-go eighties and nineties one of the biggest corporate celeb catchwords was "synergy", and the relationship between manufactured despair and profit from same might be a good example.

What does the future hold? It depends on the level of despair, either real or imagined, and from what source. Whether or not cooler heads prevail may depend on the total of ersatz culture war despair added to the actual trouble from resource depletion and all the attendant hate and jealousy that will go along with it. It's bad enough now, what will happen when we are on the brink of war with two or three billion other people over oil or water?

[cbayer]

4. Then perhaps we are moving out of some troubled times here.

The trend of religious people identifying more as progressive seems to be a good sign.

[rrneck]

5. The trend of a billion Chinese

rushing for their version of the American dream is more troubling to me. When resources get scarce extremism flourishes. The pump is well primed for a fascist state here and the voices of reason are running out of time.

[cbayer]

6. Well, rrneck, I hope you are wrong

and will continue to support the individuals and institutions that want to prevent that.

Wish I could give you a cookie (this is not to minimize your concern, but because I think your apocalyptic world view right now is, indeed, troubling).

[rrneck]

7. I hope I'm wrong too.

Hard times on the horizon don't excuse us from doing what's right. In fact, the strength of one's convictions are tempered in the crucible of difficulty. Lots of people embrace values when they think they will profit from them. And they will quickly abandon them when the first ill wind blows.

Honor and compassion are easy when there is no conflict. When a fight starts the choice between honor and survival becomes much more problematic. And sometimes no amount of compassion and honor will keep a fight from happening. That's when the wheat gets separated from the chaff. A culture that enters a fight with honor will likely emerge from it stronger and wiser, although perhaps not happier - if it survives.

You already gave me the cookie.

[cbayer]

8. Honor and compassion are easy when there is no conflict.

And conflict seems less likely when people behave in an honorable and compassionate manner.

Whether one's motivation is entirely internal, drawn from earlier experiences or the result of their religious beliefs means little to me. As long as they are pursuing goals which I support and not threatening the rights of others, I will be on their team.

Power in numbers.

[tabbycat31]

9. as an older millenial

If I can even be classified as one (born in 1980), I have never known a world where religion did not equal conservative politics (the moral majority was founded the year I was born).

The Christian right has turned me off of religion for a lifetime.

[cbayer]

10. You know, that is such a good point and I have never thought of it that way.

I grew up during the civil rights era and the anti-Viet Nam protests. The religious left were deeply involved in both of these efforts and my parents were on the front lines.

It never really occurred to me that there are whole generations who never saw that and have only come around since the rise of the "moral majority".

I can't thank you enough for pointing that out. It was a huge aha moment.