Evangelicals once were politically inactive. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and assorted smaller fry built empires, becomming skilled fundraisers. Transfering their fundraising expertise to political operations, they mobilized conservative Christian voters.
They were merely the first to mobilize. They were never the voice of all Evangelicals. Leaders like Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo were around in 1980, but never built empires or political arms like Ralph Reed did.
You heard about the conservative Evangelicals all these years because they showed up on election day. There was never a conservative monopoly. Now we see diversity. Obama appeared at a conference at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church. Warren will not endorse a candidate; nor will Joel Osteen, Bill Hybels, or assorted high profile pastors. But Obama appears aware he has support in the Evangelical camp, and he's going for it. John McCain appeared tone deaf wooing the likes of John Hagee and Rod Parsley, who had marginal upside even before factoring in the downside. Seeking out Billy and Franklin Graham was smarter. But Franklin would be unknown if his last name was anything other than Graham.
Conservative Evangelicals are still better organized and funded. Obama won't win a majority, but I expect he'll take 33% to 40% in 2008, when eight years of George W Bush leaves the GOP brand radioactive. Long term, built in synergies between conservative philosophy, theology, and political science will ensure Evangelicals lean conservative. But going forward, neocons will find them less and less a kindred spirit on election day.
Evangelical Sheep? Don't Count On That
Don't believe everything you read in the papers. Didn't your mama tell you that?
I'm going to give you one more reason to listen to her.
One out of four Americans says he or she is an evangelical.
In the next four months, you're going to see that number cited in countless political stories. It will invariably be paired with the idea that evangelicals are a Republican bloc that John McCain must placate and Barack Obama has scant chance of winning.
Reader beware.
Reporters glean from surveys what they think is important. A new national survey of the religious landscape from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that those one in four Americans are not the sheep they've been made out to be. But don't look for that in most stories about the survey. It's not there.
There's no conspiracy to keep anything from anybody. The Pew study offers a mass of data, enough to keep scholars arguing for years.
What you already know does affect what you look for. And what you look for shapes what you see. I just wrote a book about evangelicals with findings that astonished even me. So let me tell you what I saw when I looked at what American evangelicals told the Pew researchers about their own beliefs. It was astonishing in light of what most people believe about evangelicals.
*Only 28 percent say that religion most influences their political thinking.
*Half are not Republicans or even leaning toward Republican candidates and policies.
*Half don't consider themselves conservatives.
*Fewer than half want to shrink big government.
*41 percent want government to be bigger and do more
*41 percent think government is too involved in issues of morality.
Are you getting a picture here that sounds a lot more like mainstream America than most of us thought it would?
Evangelicals also have some surprisingly untraditional Christian views.
* 53 percent think there is more than one way to interpret the teachings of Christianity.
* 57 percent think many religions can lead to eternal life. Many? That's what they said.
On the hot button issues of abortion and homosexuality, evangelicals surveyed by Pew in the summer of 2007 seem to be running true to stereotype. Sixty-one percent say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases and 64 percent say homosexuality should be discouraged.
But flip those statistics. They mean that more than one out of three evangelicals believes abortion should be legal in most cases. Most cases. Partial-birth? Late term? Sounds kinda pro-choice. Kinda like the mother ought to have rights. Who knew?
With regard to homosexuality, the Pew question is so tentatively put that it's hard to know exactly what the answers mean. The researchers asked whether homosexuality ought to be discouraged by society. Not whether it is an abomination or a sin or a sickness. Not even whether gays and lesbians should or shouldn't have equal rights. But whether it should be discouraged. Could they have come up with a more wimpy word?
It's no surprise that 64 percent of evangelicals said homosexuality ought to be discouraged. What's astonishing, considering evangelical stereotypes, is that one out of ten wasn't clear enough on the issue to even give an answer and one out of four said homosexuality ought to be accepted. Period. No quibbles at all.
One out of four of the most conservative group in America accepts homosexuality. Did we know this? I didn't.
Make no mistake, a high number of evangelicals are among the most conservative of Americans. Fifty-eight percent of evangelicals who say they go to church once a week are far more conservative than the ones who say they attend less frequently. That's true in almost all Christian categories.
But reader beware of church attendance statistics, too. The Pew survey and almost all other religious surveys tell us what people say, not what they do.
Researchers who count people actually in church find half the number who say they are there.
People aren't exactly lying. They're thinking that they should have gone to church last week, or they intended to go to church or they do go to church every week except during the summer or baseball season or the Christmas holidays. This tendency could be even more pronounced among evangelicals because of the type of faith they have.
A faith featuring a God who watches everyone closely and punishes people when they aren't doing right gives its adherents good reason to fool themselves -- and pollsters -- about what they're actually doing and maybe even what they actually are thinking.
Why does it matter that we be so skeptical?
Because evangelical pastors and leaders have been credited with being so effective at mobilizing their troops to vote in certain ways. They gained great power from that reputation. Some have gotten rich from it. Understandably. There's hardly any organization on earth as good at molding opinion as a church.
But if large numbers of evangelicals aren't in church, they aren't as likely to have their opinions molded. They aren't as likely to have their voting mobilized.
Participation in church matters because it means that if evangelical kingmakers were put to the test, they would not have as much power as they claim. Focus on the Family's James Dobson found his limits earlier this year when he vowed to sit out the election if John McCain became the front-running nominee.
Republicans will nominate McCain anyway. And Dobson did not take his toys and go home. He's stirring the pot just as vigorously as ever.
What all this means is that, contrary to expectations, McCain may have scored big points with many evangelicals when he spurned extremists John Hagee and Ron Parsley. Why?
Because many evangelicals are not like the ones you see on TV. Not just a few who've recently emerged. Many.
And Barack Obama may win the hearts of at least two out of four American evangelicals with a lot less effort than most of us ever imagined. For the same reason.
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"faith featuring a God who watches everyone closely and punishes people when they aren't doing right"
This faith does not resemble Christianity - Pat Robertson's faith. HIS angry God is convenient for HIS selfish purposes of fearmongering and powermongering. HIS angry God sends storms and terrorists. This God is under HIS control and inside HIS head. He claims to be a "holy prophet of God" who can leg press 2,000 pounds. He says he is a descendent of royalty. He tells his faithful viewers to "touch the tv screen for a miracle." He craves attention and our media gives it to him.
It is a sad scam. They are frauds and fraud is a crime but nobody cares because our media discounts "evangelicals." Our televangelists have a license to lie and to cheat and to steal and claim that God has blessed them.
To the media, "evangelicals" are insignificant, deserving to be bilked, I guess, so the glaring frauds will continue to misuse their tax exempt status for political organizing, for building their lucrative family "business," and for telling faithfuls how to vote and who to hate, teaching prejudice and lies. Our media will continue to look the other way. Democracy loses. Frauds win.
Faithfuls who touch their tv screens for a miracle and send money to conmen will never be told about Gordon Robertson's extramarital affair or about that father/son holyman outfit's crimes and lies and sins because the media does not care enough.
Did David Axelrod sponsor this poll?
This may fly in Berkeley or Cambridge, but in the Bible Belt, the facts don't bear any of this out.
Sit back and watch the facts as they emerge on election day.
You might be able to predict how your city will vote. Evangelical trends nationally bear out the Pew poll. But wait and see. We'll revist this topic after November.
It appears that the label 'evangelical', along with so much else in this surreal age, has overflowed its levees amidst the eddies of identity politics. An evangelical is someone who, according to wikipedia:
*believes in the need for personal conversion [or being "born again"]
*believes in evangelizing the gospel [converting all others as a means of saving their souls from eternal damnation]
*believes in heavy biblical study [at times literalism] and interpretation of biblical rules
*believes in the necessity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a centerpiece of religion
An evangelical who can accept that many other religions are valid and that Biblical stories are just stories defies the basic definitions we have for 'evangelical' - it becomes simply the little-used official name of their church, not a guideline for their religion.
It's not much different from 'small-government conservatives' who are after a crippling level of regulation of social affairs, a massive socialized military-industrial complex, a bill of rights with precisely one amendment (#2), corporate bailouts, a policy of spending so much more than we have that our nation has to become subservient to debtholders, and sweeping, bloody interference in the affairs of other countries.
I'm not sure whether I'm happy that the vein of insanity in this country runs much thinner than expected, or depressed that lazy sundays are the main reason for it - that when people show up, pastors still hold the power to sway the opinions of their flock in intolerant, nonsensically partisan directions.
Much of the political conservative histeria about the hugh wave of Republican Evangelicals has come from the mouths of the rich denomination dominating talking heads, who are far richer than most can imagine. It is my belief that it is thier love of money that drives their convictions. They seem to have a special ower to convence those around them to vote against their own best interest and Biblical teachings about how to husband earnings and the earth, and treat other people--believers or not.
It is as if the goat got hold of the sheep's microphone, I think its called propaganda.
An interesting, and I might say "hopeful" piece. It seems to me that there is considerable confusion between "evangelicals" and what we might call "Christian conservatives", or the "Religious Right". The latter group is defined by their *positions* -- what they consider sin, what they consider correct policy, etc. Self-described evangelicals, I would assume, see their defining characteristic as the call to evangelize, rather than their specific ideological stance. Dobson, for instance, is far better known for his consevative positions than for his evangelical outreach. It is entirely possible for someone to be a very far-right Christian conservative without necessarily considering her/himself to be an evangelical.
A couple of quibbles:
(1) "Evangelicals also have some surprisingly untraditional Christian views.
* 53 percent think there is more than one way to interpret the teachings of Christianity."
How is this "untraditional"? One could argue that this was the whole point of the Reformation.
(2) You do the set-difference wrong in your comment on the abortion question. If 61% believe that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, then 39% believe that abortion should be legal in SOME cases; not in "most or all cases", as you state. I suspect we"re talking about "save the life of the mother" here, rather than partial-birth.
You wrote a good post, kudos to you. Additionally, specifically to your point about the interpertations of Christianity, nearly EVERY pastor in any church may have them.
I am a Christian and my view do NOT match most churches, if NOT any church. My definition of the church is on the streets, helping others when they may need some help. It is certainly not big churches, family centers, basketball leagues etc. In many cases, the people who attend these churches want to avoid real life, at least that is true for some of them. It is easier to hide, than 'be'.
"It is easier to hide, than 'be'."
perhaps that has something to do with why so many people would rather fake a "family " than admit to themselves that they are gay?
Believing is a verb (doing word) believing means we don't know. If we knew we would say so and wouldn't need to believe anything. We can believe all we like, but believing won't change whatever the reality is. The reality is what we feel. All else is what we think is real.
Reality is absolute. It is not relative. It is not what we feel. What you feel when you are on drugs, for example is tainted.
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". - Hebrews 11:1
what someone feels when they are on drugs is different, but it is still the reality for however long the high lasts...
Do not dismiss the religion of many of our founding fathers, Deism! We believe in one God and hope for happiness beyond this life. We believe God sees all men and women as equals and He or She asks everyone to be honest and trustworthy. We believe that all should love mercy and endeavor to help our fellowman/woman. We believe that all those claiming to be religious leaders who terrify and exploit their followers with false words, deeds and promises, to gain power and profit, will answer to God on Judgment Day! Of course, we also believe that every man/ woman has the right to believe in what ever religion they wish, without critics.
"There is one religion -- the religion of love;
there is one race -- the race of humanity;
there is one language -- the language of the heart;
there is one God and that God is everywhere for everyone."
As for a 'final judgment day':
"Each one must proceed from the place where he is at, at his own pace, according to his own light . . . all will reach the goal of the journey -- sooner, or later."
Experience apparently provides some wisdom, and after 72-years has convinced me not to yoke myself with mans ways or institutions, whether called politically Liberal or Conservative, or the lesser of any other two evils. Here again Gods wisdom and knowledge proved greatest value, saying the wisdom and knowledge of man is foolishness.
Also and perhaps more important, is not what I believe, but instead what God has said. As a Christian it sometimes amazes even me when defending charges made about the Muslim-Qur'an, in cases of intellectual dishonesty or slander, found as similar method of text taken out of context from the Bible to be used in error.
Some here saying God has no problem with sexual error need return and read the Bible again. Take it from a sinner, continuing or encouraging to sin as choice, this is neither wise nor is it teaching found in the Bible.
so would "god" prefer that i never know romantic love?? and i thought "god" gave humans the wisdom to figure out the world around them. so even though our knowledge is attained through "god-given" brains and talent, we should ignore it all? is that what you are saying?
also, the bible has been translated to and from so many languages that there is no way to know if the version in english is REALLY what was said, or if things were translated incorrectly. i've heard it suggested that the line about homosexuality was actually referring to sexual abuse.
finally, "god" didn't write the words himself, and history has shown that when people record things it tends to be tainted by their own beliefs and ideas about the way things 'should' be, not necessarily how they actually are. and what about all the gaps in the bible (like the jump from jesus as a teen to being 30 years old)?? were those things never recorded because they said things that differed from what the people writing these texts wanted everyone to believe??
should i assume that you follow ALL of the rules in leviticus? like not eating shelfish, or wearing clothes of mixed fabrics, etc. who gets to pick and choose which of "god's" commands to follow and which to ignore?
This further proves that the Church has been, is and always will be a mirror of the world and that the Word has been watered down so much that it means nothing to many - other than an answer to a polling question
This is news?
With your background, you should know that there is great diversity among evangelicals.
Why, then, are you surprised that your caricature of ignorant sheeple is not reflected in the poll data?
One of my co-workers is as devout an evangelical Christian as there is. He and his family, along with a group from their church, take all of their vacation time every year to go deep into the jungle in Brazil and help the residents of a small village take in their yearly harvest, and do other tasks like well and pump maintenance. They've been doing this for 15 years now.
If the readers of this blog would loosen up just a bit, and stop clinging so bitterly to their long-held prejudices, they'd see that there really is such a thing as common ground with one's political "enemies".
I'm proud to call myself a liberal but over the past 25 years, I must admit that I've developed a very negative bias towards those people who identify themselves as 'evangelical'. Reading this article has helped me realize that it is never wise to pass judgment on any group of people based on the public pronouncements of a few (very visible) representatives.
Im not one who questions good hard-based polling data so the only thing I'll say about these are----baaaah-baaaah
I am a born again Christian but I defy the stereotypes. I am very liberal, just like the teaching of Christ in the Gospels. Jesus valued tolerance (love thy neighbor) hated war, favored taking care of the poor. I could go on and on but the lesson is that the REAL values of Jesus are not what the Religious right teaches. Jesus never condemned abortion or homosexuality but the right uses these issues to preach morality. (The Old Testament and Paul did but not Jesus).
Feed the poor instead. Jesus also condemned hypocrites, guess he would be very busy today!
Lots of evangelicals are with you. They aren't paid as much attention to. But I know a lot of them and I bet you do too.
This article points out that we shouldn't see the actively religious as all one great monolith of beliefs. While issues like being against legal abortion may be unifying, there are substantual differences among such persons as to the role of government on regulation of business, social welfare issues, economics, education, use of our miltary and so on. Many evangelicals are also pragmatic, and will back off the 'moral' issues like restricting abortion, especially on more day to day issues that affect them such as employment and the economy. The political leaders much fine tune their message as to those broader issues many will vote on over their social/moral beliefs.
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Posted July 14, 2008 | 09:54 PM (EST)