The piece of data that lies at the heart of Charles Blow’s Saturday New York Times piece is obvious when you come to think about it, but it’ll still come in handy as an argument for questioning certain stereotypes about today’s GOP:
Which political party’s members are most likely to believe that Jesus will definitely return to earth before midcentury? The Republicans, right? Wrong. The Democrats. This was revealed by a report issued last week by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. On the surface it may seem surprising, but, in fact, it’s quite logical. Blacks and Hispanics, two highly religious groups, are a growing part of the Democratic Party…Add to this the fact that, according to the 2009 Gallup report, 20 percent of the Democratic Party is composed of highly religious whites who attend church once a week or more, and you quickly stop second-guessing the Second Coming numbers. Welcome to the Religious Left, which will continue to grow as the percentage of minorities in the country and in the party grows.
Blow goes on to consider what this might mean:
People often ask whether the Republican Party will have to move to the left to remain viable. However, the question rarely asked is whether the growing religiosity on the left will push the Democrats toward the right.
To which the answer will rather depend on what you mean by ‘right’. If it’s something on the lines of what Mike Huckabee is peddling, the answer may well be yes, but not, I would imagine, for quite a while.
Blow also thinks that any change will be gradual:
At the moment, that answer is both yes and no. On the one hand, unlike John Kerry before him, Barack Obama made a strong play for the religious vote on his march to the White House. It worked so well that it’s likely to continue, if not intensify, among Democratic candidates. On the other hand, the religious left is not the religious right. The left isn’t as organized or assertive. For the most part, it seems to have made its peace with the mishmash of morality under the Democratic umbrella, rallying instead around some core Democratic tenets: protection of, and equality for, the disenfranchised and providing greater opportunity and assistance for the poor. The unanswerable questions are whether these highly religious, socially conservative Democrats will remain loyal to a liberal agenda as they become the majority of the party and their financial and social standing improves. Or whether Republicans will finally make headway in recruiting them. The future only knows.
Then again, the world as we know it may not have much of a future if, as these Democrats believe, a deity will soon descend from the sky.
True, has anyone remember a left wing economic evangelical that ran for politcal office name Willia Jennings Bryan.
I mean William Jennings Byrant. Anyway, the Dems got more votes from the evangelicals than the Repubs but there is a history for the modern religous conservtive from British history-William Gladstone, right on the economics and social issues but left on warfare. Most modern consertive evangelicals disagree with mr Gladstone on warfar,however in his later year he changed somewhat. He started out as a Tory and became a 19th century which is more of a 20th century Meggie T Conserative or Ronald Reagan with more of Ron Paul in foreign affairs.
While the ” Religious Left ” is rising it’s only the elites since the ” socially liberal ” church is dying in attendance and in identification
What is rising instead in Christianity are these :
1 – Reformation
2 – Conservative balance and moderation
3 – Western civilization study = Greece + Rome + Judaism + Christianity
4 – Apolegetics meaning the growth of intelectuality
For everybody here are some interests websites showing these
1 – http://www.alittleleaven.com/
2 – http://www.christianitytoday.com/
3 – http://www.brusselsjournal.com/
4 – http://www.internetmonk.com/
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2946
Can someone explain to me how a guy like Charles Blow has a weekly NYT opinion column and Steve Sailer has to panhandle for money on a blogspot site?
Oh wait.
If a higher percentage of Democrats become religious (as the percentage of hispanics and blacks rise), they won’t “move to the right” as Blow claims, they’ll become less libertarian and less elitist.
The Democratic Party of the future will be more radical on tax and spend issues, and favor strong government regulation of the economy. On the other hand, they’ll care less about the environment, feminism, and abortion.
hispanic religiosity is closer to non-hisp whites than blacks. they’re not really that socially conservative.
one of the issues people tend to confuse is that hispanics aren’t that socially conservative. on abortion they’re somewhat more conservative than whites. but on other hot button issues they’re not that conservative, only a little bit more than whites on homosexuality, and about as creationist as whites.
I would doubt hispanics are more creationist than whites. Catholics have always been susceptable toward an allegorical rendering of Genesis, and persecuting the literalist Galileo. Changing their views every hundred years; among many other inconsistencies, doesn’t provide a solid foundation for their faith.
Mexico just legalized abortion in the face of the church, with massive protests everywhere. The Mexican people have no say as to what laws will be passed, therefore, the people are in a perpetual state of corruption, and tyranny, being fleeced, and mesmerized, by people reared with the same exact beliefs as themselves.
Well, Mexicans are becoming more evangelical protestants and whites are moving into Eastern Orthodoxy from evangelicalism
http://thelotteryfilm.com/
I would like to say that cynthia curran has it right on whites going to Eastern Orthodoxy but she’s wrong on hispanics , blacks , mixed and whichever going into evangecalism
The fact is that the children of evangecalicals are leaving it
In droves
But it’s not really talked about either by the secular left or the generation of the religious right of my parents
It may not be visible to the seculars but to those whom are inside Christianity it’s becoming ever more apparent
Here’s the trends :
– Most young Christians have rejected the false prosperity word of faith I can never be sick getting richer and only materialism gospel and if they are still evangelicals it’s because it’s a reformed form of evangecalism
– They have also rejected the emergent socially liberal church
– Reformation occuring
– Western civilization pillars ( the 4 pillars I mentioned in previous post ) being studied
– Growth of apologetics
– Growth of religious nuclear families in particular … and I quote
” In the culture war between the secular left and the religious right, the left is striving to offset its demographic disadvantage by its control of media and education, and so far it’s been pretty successful. The religious right’s tendency to outbreed the left has been partially foiled by the left’s conversion of the children of the right to a progressive point of view. ”
Comment on this quote from a teacher in Australia
” A big potential spanner in the works though, is the imminent retirement of the post-war baby boomer generation in North America and Australasia.
That fits my experience as a school teacher here in Melbourne. The teachers now retiring are the true believer types, very zealous in their pursuit of liberal causes.
There are still female teachers in their 30s influenced by third wave feminism who are solidly left-wing. But the male teachers under 50 and the female teachers under 30 are much less invested in politics. ”
” Despite the rapid spread of secularism over the last 40 years, irreligious Europeans, North Americans, and East Asians, just aren’t having enough offspring to match the numbers being born to the God-fearing. ”
” In the culture war between the secular left and the religious right, the left is striving to offset its demographic disadvantage by its control of media and education, and so far it’s been pretty successful. The religious right’s tendency to outbreed the left has been partially foiled by the left’s conversion of the children of the right to a progressive point of view.
A big potential spanner in the works though, is the imminent retirement of the post-war baby boomer generation in North America and Australasia. The boomers were both the most numerous and most committed followers of post-war liberalism, but subsequent generations have neither the numbers or the zeal to be wide-eyed missionaries for post modern liberal multiculturalism. Indeed, many now seem to follow a kind of vague left libertarianism of which political apathy and cynicism see to be the main ideological features. Only the popular but ideologically muddled environmental movement seems to have any kind of committed following. ”
Sorry for the error