Ironically, I was down south in Glen Beck's part of the world (politically) for a wedding and other family stuff this weekend during the big Beck bacchanalia in DC. On my travels, I drove through parts of Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, and came within a few miles of North Carolina. We drove by lots of gun shops and churches, and nostalgia-drenched Civil War battlefields. We saw the elegant plantation-style homes of the folks who were doing well (all the rich people down south seem to like imagining themselves as plantation owners), and deteriorating homes in poor neighborhoods. Much to my delight, we had lunch one day in a small town Alabama café whose diners included a police officer of what looked to be Indian descent and a white mother playing with her mixed-race baby, and everyone there seemed mellow and friendly. I guess like most of the rest of America, a lot of things have changed down South even as a lot of things remain very much the same.
One interesting thing about the trip was that I heard not a single word about the Glenn Beck rally in his political heartland down south. I like to chat people up on all my trips in the convenience stores and small-town cafes, hear what's on everyone's minds. Everyone is talking about how tough the economy is, and of course I heard some random comments about government and deficits being a problem. I heard some random comments about health care with some folks leery of the new bill. But the only people the whole trip who mentioned Beck's rally were a couple of liberal family members who came in for the wedding and were being driven nuts by it. That's not to suggest Beck doesn't have his disciples here, of course he does, and I'm sure I would have found more of them if I'd stopped at those gun shops we drove by, or went to the Church of Christ my sister's family goes to in Tennessee. For most of the folks I was talking to, though, politics is a worry and an irritant, far less important in their daily lives than just trying to make it in this distressed economy. They feel like politics and politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, have let them down and don't care very much about them. They think, with some reason, that Washington cares a lot more about the wealthy and powerful special interests than it does them.
That is not to say that the rabid right-wing leaders such as Beck aren't important. They are on a mission to define the terms of our political debate, and shape how people view our politics, culture and history- and that is big stuff. Who controls and shapes the contours of our country's debate and dialogue usually wins most of the nation's political battles. Beck is an interesting figure because in spite of his over-the-top emotional appeals and his playing to the anti-intellectual crowd, he totally gets how important it is to create a historical narrative, to have a political philosophy that transcends whatever the battle of the moment is. I have been struck by his willingness to attack historically well-regarded people like Teddy Roosevelt, and to lift up obscure and even widely discredited figures like Calvin Coolidge. Getting the history defined through his ideological prism is a major priority for him.
Added to that is his obsession with defining the Christian religion in the "right" way for his purposes. His depiction of Obama as believing in liberation theology is of course very politically convenient, as it sounds vaguely Communistic and people-of-color oriented, but it also speaks to Beck's bigger obsession: Beck understands that if all those church-going conservatives actually read the Bible and take it so seriously, or read their history and think about its lessons, it will be impossible to keep them in the conservative fold. All the folks that Beck quotes with such fervor- Paine, Jefferson, Lincoln, King, and the Jesus of the Gospels- believed in the opposite of what he is advocating, and I think he knows it. Beck's philosophy celebrates the Ayn Rand belief that selfishness is a positive good and compassion is a leech on society. He happily promotes the idea that the "lions eat the weak" and is not only comfortable with but delights in the idea that the "undeserving" poor will suffer. That is not what Paine, Jefferson, Lincoln, King, and Jesus believed, and I suspect that Beck actually knows that, and associates himself all the tighter with them to distract people from reading their actual words. Beck attacks poor immigrants, and Jesus said we should welcome the stranger. Jefferson and Lincoln believed our country should be founded on the cornerstone of equality, Beck says we need to reclaim our country from civil rights supporters. Over two hundred years ago, Paine proposed a social security system, progressive taxation, and a safety net for the poor, while Beck wants to roll back everything we have achieved on those issues. King said that our fates are "inextricably linked in a garment of destiny" and said one of our worst sins is when we fail to realize our dependence on others, while Beck rails against collectivism and community. Jesus said we would be judged on how we treated the least of these, Beck says we should let the least of these suffer because they aren't deserving.
King believed that not only the civil rights movement but the broader progressive movement as well had as its mission to "save the soul of America". Today, the soul of America is very much in a pitched battle. If Beck's philosophy prevails, a country founded in the ideals of equality and community will become a country that cheers the cruelty of the lions eating the weak. Progressives need to understand the stakes of this battle.
Professor Marc Gopin is the Director at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution (CRDC) with the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. You can follow his work by visiting www.MarcGopin.com. He has focused a lot of his work around interfaith conflict resolution, which is why we asked to speak with him about the controversy over the proposed construction of the Cordoba Mosque in lower Manhattan. Right after we scheduled the interview, news broke that peace talks among Israel, Palestine, and the United States would resume in September. This is an issue that Professor Gopin has been deeply involved with for a very long time now, so we included that in our line of questioning.
Highlight clips with partial transcripts and the full 40-minute interview below the fold...
It was about a week ago that we saw the ruling throwing out California's Prop 8; that decision has now been appealed, and we will see, at some point in the future, how the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handles the matter.
A couple of days later, I had a story up that walked through the ruling, describing the tactics used by the Prop 8 proponents, which, in the opinion of the Judge who looked at the evidence, were basically to try to scare Californians into thinking that gay people, once they're able to get gay married, will somehow now be free to evangelize your kids and make them gay, too.
In the course of answering comments on the several sites where the story is up, I noticed that there were those who felt the Bible should be guiding our thinking here...that if it did, we would be better off than where we are today, with all those immoral gay people running around free to do all those immoral gay things.
This led me to an obvious question: are those who have been using the Bible as a sort of "divining rod" to figure out who is immoral and who is not...actually any good at it?
Over the past few weeks, the Catholic Church has found itself mired in controversy, plagued by an ever-growing sexual abuse scandal unfolding in Europe. The pope himself has come under substantial criticism, to such an extent that a leading German magazine titled a report, "The Failed Papacy of Benedict XVI."
Yet the media's growing chorus of criticism reveals as much about itself as it does about the mishaps of Pope Benedict XVI. It reveals much about how the media thinks about itself, and about the media's worldview of what society ought to be like.
Over the past few weeks, the Catholic Church has found itself mired in controversy, plagued by an ever-growing sexual abuse scandal unfolding in Europe. The pope himself has come under substantial criticism, to such an extent that a leading German magazine titled a report, "The Failed Papacy of Benedict XVI."
Yet the media's growing chorus of criticism reveals as much about itself as it does about the mishaps of Pope Benedict XVI. It reveals much about how the media thinks about itself, and about the media's worldview of what society ought to be like.
Historically, the Catholic Church and the Western media have always had moments of tension. The two are almost naturally at odds; their philosophical foundations constitute polar opposites. The church is fundamentally a conservative institution, hierarchy-bound and traditional. It embodies a force - religion - which often works in a conservative direction.
The modern Western media could not be more different from this.
I have done a lot of writing, in my blog posts and my book, about the historic differences between conservatives and progressives in political battles, but almost equally fascinating to me is that between conservative and progressive religious traditions. The exact same fault lines, most importantly in terms of individualism vs. community, play themselves out in theological debates which sound very much like our political debates- and indeed, a lot of the same people operate in both realms.
Glenn Beck and Jim Wallis got into this debate over the last few days, and because Jim actually knows something about the Bible, he easily won the debate. Beck's classic conspiracy-minded starting point- that because both Nazis and Communists have used the phrase "social justice", that any religion that uses the term must be bad too- has a similar logic to saying that if a really bad teacher said two plus two equals four, because he or she was a bad teacher it must be false. Or saying that if a politician you don't like says "God Bless America", then any politician who says that is terrible. But leaving aside Beck's incredibly stupid logic, the point he makes about "social justice" is in keeping with conservative ideology: it is all about a self-focused view of religion and politics that, like Beck's ideological hero Ayn Rand, proclaims selfishness as the ultimate virtue.
Conservative Christians manage to ignore the literally many hundreds of Biblical quotes about social justice by making Christianity a religion solely focused on one very selfish goal: whether they get into heaven or not. That's it, that is the entire goal and purpose and meaning of their faith. And because St. Paul argued that faith is more important than "works" (what you do good in the world), they think that believing a certain doctrine is the only thing that matters in terms of whether you make it into heaven or not. Since everything is about getting themselves to heaven, and the Earth will be destroyed soon in Armageddon anyway, nothing that happens here matters very much. The one thing that matters to their God is having more people worship Him, so they try to convert people, but all that other stuff Jesus and the Old Testament prophets and Moses and James and all those other folks in the Bible talked about in terms of kindness, mercy, forgiving debts, being your brother's keeper, helping the poor, and all that other liberal socialistic stuff just isn't much of a priority to them compared to: me getting to heaven, and (second most important) converting others to my God. These so-called "Christian" conservatives live in a state of paranoia that somewhere, somehow some dollar of their taxes might go to some undeserving poor person, ignoring the fact that Jesus' entire ministry was targeted to the "undeserving" poor.
Not all Christians think this way, of course. There is another kind of thinking about the Christian faith: one that actually takes what's written in the Bible (beyond the Book of Revelations) seriously. The Jewish Torah (for Christians, that's their Old Testament) and the Christian New Testament have a wide variety of ideas and voices in their pages. Written by scores of authors over a span of probably a couple thousand years, one of the things I love about the Bible is the wide range of beliefs and perspectives within it. A lot of fundamentalists are desperate to find ways to explain away the contradictions in the Bible, because they believe every word is inspired by God and it's all literally true, but in fact the authors of the Bible disagree on both the details of what actually happened and the interpretation and philosophy behind the events they write about. If you take the Bible seriously, you see the debates and differing perspectives. Some Biblical writers were more conservative in their thinking, and some were more progressive. But the most consistent and enduring theme that runs through virtually every book in the Bible is that we are expected to love and be kind to our neighbors, especially the poor, hurting, and oppressed of the earth.
From the God of Genesis punishing Cain for not being his brother's keeper to Nathan the prophet rebuking King David for taking from the poor; from the Psalms that over and over proclaim the need to help the poor, and condemn those who judges, government officials, and wealthy people who mistreat them, from the prophets like Isaiah and Amos who deride those who engage in ritual sacrifice while refusing to help the oppressed (Isaiah I: "Cease to do evil. Learn to do good, search for justice, help the oppressed, be just to the orphan, plead for the widow.") to Jesus very first sermon proclaiming that he had come to "bring good news to the poor" and "liberty to the captives"- virtually every book of the Bible demands justice and mercy and community.
People who take the Bible seriously and respect its words, as opposed to being obsessed with whether they personally will get into heaven by following a certain kind of dogma, understand that community and compassion are in fact far more central to it than any specific metaphysical belief system. And that is what the Pat Robertsons, Glenn Becks, Sarah Palins, and the other false prophets of conservatism don't understand.
(Bumped for those of you in the Denver area, hope to see you this weekend. - promoted by Mike Lux)
Three things I like doing are quoting the Bible, talking about economics, and hanging out in Colorado, one of my favorite states. I get to do all three on the Sunday, January 24th at an event hosted by the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado. They are hosting an event entitled Taxes: An Investment in the Common Good. I'm on the program along with a Republican state rep, a school board member, a leader of the CO Bankers Association, and the President of a school of theology, so it should be quite an eclectic conversation. Anyone in Denver that weekend should come by. I promise to keep things lively.
Taxes: An Investment in the Common Good
A Public Forum Presented by
The Interfaith Alliance of Colorado
Sunday, January 24, 2010
2:00 - 5:00 PM
Cameron United Methodist Church
1600 S. Pearl St.
Denver, CO 80210
The forum will address Colorado's budget crisis and consider potential solutions to build a more sustainable, financially-healthy state that meets the needs of all Coloradans.
Panelists will include:
Don Childears
President, Colorado Bankers Association
Moderator: Carol Hedges
Senior Policy Analyst,
Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute
Michael Lux
Author, The Progressive Revolution
Rep. Ellen Roberts (R)
House District 59, Durango
Rev. Dr. David Trickett
President, Iliff School of Theology
Sue Windels
Board Member, Great Education Colorado
The forum is free and open to the public. Light refreshments and conversation will follow a question period.
In one of the first diaries of this series, we noted that 90% of John McCain's votes came from white voters. More specifically though, 83% of John McCain's votes came from white Christian voters. As a proportion of the electorate, we saw whites are declining. But guess what? So are Christians, slowly but steadily. Here's how that looks:
What in the heck is wrong with Appalachia? I keep running into interesting correlations that tells me Appalachia should be giving far less support to Democrats at the presidential level than it actually does.
Here's the example from yesterday:
Click to enlarge.
If all of Central Appalachia behaved like the rest of the region, we'd expect to see all the points scattered near the line in the graph above. Instead, the points representing counties in parts of Appalachia go soaring off above 50%.
And Southern Appalachia does its own strange thing too. More below.
This is part of a series of on-the-ground coverage with the No On 1 campaign in Maine, generously funded in part by you and with the support of the New Organizing Institute's National LGBT Blogger and Citizen Journalist Initiative. For other posts in this series, click here.
Since I've arrived in Maine, I've spent a good deal of time exploring people of faith, their reaction to same-sex marriage, and involvement in the No on 1 campaign. I wrote previously about Bishop Gene Robinson and his framing of religion and same-sex marriage here, and about supportive religious communities here.
Today I want to talk about the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese here, his involvement in the issue- which has become something of a flashpoint here in Maine- and the backlash and response to it in the grassroots.
This is part of a series of on-the-ground coverage with the No On 1 campaign in Maine, generously funded in part by you and with the support of the New Organizing Institute's National LGBT Blogger and Citizen Journalist Initiative. For other posts in this series, click here.
Since I've arrived here in Maine, I've been intrigued at the element of religion in the debate, religious activism around marriage equality. Earlier this month, Nate Silver calculated that support a marriage ban rises on a one-to-one level with religiosity in a state. Maine is the third-least religious state in the Nation, according to Gallup, so he argued that bodes well for our prospects.
I don't doubt the statistical analysis, but what I think is being missed is the element in which people of faith mobilize to support marriage equality.
On Thursday, I went to a packed-to-the-walls talk by Bishop Gene Robinson in the Cathedral of St. Luke's here in Portland, where he spoke movingly about Question 1. Yesterday, I went to a large march that concluded with a several-hundred person rally in a Unitarian Universalist Church in the afternoon (this is on a Sunday afternoon in the rain in seemingly a Patriots-rabid area).
What amazed me was the degree to which people of every faith had turned out for this campaign. Nearly every religious creed was represented. I spoke with a number of people at the rally who self-identified as regular worshipers and people of faith- those would respond affirmatively to the Gallup question. But they were not only against Question 1, they were activists.
I talked with Pastor Stephen Carnahan of The Open House United Church of Christ in Portland, who MC'ed the rally:
The United Church of Christ of which I'm a part, and the Unitarian Universalist churches, we've been out on front of this issue for some time, so there's been a groundswell of support among progressive Christians in the Maine community... the Catholic Church and some of the conservative Protestant chruches, progressive Protestants on the other. There are a LOT of progressive Protestants in this area, though, so it's been a large and growing number... I don't think we're any less spiritual than any others.
He went on to mention how approximately 140 ministers had went to testify on marriage equality at the state legislative hearing, the congregation has done phone banking, and so forth. This, I think is something that's being missed in analyses like Nate's.
It really is heartening to see this, because in many places, there's prevalent assumption that if it's religious, it must not bode well for LGBT people. I have a lot of friends who feel this way, and I personally have a reflexive antipathy towards religion until I went to the famous Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, an incredibly community of volunteering and welcoming towards all people of all walks of life, but where members of the congregation were just as religious as any other. That congregation, and the ones in Maine I saw gathered on Thursday and today, prove the assumption wrong.
This is part of a series of on-the-ground coverage with the No On 1 campaign in Maine, generously funded in part by you and with the support of the New Organizing Institute's National LGBT Blogger and Citizen Journalist Initiative. For other posts in this series, click here.
On Thursday, Bishop Gene Robinson- the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church- was here in Portland speaking about the marriage ballot initiative. I sat down with him beforehand to ask him about the religious aspect of this. Here's what he had to say:
There was a particular part of what he said that struck me as interesting.
I see marriage as becoming more and more of a civil institution as religious affiliation shrinks. The main reason two people become married is for the civil benefits- taxes, health care, transfer of property, and so forth- has become more prominent. Yet religion has become a stakeholder in the institution so much that religious institutions have a seat at the table in debates like this. And so when there is a movement to expand marriage rights to LGBT couples, churches cry foul and stoke fears that they will be required to marry such couples. The same fears were expressed regarding marriages between people of different religions and people of different races.
In reality, as Bishop Robinson said, this is the church imposing its will on the state. "Separation of church and state works both ways." The framing of what he meant is what really caught me: that churches, as he said, are deputized by the state for civil purposes. If you want to get married, you to a church and you get married. Or you can go get a justice of the peace. You can even have a friend become a Universal Life minister just for the occasion. There are lots of ways. And as Bishop Robinson pointed out, when you get a divorce, you don't go back to the church. You go to the courts. But because marriage originated as a religious concept, and because churches and other religious organizations are massive and organized, the church has a seat at the table, and the religious exceptions written into the New Hampshire and Maine legislation has a specific exception for that. So they get to cry foul and people listen to them.
A way to counter that is that religious institutions should not be allowed to say who should and who should not be married outside their doors. Stay out of state affairs. Thus, his frame: that religious institutions are deputized to perform marriages, just as a library is used for a blood drive. But that doesn't mean the library gets to have a say on who shall give and who shall not. Ergo, neither should a church, and separation of church and state run both ways.
The Pan Atlantic (state-based pollster) poll this past week showed 50.0% voting Yes, 42.7% voting No, and 7.3% undecided (albeit a sample size of 110 Catholic voters). Anecdotally, since I've gotten to Maine I have heard story after story of someone's Catholic mom or grandmother who is voting No, in a state where there is a strong Catholic Church presence and the Church has done two collections for the initiative. For me, the jury is out on whether Bishop Robinson's frame is resonating, but I think it's one to push.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently weighed in against a Democratic health care reform proposal, calling it a legal fiction. It may be opposing it on grounds that are a moral one.
The comparison between the 18-29 demographics and the 65+ (in Pew) and 70+ (in ARIS) make the trends clear. Across the two surveys, Mainline Protestants are declining rapidly, Evangelicals and Catholics are declining very slowly, and non-Christians are going to continue to increase as a percentage of the population. For example, among seniors, there are more than twice as many Mainline Protestants as "Nones," (people who don't list a religion, but not necessarily aethists). However, among the under-30 population, there are more than twice as many "Nones" as Mainline Protestants.
Evangelicals and Catholics have done a bit better among younger generations than Mainlines, but are still slightly underrepresented within the under-30 set according to Pew. As such, they are also likely to decline as a percentage of the population over the long-term.
Since both surveys have age crosstabs, they make it possible to forecast future religious affiliation with reasonable accuracy. However, before we make such a forecast, since we are looking at the future of religious from an electoral perspective, it is necessary to sort the numerous religious affiliations into coherent units of partisan preference. The Pew survey allows us to do this, given their far more detailed demographic crosstabs. Looking at the Pew survey, and at exit polls, there are four clear partisan categories:
White Evangelicals / Born Agains: This is a group that breaks 3-1 Republican. It includes white evangelicals, but also white Mormons and white "other Christians." It is declining from its current 24% of the electorate, but only slowly.
White Traditionals: This is a group with a slight Republican lean, favoring John McCain by about 7% in the most recent election. It is includes mainly white Catholics and white Mainline Protestants (whose voting habits have very similar partisan splits), and also a smaller amount of white Orthodox Christians. While it is the largest group, forming 37% of the electorate and nearly one-third of the over-18 population, it is also, by far, the fastest shrinking group.
Non-Christians: This is an overwhelmingly Democratic group, breaking 3-1 for the blues. It includes all self-identified non-Christians, whether they are white or non-white. This group is (very) slightly whiter, and vastly more Asian, than the rest of the population. At 21% of the over 18 population, and 20% of the electorate, it is the smallest group, but it is increasing in size rapidly, mainly due to the growth of Asians and "nones."
Non-white Christians: This is the most Democratic group of all, favoring President Obama by a 4-1 margin in 2008. It is the second smallest overall group (22% of the over 18 population), and the smallest voting group (representing 19% of the electorate). It is increasing in size, but not quite as quickly as non-Christians. It is also the most ideologically diverse group, given that it has large populations of African-American Christians (20-1 Obama) and Latino and Asian Christians (just under 2-1 Obama).
From now until 2032, these four groups should make up the following percentages of the electorate (or something very, very close to these percentages):
Projected Ethno-religious % of Electorate, Presidential Elections 2008-2032
Group
2008
2012
2016
2020
2024
2028
2032
White Evangelicals
24%
24%
24%
24%
23%
23%
22%
White Traditionals
37%
35%
33%
31%
29%
27%
26%
Non-Christians
20%
21%
22%
23%
25%
26%
27%
Non-white Christians
19%
20%
21%
22%
23%
24%
25%
The increasing trend toward political polarization in this country is largely the result of this ethno-religious trend. The only one of these groups that is even close to a 50-50 split, "white Traditionals," is quickly declining as a percentage of the population. The increasing polarization in America can thus be understood as largely a result of the end of a white Catholic / white Mainline Protestant era of bi-partisanship. As that group undergoes a rapid decline, all that remains are ethno-religious demographic groups that break overwhelmingly in favor of one party or another. The end result is a more culturally, and thus ideologically, divided country. White Catholics and white Mainline Protestants just have more in common with each other than, say white Evangelicals and non-Christians.
This chart also further emphasizes the long-term electoral trouble the current Republican coalition faces. Combined, the two strongly Democratic groups, non-Christians and non-white Christians, should increase from 39% to about 52% of the electorate between now and 2032. A shift like that would add another 10% to the Democratic margin if partisan preferences within the groups remain the same. (The preferences won't remain the same, of course, but I don't intend to predict how they will change.)
The troubles for Republicans don't end there. Tomorrow, as "the future" series continues, I will discuss why the country will keep becoming gayer. Or, at least, more openly LGBT.
I couldn't quite turn any of these numbers into an article of their own, but they still deserve more attention:
According to the most recent poll on the subject, 81% of the country believes that people who are openly homosexual should be allowed to serve in the military. This is higher than the percentage of Americans who self-identify as Christian, which has dropped to 77%. It is kind of surprising that allowing homosexuals to openly serve in the military is now a more commonly held belief than the divinity of Jesus.
According to new data released by the Cook Political Report, only one congressional district in the country voted for John Kerry and John McCain: the Pennsylvania 12th, represented by John Murtha. Either that district just really likes people named "John," or perhaps Western Pennsylvania isn't as representative of the country as we were told last year during the Pennsylvania primary.
Since last year, Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernake's approval rating has dropped 25% among Republicans, and increased 24% among Democrats. Not that we don't live in a partisan nation or anything...
Over the past thirty years, real income for the top 1% of all households has increased 3-4 times over, which dwarfs the meager gains by the bottom 80%:
This graph is reflective of many things, including who controls governmental policy.
Republicans have become even less popular, if you can believe it. According to the most recent polls from CBS, Fox, NBC and CNN, the percentage of Americans who view the Republican Party as "favorable," has declined by at least 4% since late October. Outside of these four, no other polling firm with October trendlines has taken a "favorable / unfavorable" poll of the Republican Party in 2009.
Like the end of a Saturday Night Live sketch, it is difficult to figure out a way to end this article.
