evangelicals

Shocker, right? But - there are a number of religious groups that did vote for Obama or are becoming more democratic.

A new Pew Study interviewed people both before and after the election to get their reading on who they were choosing and categorized the respondents by religious affiliation. Because Pew is also pretty good about doing these kinds of things on a regular basis we also have some nice 2004 data to compare it to to see where the GOP lost and made gains.

First, the 2008 data. Understandably, the largest group were Black Protestants. This is actually no change - they are solidly Democrat whether its John Kerry or Barack Obama. What we know, however, is that turnout was significantly up from 2004.

What did change in 2008 was the "Hispanic and other Minority Catholic" vote. We knew about this mostly from the exit polls but now we can see the extent to which Hispanic Catholics fled the GOP. In 2006 we saw the beginning of this

"Pollsters generally agree that the same voters abandoned the president's party in droves during last week's elections (November 2006), with Latinos giving the GOP only 30 percent of their vote as strident House immigration legislation inspired by Republicans and tough-talking campaign ads by conservative candidates roiled the community. "

Here is the breakdown of 2008 vs. 2004 among religious voters according to Pew:

As you can see the right wingers didn't go for Obama... that was the shocker I proposed at the beginning. According to Pew

"To begin with, there was essentially no change in the vote of regular worship-attending white evangelical Protestants, the core of what sometimes is called "the religious right" -- one of the strongest Republican voting groups. . .

"There was, however, some change in the evangelical community, and it occurred mostly among less-observant evangelical Protestants. Among mainline Protestants there was an interesting pattern. In the exit polls, there was essentially no change among white mainline Protestants. But the data presented here suggest that there were some changes within this large religious community. For instance, Obama may have made some gains among regular worship-attending mainline Protestants. And it may very well be that a lot of the efforts to mobilize the religious vote paid off in that particular community. However, these data show essentially no change among the less-observant mainline Protestants, who were evenly divided. This group was where one might have expected bigger Democratic gains." (emphasis mine)

I highlighted that section because while Democrats might have made modest gains there was really only a small gain overall. Kerry lost with 49% of the vote in 2004 and Obama won with 53% of the vote. There isn't a lot of wiggle room here - so even modest gains can be significant and show democrats where they can look to develop further links and relationships.

Now with Young Evangelicals that's the fun part... Anna Greenberg from Pew did a poll for Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Because people were saying that young voters were coming out for Obama she (smartly) over-sampled young evangelicals when looking at the groups of religious voters.

"Most of the national tracking polls had Obama at about 60% among under-30s, and he actually got 66%. So what we did with this poll was [a] multi-mode study. A certain number of interviews came from random digit dial, a certain percentage from the internet -- we didn't do the cell phone for a variety of reasons. We had, I think, the first real sample of young evangelicals and what we found was that, in fact, it was true that younger white evangelicals were more likely to support Obama than older white evangelicals."

Greenberg goes on to make an interesting point that traditionally young people vote more conservatively as they get older. This is because they tend to have children, go to church, pay taxes yada yada... Greenberg remarks that these people already do all of that. They should be conservative ... but they're not and she doesn't have a real idea on if they will develop into republican voters. I have no ideas either - its an interesting point I've never heard anyone discuss before.

All very interesting stuff that I think points to both the success in organization and the success in outreach. If you build it... they will come.... With youth outreach and faith based outreach that rivaled anything seen before the results were favorable.

If democrats want to continue to make inroads into these communities and tighten their grasp I encourage continuous issue based outreach through legislative sessions and constant communication with these groups to better develop loyalty to the party.

Who knows what the next election could bring, but if the groundwork is laid early with these groups, it could equate a much stronger majority.

First let me wish you a very Happy Merry Mistletoe and other such things! If you're looking for a family escape by pretending to read the blogs today, or write blogs, or pretend to do work as a means of ignoring that same story about the odd shaped moles on your relatives, then I'm happy to provide some interesting factoids along with your eggnog.

Now that the election is over I can go back to doing things that require more reading, like books. So I finally picked up The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church by Christine Wicker, an x-evangelical who discovered she'd been duped.

One thing you see 'round these parts of America are megachurches. You know, those giant buildings filled with pristine carpet and that always smell like new construction and chlorine. Driving south on the 35 from Kansas City into Oklahoma City, I'm always faced with what I lovingly refer to as the big-damn-cross, displaying the perfect marriage of Jesus and an one of the wealthiest cities in Oklahoma displaying their support of another excessively wealthy church.

According to Wicker, while these churches are flourishing under such wealth and power, their pews and/er stadium seats are increasingly empty.

"Even as evangelical forces trumpet their purported political and social victories, insiders are anguishing over their significant losses, fearing what the future holds. The idea that evangelicals represent and speak for Christianity in America is one of the greatest publicity scams in history, a perfect coup accomplished by savvy politicos and religious leaders, who understand media weaknesses and exploit them brilliantly."

Partnering Wicker's book with another reTHiNK: Decide for Yourself, Is Student Ministry Working? by Steve Wright. This gem appears on page 53

"Student ministry in many cases has become the local YMCA or teen amusement park; students check in and out, but mostly out. After all, once they have experienced years of fun-and-games, all-you-can-eat, no-responsibility, free-from-parents amusement, then we have helped train their appetites for pleasure to find more alluring fulfillment in the adult world."

It goes on to quote major studies into patters in youth participation via the evangelical church post-high school

• "A recent TIME Magazine article points to research that found 61 percent of the adults polled who are now in their twenties said they had participated in church activities as teens but not longer so. Some argue that young people typically drift from organized religion in early adulthood, but others say the high attrition is a sign that churches need to change the way they try to engage the next generation.
• A study from UCLA found that almost half of college students drift away from their Christian upbringing. While 52 percent of incoming students said that they regularly took part in church events, the number shrinks to 29 percent who are still involved in church activities by their junior year.
• Josh McDowell estimates, 'over 69 percent of youth are leaving traditional church after high school.'
• LifeWay Christian Research reports, 'The overwhelming majority of children from evangelical families are leaving the church as they enter adulthood.'
• Mark Matlock finds, 'Depending on whose numbers you use, 58 percent – 84 percent of graduating youth from church youth groups are not returning.'
• David Wheaton, author of University of Destruction, states that 'as many as 50 percent of Christian students say they have lost their faith after four years of college.'
• George Barna gives troubling news in his book, Real Teens: 'Now only 33 percent of churched youth say that the church will play a part in their lives when they leave home.'
• Glenn Schultz at LifeWay Christian Resources estimates that 75 percent of young people leave church in their late teens and aren’t reconnecting later.
• Student Venture reports that about 70 percent of seniors in high school who claimed faith, stop attending church during the college years.
• Ron Luce in Battle Cry for a Generation estimates '88 percent of kids raised in Christian homes do not continue to follow the Lord after they graduate from high school.'
• LifeWay Research found that 70 percent of young adults ages twenty-three to thirty stopped attending church regularly for at least a year between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two."

Holy plastic Jesus, Batman! This is a lot of flight. But wait... there's more... Witnessing Suburbia: Conservatives and Christian Youth Culture by Luhr Eileen will be released in February from UCal Press. (Read chapter 1 here) This book details the rise of the evangelical pop-culture movement in the United States.

"The disparity between a church-sponsored record burning for youth and a family-centered moral critique reveals the self-conscious "modernization" project undertaken by some conservative Christians in the late twentieth century. In both instances, music provided an entry point to debates about cultural reform. Both strategies demonstrate how conservative Christians linked youth culture and social problems and how they aggressively sought to reestablish "youth" as a category of innocence in need of adult protection during the late-twentieth-century culture wars. In both formulations of the reform agenda, culture, rather than socioeconomic structure, was the catalyst for change. . . .

. . .The era's "parents movement" intersected with what has become known as the culture wars. The political battles of the culture wars are well known, but many of these struggles also involved popular culture, especially since entertainment provided a ready example of the challenges posed to parental authority."

I won't go on, but chapter 4 is titled "An MTV Approach to Evangelism: The Cultural Politics of Suburban Revivalism."

If you're an ADD reader like I am, then going back and forth between the 3 books won't be a problem, but the curious mix they provide is an understanding of how evangelicals came to power, how they are losing power, and a faith based perspective on why the evangelical youth movement lost its power, authenticity, and credibility particularly among young people.

All interesting reads - hopefully I've detained you from your families long enough. Have a great holiday and a Happy New Year.

Faith in Public Life released a new study this week, The Young and the Faithful, measuring the political views of young voters of faith. As we've seen continuously throughout this cycle, these young, religious voters are much more favorable towards Obama than their elders, or previous young christians. They are more tolerant - particularly on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. And they are more likely to support multilateralist foreign policies and greater government involvement in solving the problems we face as a nation. The new FIPL report confirms these findings, and notes that it is primarily young Catholics and young voters who attend church just a few times per month who are driving these trends.

Here's a look at some of the key findings:

Monthly worship attenders swing to Obama in 2008. The greatest shift in candidate preference between 2004 and 2008 has occurred among voters who attend religious services once or twice a month, moving from 49% support for Kerry in 2004 to 60% support for Obama in 2008. McCain maintains a significant advantage among voters who attend more frequently, while Obama has a nearly identical advantage over McCain among those who attend once or twice a month or less often.

More Americans think Obama is friendly to religion than McCain. Forty-nine percent of Americans say Obama is friendly towards religion, while 45% say McCain is friendly towards religion. More than seven-in-ten (71%) say it is important for public officials to be comfortable talking about religious values.

Younger Catholics more strongly support Obama, abortion rights, and more active government than older Catholics. While older Catholics (age 35 and older) are split between the candidates (46% for McCain and 44% for Obama), among younger Catholics Obama leads McCain by 15 points (55% to 40%). Six-in-ten younger Catholics say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared to half of older Catholics. Younger Catholics are more pro-government than any other religious group, with two-thirds preferring bigger government with more services, compared to 41% support among older Catholics.

Younger white evangelicals strongly oppose abortion rights but are less conservative and more supportive of same-sex marriage than older evangelicals. Young white evangelicals are strongly opposed to abortion rights, with two-thirds saying abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. Yet, less than half (49%) of younger evangelicals identify as conservative, compared to nearly two-thirds (65%) of older evangelicals. Among young evangelicals, a majority favor either same-sex marriage (24%) or civil unions (28%), compared to a majority (61%) of older evangelicals who favor no legal recognition of gay couples’ relationships.

Younger white evangelicals are more pluralistic and more supportive of active government at home and of diplomacy abroad. While less than one-third (30%) of older evangelicals say a person can be moral without believing in God, 44% of younger evangelicals affirm this idea, a 14-point gap. A majority (56%) of younger evangelicals believe diplomacy rather than military strength is the best way to ensure peace, compared to only 44% of older white evangelicals. Younger white evangelicals are also more likely than older white evangelicals to favor a bigger government offering more services, by a margin of 21 points (44% and 23% respectively).

Support for same-sex marriage is significant among young religious Americans. Among young white mainline Protestants and Catholics, close to half (48% and 44% respectively) support same-sex marriage. Young white evangelicals are 2.5 times as likely as older evangelicals to say that gay couples should be allowed to marry (25% to 9%).

Addressing religious liberty concerns strongly increases support for same-sex marriage. When respondents were provided with an assurance that “no church or congregation would be required to perform marriages for gay couples,” support for same-sex marriage increased by 14 points in the general population and among younger adults.

Young adults prefer larger government that provides increased services. Nearly six-in-ten (57%) young adults say they prefer a larger government providing more services rather than a smaller government providing fewer services. Among Americans as a whole, less than half (45%) want bigger government. The generation gap is evident among every religious tradition. Two-thirds (67%) of younger Catholics say they prefer bigger government, and younger white evangelicals are 21 points more likely than older evangelicals to support larger government (44% to 23% respectively).

As an NPR story on the report so aptly concludes: "this is not the culture war generation."

Today is the big day. Hopefully the last day of the primary season. I'll have some overall thoughts up on the nomination process later today.

• Current TV tackles the Millennial generation and the coming political realignment:

• Why have anti-war protests proven so unsuccessful? David Sirota has some answers in The Protest Industry vs. The Players
• Kevin Bondelli follows up on his post here yesterday and outlines why Vote Pledges are important even in heavily Democratic districts.
• Banks are cutting down on loans and leaving community colleges and two-year college students out in the cold.
• A veteran runs the numbers and debunks McCain's fears about the Webb GI Bill.
• Wired runs a mini-profile of Josh Levy, formerly of Tech President but now an editor at Change.org. The story hits on the power of social networking to mobilize change, and Youth to Power merits a mention.
• The New York Times gets hip to the new face of evangelical community, and how young people are redefining the role of politics in their faith.
• Finally, episode one of This Brave Nation is live. In it, Carl Pope and Van Jones provide insight into the development of the progressive movement over the last half century and discuss how and why they became progressive activists. In particular, I found fascinating their discussion (2/3 through the video) about the role of culture in social change and why artists today seem less involved than in the 60s:

I finally finished reading UnChristian: What a New Generation Thinks About Christianity . . . And Why It matters. It was a difficult read. In the past I’ve reported on the exodus of young evangelicals away from Bush and the Republican Party, and the shift in focus of young evangelicals from culture war topics like abortion and gay marriage, and towards more community and social justice oriented work on issues of poverty and climate change. I picked up the book hoping for a glimpse into how young people are changing the church along these lines. These issues were only addressed tangentially in the book.

Instead, I got a full-throated defense of the most rigid interpretations of Evangelical Christianity and a market research-based attempt to rebrand Christianity among the general US populace, with a strong focus on capturing Millennials and Gen Xers (what the authors calls “mosaics” and “busters’).

In essence, the authors, after extensive quantitative and qualitative research, identify six negative qualities most commonly associated with Christianity. These are: that evangelicals are hypocrites who do not practice what they preach, they are only focused on a superficial “saving” of others souls rather than real connection, empathy and communication, they are anti-homosexual, they are sheltered and ignorant of the real world, they are too political, and they are judgmental. In most instances, the authors assume that evangelicals themselves must accept responsibility for these negative “perceptions,” which are due to their own failure to practice what they preach and live up to the teachings of Jesus. This failure is the meaning of the books title, UnChristian.

It was extremely disorienting, being in the head of someone holding religious and social views so at odds with my own, even more so in that I’m a Millennial and the research and tactics the authors discuss are designed to make their brand of Christianity more appealing to me. In particular, this manifested itself in two ways – or two tensions – that are present throughout the book

The first is between altering the general public’s perceptions of Christians and altering the lives of Christians themselves to more accurately reflect the values they preach and the teachings of Jesus. At times the authors seem to be arguing for a fundamental revolution in how Christians live the Word and use themselves as examples of what they preach. At other times they seem to be arguing for cosmetic or tactical changes - slicker PR to revitalize a dying brand.

The second tension is between that lived, altered, Christian life and the actual values of those they are trying to convert. In some ways, these are fundamentally at odds no matter how much those in the church change their own lifestyle. Gay marriage and homosexuality as a “lifestyle” are the two most prominent examples of this in the text. No matter how much young people’s values change, the Church’s don’t. The authors may argue for greater compassion and empathy for the GLBT community – essentially hate the sin, love the sinner – but at the end of the day the church and its practitioners are splitting hairs. The sinner and the sin are one and the same and the GLBT community, and its friends, peers, supporters in the younger generations don’t see any sin at all. Until the Church comes to that recognition, all their attempts at empathy really will be just so much PR.

Despite my fundamental disagreements with much of the author’s world view, the book is a wealth of demographic and opinion data, and contains a number of smart tactical ideas that could be applied to any persuasion campaign.

Among the findings:

Perceptions of Christianity among 18 – 29 year olds

Outsiders vs. Churchgoers on Homosexuality (% Who Believe the following to be a “major” problem in America)

Young Adults Are Concerned about Conservative Christians in Politics

Mosaics and Busters - More Skeptical that Churches are Loving Environments

Percent Who Agree that the Bible Should Determine the Laws Of Our Country

These numbers are extraordinary. And while the authors see them as a sign that Christianity is in trouble and needs a serious shot in the arm to revitalize itself, I see a chance - offered by Millennials and Gen Xers, or Mosaics and Busters as the author calls them - to move beyond the culture wars that have entangled our politics for so long. There is clear movement among the younger generations away from the christian conservative politics of the past.

By about 20 percentage points, young born-again Christians (21 – 44) are more accepting of cohabitation, sex outside of a marriage and a variety of other “cultural” issues. The evangelical movement seems to be fighting a losing battle. Look at the charts; more young people perceive Christian conservative activism to be a greater problem than GLBT activism. According to the authors, for every 100 young people who are not born-again by the time they are 18, only 6 will make the conversion later in their lifetime. Perhaps most significantly, the authors predict that an equal number of born-again Christians will vote for Democrats in 2008 as Republicans.

Ultimately, the authors and I fundamentally disagree on the meaning of these numbers. Where they see a problem to be solved, I see a trend in tolerance to be nurtured and encouraged. In one instance, though, we are united in our view. Where as they see it as incumbent upon believers to take the more tolerant, community oriented and diverse views of today's youth seriously in an attempt to engage them in a real conversation (that eventually leads back to the Church), I think that progressives must take the religious views of these more progressive churchgoers seriously and engage them in our own conversations. Their numbers may be shrinking but it is in their power to move the political activism of Christians in a direction that is more in line with progressive, social justice ideas. That's an encouraging thought and certainly a conversation worth having.

An op-ed by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post picks up on the shift in evangelical voters that Zack Exley has been following for months now.

Republicans should take note, because they have growing problems among the post-religious-right generation of evangelicals. An analysis by the Pew Research Center found that 55 percent of white evangelicals ages 18 to 29 identified themselves as Republican in 2001. By 2007, that figure had dropped to 40 percent. This generation is not turning into liberal Democrats -- it is more pro-life, for example, than an older generation of evangelicals -- but it has become more loosely moored to the GOP.

These trends highlight a simple fact: Many evangelicals are center-right voters who respond to a message of social justice and community values, not only to a message of rugged individualism and unrestricted markets. Over the years, religious conservatives have made common cause with movement conservatives within the Republican Party -- but they are not identical to movement conservatives.

That last paragraph is particularly important. We've let the media take away from the Left any claim to speak for religion or people of faith. It's gotten to the point where pollsters don't even ask Democratic voters whether or not they are evangelicals. But there are many intersections between the teachings of the Church and Democratic policies. Messaging around social justice issues and the common good is a strong way to create inroads and alliances with evangelicals - particularly young evangelicals - and work together to bring about positive change we all want to see on the environment, poverty, and a number of issues.

More on how evangelical youth are abandoning Republicans here.

Here's a video of Jim Wallis on the Daily Show talking about the demise of the Christian Right as a force in American Politics, and the emergence of an evangelical youth movement that is concerned with poverty and the environment over culture war issues: (h/t to Revolution in Jesusland)

• MTV and MySpace have announced that Barack Obama is the next candidate on tap in their Dialogue series. The Senator will appear live on MySpace and Think MTV on October 29th at 1:30pm. Supposedly all Republican and Democratic candidates will get their turn at the mic, though it's hard to see how that's possible at the current rate of production. Unless MTV and MySpace significantly speed things up, they won't get through more than three more candidates before both the Republican and Democratic nominees are selected.
• You may have heard that Stephen Colbert is running for President. Well here's his FaceBook Group. Help Stephen be the first candidate to actually achieve the "1 million strong" mark.
• Check out Vote Gopher, a comprehensive and slightly bizarro look at the Democratic and Republican candidates put together by students at Harvard.
• MySpace is mimicking FaceBook and opening up its platform to third party developers.
• Finally, Zack Exley recommends that we all read Everything Must Change, a book that is making the rounds and reframing the debate for young evangelicals.

Hat tip to Game Politics for alerting me to this New York Times piece about how churches are using Halo 3 to pull in young members:

Hundreds of churches use Halo games to connect with young people, said Lane Palmer, the youth ministry specialist at the Dare 2 Share Ministry, a nonprofit organization in Arvada, Colo., that helps churches on youth issues.

“It’s very pervasive,” Mr. Palmer said, more widespread on the coasts, less so in the South, where the Southern Baptist denomination takes a more cautious approach. The organization recently sent e-mail messages to 50,000 young people about how to share their faith using Halo 3. Among the tips: use the game’s themes as the basis for a discussion about good and evil.

At Sweetwater Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga., Austin Brown, 16, said, “We play Halo, take a break and have something to eat, and have a lesson,” explaining that the pastor tried to draw parallels “between God and the devil.”

Players of Halo 3 control the fate of Master Chief, a tough marine armed to the teeth who battles opponents with missiles, lasers, guns that fire spikes, energy blasters and other fantastical weapons. They can also play in teams, something the churches say allows communication and fellowship opportunities.

There are two things happening here. The first is that churches are understanding that they can be more effective if they are culturally relevant to the lives of their constituency. They're using that realization to forge social capital between youth in their community and to tie that social capital back to the church. That's smart community building.

The second thing happening is that church leaders who are also active in politics may outflank progressives on this issue:

Focus on the Family, a large evangelical organization, said it was trying to balance the game’s violent nature with its popularity and the fact that churches are using it anyway. “Internally, we’re still trying to figure out what is our official view on it,” said Lisa Anderson, a spokeswoman for the group.

Focus on the Family is an ultra conservative organization headed by James Dobson. Dobson is the public figure who attacked bloggers on the John Edwards campaign back in the spring, and who just recently was rattling his saber about withdrawing his support from the GOP if they nominated pro-choice Rudy Giuliani. Yet here his group may embrace cultural outreach tactics that are at the cutting edge for reaching out to young people. Meanwhile, the Democratic frontrunner is on record as a scold who crusades against video games and their influence on the culture. That's not smart.

Zack Exley is devoting the next year to living on the road and blogging about the Christian Right on his blog, Revolution in Jesusland. He's already digging up some very interesting data on christian and evangelical youth:

HOWEVER, one thing really stood out, and subtly became the main focus of the evening forum. Apparently, all the anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives and other anti-gay campaigning have really been ravaging the perception of Christianity among the general public, and even among young Christians. He showed one graph that showed favorability ratings over the past several decades for gays shooting up from low single digits to 33% today. (That might have been just among young people, I can’t remember.)

Meanwhile, right along with that, the favorability rating for “evangelicals” among the same group plummeted from high numbers to 3%! David didn’t argue for a direct correlation between those two numbers. But he talked about how today most young people know openly gay people, and they are having a hard time reconciling what their church says and their valued relationships.

He gave an anecdote from the research of one person who said he was sitting in church, with a gay friend who they had brought, and the pastor was preaching that “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

This topic requires a long, in-depth article, not a blog post. But you could hear a pin drop at moments last night, as the audience (a couple thousand strong) wrestled with the results. Shane and Rick gently danced around a different—more loving—way of relating to gays. But they weren’t arguing that homosexuality was Biblical. Looking around the audience, some people looked thrilled and enthusiastic about what Shane and Rick were saying. Others looked troubled.

Acceptance of GLBT rights is up around 60% among 18-24 year olds, and this appears to be a generational acceptance that is occurring on the left and right (though to be sure it is happening more on the left than the right). Judging by his blogging, Exley is witnessing the effects of that shift his travels. He doesn't go so far as to say that these people are supporters of gay rights, but something is clearly happening.

Regardless of the reasons, Exley's piece also hits on another important point. It appears that this is a shift that does not sit well with a huge chunk of the evangelical community. This is important because it is just one of a number of potential schisms within the community that have made their way into the news this past week. The other two involved the abandonment of Bush and the Republican Party by young evangelicals, and grumblings among the leaders of the Christian Right about the 2008 candidates. Support for the President has dropped over 40% in the last 4 years, and a 15% decline in support for the Republican Party in general over that time period among young voters, and unhappiness with the GOP among the leadership spilled over into the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times this week when James Dobson, head of Focus on Family, penned an editorial threatening Republicans with the loss of support from his organization if Rudy Giuliani, a pro-choice Republican, was nominated to the GOP ticket.

Dobson's piece is likely little more than saber-rattling. The Christian Right, like all GOP coalition members, is pragmatic. When faced with a choice between a Democrat or Republican, they know where their bread is buttered and they fall into line. But it is another indication that all is not well in Jesusland. What was once regarded as a rock solid base - morally and as an organizing force - is showing some cracks. If the right pressure is applied, might it be possible to chip away parts of this core constituency?