June 2008 Archives

The few of us who argued over the years that Democrats would be wise to court evangelicals were usually told that such a strategy was a waste of time and resources. Those pro-life, anti-gay "fundamentalists" would never vote Democratic.

Barack Obama has taken a more enlightened view courting evangelicals with a vengeance.

Time to get specific: how many would-be Obamagelicals are there?

Let's start with the bad news for Obama. A recent Wall Street Journal poll had McCain winning 69% of evangelicals, Obama winning 21%, about as well as Bush did. The recent Pew Religious Landscape survey found that 52% describe themselves as conservative while only 11% describe themselves as liberal.

61% say abortion should be illegal all or most of the time versus 33% who say it should be legal, and more than twice as many say homosexualilty should be discouraged as said it should be "accepted."

That's a steep cliff for a pro-choice, liberal Democrat.

On the other hand, there's much on the Christian landscape to give Democrats hope. In addition to the 11% who call thesmelves liberal, an impressive 30% of evangelicals call themselves politically moderate. And, according to Pew:

• Only 29% of evangelicals believe the country is headed in the right direction.
• 57% said we should go deeper in debt to help the poor.
• 48% say they want bigger government (41% want smaller).
• 54% want stricter environmental laws.

So how many evangelicals are really in play? Is this a small sliver of Jim Wallis clones or a massive Great Awakening of would-be Obamagelicals?

First, a few points of historical comparison. John Kerry won 22% of white evangelicals, while Clinton in 1996 won 32%. If Kerry had merely hit Clinton levels, instead of getting 5.8 million white evangelical votes, he would have gotten 9 million, a pickup of more than 3 million votes, giving him a popular vote victory.

That Pew number -- the 41% of evangelicals who say they're moderate or liberal -- hints at an even bigger upside. If Kerry had gotten 41% of white evangelicals,* he would have pulled 11.5 million votes, an extra 5.7 million votes.

All of this is by way of saying that even if you assume that not a single conservative evangelical votes for Obama, he still stands to shift millions of votes into his column by working hard for evangelical support. He need not win over those who view Democrats as anti-Christian and pro-terrorist; he just needs to win those who dislike Bush, want bigger government and consider themselves moderate.

How hard can that be?

In my next post, I'll discuss what he needs to do to attract them.

*Wonky footnote: the Pew survey used a different methodology than the 2004 exit polls. Specifically, they talk about membership of evangelical churches, which may include some African Americans (though most were classified as being in historically black churches)

We often look at the religious landscape in binary terms - believers vs. nonbelievers, churchgoers vs. atheists, the "religious" vs. "secularists". It's time too add a new group: "pious but not religious."

For a while now, some pollsters have tracked an increasing number of people who call themselves "spiritual but not religious." We've found at Beliefnet, though, that the people who identified that way tended to be, well, just not all that religious or spiritual. It's a moniker for those who have rejected organized religion and have a relatively small connection to spirituality.

It's also long been known that many people believe in God (90-plus percent) but don't really engage in much spiritual practice beyond that.

But the recent Pew Religion Forum survey confirms what we've seen on Beliefnet for a long time: There's a huge group of people in the middle - they don't just believe in God, they take concrete steps on a regular basis - but don't go to church.

Consider this: 39% attend church weekly yet 75% pray at least weekly -- and 58% pray daily. About 19% of the population is very devout - but doesn't go regularly to church.

How do they feed their spiritual thirst? They have become their own spiritual general contractors, pulling information and nourishment from a variety of sources. The burgeoning spiritual book industry, the growth of religion on the internet, and religious radio have all made it possible for Americans to devour spiritual content without regularly attending worship services. An internal Beliefnet survey found that that 69% of people read articles about spirituality in the course of a week, 53% listened to spiritual music each week.

Many also belong to 'small groups', which often are not affiliated with houses of worship. Almost half of those on Beliefnet who belong to small groups say the informal spiritual gathers - prayer, discussion or book groups -- are not connected to a church.

Many of these folks are NOT picking a bit from one religion and a bit from another, or acting as casual dabblers. They often are firmly grounded in one particular faith tradition but draw wisdom from teachers and preachers directly via books, the internet, tapes and the radio. Some of them have had bad experiences with religion that turned them off while others simply don't have the time to attend.

Religious leaders have spent many hours mulling this and trying to come up with innovative services or activities to draw these folks in. They tend to view the large number of "unchurched" as a sign of defeat, and that's understandable. This might be seen as yet another sign of the over-individualization of religious practice, each person cherry-picking their favorite creeds to fit their personal fancies. Overly private spirituality also can deprive people of a sense of community - mentors, support structures and educational rigor - that a house of worship can provide.

It does indeed seem to mean less focus on theology and more on personal experience. 57% of evangelical Christians say many religions can lead to eternal life - a direct contradiction to one of the most important teachings of evangelical Christianity that salvation comes ONLY through Christ.

But there's also another, more positive way of looking at the rise of the pious-but-not-religious group. Americans believe that prayer works, and have concluded that they can have an active and meaningful spiritual life without weekly organizational support, if they focus on prayer. They do it because they find it to be an effective way of gaining strength and, often, gaining help from God: 49% of those who pray say they received "direct answers" to prayer in the course of the year. They find that when supplemented with readings, discussion, small groups and music, they can create a genuinely meaningful spiritual plan.

Prayer, not church, has become the center of the American spiritual experience for many Americans. We're only beginning to grapple with the implications of that.

Buried in the spectacularly deep new U.S. Religious Landscape Survey are some statistics of great interest to politicos, especially on the three big religion-and-politics questions of 2008.

The God Gap Is Gone -- In past elections the most religious voters clearly broke for the Republicans, and Democrats were increasingly seen as hostile to religion. Even now, among those who attend church weekly or more 43% identify as Republicans compared to 40% who call themselves Democrats, and it's still the case that the more religious you are, the more likely you are to prefer Republicans.

But by a variety of other measures Democrats have pulled even or ahead among the religious:

• Among those who pray at least daily, 44% call themselves Democrats, 40% favor Republicans.
• Catholics who attend mass weekly break 46%-35% for Democrats.
• Of the 10 religious groups Pew studied, only two - Mormons and Evangelicals - still have majority who identify as Republican.

Catholics Trending Democratic -- Catholics, the pivotal swing voting bloc that went for Bush in the last election, now clearly leans Democratic.

48% say they're Democrats compared to 33% who are Republican. Most amazingly, Democrats now have the edge among even the most religious Catholics - the weekly churchgoers and those who pray daily, who support the party by 48%-33%.

Just as important, on the big issues in the campaign, Catholics prefer the Democratic Party approaches:

• 51% of Catholics say they prefer bigger government, more services (compared to 46% among the population as a whole.).
• 63% say government should do more to help the poor even if it means "going deeper into debt" compared to 29% who say the government can't do much more.
• A stunning 55% of Catholics say "we should pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate on problems here at home," compared to 36% who said we should be active in world affairs.

On the big culture war issues, Catholics seem only marginally influenced by the Church's positions. While 50% of the population as a whole say homosexuality should be accepted, 58% of Catholics say it should be. A narrow majority (48%-45%) of Catholics believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

Part of the explanation: while most Catholics say they have strong views about right and wrong, a paltry 22% say they get their views about morality primarily from religion while 57% say it comes form "practical experience and common sense" - and only 9% of Catholics say religion is the major determinant of their political views.

The Potential Obamagelicals - I've been arguing for some time that evangelicals were "in play" for Democrats; this survey provides the sharp outlines of just how many of them are gettable and who these potential Obamagelicals are.

First, the good news for Republicans is that most still call themselves "conservative." Democrats could easily lose this opportunity. And recent polls show them still clearly preferring McCain.

The bad news for Republicans is that 30% now call themselves "moderate" and 11% say they're "liberal." So, if you want to know how many evangelicals are in play the answer is, give or take a few, 41% of them.

The reasons can be seen in the answers to some of the other questions in Pew's survey. While evangelicals are still more conservative on abortion and homosexuality - far more so than Catholics, for instance - they now swing to the left on a variety of major economic and foreign policy issues.

• Only 29% of evangelicals believe the country is headed in the right direction.
• 57% said we should go deeper in debt o to help the poor.
• 48% say they want bigger government, while 41% want smaller government.
• 54% want stricter environmental laws.

These polls didn't measure popularity of Obama or McCain, and in fact the surveys were conducted in May 8-August 13, 2007. (More juicy religion bits from the survey here). But it does show that in terms of the key three religion-and-politics questions, the Democrats have made up huge amounts of ground since 2004.

Reprinted from "Political Perceptions" the Wall Street Journal Online's center for political analysis.

My take on ABCNews on James Dobson's attack against Barack Obama.

For someone who is both a religion junkie and a numbers junkie, the fabulous new Pew Religious Landscape survey has left me a bit giddy. Every page tells an amazing story. Eventually, we'll parse this more thematically but for now I want to just tell you which stats I put exclamation points next to, and why.

The Spirituality of Atheists - 21% of Atheists believe in god. What this means is that Atheism has become a cultural designation, rather than a theological statement. Some are likely declaring themselves atheists as a statement of hostility to organized religion, rather than to God. This might help explain polls showing rising numbers of Atheists.

Gender Gap - The spiritual gender gap is enormous. 49% of men say religion is very important in their lives - while 63% of women did. This gender gap exists in all religions except Mormons but is most pronounced among Catholics.

Very vs. Somewhat Religious - We tend to think of religious differences as being between believers and non-believers. The more significant difference is around intensity - those who are certain and those ware less certain, those for whom religion is a major part of life and those for whom it's smaller part. For instance, 83% of Protestants and 87% of Catholics say religion is "very" or "somewhat" important in their lives. But break it down and a fascinating story emerges: 70% of Protestants say it's "very" important compared to 56% of Catholics.

Evangelicals Similar to Muslims - In many questions, the group most similar to evangelicals was Muslims. For instance, 79% of evangelicals say religion is very important in their lives. The compares to 56% for the population as a whole, 56% among Catholics, 31% among Jews - and 72% among Muslims.

Faithful but Not Religious - 71% are absolutely certain about their belief in God, 56% say religion is "very important in their lives" but 39% attend services weekly. What this means is that a huge chunk of the population strongly believe in God but don't attend weekly services, and about a quarter of those who say religion is very important don't attend services.

The Certainty Gap - About equal percentages of Protestants and Catholics say they believe in God. But while 90% of evangelicals say they're certain about God only 72% of Catholics do, and only 41% of Jews do. 99% of evangelical Protestants and 97% of Catholics say they believe in God in general - but 90% of evangelicals are "absolutely certain" about it while 72% of Catholics are.

The Heaven-Hell Gap - 74% of Americans believe in heaven but only 59% believe in Hell. So where do serial killers go when they die?

Prayer is the National Religious Practice -- While 39% attend services weekly 75% pray weekly. It is the dominant form of spiritual engagement. 31% say they receive 'definite and specific answers from God at least once a month."

Homosexuality - Most people disagree with the following statement: "Homosexuality is a way of life that should be discouraged by society." The exceptions (i.e. the folks who mostlyy do want to discourage homosexuality) are: Evangelicals, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslims.

Tolerance -- 70% of Americans say "many religions can lead to eternal life" and 68% that there "is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion." Most amazing, 57% of evangelicals say many religions can lead to eternal life. Given that one of the most important teachings of evangelical Christianity is that salvation comes ONLY through Christ, this finding ought to rattle Christian leaders.

The drumbeat for Jim Webb continues. Sunday's New York Times featured his photo as one of a prominent name mentioned as a potential vice presidential pick for Barack Obama. A story in the Wall Street Journal highlights the important role...

The excitement among Democrats about James Webb, the Senator from Virginia, is understandable. Having a Vietnam-war-hero-turned- Reagan-administration-official-turned-Iraq-War foe on the ticket would lend Barack Obama a stiff dose of military experience, not to mention manly toughness. But most speculation about...

Conventional wisdom holds that John McCain is struggling to win evangelical voters. Evangelical leader Mark DeMoss predicted last week that he'd run weaker than any Republican since 1976, and a front page New York Times piece detailed the evangelical malaise....

Dear Readers-- Due to a planned technical upgrade taking place on Wednesday June 11th, the Beliefnet Blogs will not display any new content, and commenting will be disabled. We aim to be back up and running by the end of...

Crunchy raises an excellent question in response to my earlier post. If that's true -- and it sounds plausible to me -- that does not make me feel any better about Obama's moral reasoning. How does one get around the...

As Barack Obama has begun focusing on the general election, he's clearly spent some time contemplating how to reach voters who fear he's a closeted lefty-black-radical. His resignation from Trinity United Church of Christ last week will help but Sen....

It was assumed last night that Obama must have been fuming over Hillary Clinton’s non-concession speech. This was, the pundits noted, the one night when the national audience was watching, and she chose to withhold support. I’m not so sure....

John Hagee's recent Hitler comments were entirely consistent with his theology and should not have come as any surprise to Jewish groups. Fulfilling Biblical prophecy has always been at the root of Mr. Hagee’s support of Israel. Many Jews...

How would Barack Obama deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? The first clue was in how he dealt with Hillary Clinton. No, I’m not equating Hillary with Holocaust-denying thugs but this is Obama’s first high profile negotiation with a tough adversary. How’d...