{"id":16,"date":"2010-05-24T13:15:48","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T13:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/lost-democrats-and-religious-pluralism.html"},"modified":"2010-05-24T13:15:48","modified_gmt":"2010-05-24T13:15:48","slug":"lost-democrats-and-religious-pluralism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/lost-democrats-and-religious-pluralism.html","title":{"rendered":"“Lost” Democrats and Religious Pluralism"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

With most of the online world buzzing about <\/span>Lost, another tale of loss caught my
\nattention in this morning’s Washington
\nPost.  It began by posing the
\nquestion:  “If 2008 was the year Democrats finally got religion,
\nwill 2010 be the year the party loses it again?”<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The story tracked Democratic successes with faith outreach
\nin 2005, 2006, and 2008 noting that President Obama received more votes from
\n“churchgoing voters” than any other presidential candidate in recent
\nelections.  However, in the current
\nelection cycle, the DNC’s “faith staff of more than a half-dozen has dwindled
\nto one part-time slot.”  No one is
\ntending the flock.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those quoted in the article cited no specific reason for the
\nchange, opting instead for general explanations of economic worries.  Although some will interpret to mean
\nthat the Democratic Party is fundamentally secular and that “faith-based”
\noutreach was always a sort of political window-dressing, I suspect that something
\nelse is happening.  That
\n“something” may well be an early indicator of a reordering of American religion
\nand politics.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2004, a political science study from East Carolina
\nUniversity found that voters could be divided into three categories based
\nsolely on their beliefs about the Bible. 
\nFundamentalists<\/i> believed that
\nthe Bible was God’s inerrant word; Moderates<\/i>
\nbelieved that although the Bible was God’s Word that it wasn’t to be taken
\nliterally; and biblical minimalists<\/i> believed
\nthat the Bible was a human document.  <\/span><\/p>\n

The researchers discovered that voters’ views of the Bible predicted
\ntheir opinions about every issue from abortion and gay marriage to the size of
\ngovernment and taxes. 
\nFundamentalists<\/i> aligned with Republican politics; <\/span>Biblical Minimalists
\naligned with the Democratic Party. 
\nThis led the lead researcher, Dr. Peter Francia to conclude, “It is not
\na culture war between red states and blue states, but rather a war between
\nFundamentalists and biblical minimalists within both the red and the blue
\nstates.”   The moderates,
\napparently, shift their alliances but tend to cluster in blue states.  The research further suggests that
\ndivision doesn’t come from elites in politics and the media who “may be
\nresponding to the polarization that exists with the electorate rather than the
\nother way around.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Francia’s analysis helps to explain why the Democrats are
\ndrawing back on faith outreach this year–they
\nare responding to a change within the electorate rather than ignoring religious
\ncommunities.<\/i>  The change is,
\nquite simply, stunning.  In the
\nlast decade, American attitudes toward religion, belief, attending church, and
\npracticing faith are markedly moving away from fundamentalism and conventional
\nreligions.  In every category,
\nAmericans are now less religious than any time in the fifty years with nearly
\nevery major denomination (including most conservative denominations) posting
\nnumerical declines.  Americans now
\nexpress lower confidence that God exists, that there is an actual heaven and
\nhell, and that the Bible is the inerrant word of God.  And, conversely, large numbers of Americans are migrating
\ntoward atheism, agnosticism, post-theism, non-western religions, and being
\n“spiritual-but-not-religious.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Using the East Carolina categories, it appears that many
\nModerates are now becoming biblical minimalists–that the territory of theological
\ncontention is shrinking and that more people are moving toward the classically
\nliberal position that the Bible is a largely human document, one that may be
\ninspiring or beautiful or meaningful, but is not the inerrant word of God.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, the growing “religious” edge of the Democratic Party
\nis not–and will not be–the traditional evangelicals whom they once hoped to
\nwoo.  Rather, the most significant
\ngrassroots pressure on Democratic candidates will come from those who hold
\nliberal views of scripture.  Some
\nof those people will, no doubt, be progressive churchgoers (and not a few will
\nbe progressive evangelicals) but others–and probably many others–will be in the
\ncategory of spiritual-but-not-religious and still others will be adherents of
\nnon-western religions, secular humanists, agnostics, and atheists. <\/span><\/p>\n

In short, the DNC has a very tough road ahead with faith
\noutreach.  To which faith should
\nyou be reaching?  Whose language do
\nyou speak?  How do you shape
\npolitical issues in a moral framework when there is so little shared ethical
\nvision? <\/span><\/p>\n

The Democrats may be less Lost<\/i> and more Star Trek<\/i>–having
\nto go where no political party has really gone before.  Their problem is not that they are
\na-religious; their problem is that they are so diverse when it comes to
\nreligion that there is no single faith or moral frame that encapsulates this
\nremarkable and unprecedented pluralism. 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Democrats might be tempted to ignore religion because the
\nissues are too hard–and too ripe with possibilities to split their own
\nparty.   That may well be
\ntheir tacit approach this year. 
\nBut those of us who care deeply about the moral dimensions of our common
\nlife, and who fear that only those who believe in an inerrant Christian
\nscripture will offer an ethical vision for America, that would be a
\ndisaster.  Part of the Democratic
\nimperative is to respond to this grassroots transformation of American life and
\nframe a truly inclusive vision of spirituality and public faith. <\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With most of the online world buzzing about Lost, another tale of loss caught my attention in this morning’s Washington Post.  It began by posing the question:  “If 2008 was the year Democrats finally got religion, will 2010 be the year the party loses it again?” The story tracked Democratic successes with faith outreach in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4,12,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-media-and-religion","category-news","category-religion-and-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n"Lost" Democrats and Religious Pluralism - Christianity for the Rest of Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/05\/lost-democrats-and-religious-pluralism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Lost" Democrats and Religious Pluralism - 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She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of seven books including A People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History of Christianity: the Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009) Her best-selling Christianity for the Rest of Us (2006) was named as one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly and Christian Century, won the Book of the Year Award from the Academy of Parish Clergy, and was featured in a cover story in USA TODAY. Diana regularly consults with religious organizations, leads conferences for religious leaders, and teaches and preaches in a variety of venues. She regularly comments on religion, politics, and culture in the media including USA TODAY, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, CNN, FOX, PBS, and NPR. From 1995-2000, she wrote a weekly column on American religion for the New York Times Syndicate. She has written widely in the religious press, including Sojourners, Christian Century, Clergy Journal, and Congregations. From 2002 to 2006, she was the Project Director of a national Lilly Endowment funded study of mainline Protestant vitality\u00e2\u20ac\u201da project featured in Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Diana also serves on the board of directors of the Beatitudes Society. Diana has taught at Westmont College, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Macalester College, Rhodes College, and the Virginia Theological Seminary. She has taught church history, American religious history, history of Christian thought, religion and politics, and congregational studies. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in downtown Washington, D.C.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/author\/dbbass"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}