The Death of American Religion

If I were planning to destroy a country the first thing I would do is destroy its belief in its God.

As I once heard a minister who was no longer on a payroll that he could risk being cut from he stated, “There is a difference between the visible church and the invisible church”. It was a reference to Jesus’ comments regarding the wheat and the chaff.

[OP:] white evangelicals who supported Romney 79 to 21.

Apparently evangelicals didn't have a problem with Mitt's Mormonism as some predicted. I wonder, though, if non-religious moderates and independents may have been spooked by it.

It is misleading - It is derived from exit polling... It isn't the Evangelicals who voted that matter here (which would be tallied in an exit poll), It is the ones who didn't.

From what I’ve read, the overall evangelical turnout as a percentage of the electorate was an all time high in this election, and the percentage of them who voted for Romney was an all time high as well. It was the same percentage as Bush got in 2004 and better than McCain in 2008.

Two things:

First, statistics can be read to mean anything... it is all about the interpretation. For instance, Since most exit polls are conducted in big cities or suburbs of big cities, and folks that live there are more inclined to swallow a big government liberal like Romney, it is perhaps likely that even evangelicals living there are more susceptible to liberalism. But by and large, if one gets to small town America, Evangelicals are much the same as they have always been. And that is where Evangelicals are in great numbers. Don't measure the Bible Belt according to Kansas City.

In that same vein, it depends upon who exactly is calling themselves Evangelical - there is a big push from left leaning protestant churches to recapture the term (my own sister among them in her conversations with me). A person from liberal mainline protestantism can consider themselves 'evangelical' in the politically neutral case of the term, but Mainline Protestantism is *not* part of the Christian Right, and is more likely to inhabit those same big cities and their suburbs. I have no doubt whatsoever that Romney got big numbers among 'Prebyterian USA' members, and from other churches of that ilk... Depending upon the choices given at the exit poll, these could easily be lumped in with proper Evangelicals.

And lastly, I don't think Bush 2k4 is much of a bellwether wrt measuring the gross numbers possible out of the Christian Right - nor even Bush 2k... McCain certainly is no bellwether at all. What one can do is understand that around 2k4, The Christian Right (through Falwell's claims, I believe) was thought to be capable of an average of 30m votes, but could, at that time, swell to 60m votes if properly energized. Then add a reasonable number for growth, as Conservative Christians tend toward big families, and The Christian Right via churches is the fastest growing portion of the entire 'Christian' ball of wax (by far)...

Without allowing for that growth one can brag that 'Bush got more evangelicals than Reagan', but still be in a lower percentage of actual turnout v actual possible turnout. The same case is now being made for Romney, as it was for McCain.

For those reasons, I really don't believe the numbers presented. Romney didn't get the Chick-Fil-A folks to turnout.And while his Mormon religion is a pretty big strike against him in itself, it is his extremely liberal record wrt abortion and gay rights that did him in. I guarantee it. But far be it from the PTB to let that info out. The GOP has been moving left on those issues for almost a decade (and never really wanted to support the Right on them in the first place).

If the Christian Right turned out big for Romney, then that means they are buying into that leftward lean, and because of that, the GOP is free to lean ever leftward. I don't buy it. Not for one minute.