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The Neo-Blanshardites vs. the Evangelicals
First Things ^ | July 16, 2007 | Robert P. George

Posted on 07/17/2007 10:50:08 AM PDT by NYer

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To: netmilsmom

I know, I know, I just like to antagonize people like our good Jibaholic here. Not very Christian of me, I admit. I am of course very grateful for the support given to the Catholic Church by the Evangelical community against the anti-Catholicism of Professor Stone and the MSM.


61 posted on 07/17/2007 12:54:20 PM PDT by Namyak (Oderint dum metuant)
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To: conservonator
Is that your attempt to admit that you were incorrect in your assertion that the NE is the only part of the country that is Catholic?

Yes - but the fuller picture only supports my thesis more powerfully. More generally blue states are Catholic, with the possible exception of the Lutheran midwestern states. But those are pretty heavily Catholic as well.

There is also some other good stuff in there. Colorado is a red state, but Catholicism is the majority denomination. And Colorado is rapidly becoming a blue state.

62 posted on 07/17/2007 12:56:21 PM PDT by Jibaholic (http://www.gentlerespect.com)
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To: Iowegian; Jibaholic
Bush vote by county 2000 election

Lot's of other than Other than Catholics pulled the lever for Gore in 2000, including lots of "Baptists", at least judging from the maps...

63 posted on 07/17/2007 12:58:26 PM PDT by conservonator (quest)
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To: Huber

Once again, that is a very generalized statement. If you take out the black population from the quotient, then the numbers of the Baptists and the Methodists (more so the Baptists) take a stark drop

The Baptist Church is generally weak along the gulf coastal areas because the white communities in those areas have a strong Catholic tradition, and as such, the Baptists have a much blacker tone then they would in inland areas, this applies especially to the Katrina states.


64 posted on 07/17/2007 1:00:18 PM PDT by AzaleaCity5691
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To: Aquinasfan
And the Bible calls Christ's Church "the pillar and foundation of truth." So how can there be thousands of "pillars of truth" espousing contradictory doctrines? As far as I know, there isn't a single doctrine that all non-Catholic Christians agree on, including sola scriptura, except that they all reject the papacy.

Christians can disagree with each other and still be Christians. I disagree with Catholics about Peter's primacy, but Catholics are still Christians. As Paul put it: "Here there is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (going from memory there, may have a word or two wrong).

That is the church: the body of Christ.

The Great Commission includes baptism and instruction in the faith which was handed on to the Apostles.

I disagree that Peter is leader of the apostles. I do not disagree that the apostles were the leaders of the early church. But somewhere along the way the apostolic era ended, probably about the time the canon of scripture closed, which is around 100 AD (if you are a conservative Christian, later if you are liberal). Right now there are probably a dozen different denominations ranging from Greek orthodox to Anglican to Assyrian and Catholic that claim unbroken apostolic succession, but they all disagree.

65 posted on 07/17/2007 1:02:14 PM PDT by Jibaholic (http://www.gentlerespect.com)
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To: Jibaholic
Your thesis is based on a bias born of ignorance, orthodox Catholics are, by the very nature of the faith, conservative. A Baptist who drinks a six-pack a day is about as much of a Baptist as a Catholic who votes for Ted Kennedy.
66 posted on 07/17/2007 1:03:20 PM PDT by conservonator (quest)
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To: franky1
There's sin, and then there's sin. Everybody picks his or her own sin. But you know that.

It's called "cafeteria religion".

Still, what's wrong with a church dinner ~ with or without the divorcees. Remember, the bingo game is going on in the basement ~ the divorced folks are already divorced, and many of them are RCs.

67 posted on 07/17/2007 1:06:09 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Iowegian
Yes, that proves that the higher the rate of RC’s in the population, the more liberal the electorate.

In the same sense that it proves that the higher the rate of Baptists there are in the general population the less money the population makes, the more divorces they have, the less likely they are to graduate from college, and all the other nasty, bigoted and unfair things people say about the South.

Those kind of statistical correlations are ridiculous.

Fact: In the 2004 election, if one was a Catholic who attended Mass every Sunday, one was more likely to vote GOP than not.

Bush had millions of voters in the Northeast - including millions of practicing Catholic voters. In my parish in NJ there were 20 Bush bumperstickers for every Kerry sticker in the parking lot.

68 posted on 07/17/2007 1:06:10 PM PDT by wideawake
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To: wideawake; conservonator

If you are saying that the numbers of true RC’s are highly inflated by the church, then I would agree with you.

That’s what both of you seem to be saying, but I’m guessing won’t ever admit.


69 posted on 07/17/2007 1:13:03 PM PDT by Iowegian
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To: Namyak

Thank you!


70 posted on 07/17/2007 1:13:29 PM PDT by netmilsmom (To attack one section of Christianity in this day and age, is to waste time.)
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To: Iowegian
If you are saying that the numbers of true RC’s are highly inflated by the church, then I would agree with you.

No denomination or congregation can keep accurate records of how many people believe what in their hearts.

Every Christian group's "true" adherents are a list that is much smaller than what official records indicate.

As my pastor says: "I baptized 150 children who live in this parish this year. I see maybe 100 of them each Sunday."

71 posted on 07/17/2007 1:18:38 PM PDT by wideawake
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To: Iowegian

Both pols are based on “self identified” respondents, not church records. At what point does antipathy become an impairment to reason?


72 posted on 07/17/2007 1:21:41 PM PDT by conservonator (quest)
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To: wideawake

Yes, but attendance will give a pretty accurate indicator. I would like to see a map of church attendance weekly by denomination. I have a suspicion it would be much different and less RC.


73 posted on 07/17/2007 1:23:48 PM PDT by Iowegian
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To: NYer

No one wanted that abominable law replealed more than evangelicals. I thank God for those Catholic justices.


74 posted on 07/17/2007 1:25:11 PM PDT by DesScorp
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To: netmilsmom
This Nazarene is happy to stand with our Catholic brothers regarding the welfare of the unborn.

Catholic teaching has it right regarding the broad range of "right-to-life" topics, including birth control BTW...but thats for another thread. ;)

75 posted on 07/17/2007 1:33:55 PM PDT by BureaucratusMaximus (Our national sovereignty and cohesion as a country is not for sale at any price.)
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To: Iowegian

Generalizing. That’s wonderful.

Now, to shoot the holes in your theory. In Utah, it is true, 70% of the population statewide is Mormon, but there are some caveats to that. For starters, Mormons no longer constitute a majority in Salt Lake City, and there are certain other areas of Utah where they are no longer the majority.

I love how you labeled the South as Baptist, never mind the fact that the plurality religions in Texas, Florida and Louisiana is all Catholic, and never mind the fact that West Virginia has a Methodist plurality, and never mind the fact that there are individual pockets within the states.

In general, it is a trueism to say that, among whites, for all points in the south that are general below 31* N, the plurality religion is Catholicism, and in general, the culture in these areas has a very strong Catholic influence, and you’ll also find that usually, half of your evangelicals in these areas tend to be black, and by definition, blacks have never been part of the Evangelical Right coalition

However, you’ll find that, politically, these counties/parishes with Catholic/high church pluralities among their white populations are just as politically conservative as the people who reside to the north of them in the Bible Belt. Case in point, in 1976, Jimmy Carter lost many of these counties to Gerald Ford, even as the white Evangelicals opted for their native Baptist son.

And we’ll go to other Southern locales where the Baptists are weak, for example, Savannah, which actually has a sizeable Irish Cathollc population, its actually home to one of the nation’s largest St. Patrick’s Day parades, or Charleston, which, from everything I can tell, is still primarily run by the same Episcopalians that founded it.

Once again, before you go making broad generalizations, please carefully consider what you are arguing.


76 posted on 07/17/2007 1:37:35 PM PDT by AzaleaCity5691
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To: AzaleaCity5691

I think you are only fooling yourself. Even in the South the RC areas go more to Dems.


77 posted on 07/17/2007 1:48:50 PM PDT by Iowegian
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To: Jibaholic
New England is filled with a bunch of liberal Catholics (or completely lapsed Catholics)

There are a good number of Catholics in New England. More, for sure, than there are in MS, but there are as many Protestants here as Catholics, and they, for the most part, are just as liberal as some Catholics. Catholics in the Northeast tend to be more liberal, probably because of the influence of the Democrat party in this area of the country. Not all are pro-abortion, even though they continue to vote for pro-abortion candidates to the House and Senate, again, probably because of their Democrat heritage.

78 posted on 07/17/2007 1:50:57 PM PDT by SuziQ
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To: Iowegian

Ok, I’ll take you up on your challenge, you claim that in the South the more Catholic counties tend to go to Democrats. Alright, fine.

I will refer to the 5 coastal counties of Mississippi, and Alabama, as well as the county Beaumont, Texas is in, to show you what I am saying. The reason I chose Beaumont is because we know the white population there actually has a Catholic majority, because most of them descend from Cajun emigres who took jobs when they developed the oil fields.

Mississippi:
Hancock County: 90% White, 10% Black
Harrison County: 73% White, 21% Black
Jackson County: 75% White, 20% Black

Alabama:
Mobile County: 62% White, 33% Black
Baldwin County: 87% White, 10% Black

Texas:
Jefferson County: 52% Non-Hispanic White, 34% Black, 10% Hispanic. Note, this number is an approximation, because Hispanics will often declare themselves as white on the racial category, and when I say white for the purposes of this, I mean non-Hispanic white.

Now, how each county voted in the 2004 Presidential Election:

We’ll start off with Texas, specifically, the county that Cajun Beaumont is located in, one last thing, it is also the most heavily unionized area of Texas.

Jefferson County, TX: Kerry 51%, Bush 48%.
Hancock County, MS: Bush 70%, Kerry 28%
Harrison County, MS: Bush 62%, Kerry 38%
Jackson County, MS: Bush 68%, Kerry 30%

Before we go to the AL counties, a few things. First, Hancock County has an absolute Catholic pluarlity, that is to say, the white population is sufficiently Catholic so that Catholics are the largest religious group in the county.

Now, for the final two:
Mobile County, AL: Bush 58%, Kerry 40%
Baldwin County, AL: Bush 76%, Kerry 20%

Now, I want you to compare those numbers, against the racial numbers, and see if you notice a pattern, for example, counties with higher numbers of minorities posting stronger votes for the Democratic candidate. If you really want to get technical, you can actually look at a few of these counties by precinct, and seperate heavily Catholic precincts from more Evangelical precincts, you can also segregate them out by income level. And in all counties, the Catholic precincts went roughly the same as the Evangelical precincts for President.

By the same token, Kerry counted Macon County, AL, a heavily Baptist county with 86% of the vote. Macon County is roughly 85% black, and it’s where Tuskegee Institute is located.

So, you were saying?


79 posted on 07/17/2007 2:16:12 PM PDT by AzaleaCity5691
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To: wideawake
>Shows how the only friends of orthodox Catholics in America today are the Evangelicals who are caricatured as "redneck Bible-thumpers" by the MSM
>>That's a few steps up from how Catholics often describe Born Agains!
>>>The more prayerful the Catholic, the less likely he is to describe Bible-only Christians that way

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"... You will also find mentally-deranged pseudofundamentalists like Jack Chick and Dave Hunt postulating another form of "hidden history" in which these same groups are forerunners of modern-day Reformed sects.

107 posted on 07/06/2007 10:01:03 AM CDT by wideawake

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80 posted on 07/17/2007 2:17:26 PM PDT by theFIRMbss
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