Posted on 10/18/2014 1:06:39 PM PDT by NYer
Midterm elections are all about turning out base constituencies. Over the last few decades, there have been few more reliable voters for Republicans than white evangelical Protestants. This year, however, GOP candidates may be getting less help from this group—not because white evangelical Protestants are becoming less supportive or less motivated, but simply because they are declining as a proportion of the population, even in Southern states.
White evangelical Protestants have remained a steadfast Republican constituency in both presidential and midterm congressional elections ever since the Reagan presidency, which marked what political scientists Merle and Earl Black dubbed “the great white switch.” In 2008 and 2012, roughly three-quarters of white born-again Christians supported GOP nominees John McCain (73 percent) and Mitt Romney (78 percent). In the 2010 midterm election, similar numbers of white born-again Christians (77 percent) supported the GOP House candidate in their districts.
During the heady days of evangelical prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, white evangelical Protestant leaders frequently noted the decline of their more liberal mainline Protestant cousins, but now white evangelicals are seeing their own populations shrink. In recent years, for example, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical denomination in the country, has reported steady declines in membership and new baptisms. Since 2007, the number of white evangelical Protestants nationwide has slipped from 22 percent in 2007 to 18 percent today.
A look at generational differences demonstrates that this is only the beginnings of a major shift away from a robust white evangelical presence and influence in the country. While white evangelical Protestants constitute roughly three in 10 (29 percent) seniors (age 65 and older), they account for only one in 10 (10 percent) members of the Millennial generation (age 18-29).
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Statistics don’t lie, but liars use statistics.
That's the truth.
It's not surprising that leftists dishonestly dig for and then skew numbers that support their distorted worldview. Yet, they overlook the hard facts of the crime data showing the skyrocketing rate of black on white crime. Also ignored by the left are the irrefutable and well-researched numbers cited in the scholarly work of Herrnstein and Charles Murray in The Bell Curve.
“Many of the most liberal places in the country are seeing huge waves of gentrification and loss of African American population with not more than a ho-hum.”
Yes, but the African Americans you speak of are simply being displaced from the inner cities and out to the suburbs.
The article and the data presented is about Christians completely disappearing. They did not move, they have been eliminated.
You’ve nailed that one.
Take the whole homo marriage issue.. if it were a Dem governor facing a court ruling he didn’t like, he’d continue to fight the ruling tooth and nail.
GOP governor with a ruling he doesn’t like? He folds like a cheap deck of cards. It’s disheartening to the base, and sends a message.
America is under judgment. Even Billy Graham recently said America has now become like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Thanks. That is why in the very next post I said never mind.
Secularism has gripped western society and brought with it an insidious child ... relativism. In his homily to the 2005 conclave that would soon choose him as the successor of Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned those attending, “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”
“In recent years I find myself noting,” Cardinal Ratzinger said in his Without Roots, “how the more relativism becomes the generally accepted way of thinking, the more it tends toward intolerance. Political correctness … seeks to establish the domain of a single way of thinking and speaking. Its relativism creates the illusion that it has reached greater heights than the loftiest philosophical achievements of the past. It presents itself as the only way to think and speak — if, that is, one wishes to stay in fashion. … I think it is vital that we oppose this imposition of a new pseudo-enlightenment, which threatens freedom of thought as well as freedom of religion.”
That last point is key. While appearing to be the very essence of neutrality and equity — “all views are equal and equally valid” — it actually undermines both the freedom of thought and the freedom of religion. As to the latter, it does so (ironically) as a new religion itself, “a new ‘denomination’ that places restrictions on religious convictions and seeks to subordinate all religions to the super-dogma of relativism.”
The current situation with the Houston mayor demanding pastors to submit their sermons, is a good example. Consider, as well, that as government steps in to meet the "needs of the poor", beneficiaries soon substitute government for God since it provides immediate gratification. Hence the government effort to shut down the Little Sisters of the Poor via the HHS mandate.
Under secularism, there are no moral absolutes. Relativism prevails. As such, issues like abortion or gay marriage are decided by the secularist government since what is wrong by faith standards, no longer applies.
Pope Benedict XVI is still alive. His warning in 2005, however, was prophetic. We are witnessing this in our time.
Yep. Nothing to do with southern evangelicals really. They just held out a little longer against the rising tide of paganism.
The church I attend outside of Houston is very, very conservative with strong Bible base and teachings. Our attendance has increased almost five fold in the last year and there is a noticeable increase in Black couples and Hispanic families. Our weekly Bible study group last year was normally five or six who came every week, this year we have 18 and none of them have missed a gathering since we started up for the fall in mid-August.
Is this decline at least partially due to an influx of persons crossing our southern border?
yep
Good question.
We know that, for the most part, black ethnic solidarity trumps both evangelical and Catholic teachings.
No reason to think that the same isn’t true of Hispanic newcomers, a lot of whom are evangelical rather than Catholic.
For example, 83% of the population of Mexico is Catholic. What other countries are you thinking of whose citizens are entering in large numbers through our southern border?
Thanks, but that article doesn’t give any breakdown of what it terms “hispanics” or country of origin.
According to the article, the decline is due primarily to aging members who are dying off in these congregations. They are not being replaced.
Thanks, NYer.
Then I guess I didn’t understand your original question.
My limited experience is that illegals are more likely to be evangelicals than long-time Hispanic residents, who seem to have mostly remained Catholic. Nothing says what I’ve seen is the norm everywhere.
Makes sense.
Evangelicals are not immune from declining birth rates. Same thing is happen in mainstream Christianity and with Jews.
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