Religious disengagement and nationalism

[kmoney]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/breaking-faith/517785/
Breaking Faith
The culture war over religious morality has faded; in its place is something much worse.

Over the past decade, pollsters charted something remarkable: Americans—long known for their piety—were fleeing organized religion in increasing numbers. The vast majority still believed in God. But the share that rejected any religious affiliation was growing fast, rising from 6 percent in 1992 to 22 percent in 2014. Among Millennials, the figure was 35 percent.

Some observers predicted that this new secularism would ease cultural conflict, as the country settled into a near-consensus on issues such as gay marriage. After Barack Obama took office, a Center for American Progress report declared that “demographic change,” led by secular, tolerant young people, was “undermining the culture wars.” In 2015, the conservative writer David Brooks, noting Americans’ growing detachment from religious institutions, urged social conservatives to “put aside a culture war that has alienated large parts of three generations.”

That was naive. Secularism is indeed correlated with greater tolerance of gay marriage and pot legalization. But it’s also making America’s partisan clashes more brutal. And it has contributed to the rise of both Donald Trump and the so-called alt-right movement, whose members see themselves as proponents of white nationalism. As Americans have left organized religion, they haven’t stopped viewing politics as a struggle between “us” and “them.” Many have come to define us and them in even more primal and irreconcilable ways.

When pundits describe the Americans who sleep in on Sundays, they often conjure left-leaning hipsters. But religious attendance is down among Republicans, too. According to data assembled for me by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), the percentage of white Republicans with no religious affiliation has nearly tripled since 1990. This shift helped Trump win the GOP nomination. During the campaign, commentators had a hard time reconciling Trump’s apparent ignorance of Christianity and his history of pro-choice and pro-gay-rights statements with his support from evangelicals. But as Notre Dame’s Geoffrey Layman noted, “Trump does best among evangelicals with one key trait: They don’t really go to church.” A Pew Research Center poll last March found that Trump trailed Ted Cruz by 15 points among Republicans who attended religious services every week. But he led Cruz by a whopping 27 points among those who did not.

.....

Whatever the reason, when cultural conservatives disengage from organized religion, they tend to redraw the boundaries of identity, de-emphasizing morality and religion and emphasizing race and nation. Trump is both a beneficiary and a driver of that shift.

There was a lot of talk about Trump's support from Evangelicals but according to that polling it was primarily among those who weren't active in their churches. I don't remember hearing that before, but I'm glad to hear it.

Likewise, on the Democratic side Clinton had more support from church-goers and Bernie more from those who weren't.

I thought the article had some interesting info about the trends related to decreasing church attendance.

 

[Danoh]

What you find out there is...

1- A small group of small Conservative assemblies appalled by both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

2- You also find a larger group of Religious Right extremists who are appalled by Hilary Clinton for the very same reasons they then turn around and hypocritically support Donald Trump.

3- You then find a huge, huge majority of mega Church goers who basically amount to Liberal views.

4- And you find many more Religionists who barely ever set foot inside a church assembly but for certain occassions.

5- And then you find many people in society in general who have never set foot in church assembly; their lives having nothing to do with any of that.

The 1st of those groups often voices concern for the other four.

The 2nd of those groups is ever looking down its nose at these other four; ever declaring such "the enemy."

The third and fifth of those groups tends to shift between a bit too "live and let live" and a bit too intolerant, of one thing or another.

I mean, any freedom requires a wise boundary of some sort; one cannot just live by a live and let live in all instances.

The fourth group ends up either too much like the second group, or too much like the third.

As with those two groups; it depends on the particular issue on the table perceived by such as either a convenience and or an inconvenience at any given point and time.

The better part of wisdom among all five?

Well, it depends on where each person is looking at such things from.

And most people will tend to look at such things from one bias or another.

Very few people appear capable of looking at a thing as it is...

 

[quip]

Whatever the reason, when cultural conservatives disengage from organized religion, they tend to redraw the boundaries of identity, de-emphasizing morality and religion and emphasizing race and nation.

Well.... you have to maintain some form of disseverance from "them". lain:

 

[DavidK]

I found this article to be fascinating on several levels when I first read it. One of the things I've been watching for lately are the reports of a growing pagan movement among nationalists in the west.

Perception is always going to lag behind reality, though. Even as faithful Christians wake up and begin to distance themselves from the populist nationalist movement, it's going to be perceived as a "Christian" thing for some time.

 

[Lexington'96]

The world is changing quickly. In 2004 the greatest roadblock to secularism in America was white conservatives. In 2017 that's still the case but not nearly to the same extent. Increasingly the threat to a secular society will come from immigrants. The people who hate religion will unsurprisingly be drawn to anti-immigration movements in the future. This is already happening in the Netherlands.

 

[Angel4Truth]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/breaking-faith/517785/
Breaking Faith
The culture war over religious morality has faded; in its place is something much worse.



There was a lot of talk about Trump's support from Evangelicals but according to that polling it was primarily among those who weren't active in their churches. I don't remember hearing that before, but I'm glad to hear it.

Likewise, on the Democratic side Clinton had more support from church-goers and Bernie more from those who weren't.

I thought the article had some interesting info about the trends related to decreasing church attendance.

Those numbers only hold true for non evangelical Christianity - it on the other hand has grown.

In a dramatic shift, the American church is more evangelical than ever

Mainline protestant and catholic churches are those losing members.

In 2013, South Carolina evangelical megachurch NewSpring Church baptized more than 6,500 people while worship attendance grew by nearly 10,000 more than the year before. The same year the entire Episcopal Church in the United States produced only around 12,000 adult confirmations with an attendance drop of more than 27,400 from the previous year.

The stark figures of one church compared to an entire denomination suggest noteworthy trends and scope of the changing church in America.

While there is often an inordinate focus on those who leave Christianity and predict its demise, what do the actual numbers say? The latest study from Pew Research Center, released this week, and the General Social Survey, released just a month ago, reveals what I have termed the “evangelicalization” of American Christianity

The church in the United States is becoming more evangelical.....more at link

 

[kmoney]

Those numbers only hold true for non evangelical Christianity - it on the other hand has grown.

In a dramatic shift, the American church is more evangelical than ever

Mainline protestant and catholic churches are those losing members.

Ok, but I'm not immediately seeing the relevance to the opening post. Evangelicals are mentioned a couple times but I'm not sure the trend he's talking about is isolated to them. The primary idea is that losing a connection to church is tied with more nationalist views. I'd be surprised if it's not higher in evangelicals but the article doesn't have that kind of statistic.

 

[Angel4Truth]

Ok, but I'm not immediately seeing the relevance to the opening post. Evangelicals are mentioned a couple times but I'm not sure the trend he's talking about is isolated to them. The primary idea is that losing a connection to church is tied with more nationalist views. I'd be surprised if it's not higher in evangelicals but the article doesn't have that kind of statistic.

evangelicals, arent losing members, they are gaining them. Meaning so what if false teachers in Christianity aren't getting more people to follow the lack of truth, the truth is still out there and growing among those who have it.

Is it a surprise to you that the world is getting more worldly? And those who reject the truth, leaving it behind?

Luke 18:7 Will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry out to Him day and night? Will He continue to defer their help? 8 I tell you, He will promptly carry out justice on their behalf. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” 9 To some who trusted in their own righteousness and viewed others with contempt, He also told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.…11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like the other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all that I receive.’13 But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ 14I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Workers often leave the church when they find that they cant work hard enough - since they never got that it never had anything to do with their work, but Christs. They dont want to turn to God, they want to be the god. They think they are more moral than God, rather than a sinner who needs a Savior.

Why do you need a church, when you can work hard enough to save yourself? Each man makes his own morality these days. Only the church with the truth is the one that is not losing members.

Jude 1:4
For certain men have crept in among you unnoticed--ungodly ones who were designated long ago for condemnation. They turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

 

[Ktoyou]

This would almost be intuitively logical. Any true Christian would have some egalitarian concern, which might be absent in some for right-wing thought such as white supremacists of today.

The old cultural conservative, to the KKK at least thought they had a bond with Christianity, not so for some who are supremacists followers of total selfishness for its own sake,

 

[Ktoyou]

evangelicals, arent losing members, they are gaining them. Meaning so what if false teachers in Christianity aren't getting more people to follow the lack of truth, the truth is still out there and growing among those who have it.

Is it a surprise to you that the world is getting more worldly? And those who reject the truth, leaving it behind?

This is true, yet "Sunday Christians" and mainstream protestants, who made up the majority of church-goers in the 1960s have today, their descendants given up religion, and those who haven't, have become more evangelical.