"But without church-based networks, they're significantly more expensive for campaigns to reach and mobilize," Axios reported, adding that campaigns have turned to digital ads, canvassing and speaking with these voters to try and contact them."Now, I grew up in a church (Presbyterian). I pastored churches (UCC). The latter was a bit more overtly political at the national, if not local, level. But there was never a “church based network” used and accessed by political parties. Even in the early 21st century, when I was a pastor, the idea would have been anathema among my congregations. We could barely talk about religion, except in the most vague generalities. We certainly couldn’t talk politics.
Axios, here, is talking about evangelical churches. And implicitly (if not explicitly) taking them as normative of American Christianity. Which is pretty much what political reporting has been doing since the ‘80’s. Despite the public attention TeeVee preachers have garnered since their Golden Age 40 years ago, they still aren’t the sum total of American religious life.
And the “nones,” now reported by Axios to be 29% of Americans, still aren’t at a record level of the population (even though Axios says they are). That would be 59%, in 1906. I’m not sure it wouldn’t have been higher in some periods of the 18th or 19th centuries, had we had the information gathering facilities at the time.
By the way: nones were reportedly at 23% in 2019. It was supposedly a big deal then, too.
Same as it ever was.
Considering the last time I looked at the "nones" and the percentage of the "atheists and agnostics" among them reported believing in a "higher power" and how much of it is just . . . whatever . . . they should more accurately be called the "etcs". Maybe I should look into them again so I can point out that the concept was invented by an ideological atheist who was on the CSI speakers roster, hardly someone without an ideological agenda while practicing "science."
ReplyDeleteYeah, not being “affiliated”
Deletewith a denomination/congregation doesn’t really mean anything. Many a Protestant congregation closes its doors with hundreds of members on the records, most of whom haven’t darkened the doors in decades. I understood from lapsed Catholics in seminary (seeking Protestant ordination) that they were considered Catholics for life; though they weren’t. The whole matter is fraught with bad data and misunderstanding. I really don’t think the “nones” category means anything. It’s no more useful than grouping people in boomers and Gen X, etc. Might as well group people by zodiacal sign, Western or “Chinese.”