'God Gap' Shrinks
Friday, December 1, 2006
Barack Obama's appearance at Rick Warren's World Aids Day event at Saddleback Church today is a milestone -- not because of what it says about Obama and his desire to be the most Bible-quoting Democrat, but because of what it says about Warren and the blurring of traditional red-blue lines among religious Americans. Warren, the author of the multi-million selling Purpose Driven Life, took heat from his fellow evangelicals for inviting someone who supports abortion rights. Warren shot back: "We do not expect all participants in the summit discussion to agree with all of our evangelical beliefs. However, the HIV/AIDS pandemic cannot be fought by evangelicals alone. It will take the cooperation of all -- government, business, NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) and the church."
This dust-up occurs on the heels of the earlier news this week that the president-elect of the Christian Coalition, Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of a central Florida mega-church, resigned because of conflicts with the group's board over his efforts to focus the group more on environmental and anti-poverty issues. Obama's hometown paper gets the larger point just right: familiar alliances are changing, as are familiar voting patterns. Even church-going Americans are not single-issue voters.
"Large portions of the religious landscape are in motion," said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Exit polls and voting returns in the midterm elections last month showed Democrats narrowing the "God gap" with Republicans among Americans who attend church at least once a week--even though the increased support came mostly from Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant voters rather than evangelicals.
Frequent churchgoers still favored Republican over Democratic congressional candidates 55 percent to 43 percent, according to exit polls. But the 12-point difference is down considerably from a 19-point gap in 2004 and a 20-point gap in 2002.
Despite the media fixation with the "Religious Right," most American believers are moderates --and are willing to vote red or blue.
Labels: Bible in America
Posted by B Feiler at 12:26 PM
Permalink
Digg this Post
Email this Post
1 Comments:
Previous Posts
Search Feiler Faster
 |
 |
 |
Churchgoing or not the american electorate chose a less extreme agenda in the last election cycle