Is the religious left a thing? @PaulDjupe and I
bring a lot of data to the question.Clearly, the most active ideological group are the very liberal – and Trump has given them a raison d’etre.
But, just ~5% of Americans are religiously active liberals.
Small, but loud. https://t.co/33wbcmOclU pic.twitter.com/Je4mpFH2iE
— Ryan Burge 📊 (@ryanburge) January 8, 2020
If you know your religion-beat history, then you know this name — David Briggs, who is best known for his years with the Associated Press.
If you know your GetReligion history, then you know that — for 17 years — we have been saying that the “religious left” deserves more attention. This is specially true in terms of the doctrinal beliefs of people in these blue pews and how those beliefs help shape their politics.
It seems that, every four years or so — a telling interval — we see a few stories about a surge of activity on the religious left and how that will impact politicians opposed by the Religious Right. It’s like politics is the only reality, or something.
Thus, several readers noted this recent Briggs byline for the Association of Religion Data Archives: “The decline of the religious left in the age of Trump.”
Say what? Here’s the overture:
President Trump has had a powerful mobilizing effect on the liberal and secular left in U.S. politics.
But will religious liberals also play a significant role in getting out the vote for Democrat Joe Biden in November?
Almost immediately after the 2016 election, some commentators began heralding the likelihood that a revived religious left would emerge from what many liberals considered the ashes of Trump’s victory.
But such hopes may be based more on a wing and a prayer than solid evidence of any such new awakening. Rather, there are several signs indicating “a notable decline” in political activity among religious liberals.
New research analyzing data from sources such as the General Social Survey and the National Congregations Study finds that secular liberals, religious conservatives and even religious moderates are trending higher in voting percentages, but that religious liberals have fallen far behind.
I don’t want to reignite the: “is the religious left a thing?” argument.
But, nearly half of all liberals today identify as “nones.” Nones have clearly been a larger proportion of liberals since 2016.
Three quarters of conservatives are Christians – that’s consistent. pic.twitter.com/XNRxQlqzh1
— Ryan Burge 📊 (@ryanburge) May 23, 2020
The key to the article is a new study on this topic by sociologists Joseph Baker of East Tennessee State University and Gerardo Marti of Davidson College, published in the journal Sociology of Religion. Here is their bottom line: “Until demonstrated otherwise, the narrative of resurgence among the Religious Left is wishful thinking rather than empirical reality.”
The problem, in part, is that the concept of a surging religious left seems to be more popular in newsrooms than in actual sanctuary pews and, thus, in the public square.
There are a number of other issues, here summarized by Briggs:
* “A numbers problem.” The General Social Survey found that the proportion of people who consider themselves both politically liberal and moderately or very religious has declined 20 percent in the past two decades, falling from 15.1 percent of the population in 1998 to 11.9 percent in 2018.
* Signs of retreat. In the 2004 election, religious liberals were as likely as religious conservatives to self-report voting. In the bitterly contested 2016 election, the voting rates of religious liberals had fallen sharply, declining to the level of secular conservatives. All other groups, secular liberals, religious conservatives and secular and religious moderates, increased their voting rates in 2016.
* Less room at the political inn. While religious liberals dropped in overall numbers and voting in presidential elections, the percentage of nonreligious liberals in the U.S. jumped from 13.3 percent in 1998 to 17.8 percent in 2018. In the last three presidential elections, the secular left has been the most politically engaged group. Atheists and agnostics, who make up about half of the religiously unaffiliated, are particularly likely to identify as liberal and vote Democratic.
Here’s a decade in review for Religion & Politics.
Almost every religious tradition in the United States has become more Republican over the last decade – even mainline Protestants, Muslims, and Jews.
No group (besides Hindus) has moved meaningfully to the left. pic.twitter.com/D9SpOc7P65
— Ryan Burge 📊 (@ryanburge) December 31, 2019
You’re going to need to read all of the Briggs piece (think of it as prep work for Biden’s VP announcement).
Still here is one more chunk of the essay that starts with 2016 and then specifically looks at trends (and thus stories) in the 2020 White House race.
The reasons for the political free fall of religious liberal influence in 2016 could be the result of several factors, Baker and Marti indicate, from Hillary Clinton’s unusually low favorability rating to her campaign’s relative lack of effort to engage religious voters.
This time around, the more centrist Biden won the Democratic nomination in large part because he was seen as the best chance to beat Trump. But he faces significant pressure to move further left on issues such as abortion and religious freedom that concern many moderate and liberal religious Americans.
Bridging theological and political differences may be a special challenge for atheists and agnostics, who are more likely “to be against religion as a whole and sometimes anti-religious” in their rhetoric, Baker said.
All of this matters.
There is the big question, once again. How do Democrats reach out to people in pews at the same time as they please voters who are atheists-agnostics-nones?
Another question: Can Biden join elite newsroom pros and put “religious liberty” in scare quotes — a symbol of legal hostility to a basic First Amendment concept — while knowing that many of the nonprofit ministries who will be affected by that tactic are linked to African-American churches?
Yeah, that’s one of the myths that needs to just die.
Rank and file Mainline Protestants are right of center and have basically always been that way.https://t.co/hlV0LafD6q
— Ryan Burge 📊 (@ryanburge) February 22, 2020
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