America’s - and the GOP's - Christian Hypocrisy

A piece in Salon looks at an issue that this blog looks at frequently: the hypocrisy of this country's conservative Christians and their puppets in the GOP.  As the sub-headline of the piece notes "The Bible preaches tolerance and liberal economics. So why do its proponents embrace right-wing politics?"  The positive news is that more and more of the so-called millennials are apparently waking up to this reality an walking away from institutional religion all together according to a new report by the Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs.  The denomination suffering the biggest losses?  The Roman Catholic Church - even among Hispanics.  The U. S. Bishops and the porcine Timothy Dolan may like to claim that all is well in Catholicism, but the numbers of millennials fleeing the Church tells a very different story.  As for the cause of the exodus, I would argue that much is the handiwork of far right Christians and the professional Christian set who are slowly but steadily killing the Christian brand.  Here are highlights from Salon:

As the Pew Research Center recently discovered, “Most people who agree with the religious right also support the Tea Party” and its ultra-conservative economic agenda. Summing up the situation, scholar Gregory Paul wrote in the Washington Post that many religious Christians in America simply ignore the Word and “proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated union busting, minimal taxes, especially for wealthy investors, and plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations.”

The good news is that this may be starting to change. In recent years, for instance, Pew has found that younger evangelicals are less devoutly committed to the Republican Party and its Tea Party-inspired agenda than older evangelicals. 

The better news, of course, is that the far right is not only losing allegiance to its hate and hypocrisy filled agenda with millennials, but it's losing more and more of this generation completely.  In terms of LGBT issues and immigration, here are some findings from the report of the Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs:

• Nearly 6-in-10 college age millenials favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally. 
• 8-in-10 college millenials attending a private college or university support same sex marriage.
• Almost two-thirds of millennials say that "anti-gay" describes present day Christianity.
• 6-in-10 say that present day Christianity is judgmental.
• 58% agree that "hypocritical" describes present day Christianity.
• Milleninials across all major religious groups favor the DREAM ACT.

Obviously not good news for the GOP long term.

The Correlation Between Religious Belief and Science Illiteracy

I have long contended that the Christian Right - and now by extension, the Republican Party - embraces ignorance in a rear guard effort to protect their house of cards religious beliefs from collapsing in the face of hard, objective evidence that the Bible is anything but inerrant. And this willingness to embrace ignorance is often pretty shocking. It also carries over into areas beyond just a simple denial of the theory of evolution - and more recently a denial that Adam and Eve in fact never existed as described in Genesis. Via Civil Commotion, I came across an article on Why Evolution is True that looks at studies that confirm what many of us have long thought. The figures are frightening and one cannot be help wonder how America is going to remain competitive in the world when large segments of the American population are actively making the decision to remain ignorant. Here are some article highlights:

there’s this, from an analysis by David Masci at the Pew Forum in 2007:

When asked what they would do if scientists were to disprove a particular religious belief, nearly two-thirds (64%) of people say they would continue to hold to what their religion teaches rather than accept the contrary scientific finding, according to the results of an October 2006 Time magazine poll.

It also seems obvious that religion impedes acceptance of not just evolution, but science in general—at least that brand of science, like stem-cell research or work on global warming—that threatens religious views. That conclusion has just been buttressed by a new paper by Darren E. Sherkat in Social Science Quarterly, “Religion and scientific literacy in the United States.” Sherkat’s analysis plainly shows that even excluding issues of evolution, religion in America plays a substantial role in reducing science literacy.

[T]he 2006 General Social Survey (GSS) collected by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) here at the University of Chicago, a survey of 4,510 randomly chosen Americans who were asked questions about their race, income, immigrant status, geographic region of residence, gender, urban or rural home, and so on. . . . The GSS also surveyed people about their religious identification and how they interpreted the Bible.

The results, especially for the effect of religion, were striking:

■ The percentage of correct answers on the science exam was strongly (and statistically significantly) affected by religious beliefs. Those who take the Bible as the literal word of God scored 54% correct, those who see the Bible as “inspired by God” got 68% correct, and those who see the Bible as a “book of fables” got 75% correct. This classification explained 13% of the total variation in science literacy.

■ Dividing up people by religious identification rather than by how they regarded the Bible, we also see strong effects on science scores. Sectarian Protestants scored 55% correct, Catholics 65%, “other Protestants” and non-Christians 68%, and nonbelievers (yay!) 72%.

Fundamentalists are less science literate than those who see the Bible as inspired by God, who in turn are less science literate than those who see the Bible as a book of fables.

Sherkat concludes that: The gap between sectarians and fundamentalists and other Americans is quite substantial. Indeed, only education is a stronger predictor of scientific proficiency than are religious factors. . . .Scientific literacy is low in the United States relative to other developed nations, and this research suggests that religious factors play a substantial role in creating these deficits.

Sherkat also found that Catholicism is a significant factor reducing science literacy . . .

It would seem that rather than worry about immigrants threatening America's future (at least in the minds of the "godly Christians"), the Christianist ought to take a good look in the mirror and grasp that they are one of the biggest threats to America's future prosperity and place in the world.

Atheists Launch a "Coming Out" Campaign

A story in the Washington Post looks at a new movement by atheists to band together and have their own "coming out" campaign. Needless to say, the professional Christian set and the Christianist crowd will be hyperventilating and the spittle will be flying -these merchants of hatred and discrimination will be furious that other citizens are exercising their constitutional right to embrace no religion. The irony is that the campaign is modeled on the gay rights coming out model, another movement subjected to constant condemnation, vilification, and untruths by the professional Christians. One of the best argument around nowadays for being an atheist is the "godly Christian" crowd who set a standard of what not to be. Add to that the scientific evidence that the existence of Adam and Eve is a mere fairy tale - as is "The Fall" and you're well on your way to atheism. I don't view myself as an atheist - I believe that there is a creator or higher power, just not as described in the Old Testament. But I digress. Here are highlights from the Post story:

The young man in the video pulls in close to his computer camera with the trappings of a typical college dorm room — a loft bed and the clutter of cast-off clothes — piled behind him. Alex Fiorentini isn’t talking about girls, beer or football. Instead, it’s a coming-out moment of sorts.

“Is it acceptable to the majority of the population to be an atheist?” he asks the camera. “Nope. Are all of your friends going to accept you as an atheist? Probably not all of them. And yeah, those things are gonna suck. But the real question is, ‘Is it OK to be me?’ That is the real question if you are an atheist.”

For Fiorentini, a student at the University of Illinois, the answer is yes. He and scores of other atheists, young and old, have made similar videos for a new campaign designed to build community and support among nontheists around the world.

Brown, who had founded a gay-straight club in her high school, patterned We Are Atheism on the gay community’s “It Gets Better” video project, launched in 2010 after a string of suicides by bullied gay teens. It Gets Better features self-made videos by gay, lesbian, transgendered and bisexual people who share their coming-out experiences and offer encouragement to those who remain closeted. “The whole point of the website is to let younger atheists know you will face persecution,” Brown said. “But through us knowing each other we can all help.”

Brown’s project also piggybacks on the gay community’s experience that familiarity breeds acceptance: Knowing actual gay people tends to break down homophobia, ignorance and prejudice.

“If the polls are correct, there are literally millions of nonbelievers in America,” said Richard Haynes, president of Atheist Nexus. “However, many atheists feel all alone. This is the primary reason we must come out of the closet. Coming out is the only way to change the public perception of nontheism.”

As noted on this blog before, surveys continue to show that atheists (and Muslims) are actually in many ways more moral in their conduct and treatment of others than conservative Christians.

New Report: Young People Leaving Church for Science

As reported by Religion Dispatches, a new Barna Group report discloses more bad news for the generally hate filled, self-enriching professional Christian class: young people are increasingly exiting their churches because of the anti-intellectualism and anti-science that is so pervasive amongst the self-congratulatory pious ones. The display of rank bigotry and intolerance that permeated the "Values Voter Summit" will no doubt help fuel the already negative view of religion in the minds of even more young people. Not that in many ways might not be a good thing - hatred of others, bigotry and the utter lack of compassion which are the main attributes of conservative Christianity are not positive influences in the world. Here are some highlights from the new report:

The group’s findings are summarized in six bullet points, including: overprotective churches, shallow theology, and hostility to doubt. All quite predictable. Nothing to see here. I read on.

And there it was: “Churches come across as antagonistic toward science.”

Accompanying this, are these sub-points with which a substantial number of interviewees agreed:
•“Christians are too confident they know all the answers”;
•“churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in”;
•“Christianity is anti-science”; and
•“[I am] turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate.”

The study report which can be found here goes on to further detail the growing disconnect between churches - especially conservative ones - from today's young people:

The research project was comprised of eight national studies, including interviews with teenagers, young adults, parents, youth pastors, and senior pastors. The study of young adults focused on those who were regular churchgoers Christian church during their teen years and explored their reasons for disconnection from church life after age 15.

No single reason dominated the break-up between church and young adults. Instead, a variety of reasons emerged. Overall, the research uncovered six significant themes why nearly three out of every five young Christians (59%) disconnect either permanently or for an extended period of time from church life after age 15.

[M]uch of their experience of Christianity feels stifling, fear-based and risk-averse. One-quarter of 18- to 29-year-olds said “Christians demonize everything outside of the church” (23% indicated this “completely” or “mostly” describes their experience).

One of the reasons young adults feel disconnected from church or from faith is the tension they feel between Christianity and science. The most common of the perceptions in this arena is “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” (35%). Three out of ten young adults with a Christian background feel that “churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in” (29%). Another one-quarter embrace the perception that “Christianity is anti-science” (25%). And nearly the same proportion (23%) said they have “been turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate.”

The study suggests some leaders ignore the concerns and issues of teens and twentysomethings because they feel that the disconnection will end when young adults are older and have their own children. Yet, this response misses the dramatic technological, social and spiritual changes that have occurred over the last 25 years and ignores the significant present-day challenges these young adults are facing.

Brazil's Roman Catholics Are Becoming "Non-Religious"

I have previously looked at the fact that the fastest growing religious segment in the United States is the "non-religious" category as individuals leave institutional religion altogether. I view the trend as the result of the constantly toxic and hate filled face of Christianity provided by the Christian Right - who are neither Christian or right - and the fact that science and knowledge is making it increasingly difficult to believe in the Bible as "the inerrant word of God." Instead, it is all too easy to see the Bible as a man made work that has gone through all kinds of revisions and editing to reinforce the views of "the winners" in the early church and political machinations over the centuries. To make up for membership losses in educated and advanced countries, the professional Christians and denominations like the Roman Catholic Church have looked to growth in the developing world to maintain over all membership, with Latin America and Africa being two such bastions. Now, however, that strategy seems to be crumbling for the Catholic Church in South America as Brazil appears headed on the same trend as in the USA. Some years back I read one of Bishop John Shelby Spong's books that made the case of why Christianity must change or die. Given the refusal of many denomination leaders such as Benedict XVI, the Nazi pope, to permit change, it looks like death rather than change is the long term future of Christianity. The Virginian Pilot has a story that looks at the trend in Brazil and here are some highlights:

Bruno Maragato went through the Roman Catholic Church's rites like so many others before him in this most Catholic of nations: baptism, first communion, confirmation. But his next step was not part of the Vatican plan and, in fact, feeds a worrying trend for Catholics leaders. At age 16, Maragato left Christianity altogether.

A new study by Brazil's top research institute finds Magarato's views represent a sea change among a younger generation of Brazilians and present a fresh challenge for church leaders already struggling to hold on to parishioners across Latin America.

Brazil's Getulio Vargas Foundation finds, the country's Catholics are still leaving the church and at a higher rate than ever, but many younger parishioners, like Maragato, are simply becoming nonreligious.

Experts say this new twist poses a more potent threat to Catholic leaders than earlier losses. Now, the church isn't just competing against the Pentecostals, but courting people who have decided organized religion has no part in their lives.

"It's the most important phenomenon in this study, the abandonment of religion and the Catholics," said Fernando Altemeyer, a theologian at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo. "A considerable part of the Brazilian youth today are agnostic."

What raises the stakes for the Vatican is that church leaders have been viewing Brazil and other Latin American nations as bulwarks against losses in Europe and the U.S., where sex abuse scandals have inspired many to leave the church. About half of the world's Catholics reside in Latin America.

The number of people under the age of 20 in Brazil who say they follow no religion is growing three times more quickly than those 50 and older, with 9 percent of young Brazilians saying they belong to no religion, according to the study. That mirrors a similar trend in the number of people leaving the Catholic Church. The study, based on 200,000 interviews conducted for Brazil's 2010 census, shows the Catholic share of the population hit its lowest level since census figures tracked religion beginning in 1872.

Experts say the changes have accelerated as many women turn away from the Vatican's prohibitive views on contraception and abortion, which remains illegal in nearly all cases in Brazil. "The Catholic Church is literally losing its future, and the loss of women and young people is the most important driver of the fall," Neri said. . . . Mexico is poised to take Brazil's place as the world's top Catholic nation, although the church is also losing members there.

Personally, I hope the trend continues - or even accelerates. Only massive losses of membership (and the money that goes with that) will force the Vatican to leave its 13th century mindset and move towards the 21st century. Obviously, this shift will not happen on Benedict XVI's watch. If anything, his leadership and that of the ultra-right sycophants that he has appointed to bishoprics will hasten the flight of church members.

Fewer Couples Choose Clergy to Conduct Their Weddings

While Maggie Gallagher, Pope Benedict XVI, and others in the professional Christian class maintain their anti-gay jihad under the guise of "protecting marriage" another interesting trend is developing: More and more couples are choosing to nix having clergy officiate at their weddings. This means, of course that they are choosing non-religious marriage. The Washington Post looks at this growing trend towards purely civil marriages. Perhaps rather than persecuting same sex couples who want to be married - some even in church ceremonies - Ms. Maggie and her fellow gay haters ought to be more worried about the growing exodus of those who reject church weddings. Combined with the surging numbers of self-identified atheists and agnostics, same sex couples marrying would to be very low on the threat factor ratio for professional Christians. Here are some highlights from the Post story:

As Julie Butcher Pezzino and Andrew Butcher sat in an oceanside garden in tiny Southwest Harbor, Maine, the Sunday before Labor Day, watching two friends get married, the scene was beautiful, moving and very familiar. Practically everyone from their tight little American University crew was there. And as in their own ceremony, the officiant wasn’t some distant member of the clergy; it was another member of the crew. The college friends have made the rounds, presiding at each others’ weddings, four times so far, with another wedding scheduled for December. . . . “We don’t want to be confined to what some religion says you have to do.”

Although the majority of brides and grooms still use members of the clergy and other professionals, including judges (61 percent last year, according to the study), the shift toward nontraditional officiants seems to be further evidence of another, broader trend: the movement of Americans away from organized religion.

Recent studies show that most Americans aren’t a regular part of an institutional faith community, and many people say they don’t know a member of the clergy well enough to want to be hitched by them. “I can’t remember the last time I was at a wedding that wasn’t officiated by a friend,” said Jim Kurdek, the groom from the Southwest Harbor wedding.

While people who choose secular officiants might not want a cleric in their faces when they exchange vows, many often still want a traditional experience: exchanges of rings, a request for community support and even explicitly religious rituals slightly reformatted.

A spokesman for the nonprofit Universal Life Church Monastery, the largest of multiple groups that produce insta-certification for officiants, said the organization uses the lingo of organized religion, even though its mission statement stresses total freedom of religious belief or lack of it. The group says it “ordains” 700 “ministers” each day.

“The kind of authority that’s emanated in these weddings is confidence, love and knowledge of the couple.”

Obviously, in far too many religious denominations, love is largely absent from the radar screen. Instead, it's all about fear and hate. Bob Felton at Civil Commotion speculates in part as follows on the trend away from clergy officiated weddings:

This is bound to cause some discomfiting bureaucratic moments but, really, I like the spirit of it. A successful marriage is a state of mind as much as anything else and, since pious idiots like Albert Mohler warn constantly that it’s a troublesome and sinful state of mind that must terminate in Hell if you take it too seriously (meaning, if you don’t take Holy Men like himself seriously enough) … well, you can see where I’m going with this.

The sine qua non of marriage is mutual loyalty and shared ambitions, and such as Land and Mohler condemn both on the grounds that they are a form of idolatry, and therefore sinful. Really, it makes me wonder whether clergy have any business conducting weddings.

Atheism Continues On the Upswing in America

Even as the Republican Party races to turn itself into a completely religious based party, the trend in the larger American public is away from religion. True, there are many reasons for the trend, but I continue to believe that no small part of the movement away from religion traces back to the Christianists who are making Christianity into to something truly foul and ugly where hatred of others is the principal hallmark. Indeed, I increasingly find myself not wanting to even acknowledge myself as a "Christian" because of the negative connotation that the word has come to have associated with it. From comments of readers who identify as Christian (not to mention author Anne Rice's widely covered pronouncement some months back), I know that I am not alone in this feeling. I can only hope that the trend either causes a "reformation" on the party of decent Christians not defined by hatred who will retake the Christian brand or ultimately the death of Christianism. Here are excerpts from a Washington Post story that looks at the growing flight from religion:

As the survey results come in, as the irreligious best-sellers sell, and as the scientific analysis gets published, it is increasingly clear that Western atheism has evolved into a forward-looking movement that has the wind at its back, is behind the success of the best run societies yet seen in human history, and is challenging religion as the better basis of morality. Even in the U.S., a religious anomaly in the Western world, atheists are making major gains while Christianity withers, already having lost the mainstream culture to secularism. The least religious regions of the nation are enjoying superior societal conditions.

Religious conservatives commonly contend that only a transcendent supernatural intelligent designer can provide the absolute and perfect morality and the wisdom necessary to run successful societies – it’s become the de facto position of the GOP.

The science-based evidence leaves no doubt that, although very human in its flaws, democratic atheism is proving superior to faith-based mythical doctrines in practical societal and moral terms.

The still-common claim that nine out of ten Americans still believe in God is an outright falsehood. When asked if they believe in God or not, about 90 percent say yes, but when asked about whether or not they believe in God or a higher power or universal spirit, the actual God-believing theists drop to eight in ten. Two Harris polls also show that a fifth of Americans are atheistic to a greater or lesser degree.

Bible literalism is in strong decline, and the religious right, always a minority, is showing signs of distress as an internal report by the Southern Baptists bemoans that “evangelistically, the denomination is on a path of slow but discernible deterioration.” That’s because the churches are losing the digitally connected, traditional organization-averse youth; today’s twentysomethings are twice as irreligious as was the same cohort in the 90s.

The future of American faith is grim as the nation undergoes the secularization process that has already pretty much wrecked the churches in the rest of the West. So what will happen to American society as it too becomes as non-theistic as, say, Canada? My next essay will show how the loss of religion is not the big social/moral deal many make it out to be.

I agree with the conclusion that the loss of religion in public policy - at least the Christianist version that applauds executions, cheers at allowing the uninsured to die, and boos gay military service members - can only be a positive good. I will try to follow up on the next column in this series.

The End of Christian America?

Jon Meacham has a new in Newsweek on the state of Christianity and religion in the USA will likely send the professional Christians into hyperventilation even though I believe that it is they and those like them who have helped undermine the status of Christianity both in this country and other nations. True, the influx of immigrants of other faiths has helped reduce the overall percentage of the nation's population that identifies as Christian. But the even larger impact is from the growing segment of the population that has no religion. When the picture of Christians one sees in the media is either Catholics covering up the sexual abuse of children or hate filled Christian fundamentalists who appear to hate everyone that doesn't believe and look just like them, selling the Christian message becomes an uphill endeavor. Sadly, the more accepting mainline Christian denominations which do not preach fire and brimstone and hate get little coverage in the media. Of course, neither the corrupt members of the Catholic Church hierarchy or the evangelical hate merchants like James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Don Wildmon or Richard Land can see that it is they who are destroying Christianity in the USA. Not gays, not immigrants, not Muslims, but they themselves given the horrid image they project. Here are some story highlights:

*

To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population. . . . According to the American Religious Identification Survey that got Mohler's attention, the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. . . . the percentage of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith has doubled in recent years, to 16 percent

*

I think this is a good thing—good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance. It is good for Christianity, to in that many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state

*

Evangelical Christians have long believed that the United States should be a nation whose political life is based upon and governed by their interpretation of biblical and theological principles. If the church believes drinking to be a sin, for instance, then the laws of the state should ban the consumption of alcohol. If the church believes the theory of evolution conflicts with a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, then the public schools should tailor their lessons accordingly. If the church believes abortion should be outlawed, then the legislatures and courts of the land should follow suit.

*

But that project has failed, at least for now. In Texas, authorities have decided to side with science, not theology, in a dispute over the teaching of evolution. The terrible economic times have not led to an increase in church attendance. In Iowa last Friday, the state Supreme Court ruled against a ban on same-sex marriage, a defeat for religious conservatives.

*

Religious doubt and diversity have, however, always been quintessentially American. Alexis de Tocqueville said that "the religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on arrival in the United States," but he also discovered a "great depth of doubt and indifference" to faith. Jefferson had earlier captured the essence of the American spirit about religion when he observed that his statute for religious freedom in Virginia was "meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination"—and those of no faith whatever.

*

"The worst fault of evangelicals in terms of politics over the last 30 years has been an incredible naiveté about politics and politicians and parties," says [Albert] Mohler. "They invested far too much hope in a political solution to what are transpolitical issues and problems.