In a recent Gallup poll it showed what we all expect, most white, very religious American align their political ideology with the Republicans. “Very religious white Americans continue to be one of the most Republican segments of the U.S. population: 62% identify with or lean toward the Republican Party…” According to the poll, only 27% lean or are Democrats.
The segment of the poll that I find interesting is the rest of the population of very religious people. According to the poll, very religious Hispanics align themselves more with Democrats 44% and 27% with the GOP. Very religious Asians also skew toward the Democratic Party, 47% align themselves with the party and only 35% with the Republican Party. Very religious black Americans are 78% more likely to side with the Democratic Party while only 10% are Republican.
The poll doesn’t distinguish the religions of the ethnic groups. It is possible that the minority groups may be religious but not Christian. This is highly possible with Asian Americans, but not as likely with Hispanics and Blacks.
If very religious whites are more likely to favor the GOP and very religious Blacks and Hispanics favor the Democratic Party, but they believe in the same religion and read from the same bible, then there must be something else that pushed them to either party. Perhaps it is the interpretation of the bible that has accomplished this.
Many very religious Blacks and Hispanics seem to have a deep root in social and economic justice, much like Martin Luther King. They believe in the ability for the government to attack the poverty problem in society. They believe that the bible teaches to take care of each other in regards to the poor, malnourished and disenfranchised.
It is a very interesting poll that breaks into the contrast of ethnicity in America, and that religion is not always aligned with conservative social issues or economics. It is a question that needs to be studied in depth, why is there such a divide amongst equally religious people in their political decisions?
Related posts:
- The Religious Right Warns Against the Idolatry of the Religious Left
- The New Conservative Paradigm: Whites as Oppressed Minority
- Glenn Beck Tries to Scare Whites by Labeling Obama a Racist
- How Did All Those Minorities End Up On Newt Gingrich’s 2012 Website?
- GOP Left In the Dust As Obama Gets All The Credit for Tax Cut Deal
religion is more the rational for the political beliefs than the cause.
The white religionists are often people who have nothing left to feel “superior” about except their whiteness, and therefore cling to hierarchalist politics and Biblical interpretations in the illusion that this preserves their “superiority”. American blacks, instead, have relied on the egalitarian portions of the Gospel to advance their claim for equal treatment. Hispanics, regardless of their personal faith, come from a Catholic, not a Protestant ethic, which emphasizes good works and self-sacrifice on behalf of the aflicted. In fact, in Western society, it is only the Calvinist- derived forms of Protestantism that call charity weakness and greed and snobbery good.
I thought this was an excellent observation summarization!
You are so misinformed
I basically agree with your analysis, but that doesn’t explain the couple I know who are quite well off but religious-righteous, home-schooling elitists. I think they are the fringe who can be the big fish in their little church pond, without having to give up any riches or put themselves out to help the less fortunate. They believe their good fortune comes from God because they are “worthy”…unsaid is their deep down belief that those who get sick, lose their homes, lose their jobs, are “not worthy” of God’s largess.
Not true. there is a strong Religious Left in this nation. This is just a dividing tactic. So knock it off. Stop dividing and write about joining. NAZI’s love when Americans are divided, it gives them control. Writing like this is poisonous pen work.
HUH? this is not writing just to say something they are presenting poll results… I don’t get what you think you are trying to say… truth or at least the results of a poll should not be reported because it makes you feel bad about the division in this country??
Godwin’s Law has been invoked.
well I guess I am part of the 27% white religious…
It’s very simple. The religious white people are especially uptight about sexuality and also looking for a faith that justifies the accumulation of wealth and goods. (When sex is soon as dirty, mass consumption takes its place.) The denominations that denounce sex except under narrow circumstances and celebrate consumerism are the ones that appeal to White America.
I am a religious person. I could never be a republican.
But, I always felt that the Democratic party represented the same type of Social Justice issues that I felt the Catholic church was based on.
I think it is more the authoritarian, money grubbing policies of the mega churches and the slick pastors that are on tv that influence the religious right.
They are united with the republicans bout a single issue, gaining control of this government
I agree also that most of these white Christians are repressed in their sexuality and sexual mores and because the republican party is so authoritarian they feel more at home there. The people who flock to the republicans are like sheep who like to be lead while Democratic followers are more like cats who don’t like to be herded.
I am religious and white, and I find the GOP to be disgusting. I have never seen so many people who hate other Americans. The war on women has to stop, as well as their war on immigrants, the poor, minorities, children, the elderly…heck they hate everyone but corporations. I find nothing religious about the GOP, nothing at all, and I am stunned at the rush to the GOP by the evangelicals. Surely they don’t think that Boehner, Cantor, and McConnell are Christians? No Christian would applaud the murder of Americans in prison. No Christian would applaud letting someone w/o insurance die. No Christian would be against SS and Medicare, yet they say they are both. Somehow this brand of Christianity bypassed Jesus completely, as well as the 10 commandments and “love thy neighbor.”
I’ve been on both sides of the religious fence.Evangelical(Fundamentalist)and mainstream.I feel the difference between the two mindsets one leaning to the right (Evangelical) and Mainstream toward the left boils down to the right’s false sense of superiority!The teachings on the right look down on the “Unsaved” They are going to save the world and those that don’t believe as they do are going to hell.They are puffed up and singleminded.
Jesus said go out and spread the gospell, which means whoever believes in Him will be saved. Now I just spread the gospell. It’s not up to me to force or judge who will be saved according to my faith. Jesus also said whatever you do to these people you do to me. If we believe in the Gospel then we must help our brothers . That’s where the difference is.
The GOP has used religion in order to induce folks to vote against their own interests, and to reflexively oppose something that benefits minorities even when it would benefit religious whites who are voting against their own best interests. There are even religious charlatans who actually preach that in effect, the amount of material goods determines how religious someone is. I also don’t understand the mindset of religious people who blindly follow a party that is not about helping the most vulnerable among us, supporting things like education and health care that are for the common good, or about averting wars that would also prevent so many needless deaths. I’ll just say that I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them think following the examples of Boehner and company will somehow lead to personal wealth one day. I also wouldn’t be surprised that the racists among them delude themselves that the very white supremacy they don’t benefit from will keep “others” down without also adversely affecting them as well.
It’s an interesting poll, but it looks at broad generalities like very religious “Hispanics” — are you talking about Cubans or Dominicans, Mexicans or Colombians,… etc.?? What about class/economic status? Moreover, are we talking about Catholics, Evangelicals or the growing number of Hispanic-American Muslims??? I think we might be surprised at how many religious Hispanic Americans vote Republican and how that number might actually expand. I’m sure the vast majority will still go with the Democrats, but I don’t think the “social and economic justice” theme has as much explanatory power as we might like to believe. Economic stability, fear of crime, etc., concern many people and cause some to move in a more conservative direction. Too often whites stereo-type people of color and assume that they are all liberal.
Wasn’t it white Catholic Popes who gave permission to other white Europeans to go out and conquer the whole world? Weren’t Europeans given permission to colonize and christianize all humans on earth, as well as enslaving them if enslavement was the best means for the needs of Europeans to be fulfilled?
Thus peoples of color choose Christianity, because it was supposed to enable them to avoid the wrath of White/European/Christians. And even though it still did not allow them to keep full rights to their lives and land; it still reduced the full weight of Christianity’s worst evils for the most part.
So today, the best thing that peoples of color (especially blacks of African ancestry) could do to renew our collective mind, is to completely reject Christianity and its sibling Muslim. But that won’t happen I know. Because black people are still under the spell that unless we comply to White and European subtle and covert control, all hell will again break loose again, in full.
If their churches are left leaning so are they. If conservative, so are they. This is not about religion, per se. You hang with likeminded people. Minorities have way different experiences, how can they deal with the complacent?
I can attest to the fact that minorities have very different experiences in society than whites. Our personal economic security is disproportionately less, for example. One important factor to explain minority aversion to the Republican Party is the perception of coded racism in conservative arguments and in their political ads.
The chief reason why conservative people act the way they do is FEAR. Fear of change, primarily. It seems that conservatives always have to be afraid of *something*. I mean, have you ever seen a content conservative? And conservative power brokers recognize this and use that fear to their advantage. They get conservatives riled up about some issue, like gays or illegal immigrants, knowing that means they’ll be more likely to get in to a voting booth come election time. Conservatives also never learn their lesson. They have been behind the resistance to every major societal change in the United States in the last 110 years or so. They were against giving women the right to vote. They were against giving black people equal rights. They were against allowing people of different races the right to intermarry. In each instance, they thumped their bibles and vehemently proclaimed that society as we knew it was going to end. In each instance, they lost their battle, the change took place, and… nothing bad happened. But every single time some societal issue pops up that makes conservatives feel threatened, here we go again…. Conservatives: please stop using the Bible as a weapon to instill your worldview on others. You’re not defending the Bible’s values, you’re defending *yours*. And lest conservatives stereotype me & proclaim me as just another “atheist liberal,” I must state that I very much believe in God.
I don’t care if conservatives brand me an atheistic liberal, God knows better, but I must say that for the past forty years conservatives have been the ones acting from a sense of entitlement and superiority.
All them think they are capable of running businesses, of managing their property, arranging their retirements, keeping their wives in line and “protecting” their children if only liberal teachers, artists, theologians and writers would get off their backs and let them do so.
We just spent eight years with the most conservative President in our history, GW Bush and the conservatives brought on the worst economic downturn in 60 years. Their policies simply don’t work.
If they get their way and gain power, they will nickel and dime the middle class into penury to preserve millionaire tax breaks. They will destroy social security and push the elderly into poverty just as they are currently doing with children. In power, the GOP will work to assure that federal judges are in control of our sex lives in every regard from birth control to the criminalization of adultery.
There is no room for freedom in the religious whites’ world because they believe that every free decision we humans make leads to sin.
A very interesting poll and observation. I believe the difference has to do with theology, regardless of the religious trappings. For instance, Africans brought to America identified with and embraced the freedom and social justice theme of Christianity, in spite of the attempts of the slave holders to teach them otherwise. And the democratic agenda that emphasizes support for the middle class and help for the poor lines up better with that theology.
Many conservative religious folks want their religion to conserve their positions of comfort, which includes financial advantage, social privilege and belief of racial superiority. Their theology aligns with their own self protection, claiming God’s blessings for themselves and their lifestyles. They see little value in helping others–I mean really helping them by creating fair and just systems as opposed to simply giving handouts. Thus, Rachel Pendergraft posts on her blog that she is a Christian, a home-schooler, a Republican Tea Partier. She is also a full time volunteer for The Knights Party (http://kkk.bz), serving as a spokeswoman and national officer.
Many of the religious right know little about, or don’t care about, the radical, self-sacrificial love that Jesus both teaches and epitomizes.
Africans brought to America identified with and embraced the freedom and social justice theme of Christianity….
Is this true or did the Africans and their American descendants try to find common humanity with their oppressors through the language of universal love inherent in Christianity?
Not only are white Protestants the most likely among us to be Republicans, this is a long time trend stretching back to the founding of the GOP in the 1850s.
A good many Protestants are Republicans for the same reason they are Protestants, that is the faith they were brought up in, the language of ideals that they understand and both the GOP and churches are inhabited by people they respect and are familiar with.
But as the USA becomes more polarized and the GOP/Protestant/religious whites seperate themselves ever more from the rest of us, these rifts become more pronounced. Religious Protestants segregate themselves by living in suburbs that reflect their demographics, they withdraw their children from the one mixing institution, the public school and home school their kids.
As time progresses it becomes harder and harder for them and other people who do not share their outlook to communicate. We might use the same words, but those simply do not have the same meaning for both sides.
There is an extreme danger of the USA becoming a divided nation, with major segments of the population divided by persistent and formidable barriers of habit, language and acquaintanceship. The sad part is that the religious whites are voluntarily embracing this separation and doing all in their power to foster it.
Left or left wing increasingly means ungodly to the religious right. It does not matter that the theological positions they are taking are of extremely recent provenance, represent hyper-exageration of certain scriptural passages at the expense of the whole bible, or that increasingly, the conservative denominations are leaving the “interpretation” of the bible off altogether and devising literal meanings that defy the texts.
Through these actions the religious whites are developing a singular political philosophy that supports their views of themselves as: the moral elite in an increasingly godless country; a people whose materialism is endowed with moral attributes that equate avarice with religiosity; and a language, made up phrases and buzzwords that enables them quickly and unerringly to recognize friends among crowds and communicate and organize surreptiously and effectively.
The danger is that religious whites will actively undermine pluralism and respect for the rights of the vulnerable in pursuit of an agenda which aims at making America more submissive to God.
‘