As W. B. Yeats feared, it looks as if the center cannot hold. Religious liberals are flanked by swelling ranks of the practically irreligious on one hand and religious conservatives (some of whom are outside traditional denominations and others are inside them) on the other hand. "Exhibit 7: Number of Adults by Current and Prior Religious Identification, 2001" ("The American Religious Identification Survey 2001," <http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf>, p. 24), which I mentioned in my previous posting, "describes the patterns of 'religion switching'" ("The American Religious Identification Survey 2001," <http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf>, 19 Dec. 2001, p. 23), so it accentuates the relative decline of many traditional religious groups in which most religious liberals are found. If you look at absolute numbers alone in "Exhibit 1: Self Described Religious Identification of U.S. Adult Population, 1990-2001" ("The American Religious Identification Survey 2001," <http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf>, 19 Dec. 2001, pp. 12-13), you see that some traditional religious groups (like Catholicism and Presbyterianism) have been actually growing at a modest pace while others (like Baptism and Methodism) declined absolutely (not just relatively) -- it's just that their modest growth rates are decisively overshadowed by phenomenal growth rates (in overall institutional memberships as well as among "religion switchers") of religious groups in which most religious conservatives are found. The future looks especially bleak for Mainline Protestantism, whose congregants are older than those of conservative religious groups and have gotten much older than at the beginning of the 1990s: "Exhibit 11: Age and Gender Patterns in Selected Groups, 2001" ("The American Religious Identification Survey 2001," <http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf>, p. 32) and "Exhibit 12: Age and Gender Patterns in Selected Groups, 1990" ("The American Religious Identification Survey 2001," <http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf>, p. 33). Catholics, too, are getting older, and they would get older than they are (if not quite as old as Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists) if it were not for Latino immigrants.
>[lbo-talk] Rationality of the Masses
>Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
>Mon Jun 13 14:38:34 PDT 2005
<snip>
>The people who are on the front lines of this battle -- or who
>should be on the front lines -- are religious liberals. They are
>the only ones who *can* be on the front line because they are the
>only ones who have anything to say to the people who live there.
>We, at the far secular end of the scale, do not. But it is vitally
>important to us that our side win. And for that to happen, it is
>vitally important that we see it as our side.
Well, it seems to me that religious liberals (at least Christians among them) are losing the battle of faiths -- because those who are the closest to them -- secular liberals and leftists -- don't believe in God, so we can't very well become members of their faith communities.
>[lbo-talk] Can Liberal Faiths Compete with Conservative Faiths? (An
>Appeal to Ignorance)
>joanna 123hop at comcast.net
>Tue Jun 14 23:53:02 PDT 2005
<snip>
>What does "Protestant" mean? I thought everyone who wasn't Jewish
>or Mormon or Buddhist or Muslim was Protestant?
The survey is based on self-identification: "One of the distinguishing features of this survey, as of its predecessor in 1990, is that respondents were asked to describe themselves in terms of religion with an open-ended question. Interviewers did not prompt or offer a suggested list of potential answers. Moreover, the self-description of respondents was not based on whether established religious bodies, institutions, churches, mosques or synagogues considered them to be members. Quite the contrary, the survey sought to determine whether the respondents themselves regarded themselves as adherents of a religious community. Subjective rather than objective standards of religious identification were tapped by the survey" ("The American Religious Identification Survey 2001," <http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf>, 19 Dec. 2001, p. 7). Questions are asked thus: "The primary question of the interview was: _What is your religion, if any? _The religion of the spouse/partner was also asked. If the initial answer was 'Protestant' or 'Christian' further questions were asked to probe which particular denomination" ("The American Religious Identification Survey 2001," <http://www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_studies/aris.pdf>, 19 Dec. 2001, p. 6). "Protestant" refers to those who answered "Protestant" to the primary question and then didn't supply any denomination (maybe it's akin to being Jewish by heritage without believing in Judaism) -- a radically declining group. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Monthly Review: <http://monthlyreview.org/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>