----- Original Message ---- From: shag shag at cleandraws.com
While on average older Evangelicals tend to lag slightly behind the average U.S. resident in education and income, there is a "continuing trend toward the GOP, as younger, better-educated, and wealthier Evangelicals replace an older, less upscale Democratic political generation."[10] Evangelicals who are politically or socially active, especially conservatives, seem to be increasingly upwardly mobile, suburban, highly-educated, and with above-average incomes, contrary to many popular stereotypes.[11] One group of scholars found that between 1978 and 1988, "Christian Right activism occurred predominantly in rapidly growing-and relatively prosperous-suburban areas of the South, Southwest, and Midwest."[12] Conservative Evangelicals also do a better job at rallying their own forces to vote. In 2000, 79 percent of Evangelicals who voted for Bush had been contacted at least once by a politicized religious group or individual, as compared to 36 percent of Gore voters.[13]
[WS:] That is my impression too. What is your explanation? Or more specifically, which one is it: (a) people who would otherwise become evangelicals (e.g. due to their social background) are now getting better education and income; or (b) people who would otheriwse be liberal-leaning (e.g. due to their education, social influences etc.) are now becoming conservative evangelicals. Condition (a) simply means that a "tide is lifting all boats;" i.e. better educational opportunities and affirmative action in employment created better opportunities for low income evangelicals, who used to be left behind. This does not mean that there is growing religious conservativism in statistical terms (i.e. numbers of conservative evangelical increasing) but merely that evangelicals are becoeming more educated and affluent, and thus visible. Condition (b), otoh, means, that the number of conservative evangelicals is growing. If so, it would be intersting to know why, especially that the old explanations by alienation due to poverty and social exclusion clearly do not apply. wojtek