Re: American Spectator review of Pew poll on religion There is also the question of Biblical errancy / inerrancy. What seems to me as unsustainable is the view that the Bible is error free. This position can only be maintained by ignoring all kinds of unwanted facts, but facts that aren't about to go away just because they are ignored. Did the Sun really stand still in the sky to help Israel in war? Was there really a global Deluge? Did Jesus actually walk on water? To me it is as inconceivable that anyone at all would take these "miracles" seriously. Did the Hindu rishis of the past fly through the air because of their great faith? Yeah, sure. Indeed, the majority of religions teach miracle stories that their scriptures promulgate and no scholars take them seriously, either. While there are historical references in various scriptures, nothing compares with the Bible in terms of is historical claims -except Mesopotamian scriptures on which parts of the Bible itself are based. This puts the Bible in an almost unique position; because of those claims parts are falsifiable. Parts of some Hindu sacred texts are also falsifiable in this sense but only if historical references are somehow extracted from huge quantities of mythology, including fables and elaborations of themes that rise to the level of fantasy. That is, there is a surfeit of poetic license in Hindu texts, sometimes in Buddhist texts also. You don't find much of this at all in the Bible. But this means, since Bible authors were not historians in the modern sense, all kinds of mistakes about who was alive, when, what happened at certain times in other lands, and so forth. About which, while -for the ancient past- there is a lot that is quite accurate, other parts are off the mark. To me this doesn't matter nearly as much -there is a magnitude of difference- as the moral and spiritual truths that are there to be found, and in abundance. Simply acknowledge the mistakes of fact, correct for them, and deal with the substance. But there is a core of Evangelicals and some others (like the Greek Orthodox and traditionalist Catholics) who do not see things this way at all and insist on a literal reading of each word. But how do you convince people who do have the historical knowledge to know that parts of the Bible simply don't pass fact checking tests? The point of all this is that millennials are far less likely than their elders to accept a literalistic reading. If they perceive that the "only" alternative is the Religious Left, what do they do? The point is also that watered down religion serves no-one's best interests, yet some Evangelicals cannot conceive another approach to the problem. Hence the Bible, for them, becomes "authoritative" rather then inerrant and in the process becomes a diluted text, semi-true, so to speak. WRONG approach. The Bible has an inerrant core; finding this core is not all that easy and requires a lot of research, but once you have identified it there is solid rock and the rest is simply historical context. However, this does mean willingness to own up to the contextual material, parts of which include mistakes, and to be honest about it. And some mistakes are important and need to be dealt with even when it is painful to do so. Like the fact that the book of Daniel, while it is great literature, is historically untenable and features post hoc (after the fact) "prophecy" that is a misrepresentation of major proportions. The Pew poll deals with none of these kinds of issues. Billy American Spectator _The Future Belongs to Religious Liberals?_ (http://spectator.org/archives/2013/07/26/the-future-belongs-to-religiou) By _Mark Tooley_ (http://spectator.org/people/mark-tooley) on 7.26.13 @ 6:08AM If the religious left believes in one thing it’s that religious conservatives are doomed.
America is becoming more religiously liberal with each generation, and religious conservatives, though more numerous now, will become dinosaurs. That’ s the confident projection of a new poll from the liberal leaning Public Religion Research Institute. It’s predictably gotten good media play, as claims about irrelevance for religious conservatives often do. And it supplements other polls supposedly proving the rise of the religiously unaffiliated in America. The Left, in its alternative cosmology, believes in its own nonreligious providential destiny. But history moves in more crooked, unpredictable paths. And religious traditionalists, most of them conservative, believe that history has a another ultimately inexorable direction, guided by The Lord of history. The Left’s own more secular faith is often buttressed by short term trends. “Our new research shows a complex religious landscape, with religious conservatives holding an advantage over religious progressives in terms of size and homogeneity,” PPRI admitted when _releasing_ (http://publicreligion.org/newsroom/2013/07/news-release-1-in-5-americans-are-religious-progressives/) its poll. “However, the percentage of religious conservatives shrinks in each successive generation, with religious progressives outnumbering religious conservatives in the Millennial generation.” Nearly half of the older than age 66 crowd is religiously conservative, while less than 20 percent of the under 33 crowd is. Only 12 percent of oldsters are religiously liberal while almost a quarter of the young are. So — presto — the future belongs to the Religious Left. As the much vaunted Millennial Generation ages into leadership, the Religious Right’s doom supposedly will be sealed. This determinism of course assumes that these Millennials will not change their views as they age. And it assumes subsequent generations will not react against previous generations, even though most generations, when young, assume they are wiser and therefore must be different from their immediate predecessors. In the future, a new crop of youngsters will look somewhat smugly on the by-then aging Millennials. The PPRI poll, done with the Brookings Institution, shows only 19 percent of Americans overall are religious progressives, compared to 28 percent who are religious conservatives, while 38 percent are religious moderates. Fifteen percent are nonreligious. The survey emphasized views on economic issues, not social issues. Predictably religious liberals want more government-orchestrated equality, and religious conservatives want more economic freedom and opportunity. When focused strictly on theology, 39 percent are conservative versus 19 percent liberal. Unsurprisingly, the poll also showed that religion is less important to religious liberals than for conservatives. Eleven percent of religious progressives say religion is most important compared to 59 percent of religious conservatives. And nearly 90 percent of religious liberals believe religion should be a private matter, limiting its political application, while only about half of conservatives agreed. At the poll’s unveiling, former New York Times religion writer Peter Steinfels readily admitted that religious liberals will not necessarily outpace conservatives in American politics. He doubted religion for liberals “can play anything like the motivating, energizing, and organizing force of religion among religious conservatives.” The head of PPRI likewise admitted that religious progressives are a more “ complicated heterogeneous group of people to communicate with and organize with.” They are less committed to religious institutions and less frequent attenders of places of worship than are religious conservatives. Still, some media reports have latched onto the poll as evidence of the Religious Left’s ascendancy, even though the premise only works if each generation stays on the same fixed trajectory. Secular elites have nearly always reserved special contempt for religious conservatives, befuddled by their vast numbers in middle America, and miffed by their intransigence to the full liberal agenda. They never figured out how to outflank them, since most religious conservatives don’t care much about secular elites or their mockery. But this new poll gives hope that demography eventually will eradicate the dreaded Religious Right. Their hopes will likely be disappointed. Many Millennials will become more religious and conservative as they age, especially if they marry and have children. And the subsequent generation almost certainly will rebel against their predecessor’s hipster outlook, just as diligent Generation Xers reacted against the soaring hippy activism of their Baby Boomer predecessors. Religious conservatives also have more children than religious liberals or secularists. There is also the institutional collapse of organized liberal religion. All liberal-controlled denominations are suffering massive membership loss. Fifty years ago, one in six Americans belonged to the largest seven liberal Mainline Protestant denominations. Today it is one in 16. All growing denominations are theologically conservative, as are most thriving non-denominational congregations. Almost all the largest seminaries today are conservative. Among Catholics, young priests are decidedly more conservative than retired priests. Urban churches that attract the much vaunted Millennials are typically evangelical, not liberal. Liberal religion is usually a reaction against trans-generational orthodoxy, not a sustaining alternative to it. In contrast, religious orthodoxy is not a guarantee of vibrancy and growth but it almost always is a prerequisite. The next generation of religious conservatives may speak differently from yesterday’s Religious Right. But they will still be conservative and likely much more numerous than liberal counterparts. The Left often expects abstract tides of history to ensure its final victory. But religious liberals, who almost always dilute the doctrines of their faith to replace or supplement them with secular fads, usually ensure their own demise. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
