Comments on: IM Book Review: Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…And Other Lies You’ve Been Told

By: FollowerOfHim

FollowerOfHim — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 02:20:40 +0000

Of course, it still wouldn’t utlimately say anything reassuring, as we all no doubt understand. It would simply be saying: “Of course evangelicals have lower numbers of educated people: their best and brightest have already left by the time the go to college!”

By: J

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:06:00 +0000

New Age: The biggest, most consequential religion that no one except Christians has ever heard of.

By: Book Review: Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told « Eclectic Christian

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 02:30:58 +0000

[...] Book Review: Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told Check out my review of Sociologist Bradley Wright’s Book, Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites… and Other Lies You’ve Been Told at InternetMonk.com. [...]

By: brad wright

brad wright — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 17:59:53 +0000

Your right, Mike, about there being a big shift among Evangelicals from denominations to non-denominational. That was one of the big findings of ARIS, and they could find it because of their open-ended questions.

Good point, Richard, about the use of “Christian”. Sometimes I slip into that in my writing, though I hope that the context makes it clear. By no means do I think that Evangelicals are the only Christians. (I grew up in the Catholic Church and still enjoy attending mass + attended an Episcopal church for 9 years).

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:49:47 +0000

I have to question the value of your data in the link above. I kind of intuitively don’t trust a self-report of affiliation at age 16. In communities with evangelical social dominance, there’s an awful lot of pressure to self-identify as such, and teenagers aren’t exactly known for their resistance to social pressure. Show me at least age 21 (I’d prefer 25) and I’d have a lot more faith in it.

By: Michael Bell

Michael Bell — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:48:18 +0000

How well did it format? And the answer is… not that well. You can find the table on page 12 of the link referenced above. You will also note on page 5 that in 18 years Baptists have gone from 19.3 to 15.8 % of the population.

By: Richard Hershberger

Richard Hershberger — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:43:01 +0000

On a side note, I am a non-Evangelical Christian, preferring a more traditional, umm…, tradition. I often note that Evangelical Christians are prone to using “Christian” to mean “Evangelical Christian.” So we get discussions of what “Christians” believe or do which may or may not conform to the beliefs or actions of other Christian traditions. To the extent that Evangelical Christians do this intentionally, it is grossly offensive. To the extent that they do this unintentionally, it is a thoughtless and annoying tic. I just mention this because there is a certain irony to seeing this usage in a book with this title.

By: Michael Bell

Michael Bell — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:42:55 +0000

My concern with your graph is that it masks several things. For example: If one was to just look at your graph one would say that Catholics are doing well. In reality, Catholicism has experienced steep declines in the North East, offset by immigration in the south.

Mainline churches have been on a steep downward trajectory, true, but at some point in time that has to level out. The data from Aris 2008 would suggest that it has. Similar to Catholics, Evangelicals when lumped together look like they might be doing OK, but the ARIS 2008 data shows that those who identify as Baptists, the majority group of the Evangelicals are in serious trouble. Admittedly the “Christian Generic” group is made up primarily as Evangelicals, so perhaps what this is showing more is a shift from denominational loyalty. I would be interested in your take on this data Brad.

Here is the data that jumped out at me from ARIS 2008. Let’s see how well it will format in the comments here.

Table 8.
Age Composition of the Religious Traditions 2008
18-29 30-49 50-69 70+ % Total U.S. National Population 22 38 28 12 100 Catholic 21 38 28 13 100 Baptist 11 31 37 21 100 Mainline Christian 18 35 33 14 100 Christian Generic 25 41 25 9 100 Pentecostal/Charismatic 16 34 36 14 100

By: cermak_rd

cermak_rd — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:15:31 +0000

concern for prejudice the children may run into is probably moot now in the US given who is POTUS.

By: Michael Bell

Michael Bell — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:04:35 +0000

Bradley Wright does provide an age breakdown in is book. Unfortunately I don’t have it in front of me right now, but I believe that opposition to black marriage among whites in Evangelical circles range from 28% in youth to 57%? in older adults.