Time to Rethink the Religious Right Stereotype

A recent report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research provides penetrating insight into the role of religion in America. Outside coverage from ABC News, however, the report hasn’t received the attention it deserves. In the report, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber identifies a correlation between the frequency with which a person attends church and that person’s income.

According to Gruber, a household that attends church with twice the level of frequency as another household has 9.1 percent more income. Gruber’s paper highlights some other interesting findings, according to ABC News:

“That extra participation in religious activity correlates with 16 percent less welfare participation than the usual rate, 4 percent lower odds of being divorced and 4.4 percent increased chances of being married.”

Gruber does not claim to have established causation through his study. He only notes the correlation.

ABC News pointed out some additional findings by other researchers not included in Gruber’s study, and when combined with Gruber’s findings, they begin to paint a new image of the average American churchgoer:

“…religious participation correlates with better health and lower levels of deviant or criminal behavior. Further, attending religious services weekly, rather than not at all, has the same effect in individuals’ self-reported happiness as moving from the bottom quarter of the income distribution (that is, people who are poor or near poor) to the top quarter (the well-to-do.)”

Both ABC News and Jonathan Gruber posited some “whys,” though they were careful, again, not to endorse any specific explanation:

“Another factor could be more attendance at religious schools of the children of highly religious families. That could provide better schooling or contacts for adult life.

“Or, Gruber continues, it could be that those ‘with more faith may be less stressed out about daily problems that impede success in the labor market and the marriage market, and are therefore more successful.’”

So let us sum up. Americans who attend church with greater frequency than their neighbors tend to be richer, healthier, and happier, less prone to commit acts of crime, and more likely to get and stay married; possible explanations include educational background and the influence of religion in withstanding worldly pressures.

Now, at the risk of mixing religion and politics – a no-no in our ongoing public dialogue unless you are condemning the Religious Right – allow me to mention another, more established correlation: the frequency with which you attend church is determinative of the likeliness you will vote Republican on Election Day.

According to exit polling data on the 2004 election, Americans who attended church “more than once a week” voted to reelect President George W. Bush by a margin of 64% to 35% over Sen. John Kerry. Those who attended church weekly voted for Bush over Kerry by a margin of 58%-41%. The tiniest of a majority of those who attend church monthly voted for Bush over Kerry 50% to 49%. But those who attend church “only a few times a year” or “never” favored John Kerry with majorities of 54% and 62%, respectively.

Attending church regularly is a greater predictor of your voting Republican than having served in the military or earning over $100,000 a year. To put it another way, white evangelical Christians (the church-goingist of churchgoers) voted in greater strength for George W. Bush in 2004 than homosexuals did for John Kerry (and there are more evangelicals than gays.)

So what do these two sets of data mean? If anything, they ought to cause Hollywood and the mainstream media to redefine their central casting stereotype of religious conservatives. For too long the working definition of a Christian conservative has been, in Michael Weisskopf’s notorious words in the Washington Post, “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.” The truth, apparently, is exactly the opposite.

Patrick Hynes runs the blog Ankle Biting Pundits www.anklebitingpundits.com and is currently writing a book on the Religious Right for Nelson Current.

Once again, there is more proof that the MSM does not portray Christians accurately. Sometimes I think that we live in an upside-down world where up is down and down is up. The MSM seems so intent on lying and distorting the truth. If the truth really became known, the US would become an entirely different place because people would think, act, and vote differently. The Libs and Dems survive ONLY because of the lies and distortions of the MSM. The mainstream media does NOT represent the truth or the mainstream of America.

For too long the working definition of a Christian conservative has been, in Michael Weisskopf’s notorious words in the Washington Post, “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

Funny, those words describe the Democratic bloc to a tee. You said it Dewey, we do live in a an upside-down world. Rod Serling was a visionary.

Oh, they absolutely do not portray Christians realistically. Over and over we're told, and in teevee programs, shown that if you're Christian, you're a mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging ignoramus who abuses the wife and children, and makes trouble for everyone else.

Many have taken it to heart, and I see people repeating what they've learned from media and showbiz about Christians in casual conversation on the internet. I'm shocked at the slander that passes for "common knowledge," which, by the way, actually describes hateful liberals much more than it does Christians.

That extra participation in religious activity correlates with 16 percent less welfare participation than the usual rate...

For three reasons - first, a discouragement of sloth as a moral issue, second, that church groups are more effective dispensers of help to the poor because they're closer to the problem, and lastly, because churches compose a social network through which you can find out where there is work when it's available, through sources that government does not have. The last two aren't religious points at all, they're cold, hard economics.

I have always wondered at liberals who on the one hand ostensibly oppose racism, sexism, and homophobia as "fear of the Other" and on the other hand practice a form of raging theophobia that is outright bigotry for precisely that reason. Weird disconnect, IMHO.

"I have always wondered at liberals who on the one hand ostensibly oppose racism, sexism, and homophobia as "fear of the Other" and on the other hand practice a form of raging theophobia that is outright bigotry for precisely that reason. Weird disconnect, IMHO."

Liberals fear religion because religion has favored racism, sexism and homophobia at certain points in history. I think it's about fearing the power of religious institutions, institutions that in the past have been involved in politics, in bloody religious wars that raged for hundred of years throughout Europe and the Middle East, and who have condemned reason and science (The Enlightenment) and persecuted scientists (Galileo).

I think the progressive liberals and socialist want a quasi Christianity without God, but with man and the state at the top. This will result in ultimate tyranny and so far the socialist experiments of the 20th century (Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler) have killed more people than any past religious war.

The liberal dictum, "we have nothing to fear but fear itself" doesn't ring true when dealing with other humans... in fact, sometimes we'll have good reason to fear.

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