Birth Control and Baptists

http://www.churchmilitant.tv/daily/?today=2012-06-29

[stpio]

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary isn't sure if Birth Control is a sin.

Watch this Vortex. The problem with Protestantism, you get to decide.

[Mrs. Don-o]

OK, here's the 2008 election figures I got from a well-known "reading news feeds, making eyes bleed" FReeper election bean-counter:

55% McCain, 43% Obama - Weekly mass-attending Catholics ^6,9

54% McCain, 44% Obama - Weekly church-goers^1,4,7

The footnotes are as follows:

1 The Awesome Blue God -- How Obama Forged A New Faith Coalition
4 Obama: Bringing (Some) Evangelicals In
6 What's wrong with Catholic voters? What's wrong with Catholics?
7 Evangelical Voters Favor McCain by Wide Margins
9 What Happened to the Catholic Vote?

We see that among weekly-Mass-attending Catholics AND weekly-church-attgoers in general, the numbers tilted against Obama. Figures exclude Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christian faith groups.

Am I delighted by the Catholics' performance here? Obviously not. Not delighted with the Evangelicals and othe believers, either. The whole lot should have been overwhelmingly anti-Obama.

But my point still stands: let's stop sniping at each other, and start rallying our fellow believers to remove Mr Obama and ALL his allies from office this November.

That'll what I'm doing. I think all FReepers would do well to focus on doing the same.

[Mrs. Don-o]

OK, here's the 2008 election figures I got from a well-known "reading news feeds, making eyes bleed" FReeper election bean-counter:

55% McCain, 43% Obama - Weekly mass-attending Catholics ^6,9

54% McCain, 44% Obama - Weekly church-goers^1,4,7

The footnotes are as follows:

1 The Awesome Blue God -- How Obama Forged A New Faith Coalition
4 Obama: Bringing (Some) Evangelicals In
6 What's wrong with Catholic voters? What's wrong with Catholics?
7 Evangelical Voters Favor McCain by Wide Margins
9 What Happened to the Catholic Vote?

We see that among weekly-Mass-attending Catholics AND weekly-church-attgoers in general, the numbers tilted against Obama. Figures exclude Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christian faith groups.

Am I delighted by the Catholics' performance here? Obviously not. Not delighted with the Evangelicals and othe believers, either. The whole lot should have been overwhelmingly anti-Obama.

But my point still stands: let's stop sniping at each other, and start rallying our fellow believers to remove Mr Obama and ALL his allies from office this November.

That'll what I'm doing. I think all FReepers would do well to focus on doing the same.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I am certainly not defending pro-0bama voters of any stripe.

[ansel12]

Not delighted with the Evangelicals and othe believers, either. The whole lot should have been overwhelmingly anti-Obama.

Members of the Catholic denomination chose Obama by 54%, Evangelicals voted against him by over 70%, there is nothing to fault Evangelicals for, they should be praised and studied.

The total collection of all the non-Catholic Christians collectively voted 54% against him.

Even Hispanic Protestants only went for Obama by 52%, something is clearly going on.

[Mrs. Don-o]

We seem to have different sources of statistics. I footnoted mine, which I got from Alex. American Catholics voted within a percentage point of the way all Americans, taken as a whole, voted. And weekly-Mass-attending Catholics voted, by a 10-point spread, for McCain, but not as heavily as weekly-church-going white Evangelicals did. All of that, if true, is still hugely unsatisfactory.

Self-identified Catholics are similar to self-identified Jews in a certain respect, in that a Jew will keep calling himself a "Jew" even if he is an agnostic or atheist, and a nonbelieving, non-practicing "Catholic" will do the same.

My impression (correct me if you've seen otherwise) is that very rarely will a secular agnostic whose grandmother was a Methodist, call himself a "Methodist". But a secular agnostic person whose grandmother was an observant Jew or Catholic, will often, despite his own abandonment of the faith, label himself Jewish or Catholic.

That's --- from a Jewish or Catholic perspective--- a troubling fact.

[ansel12]

Jews identify as a race, not like a Christian denomination, or as just a church.

Catholics voted 54% for Obama and Protestants voted 54% for McCain, there is no dispute on that.

Baptized Catholics who are Catholic, and who are counted as Catholics by the Catholic church will identify as Catholics.

Catholics who join another denomination will identify as such, atheists will identify as such.

Non-Catholic Christians will identify themselves as a member of a different denomination, or as merely Christian, as in someone who doesn’t go to church or belong to a church, they would be labeled as Protestant in vote polling.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Quite true. If they haven't joined a Prostest church, they won't call thremselves Protestnts. But people who have not been blieving or practicing Catholics for most of, or all of, their lives, and have not joined another church, will identify themselves, and be identified in polls as, Catholics. Exactly this category (de-facto ex-Catholics), if classified as a "denomination," are the 2nd largest denomination in the USA: larger than Baptist, second only to beiieving Catholic.

In Massachusetts, for example, the ex-Catholics actually outnumber the Catholics, are in their opinions shocingly anti-Catholic (and anti-Christian generally), and still call thrmselves, when asked, "Catholics."

It's quite a headache.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Quite true. If ex-Catholics haven't joined a Protestant denomination, they won't call themselves Protestants. But people who have not been believing or practicing Catholics for all of their lives, and have not joined another church, do identify themselves, and are identified in polls as, Catholics. Exactly this category (de-facto ex-Catholics), if classified as a "denomination," would be the 2nd largest denomination in the USA: larger than Baptist, second only to beiieving Catholic.

In Massachusetts, for example, the ex-Catholics actually outnumber the Catholics, are in their opinions shockingly anti-Catholic (and anti-Christian generally), and still, when asked, designate themselves "Catholics."

It's quite a pain in the butt, actually.

And though Jews uniquely identify as a race, a culture, and even nationality in addition to as a "faith," --- any circumcised male of Jewish parentage is offically a Jew even if he worships Baal --- Catholics are often like that, if you substitute "baptism" for "circumcision".

[Mrs. Don-o]

Oops. Well, read both duplicate posts. It’s worth saying twice!

And yes, these ex’s are a real Obama Nation.

[ansel12]

Nonsense, only proclaimed Catholics are called Catholics for voting, Catholics that the Vatican count.

A Catholic that becomes a Protestant says so, a Catholic that leaves the Catholic church says so, a Christian that becomes an atheist, says so.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Yeah, pollsters and the Vatican working together for maximum coordination and total efficiency and truthiness.

Heh. /s/

[ansel12]

That doesn’t make sense, it is simple exit polling data on how groups vote, and Catholics is one of the groups.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I think you're missing some of the ambiguities between "Catholic" as a label collected in an exit poll, "Catholic" as a sociological category, and "Catholic" as a theological category.

This may very well apply to other religious groups, too. Jews, for sure, bigtime, and probably others.

Theologically, the Catholic Church teaches that Baptism marks one's entrance into the Catholic Churchm and Baptism can be validly administered by any person (Catholic or not) who baptizes with valid matter, form, and intent. Matter: water. Form: "I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Intent: to do God's will (by "God" I mean the Trinity, "the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit").

Hence theologicaly by the Catholic Church's standards, all baptized Christians have been initiated into Christ's church, i.e. the Catholic Church.

With the exception of Mormons and I think Adventists and JW's, who don't believe in the Trinity (three Persons, One God, creator of everything that exists.)

Now, you undoubtedly don't believe this and may think it is pedantic or a diversion for me to bring it up. My only point is that it can be ambiguous to label someone as a "Catholic" without some further explanation of what you mean.

For instance, everyone who describes himself as an "ex-Catholic," even if he has been excomunicated, is still Catholic by a strict theological definiton, having been once Baptized.

On the other hand, many who describe themselves as "Catholic" are not actually practicing and believing, and so are no true example of Catholic thought or behavior. An easy example would be Nancy Pelosi, who quite openly and radically rejects Catholic faith and morals, and at the same time self-describes, not only as a Catholc, but as a "devout" Catholic whose "faith means a lot" to her. Just like Lady Gaga!

< There are tens of millions like that. Ex-Catholics of this sort, if grouped as a denominaton, would be the 2nd largest denomination in the United States: a group considerably larer than the next group on the list, Baptists. It's quite alarming, one of the biggest problems the Catholic Church is struggling with.

That's all I want to say right now. God bless you, ansel12.

[ansel12]

Only some of the conservative Catholics who are embarrassed by the Catholic vote and don’t want to exam why it has always been liberal, insist on knowing how a person voted before counting them as Catholic.

Catholics who were baptized Catholic, who consider themselves Catholic, who go to a Catholic church if they want to attend a church, and who the Catholic church counts as Catholic, are counted as part of the Catholic vote, and the majority of Catholics have almost always voted liberal.

It is a simple political fact, and has been since the beginning and will be in our future, California is the future of America.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You and I certainly agree that too many Catholics (however you want to define them) vote Democratic, and that it'll get worse as more and more Hispanics become registered voters. (The same goes for the 20% of Hispanics who are Evangelical or Pentecostal, who become registered voters.)

And they're a much younger demographic than non-Hispanic white people, whether Protestant or Catholic. It's a long-term electoral/demographic problem we're all going to have to face.

Have a wonderful day.

[ansel12]

Actually Hispanic Catholics will return the Catholic vote to it’s traditional place, depending on which polling one accepts, the first time in history that the Catholic vote went Republican was either 1956, or 1972.

We are actually in a high point for Catholic voting from a conservative’s point of view, but this temporary high point will return to normal shortly as more Catholics immigrate here.

Hispanics who are Protestant are to the right of the average Catholic voter, for instance the Protestant Hispanics went 56% for Bush in 2004 and 52% for Obama in 2008, both better than the total Catholic vote.