Timothy Birdnow

A recent survey conducted by a group called the Public Religion Research Institute claims that those self-identifying as "white Christians" has fallen below fifty percent. According to Fox News:

" The share of Americans who identify as white and Christian has dropped below 50 percent, a transformation fueled by immigration and by growing numbers of people who reject organized religion altogether, according to a new survey released Wednesday.

Christians overall remain a large majority in the U.S., at nearly 70 percent of Americans. However, white Christians, once predominant in the country's religious life, now comprise only 43 percent of the population, according to the Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI, a polling organization based in Washington. Four decades ago, about eight in 10 Americans were white Christians.

The change has occurred across the spectrum of Christian traditions in the U.S., including sharp drops in membership in predominantly white mainline Protestant denominations such as Presbyterians and Lutherans; an increasing Latino presence in the Roman Catholic Church as some non-Hispanic white Catholics leave; and shrinking ranks of white evangelicals, who until recently had been viewed as immune to decline."

End excerpt.

Needless to say, the Fake News media is giddy with joy at the prospects of a de-Christianized America - especially a non-white deChristianized America.

Now I haven't gone through the whole report (it's very long - over forty pages) and I know Christianity and Caucasionism are waning in America, but I have my doubts about this whole thing. Over the years I've learned to spot b.s. research and this smells like bullpucky to me.

Please notice this little bit from the Fox News article:

"So often, white evangelicals have been pointing in judgment to white mainline groups, saying when you have liberal theology you decline," said Robert Jones, chief executive of PRRI. "I think this data really does challenge that interpretation of linking theological conservatism and growth."

End excerpt.

Now why would this fellow even bother to say that if he clearly had facts on his side? It is a clearly political statement.

According to Wikipedia:

"PRRI was founded in 2009 by Robert P. Jones, a scholar and author on religion and public policy who holds a Ph.D. in religion from Emory University; Jones has since served as chief executive officer.[2][3]

PRRI is a member of the National Council of Public Polls and is a founding member of the Transparency Initiative at the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

PRRI partners with media outlets, think tanks, and academic institutions. Partners include The Atlantic, The Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, the American Academy of Religion (AAR), and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs. All PRRI data is publicly available at the PRRI website and on The Roper Center archives at Cornell University."

End excerpt.

Notice the list of left-wing outfits that PRRI is involved with. Also notice it was born during the obama years and is largley run by a single guy.

PRRI has always engaged in advocacy dressed up as unbiased polling. Take this for example:

"A case in point is a recent immigration survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, this time dealing with the Summer 2014 surge of children, families, and others seeking entry to the United States without authorization. The PRRI webpage announces their findings in a bold headline: "Nearly 7-in-10 Americans See Unaccompanied Children at Border as Refugees, Not Illegal Immigrants".

As is so often the case, other news reporters and writers picked up that headline, with no analysis. Typical was a Washington Post story that contained this sentence: "A July survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found 70 percent saying immigrant children should be offered shelter and support while beginning the process of determining legal status, and a similar number think they should be treated as refugees."

[...]

"The website headline, presented without nuance, clearly implied that the summer surge of illegal migrants was seen as different by most Americans — not as an ongoing inability to deter or stop illegal migration, but as essentially a humanitarian refugee crisis.

Reading several paragraphs into the article, we find this further analysis: "A majority (69 percent) of Americans say that children arriving from Central America should be treated as refugees and allowed to stay in the United States if authorities determine it is not safe for them to return to their home."

In the PRRI news release, the interested reader finds a clue to how the Institute got the results that they did, to wit: "7-in-10 prefer offering children support while cases are reviewed, over immediate deportation."

So, as they did with their earlier, patently misleading survey on Americans' view of immigration reform, they asked their questions in such a way as to stack the deck in favor of the answer one presumes they prefer.

They first ask how much respondents have heard "about the large number of children from Central America coming to the United States without their parents". Forty-nine percent say a lot, 31 percent say a little, and, surprisingly, 20 percent say "nothing at all".

End excerpts.

It should be pointed out that Robert P. Jones wrote a book "Progressive and Religious" which I suspect speaks volumes. He was an assistant professor of religious studies at Missouri State University. Here is a quote by the good prophessor (misspelling intended):

No segment of White Christian America has been more complicit in the nation’s fraught racial history than white evangelical Protestants.”

― Robert P. Jones, The End of White Christian America

and Jones was the guy who tried to claim Evangelicals were great fans of torture.[/link[ According to the article:

"Religion scholar Robert P. Jones, whose polling firm conducted the survey, believes evangelicals’ support for torture probably stems from two major impulses: Fear, and the understandable but unrealistic yearning for absolute safety from terrorists"

End excerpt.

I could go on, but you get the point; this seems to me to be a study conducted by a partisan hack who pretends to be nothing but a man of scholarship.

Why do it?

Well, if white Christians are declining so precipitously, then why should politicians - especially Republicans - listen to them? Better to make buds with immigrants, with Muslims and Hispanics and anyone except the old white guys. Trump is an aberration, soon to pass away. The GOP should "look to the future" and away from the past.

And it gives the Left a much needed boost to their morale. Now they are despondend, especially since they have lost most of the states of the Union. By promising a demographic shift (as James Carville did a few years ago) Jones and his group offer hope to an increasingly hopeless left.

One must ask why we should listen to these people? Polling firms had the election profoundly wrong, and at the time it was admitted that the old techniques were no longer applicable. What our good friend here has done is produce another Nate Silver piece, methinks. Remember, Silver said Hillary had a ninety percent chance of winning and yet she lost. Everyone was shocked at the outcome. But here we are generating fake news again with the same failed polling and surveying models.

Oh, I don't doubt that the numbers of people claiming to be white and Christian have declined; how could they not given the war on both by the media, by academia, and by government. Who wants to claim membership in a group that is blamed for all the world's ills? But does that make it true? In Jesus' day there were numerous disciples who kept quiet out of fear. This may well be the case today.

Well, I'm not afraid. And even if it IS true, Jesus promised that the power of Hell would not prevail against His Church.

Let us all remembr that.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1314 words, total size 9 kb.