Will AWOL True Believers Leave GOP at the Altar?

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/will-awol-true-believers-leave-gop-altar-1375882846

In this spirit, I cheer as organized church attendance and self-identified evangelicals go AWOL, leaving fewer to embrace outdated fallacies and, more to my point, stand by crushing rightwing obstructionism. Fewer Americans believe in God, declare sectarian loyalties, admit being “very religious,” or judge “the Bible contains everything a person needs to know to live a meaningful life.”

Item, with parallel implications: a few months back the secular organ of Old-time Religion, Fox News, hit ten year viewer lows, indeed “its worst prime time ratings in the coveted 25-54 demographic since August 2001, and its lowest total day ratings since June 2008.

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Clearly, for five of six national elections, the right remains tarred with minority status, and the surge in gay rights exposes fundamentalist hysteria about science, sexuality, and gender injustice. Not only are more in the Christian majority leaving congregations, but church construction is falling by 60%, literally reinforcing evangelical Pastor John Dickerson’s revealing NY Times essay, “The Decline of Evangelical America:” “structural supports of evangelicalism are quivering as a result of ground-shaking changes in American culture:”

In 2012 we witnessed a collapse in American evangelicalism. The old religious right largely failed to affect the Republican primaries, much less the presidential election. Last month, Americans voted in favor of same-sex marriage in four states, while Florida voters rejected an amendment to restrict abortion . . . [from Pew Research] evangelical ministers from the United States reported a greater loss of influence than church leaders from any other country — with some 82 p

[blkmusclmachine]

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