20 Myths About Religion And Politics In America

The way most people think about religion and politics is only loosely linked to empirical reality, argues Ryan P. Burge in 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America. Instead, our thinking is based on anecdotes, a quick scan of news headlines, or worse, flat-out lies told by voices trying to push a religious or political agenda on a distracted public. Burge sees this fundamentally flawed understanding of the world around us and our misperceptions about where we fit into the larger fabric of society as caustic for the future of American politics and religion. Without an accurate picture of our society, when we subscribe to only caricatures of what our country looks like, we never really address the problems facing us. Striving to be an impartial referee, Burge describes with accessible and engaging prose--and illustrates with dozens of clear, helpful graphs--what the data says. Step by step, he debunks twenty myths, using rigorous data analysis and straightforward explanations. He gives readers the resources to adopt an empirical view of the world that can help all of us, religious and nonreligious alike, get past at least some of the unsupported beliefs that divide us.

The way most people think about religion and politics is only loosely linked to empirical reality, argues Ryan P. Burge. In 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America, Burge strives to be an impartial referee and to overcome these caustic misperceptions by using both rigorous data analysis and straightforward explanations.

In The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going, Second Edition, Ryan P. Burge details a comprehensive picture of an increasingly significant group--Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. The growth of the nones in American society has been dramatic. In 1972, just 5 percent of Americans claimed "no religion" on the General Social Survey. In 2018, that number rose to 23.7 percent, making the nones as numerous as both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. Every indication is that the nones will be the largest religious group in the United States in the next decade. Burge illustrates his precise but accessible descriptions with charts and graphs drawn from more than a dozen carefully curated datasets, some tracking changes in American religion over a long period of time, others large enough to allow a statistical deep dive on subgroups such as atheists or agnostics. Burge also draws on data that tracks how individuals move in and out of religion over time, helping readers to understand what type of people become nones and what factors lead an individual to return to religion. This second edition includes substantial updates with new chapters and current statistical and demographic information. The Nones gives readers a nuanced, accurate, and meaningful picture of the growing number of Americans who say that they have no religious affiliation. Burge explains how this rise happened, who the nones are, and what they mean for the future of American religion.

Our nation is currently in a unique and perilous time of division which includes our communities of faith. Unique in the sense that issues of faith are being used by many secular and sacred sources to exploit the divide of our nation further and perilous because if left unchecked, our nation could move to civil war. “Faith for the Times” first describes the political, social, and civil issues facilitating the division in our nation’s faith communities. Following those descriptions are discussions of methods to heal those divides supported by anecdotes and experiences from over thirty years of ministry in various communities of faith in the Washington D.C. area. Divisions in our nation exist in several ways, but in this writing, they are generalized into the three areas of political, social, and civil. What is most alarming about our times is that these divisions combine with the many existing divisions in the communities of faith in our nation. There have always been divisions between types of faith and there have been many conflicts between them throughout history. But it seems that since the turn of the century, beginning with the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City, that conflicts among some of the major faiths such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have escalated. What's more, with the accelerated political polarization of the Evangelical Christian community, divides between denominations of the Evangelical church have grown. In the first part of this writing, the author describes the dividing of our nation, and the role faith has played in that division. This is done by borrowing a technique used by David in the writing of his Psalms using the term "shadows". The author applies that term as the “shadows of faith” as an illustration how our faith influences our political, social, and civil expressions of living. The intent with Part 1 of this writing is to expose the complexity of the divide in our nation and how faith interacts with that divide. In Part 2 the author addresses how to close the divide by faith. There is no pretense in this writing to suggest a nation as big and diverse as ours could be united with this one writing. But there is a confidence portrayed in the text concerning what God has done in the author's faith journey that allows the writing of these words and ideas as something to ponder and perhaps light a spark to begin the healing process required of our nation. The reader is invited to embrace what may be a new conversation of faith. A faith that focuses more on what we have in common with other people of faith than what divides us. That passion has been birthed in the author because of a faith journey not of his choosing but by his experience. Being raised Catholic the author converted to Protestant as a young adult. Moving through several denominations by experiences of faith the result has been a faith and a passion to impact people for God, not for a particular denomination. The reader is invited to join this celebration of faith with the author.

Six myths lie at the heart of the American experience. Taken as aspirational, four of those myths remind us of our noblest ideals, challenging us to realize our nation's promise while galvanizing the sense of hope and unity we need to reach our goals. Misused, these myths allow for illusions of innocence that fly in the face of white supremacy, the primal American myth that stands at the heart of all the others.

In Trump, White Evangelical Christians, and American Politics, political scientists Anand Edward Sokhey and Paul A. Djupe bring together a wide range of scholars and writers to examine the relationship between former President Donald Trump and white American evangelical Christians. They argue that, while this relationship—which saw evangelicals supporting a famously unfaithful, materialistic, and irreligious candidate despite self-defining in opposition to these characteristics—prompted many to wonder if Trump himself transformed American evangelical religion in politics, this alliance reflected both change and the outcome of dynamics that were in place or building for decades. Contributors contextualize the Trump presidency within the story of religious demographic change, the growth of politicized religion, nationalistic religious expression, and the ways religion and politics in the United States are enmeshed in the politics of race. These investigations find that the idea of religious “transformation” is not accurate. Instead, the years 2015 to 2022 saw mainly minor changes to the ways religion appeared in public life—but these changes ultimately complemented and advanced an existing white evangelical strategy to increase political and social power as they became a demographic minority in the United States. Taken together, this collection reveals new insights for readers seeking to understand the religious dimensions of Trump’s rise, the reasons evangelicals become political activists, and the multifaceted alliances between secular politicians and conservative religious subcultures. Contributors: Abraham Barranca, Ruth Braunstein, Ryan P. Burge, David E. Campbell, Jeremiah J. Castle, Paul A. Djupe, John C. Green, Sarah Heise, Geoffrey C. Layman, Andrew R. Lewis, Gerardo Martí, Eric L. McDaniel, Napp Nazworth, Shayla F. Olson, Enrique Quezada-Llanes, Kaylynn Sims, Anand Edward Sokhey, Hilde Løvdal Stephens, Kyla K. Stepp, Allan Tellis.

Religion and politics are never far from the headlines, but their relationship remains complex and often confusing. In this fifth edition of Religion and Politics in America, the authors offer a lively, accessible, and balanced treatment of religion in American politics. They explore the historical, cultural, and legal contexts that underlie religious political engagement while also highlighting the pragmatic and strategic political realities that religious organizations and people face. Incorporating the best and most up-to-date scholarship, the authors assess the politics of Roman Catholics; evangelical, mainline, and African American Protestants; Jews; Muslims and other conventional and not-so-conventional American religious movements. The author team also examines important subjects concerning religion and its relationship to gender, race/ethnicity, and class. The fifth edition has been revised to include the 2012 elections, in particular Mitt Romney's candidacy and Mormonism, as well as a fuller assessment of the role of religion in President Obama's first term. In-depth treatment of core topics, contemporary case studies, and useful focus-study boxes, provides students with a real understanding of how religion and politics relate in practice and makes this fifth edition essential reading for courses in political science, religion, and sociology departments.

From marriage equality, to gun control, to immigration reform and the threat of war, religion plays a fascinating and crucial part in our nation's political process and in our culture at large. Now in its seventh edition, Religion and Politics in the United States includes analyses of the nation's most pressing political matters regarding religious freedom, and the ways in which that essential constitutional freedom situates itself within modern America. The book also explores the ways that religion has affected the orientation of partisan politics in the United States. Through a detailed review of the political attitudes and behaviors of major religious and minority faith traditions, the book establishes that religion continues to be a major part of the American cultural and political milieu while explaining that it must interact with many other factors to influence political outcomes in the United States.