Or so according to this new study of said demographic by Buster Smith and Byron Johnson of Baylor University, which shows no statistically significant difference of opinion among younger evangelicals vis-a-vis their elders. It’s been said by some – Gary Wills, for example, but the study cites others – that the evangelical youth cohort (aged 18-29) are moving to the left on social issues. Not so, unless you consider global warming/environment, the only issue for which the evidence exists of leftward drift, a “social issue.”
We find no strong evidence to support the notion that young evangelicals are retreating from traditional positions or increasingly adopting more liberal positions on hot-button or controversial social issues.
Read it here.
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July 1, 2010 at 2:01 am
Very Interesting blog TGGP.
“We find no strong evidence to support the notion that young evangelicals are retreating from traditional positions or increasingly adopting more liberal positions on hot-button or controversial social issues.”
It remindes me of European young Muslims’ constant drift towards orthodox Islamism. The most interesting thing is that it seems that this drift is not of impoverished immigrants but from a newly emerging Islamist middle-class. I haven’t seen empirical facts, but it seems to me that young age’s relation to cultural liberalism is flawed. Since cultural liberalism has become status quo in Europe, it has lost it’s romantic and idealist appeal. Radical Youth is drawn by idealism and romanticism not liberalism and/or progressivism per se. And dogmatic religionism has a lot of idealist appeal in a world conceived by many to be drifting to materialism and hedonism.
July 1, 2010 at 2:10 am
Sorry I didn’t see the your name Mupetblast. A kinda embarassing mistake. If you would like it, correct my comment and put “muppetblast” where I wrote “TGGP”. Thanks in advance.
July 1, 2010 at 11:04 am
No problem.
Your comment is interesting. I wonder then if someone would have to come from a religious family to begin with in order to become disenchanted with its lack of self-discipline in the face of hedonism and secularism. As far as I can tell there is no drift toward religion or other substitutes for austerity and spirituality on the part of those that don’t come from religious backgrounds go begin with.
And even in the case of these evangelicals, it appears they are no more extreme than their predecessors, but about the same, and with environmentalism thrown in somewhat less so. So the comparison to European Muslims is a little shaky, though you did only say “reminds me.”
July 1, 2010 at 12:35 pm
@Dain
One of the reasons that I like this blog is that it is empiricist and fact-oriented, traits that I don’t have. So reading this blog helps me, to stand “with my feet firmly on ground”, if you know what I mean.
I believe the reason for the stasis but not further reaction is that Christianity is losing dynamism and becomes increasingly pessimist. I live in Greece, an Eastern Orthodox country and I have not heard of an optimist genouinely faithful Christian in my middle-class enviroment at least. While Islam I think is still dynamic and promotes a warrior ethos, that Christianity has lost.
“I wonder then if someone would have to come from a religious family to begin with in order to become disenchanted with its lack of self-discipline in the face of hedonism and secularism.”
I think that one possible interpretation is this. There are two categories 1) those from a religious background who remain “static” since they feel that Christianity has gone TOO liberal, but don’t want a Return of Theocracy, since they don’t have an emotional attachment with radical fundamentalism 2) those from a secular or semi-secular lifestyle, who turn radically Christian-ward, after becoming frustrated with materialism and hedonism. But those too they can’t turn that far to the right, since they have been raised with secular values.
I for example was raised in a lax Eastern Orthodox Christian background (as far as church attendance goes) but deeply conservative otherwise despite it’s semi-secularism. So when I went to a private junior high school, finding myself in a plutocratic enviroment (yet deeply upstart), which embraced cultural liberalism (for me it meant excessive swearing, horny teenagers, cigarettes and a general sense of “decadence”). As a reaction I was turned to “practically a Calvinist” for 3 years. Now I am a weak-atheist and I have abandoned completely Christianity except from some peripheral values, even turning to Stirnerism and Nietzscheanism gradually. But it was very difficult.
July 1, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Islamic fundamentalism seems often to be a modernist, urban phenomena. People in villages value tradition over theological correctness, they are like Catholics. When people are unmoored from that sort of community they seek a replacement, and the fundamentalist churches provide. One interesting thing about European muslims is how salient the “Muslim” part of their identity has become. Razib gives the example of Bangladeshis in England wearing Pakistani (rather than their own) traditional dress, because that’s what “Muslims” do there.
According to God’s Continent there are about twice as many evangelical Christians as Muslims in Europe.
July 2, 2010 at 12:03 am
“According to God’s Continent there are about twice as many evangelical Christians as Muslims in Europe.”
Very interesting article, and a refreshing hypothesis after so much Islamophobic hysteria. For example, I am for immigration reduction of Muslims in Europe, but I never adopted the quite hysteric theory that European Civilazation is ending, due to an Jihad of Muslim immigrants…
July 1, 2010 at 7:39 pm
This is relevant:
http://www.takimag.com/site/article/religous_extremists_will_inherit_the_earth/