Thou shalt not kill is pretty foundational. One has to do a lot of mental gymnastics and “nuanced” thinking to explain how being pro-abortion is okay as a Christian.
p.s. Being for legal abortion and voting for a candidate that is are not the same thing. No one agrees with every policy position of the folks they vote for.
Being a single issue voter means you will vote for the devil himself if he promises to make abortion illegal. And why wouldn’t he? Why be an easy mark? It’s not like a Democrat in the White House is going to force you to have an abortion. In fact the abortion rate has consistently dropped more when Democrats occupied the White House. Thou shalt not murder seems clear but only if you believe life begins at fertilization. If you believe that, then most forms of contraception are potentially murder and having sex with your wife is potentially manslaughter as not all fertilized ova implant. Christian teaching on abortion has flip flopped over the years as the Bible does not mention it. The SBC was in favor of legal abortion until the “Moral Majority” needed a political cause to rally the troops to the Republican party. Also there are many things considered sin that we don’t make illegal. Every candidate and party is a package. Voting for MTG because she says she’s against abortion seems foolhardy. We also have seen anti-abortion Republicans outed as procuring abortion for their mistresses. If you’re against abortion, don’t have one. Support programs to help poor women and unwed mothers. The Christian Right has become a reliable voting block for any politician who says they’re against abortion. If you don’t think politicians take stances to get votes, you don’t know how politics works.
"I wonder what are the politically salient events which are impacting these 30-44 year old non-white Evangelicals."
Among what I'd expect to be salient (falling in this age range myself):
The civil-rights movement is something this demographic learned of as history. I'm at home in Mainline congregations, and I've noticed that older Mainline leaders talk about the civil-rights struggle as if they're still part of it, not just as a matter of political polarization (though that plays a role, too), but because they're old enough to have *been* part of it at an age when it shaped their identity. Having lived through it makes it harder to forget when the GOP decided to "hunt where the ducks are" and accept a segregationist bloc into its party as an electoral strategy. But if you didn't live through it (as I didn't), forgetting's easier.
Institutional distrust makes conspiracy-theorizing more appealing. Minorities often have good reason to feel institutional distrust. For example, minorities aren't entirely imagining it when they perceive medical gatekeepers, for example, as taking them less seriously (nor are women entirely imagining it). Feeling dismissed by mainstream medicine understandably makes alt-med, with its often-conspiratorial mindset toward mainstream medicine, more appealing. And similarly for other institutions. Feeling dismissed from the mainstream makes trusting Alex-Jones-style crankery easier. And the GOP is now considerably less embarrassed to call such crankery its own.
It seems that this 30-44 crowd -- Millennials -- are experiencing a conservative revolution among non-white Evangelicals. But that's very different from the white sample, where there's been a progressive decline in conservative among younger generations.
I wonder what are the politically salient events which are impacting these 30-44 year old non-white Evangelicals. Was it Obama? BLM? COVID? Inflation? What sorts of events would they point to as having a political effect on them?
My guess would be the Millennial generation is the breakpoint at which a lot more nonwhite evangelicals are going to church with white evangelicals, and thus they're more assimilated to white evangelical culture than, for example, AME churchgoers (many of whom might identify as evangelical when asked).
Growing up, our (Mainline) church was 100% white, as was my grandparents' evangelical (Baptist) church. My church now is probably 70-80% white. Any church that is 100% white is probably very old.
I would also guess that Millennial nonwhite evangelicals are more Hispanic and Asian and less black than older generations.
Of course, but I would argue almost every voter has a variety of issues they have to weigh and some have more weight that others. For example in the recent election there was no pro life absolute candidate. Trump was pro choice in the safe, legal and rare and Kamala Harris was Pro abortion. No restrictions up to the point of birth and even questionably afterbirth. So pro life voters have to make a choice and it is binary one. I chose to vote for a candidate that brings less evil by their policies and it was not even close. The current republican platform reflects the democrat platform from the 1990s. I am an incrimentalist and not an absolutionist so I will take every victory however small to restrict this practice. The hearts and minds of the electorate have to be changed and then policies will change. To change policies before the voters minds are changed will not produce lasting change.
Enjoy this analysis. The political line graph on which everyone places themselves, the parties, and their leaders is helpful. But one point I'll make is that 2020 Biden was undoubtedly perceived as being significantly to the right of 2024 Biden.
Fundamentally, both 2016 Trump and 2020 Biden were deeply disappointing to a lot of people in the broad middle and right-of-center that were hoping for a return to 2008 or 2012. In 2020, it seemed plausible that Biden was the man to deliver it; indeed that's how his campaign positioned itself.
I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that when a President delivers a disappointing term, all else equal he does worse the next time around with the sort of people he disappointed. Both 2016 Trump and 2020 Biden were fired for their failures. Kamala didn't distance herself at all from Biden, and it was basically impossible for her to position herself anywhere nearly as far to the right as 2020 Biden, so she was saddled with being the flagbearer of that disappointment.
From everything I was able to pick up, my church was a lot more divided in 2020 than 2024. No one liked Trump any better (I think as a younger and more educated group, we definitely lean on the more Trump-skeptical side of the church) but everyone liked the Democrats a lot less, so even those that were still voting for them were less committed and more ambivalent about it.
Where I live abortion is the litmus test. Every preacher will tell you that God will be seriously mad at you if you vote for a baby-killing Democrat.
Thou shalt not kill is pretty foundational. One has to do a lot of mental gymnastics and “nuanced” thinking to explain how being pro-abortion is okay as a Christian.
p.s. Being for legal abortion and voting for a candidate that is are not the same thing. No one agrees with every policy position of the folks they vote for.
Being a single issue voter means you will vote for the devil himself if he promises to make abortion illegal. And why wouldn’t he? Why be an easy mark? It’s not like a Democrat in the White House is going to force you to have an abortion. In fact the abortion rate has consistently dropped more when Democrats occupied the White House. Thou shalt not murder seems clear but only if you believe life begins at fertilization. If you believe that, then most forms of contraception are potentially murder and having sex with your wife is potentially manslaughter as not all fertilized ova implant. Christian teaching on abortion has flip flopped over the years as the Bible does not mention it. The SBC was in favor of legal abortion until the “Moral Majority” needed a political cause to rally the troops to the Republican party. Also there are many things considered sin that we don’t make illegal. Every candidate and party is a package. Voting for MTG because she says she’s against abortion seems foolhardy. We also have seen anti-abortion Republicans outed as procuring abortion for their mistresses. If you’re against abortion, don’t have one. Support programs to help poor women and unwed mothers. The Christian Right has become a reliable voting block for any politician who says they’re against abortion. If you don’t think politicians take stances to get votes, you don’t know how politics works.
"I wonder what are the politically salient events which are impacting these 30-44 year old non-white Evangelicals."
Among what I'd expect to be salient (falling in this age range myself):
The civil-rights movement is something this demographic learned of as history. I'm at home in Mainline congregations, and I've noticed that older Mainline leaders talk about the civil-rights struggle as if they're still part of it, not just as a matter of political polarization (though that plays a role, too), but because they're old enough to have *been* part of it at an age when it shaped their identity. Having lived through it makes it harder to forget when the GOP decided to "hunt where the ducks are" and accept a segregationist bloc into its party as an electoral strategy. But if you didn't live through it (as I didn't), forgetting's easier.
Institutional distrust makes conspiracy-theorizing more appealing. Minorities often have good reason to feel institutional distrust. For example, minorities aren't entirely imagining it when they perceive medical gatekeepers, for example, as taking them less seriously (nor are women entirely imagining it). Feeling dismissed by mainstream medicine understandably makes alt-med, with its often-conspiratorial mindset toward mainstream medicine, more appealing. And similarly for other institutions. Feeling dismissed from the mainstream makes trusting Alex-Jones-style crankery easier. And the GOP is now considerably less embarrassed to call such crankery its own.
It seems that this 30-44 crowd -- Millennials -- are experiencing a conservative revolution among non-white Evangelicals. But that's very different from the white sample, where there's been a progressive decline in conservative among younger generations.
I wonder what are the politically salient events which are impacting these 30-44 year old non-white Evangelicals. Was it Obama? BLM? COVID? Inflation? What sorts of events would they point to as having a political effect on them?
My guess would be the Millennial generation is the breakpoint at which a lot more nonwhite evangelicals are going to church with white evangelicals, and thus they're more assimilated to white evangelical culture than, for example, AME churchgoers (many of whom might identify as evangelical when asked).
Growing up, our (Mainline) church was 100% white, as was my grandparents' evangelical (Baptist) church. My church now is probably 70-80% white. Any church that is 100% white is probably very old.
I would also guess that Millennial nonwhite evangelicals are more Hispanic and Asian and less black than older generations.
Of course, but I would argue almost every voter has a variety of issues they have to weigh and some have more weight that others. For example in the recent election there was no pro life absolute candidate. Trump was pro choice in the safe, legal and rare and Kamala Harris was Pro abortion. No restrictions up to the point of birth and even questionably afterbirth. So pro life voters have to make a choice and it is binary one. I chose to vote for a candidate that brings less evil by their policies and it was not even close. The current republican platform reflects the democrat platform from the 1990s. I am an incrimentalist and not an absolutionist so I will take every victory however small to restrict this practice. The hearts and minds of the electorate have to be changed and then policies will change. To change policies before the voters minds are changed will not produce lasting change.
Enjoy this analysis. The political line graph on which everyone places themselves, the parties, and their leaders is helpful. But one point I'll make is that 2020 Biden was undoubtedly perceived as being significantly to the right of 2024 Biden.
Fundamentally, both 2016 Trump and 2020 Biden were deeply disappointing to a lot of people in the broad middle and right-of-center that were hoping for a return to 2008 or 2012. In 2020, it seemed plausible that Biden was the man to deliver it; indeed that's how his campaign positioned itself.
I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that when a President delivers a disappointing term, all else equal he does worse the next time around with the sort of people he disappointed. Both 2016 Trump and 2020 Biden were fired for their failures. Kamala didn't distance herself at all from Biden, and it was basically impossible for her to position herself anywhere nearly as far to the right as 2020 Biden, so she was saddled with being the flagbearer of that disappointment.
From everything I was able to pick up, my church was a lot more divided in 2020 than 2024. No one liked Trump any better (I think as a younger and more educated group, we definitely lean on the more Trump-skeptical side of the church) but everyone liked the Democrats a lot less, so even those that were still voting for them were less committed and more ambivalent about it.
Great analysis. Looking forwards to more!
The analysis should be Caucasian evangelicals vs non Caucasian evangelicals