OT: I received your book a few days ago and finished reading it. Solid content, easy to read. Lots of material and smoothing-out context that isn't in the daily columns.
I was especially struck by the graph on p 152 showing D vs R religiosity. Two WIDELY separated curves, R tightly clustered at the upper end and D tightly clustered at the lower end. Nothing at all in between. Perfect picture of absolute polarization.
Keep in mind that there are people in both partisan coalitions that do not fit the general observation and they are scattered through the middle region. Given the very narrow partisan divide in this country neither party can afford to lose such "misfits" lest they become a permanent minority party.
This was the surprising take-away to me: "The share of all Americans who are ex-vangelicals is about 4–5%. That’s lower than the share who say that they are atheists." Most of the Dones are from Mainline and Catholic backgrounds - I wouldn't have guessed that but it makes sense.
I can see why some would come from the RC-- what with the abuse scandal and the like there were people who left in utter disgust, and did not join the Orthodox, Lutherans or other liturgical churches but just chucked religion out totally. I'm less clear why that would happen with mainstream Christians. Those are people I would expect to become "spiritual but not religious" or even "NiNo"
Hmm…I think the conclusion leaps a bit. Certainly there are exvangelicals in the ZAs but as you show, even if there are more than in the Dones, they’re quite rare. My personal experience as a milquetoast Methodist -> ZA -> Catholic Millennial suggests that the religious environment in the home was simply not that relevant for our generation—Millennial ZAs were radicalized against religion by the turn-of-the-century online atheism movement which in turn was largely a response to the influence of evangelicals in the Bush-era GOP. It’s much easier to be radically opposed to something you only know about from its opponents online. Did you gather any data that would shed light on where each group got the main influence on its religious direction from?
Help me understand how I would operationalize a question like this:
"Did you gather any data that would shed light on where each group got the main influence on its religious direction from?"
Do you think most Americans could quickly articulate such an idea?
I was a pastor for 20+ years and have been a weekly church attender my entire life and I'm not entirely certain I could answer that question effectively.
I see what you mean. A question like this might draw up something interesting that’s relevant to what I’m wondering about: “[currently/in the past] [did/do] you discuss religion primarily (choose at least one): (a) with family (b) with others I know personally (c) online (d) I don’t/didn’t discuss religion regularly.” You might find Dones never talking about religion, Zealous Atheists leaning more online, and the other two groups leaning more offline.
Seems like all the people I have seen use this term and all those I have seen who self-identify as exvangelicals are those who, whatever their background and childhood experiences might have been, claim that as young adults for a period of time they themselves had identified as evangelicals, before abandoning their own evangelicalism....
Milquetoast world of Methodists and Episcopalians!? I am hoping/believing/trusting that is a comment about these denominations at an earlier time when they/we were building national institutions as part of the establishment and not so much about us today...
What does the term “spiritual” mean? Is it just a nice sounding term that one wants to identify with? Is it just positive emotions that one enjoys?
I was once part of a discussion on it and the leader of the discussion just said it was something meaningful outside of themselves that they wanted to identify with. So essentially it was a term of this physical world and nothing to do with anything other than this world.
The most interesting things is that none of the Nones can justify their position. They have zero evidence and logic for anything they believe. The evidence is overwhelming that there is a creator and this creator has objectives. Yet, they think otherwise.
For folks who don't work with surveys a great deal, here's something that they struggle grasp.
We don't define things on surveys. For two reasons.
1. It takes a long time to describe every single term on a survey. Time is of the essence. If a survey defined most of its terms it could only ask half as many questions.
2. No one agrees on the definition of anything. If I asked 100 people to define the term "conservative" how many of them would agree on such an idea? Or spiritual?
It's best to let people just respond simply - based on their own understanding of what those terms mean.
I think this is overall a good analysis. But I was surprised you didn't bring up Catholicism more prominently among the Dones.
Boomers, and to some degree Gen X, were the generations most affected by the traumatic transition that came after Vatican II, and especially the shock of Humanae Vitae. A lot in those generations who remained were parents or young adults when the sex abuse scandal hit, and they made up another round of mass defections (no pun intended).
Most studies show that ex-Catholics make up an outsized proportion of people who have left their religious upbringing in the US. In my experience Gen X and Boomer Catholics who leave the Church have a very "meh, whatever" attitude towards it that you would expect from "Dones." Or as a my husband, a son of Portuguese immigrants raised in the Northeast, says "I did 12 years of Catholic school, so I think I'm good for the rest of my life." This is pretty much the sentiment of every single friend he went to Catholic school with as well. There never really was much attachment; religion is something moms and grandmas do.
This is a common sentiment IME among people raised Catholic over 45. I think the uneven implementation of Vatican II caused a lot of Catholics of those generations to think that "well, if the Church can change things, it isn't what it says it is" or "if the Church can change some of the things, it should change all the things." Humanae Vitae was such a shock to both these mentalities that I think a lot of American Catholics, especially boomers, just could never take the Church seriously again.
Boomer and Gen X Catholics also are probably those with some of the strongest memories of parents going to Church weekly, or who at least grew up in a cultural environment where their parents were expected to go weekly.
It would be interesting to see what proportion of those Dones were Catholics vs Mainline Protestants, especially broken down by generation.
It does make sense that Dones would tend toward those raised mainline and Catholic not just because of religious trends during those generations, but also temperment and the degree of cultural vs. personal adherence. Evangelicalism is such an emotional religion where the commitment is so personal; it makes sense that cultural Catholics and fallen away Episcopalians and Lutherans are like "Eh, I'm done; I can have potlucks just as well with my neighbors," where Exvangelicals have to hate their old religion with the vocal passion of a personally jilted lover.
You bring up an excellent point, Julian. And this is something that I struggle with mightily.
My audience is large now. And comes from a very wide variety of viewpoints and religious backgrounds.
I could take my prose as an opportunity to specifically reference every tradition that are listed in my data visualizations. But then these posts would move 1500-2000 words to 3000-4000 words.
Maybe my intuition is wrong, but I don't think many readers have the stomach for 4000 words twice per week. That would mean that I would be writing 400,000 words for this newsletter. That's the equivalent of 6-7 books of content.
Instead, I just point out the things that jump out to me from my own biased opinion and I let my readers point out other things in the comments that are of interest to them.
OT: I received your book a few days ago and finished reading it. Solid content, easy to read. Lots of material and smoothing-out context that isn't in the daily columns.
I was especially struck by the graph on p 152 showing D vs R religiosity. Two WIDELY separated curves, R tightly clustered at the upper end and D tightly clustered at the lower end. Nothing at all in between. Perfect picture of absolute polarization.
Keep in mind that there are people in both partisan coalitions that do not fit the general observation and they are scattered through the middle region. Given the very narrow partisan divide in this country neither party can afford to lose such "misfits" lest they become a permanent minority party.
This was the surprising take-away to me: "The share of all Americans who are ex-vangelicals is about 4–5%. That’s lower than the share who say that they are atheists." Most of the Dones are from Mainline and Catholic backgrounds - I wouldn't have guessed that but it makes sense.
I can see why some would come from the RC-- what with the abuse scandal and the like there were people who left in utter disgust, and did not join the Orthodox, Lutherans or other liturgical churches but just chucked religion out totally. I'm less clear why that would happen with mainstream Christians. Those are people I would expect to become "spiritual but not religious" or even "NiNo"
Hmm…I think the conclusion leaps a bit. Certainly there are exvangelicals in the ZAs but as you show, even if there are more than in the Dones, they’re quite rare. My personal experience as a milquetoast Methodist -> ZA -> Catholic Millennial suggests that the religious environment in the home was simply not that relevant for our generation—Millennial ZAs were radicalized against religion by the turn-of-the-century online atheism movement which in turn was largely a response to the influence of evangelicals in the Bush-era GOP. It’s much easier to be radically opposed to something you only know about from its opponents online. Did you gather any data that would shed light on where each group got the main influence on its religious direction from?
Help me understand how I would operationalize a question like this:
"Did you gather any data that would shed light on where each group got the main influence on its religious direction from?"
Do you think most Americans could quickly articulate such an idea?
I was a pastor for 20+ years and have been a weekly church attender my entire life and I'm not entirely certain I could answer that question effectively.
I see what you mean. A question like this might draw up something interesting that’s relevant to what I’m wondering about: “[currently/in the past] [did/do] you discuss religion primarily (choose at least one): (a) with family (b) with others I know personally (c) online (d) I don’t/didn’t discuss religion regularly.” You might find Dones never talking about religion, Zealous Atheists leaning more online, and the other two groups leaning more offline.
Hey Ryan! Can you define “exvangelical” as you use it as I’ve seen varying definitions. Thank you!!
I'm not sure if there is an official definition. As I see it there are two separate definitions:
1. I was born and raised in a deeply evangelical household. Currently I do not identify as an evangelical.
2. I was born and raised in a deeply evangelical household. Currently I identify as non-religious person.
We could also deliberate on how many criteria we would need to meet in order for a respondent to be identified as being raised evangelical.
They would have ID'ed as evangelical.
Their mother?
Their father?
Is there a threshold for religious that much accompany that identification to be considered raised evangelical?
Would it require a combination of all those factors?
Seems like all the people I have seen use this term and all those I have seen who self-identify as exvangelicals are those who, whatever their background and childhood experiences might have been, claim that as young adults for a period of time they themselves had identified as evangelicals, before abandoning their own evangelicalism....
Milquetoast world of Methodists and Episcopalians!? I am hoping/believing/trusting that is a comment about these denominations at an earlier time when they/we were building national institutions as part of the establishment and not so much about us today...
"Lots of Dones were raised in a religious environment, but it was the milquetoast world of Methodists and Episcopalians."
"The prototypical Done is a Boomer"
Context is everything!
Thanks for explaining that, I wondered the same thing.
Does the "Generational Breakdown" look much different if done by birth decades instead of generations?
What does the term “spiritual” mean? Is it just a nice sounding term that one wants to identify with? Is it just positive emotions that one enjoys?
I was once part of a discussion on it and the leader of the discussion just said it was something meaningful outside of themselves that they wanted to identify with. So essentially it was a term of this physical world and nothing to do with anything other than this world.
The most interesting things is that none of the Nones can justify their position. They have zero evidence and logic for anything they believe. The evidence is overwhelming that there is a creator and this creator has objectives. Yet, they think otherwise.
For folks who don't work with surveys a great deal, here's something that they struggle grasp.
We don't define things on surveys. For two reasons.
1. It takes a long time to describe every single term on a survey. Time is of the essence. If a survey defined most of its terms it could only ask half as many questions.
2. No one agrees on the definition of anything. If I asked 100 people to define the term "conservative" how many of them would agree on such an idea? Or spiritual?
It's best to let people just respond simply - based on their own understanding of what those terms mean.
Thank you for your clarification of survey terms. So a term could mean a lot of different things in the research.
My background was in marketing and we used research extensively. We never did what could be called a survey but was very specific to our objectives.
I think this is overall a good analysis. But I was surprised you didn't bring up Catholicism more prominently among the Dones.
Boomers, and to some degree Gen X, were the generations most affected by the traumatic transition that came after Vatican II, and especially the shock of Humanae Vitae. A lot in those generations who remained were parents or young adults when the sex abuse scandal hit, and they made up another round of mass defections (no pun intended).
Most studies show that ex-Catholics make up an outsized proportion of people who have left their religious upbringing in the US. In my experience Gen X and Boomer Catholics who leave the Church have a very "meh, whatever" attitude towards it that you would expect from "Dones." Or as a my husband, a son of Portuguese immigrants raised in the Northeast, says "I did 12 years of Catholic school, so I think I'm good for the rest of my life." This is pretty much the sentiment of every single friend he went to Catholic school with as well. There never really was much attachment; religion is something moms and grandmas do.
This is a common sentiment IME among people raised Catholic over 45. I think the uneven implementation of Vatican II caused a lot of Catholics of those generations to think that "well, if the Church can change things, it isn't what it says it is" or "if the Church can change some of the things, it should change all the things." Humanae Vitae was such a shock to both these mentalities that I think a lot of American Catholics, especially boomers, just could never take the Church seriously again.
Boomer and Gen X Catholics also are probably those with some of the strongest memories of parents going to Church weekly, or who at least grew up in a cultural environment where their parents were expected to go weekly.
It would be interesting to see what proportion of those Dones were Catholics vs Mainline Protestants, especially broken down by generation.
It does make sense that Dones would tend toward those raised mainline and Catholic not just because of religious trends during those generations, but also temperment and the degree of cultural vs. personal adherence. Evangelicalism is such an emotional religion where the commitment is so personal; it makes sense that cultural Catholics and fallen away Episcopalians and Lutherans are like "Eh, I'm done; I can have potlucks just as well with my neighbors," where Exvangelicals have to hate their old religion with the vocal passion of a personally jilted lover.
You bring up an excellent point, Julian. And this is something that I struggle with mightily.
My audience is large now. And comes from a very wide variety of viewpoints and religious backgrounds.
I could take my prose as an opportunity to specifically reference every tradition that are listed in my data visualizations. But then these posts would move 1500-2000 words to 3000-4000 words.
Maybe my intuition is wrong, but I don't think many readers have the stomach for 4000 words twice per week. That would mean that I would be writing 400,000 words for this newsletter. That's the equivalent of 6-7 books of content.
Instead, I just point out the things that jump out to me from my own biased opinion and I let my readers point out other things in the comments that are of interest to them.
Does that make sense?