tvcigar
Steve Lepore
African-American churches.
Former Facebook workers: We routinely suppressed conservative news
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ImTheCaptain
I disagree with you
hm, one of those groups formed the backbone of an entire party's social platform for the last 20 years and one of them is an influential voting bloc.
Wrangor
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Most influential. Meaning the pulpit seems to have the most influence. Pew Research Data (pun not intended).
As you can see many of the mainline religions are fairly balanced. The Mormon church skew heavy Republican, but even then they are 'ONLY' a 51% skew. When you visit the other side of the equation you will see that Historically black churches have the outlier numbers.
+88 for AFEC
+82 for NBC
+61 for COGIC
Compared to the top conservative denominations:
+51 for Mormons
+39 for COTN
+38 for SBC
The Leaning Republican major denominations are:
United Methodist
PCA
Anglican
My guess is that UM and Anglican will trend more liberal over time. Not sure on PCA, but my guess is that it stays conservative but moves slightly left. PCA tends to grow in larger cities, and that brings more liberal voters into the congregation.
So not only is your premise not applicable to the topic at hand, it isn't even a proper premise. If you want to attack someone, then you might want to spend your time attacking the historically black churches that vote Democrat 8/1 and regularly have politicians spend time in the pulpit instead of the preacher. I would say you are foolish to do so, but to attack religion as if it is solely supporting the conservative movement is empirically false. The data is pretty clear and your anecdote is a shallow look at the issue.
My opinion is that churches, civic groups, country clubs, neighborhood watches, etc... can do whatever they want. If they want to be politically active, then they should. I PERSONALLY wouldn't feel comfortable in a church that was extremely political, but have no issue with historical black churches being so politically active. I understand how that phenomenon developed, and to be honest, I would have done the same thing if I were in their shoes. I also don't care if the southern baptist convention is political, although I wouldn't choose to associate with that kind of action. Churches, civic groups, clubs, are all biased from the beginning. That is what makes them unique. They have a subset of principles they adopt, and thus they are interested in promoting what they feel to be right, or most important.
This is completely different from our news media, and more importantly news aggregators who are not founded to promote a certain set of ideals. This is my problem with Fox News and MSNBC. They are rarely news organizations, but instead are a collection of opinion givers. Facebook is sold as a news aggregator. They don't present themselves as a biased source of media, but instead are created to reflect society. IF (the key word) they are manipulating that reflection that is unfortunate in my opinion, and it is somewhat difficult for me to understand why anyone with a brain wouldn't see that as unfortunate. We should all want an honest reflection of the world in order to form our opinions upon the basis of proper information.
As you can see many of the mainline religions are fairly balanced. The Mormon church skew heavy Republican, but even then they are 'ONLY' a 51% skew. When you visit the other side of the equation you will see that Historically black churches have the outlier numbers.
+88 for AFEC
+82 for NBC
+61 for COGIC
Compared to the top conservative denominations:
+51 for Mormons
+39 for COTN
+38 for SBC
The Leaning Republican major denominations are:
United Methodist
PCA
Anglican
My guess is that UM and Anglican will trend more liberal over time. Not sure on PCA, but my guess is that it stays conservative but moves slightly left. PCA tends to grow in larger cities, and that brings more liberal voters into the congregation.
So not only is your premise not applicable to the topic at hand, it isn't even a proper premise. If you want to attack someone, then you might want to spend your time attacking the historically black churches that vote Democrat 8/1 and regularly have politicians spend time in the pulpit instead of the preacher. I would say you are foolish to do so, but to attack religion as if it is solely supporting the conservative movement is empirically false. The data is pretty clear and your anecdote is a shallow look at the issue.
My opinion is that churches, civic groups, country clubs, neighborhood watches, etc... can do whatever they want. If they want to be politically active, then they should. I PERSONALLY wouldn't feel comfortable in a church that was extremely political, but have no issue with historical black churches being so politically active. I understand how that phenomenon developed, and to be honest, I would have done the same thing if I were in their shoes. I also don't care if the southern baptist convention is political, although I wouldn't choose to associate with that kind of action. Churches, civic groups, clubs, are all biased from the beginning. That is what makes them unique. They have a subset of principles they adopt, and thus they are interested in promoting what they feel to be right, or most important.
This is completely different from our news media, and more importantly news aggregators who are not founded to promote a certain set of ideals. This is my problem with Fox News and MSNBC. They are rarely news organizations, but instead are a collection of opinion givers. Facebook is sold as a news aggregator. They don't present themselves as a biased source of media, but instead are created to reflect society. IF (the key word) they are manipulating that reflection that is unfortunate in my opinion, and it is somewhat difficult for me to understand why anyone with a brain wouldn't see that as unfortunate. We should all want an honest reflection of the world in order to form our opinions upon the basis of proper information.
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Most influential. Meaning the pulpit seems to have the most influence. Pew Research Data (pun not intended).
Wrangor
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His comment was regarding preachers/leaders that influence their congregation. If you look at the numbers it is clear that the subset that is most easily influenced votes Democrat. If you have ever attended a historical black church this would be common knowledge. I don't say that as a dig, just as a reflection of reality. Historical Black churches are political machines. Hillary dominates the African American vote because she is aligned with the preachers. That is what it takes. You win the preachers, you win the vote.
MBStretch
Member
It's clear that political preference = "most easily influenced"?
ImTheCaptain
I disagree with you
you're just defining influential differently to suit your purposes but that's fine. the chart is pretty clear that evangelicals hold huge sway over republican leaning americans
just to be clear, you're defining influential as "preachers in front of humans", which is a fair point. But i'm defining it as "churches/church leaders and groups spending money in Washington and with groups nationwide to affect elections and policy."
just to be clear, you're defining influential as "preachers in front of humans", which is a fair point. But i'm defining it as "churches/church leaders and groups spending money in Washington and with groups nationwide to affect elections and policy."
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MBStretch
Member
If your reply is in response to my comment, I wasn't defining anything. I don't think the chart defines influence, either; it shows preference. It is a leap to conclude that political preference = influence from the pulpit from either side of the aisle. I am sure it happens, but the chart does not purport to show that. I should have worded my question more clearly.
ImTheCaptain
I disagree with you
wrangor
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So AME and NBC congregations vote like black people in general. Not sure of your point, Wrangor.
Looks like COGIC attracts some conservative black Christians or "influences" them to be more Republican.
Looks like COGIC attracts some conservative black Christians or "influences" them to be more Republican.
Junebug
Well-known member
I'm still confused about why we are talking about the voting habits of churchgoers in a thread about a public company's left-leaning news aggregating habits.
I'm ruling out deflection, of course. That couldn't possibly be the reason.
I'm ruling out deflection, of course. That couldn't possibly be the reason.
ImTheCaptain
I disagree with you
because this is discussion about the merits of "political balance" in our cultural outlets; no one ever said Facebook had to be centrist, just like no one's ever asked the mormon church to sit down with Bernie Sanders and MSNBC or whatever and answer for their openly anti-LGBT positions (for example).
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Sportscenter ?
beatrix
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Don't be silly. Clearly The Daily Show..
Junebug
Well-known member
Well, I assume that Wrangor's chart disabused you of any notion that "the church" was a monolith, culturally or politically, so you can get back to that discussion.
ImTheCaptain
I disagree with you
I didn't say "the church" was anything. I said that Evangelical Christian churches/groups play and outsized role in lobbying, fundraising and policy formation. I don't see how you argue against that.
wrangor (helpfully) pointed out that most religious groups' members lean republican. and that's a list where the non-conservative groups includes 3 completey non-religious segments (atheists, agnostics and 'meh's)
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BobStackFan4Life
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If you just go by that chart atheists look pretty monolithic.