FaithWorld, Religion Clause, and Religion Dispatches all point to a newly-released poll from Public Religion Research and the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics that compares conservative and progressive/liberal religious activists. While it “contains very little that will surprise anyone”, the poll does starkly display the vast differences in diversity between the politically active religious “left” and “right”. To quote the findings:

“Conservative and progressive religious activists are deeply religious, but have strikingly different religious profiles. In terms of religious affiliation, conservative activists are almost exclusively Christian, whereas progressive activists are more diverse.”

Let’s have a look at the graphs.

I think “strikingly different” is a fair assessment. Not even 1% of conservative activists would admit to being non-Christian, while 2% of progressive activists admit to being in the “other” category (the happy land of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Pagans that exists only in the minds of polling organizations) and an impressively significant 12% labeled themselves as Unitarian-Universalist or mixed-faith.

“Progressive activists are markedly more diverse in terms of religious affiliation. No single faith tradition makes up a majority of progressive religious activists. A plurality (44%) of progressive religious activists identify as Mainline Protestants, one?sixth (17%) are Roman Catholics, and one?tenth are Evangelical Protestants. Twelve percent identify with Unitarian?Universalists, interfaith, or mixed faith groups. Six percent of progressive religious activists are Jewish. Interestingly, 8% of these activists have no formal religious affiliation or identify as formerly affiliated. Two percent identify with other religious traditions.”

So what does it all mean? First it confirms that majority-holding conservative evangelicals (54%), in alliance with conservative Catholics (35%), completely dominate religiously-motivated activism on the right, and the likelihood of non-Christian faiths ever having a significant voice in the current state of right-wing politics is slim-to-nil. Meanwhile, no one group holds a majority within the world of religious progressives, allowing for a far more diverse coalition to exist. This reality has some wide-ranging political implications, it means that as minority religions grow they may be far more likely to vote for a liberal/progressive candidate, even if they disagree on some issues, because the opposition is seen as uniquely hostile to them. Around 74% of modern Pagans voted for Obama in the last election, and I bet that Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims had similarly lopsided polling numbers.

“Among progressive activists, 58% say Obama was their first choice in the Democratic primary, and 93% supported him in the general election … Among progressive activists, 1-in-5 say faith was the most important factor, and 41% report that faith was as important as other factors in deciding who to support in the election.”

Further, while minority faiths are vastly smaller in number compared to evangelicals or Catholics, some polling suggests that people who have a “favorable” opinion of minority faiths are more likely to vote in their interests, creating a sphere of influence that far outstrips their actual population. Conservative activists should see these polling results with some dismay, while they have a dependably large bloc of support amongst conservative evangelicals, the candidates that make them happy can often deeply alienate non-Christians who might otherwise be interested in conservative stances on various issues. As for liberal and progressive organizers, they need to recognize that a large portion of their religious coalition doesn’t identify as Christian, and to stop over-privileging “nice” pseudo-moderate Christians like Jim Wallis and Rick “Purpose Driven Life” Warren up as the voice of a “religious left” that will draw more evangelical voters away from the conservatives. This new poll makes it pretty clear that isn’t about to happen no matter who you get to make an invocation.

Tags: Democratic Party, politics, polling, Religious Left, Religious Right, Republican Party, survey