{"id":54863,"date":"2021-05-04T06:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T10:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=54863"},"modified":"2021-04-30T20:12:58","modified_gmt":"2021-05-01T00:12:58","slug":"progressive-christians-are-more-political-than-conservative-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2021\/05\/progressive-christians-are-more-political-than-conservative-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive Christians are More Political than Conservative Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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We keep hearing that Christianity has been sullied by politics.\u00a0 That complaint usually has reference to evangelicals and other conservative Christians supporting Donald Trump, forming the \u201cChristian Right,\u201d and otherwise selling out their spiritual purity in their pursuit of power.<\/p>\n

Such criticisms can have a point.\u00a0 We shouldn\u2019t politicize the Gospel or confuse the kingdoms of this world with the Kingdom of Heaven.\u00a0 But new research has found that evangelicals are not the worst offenders.\u00a0 Rather, progressive Christians are far more political in their religion than conservatives are.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the finding of George Yancey, professor of sociology at Baylor (and an African-American).\u00a0 His research is being published in\u00a0his forthcoming book with\u00a0with Ashlee Quosigk,\u00a0One Faith No Longer: The Transformation of Christianity in Red and Blue America.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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Yancey tells about some of his research findings in the article\u00a0Who\u2019s More Political: Progressive or Conservative Christians?<\/a>\u00a0Here are some highlights:<\/p>\n

One of our findings is that progressive Christians prioritize political values more than conservative Christians do. Political conformity is more important for progressive Christians than for conservative Christians. . . .<\/p>\n

Some progressive Christians oppose abortion, but even they fail to challenge political progressives to the extent they challenge political conservatives on other political issues. . . .<\/p>\n

Conservative Christians are more likely to create social out-groups based on\u00a0theological<\/em>\u00a0than political differences. In other words, they\u2019re more accepting of political progressives than of non-Christians. They\u2019re also quite willing [to] see different types of Christians as friends. Our qualitative work indicted that conservative Christians often see progressive Christians as brothers and sisters with slightly different beliefs.<\/p>\n

The reverse is true for progressive Christians. They\u2019re more likely to create social out-groups based on\u00a0political<\/em>\u00a0differences. In other words, they\u2019re more accepting of non-Christian groups than they are of conservative Christians.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yancey also took the interesting step of examining progressive and conservative Christians who hold different views than the majority of their co-religionists.\u00a0 Specifically, he looked at progressives who are pro-life and conservatives who are pro-immigration.\u00a0 \u201cThose two groups are at odds with their potential political allies,\u201d he observes.\u00a0 But pro-life progressive Christians generally stop short of calling for laws to restrict abortion or opposing their pro-abortion political allies.\u00a0 Whereas pro-immigration conservative Christians have no hesitation in calling out their fellow-conservatives who hold what they consider to be a non-Biblical view of the issue.\u00a0 Yancey concludes, \u201cConservative Christians have a degree of freedom to confront political conservatives that progressive Christians don\u2019t in challenging political progressives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the entire article<\/a>\u2013and the book<\/a> when it comes out\u2013for reasons for these differences and their theological dimension.<\/p>\n

All of this accounts for why evangelicals and other conservative Christians are agonizing over whether their faith has become too political, and why progressive Christians, as far as I can tell, are not.<\/p>\n