So, back to the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life Religious Landscape survey.
My first reaction to this was to want to know about my own location. And, guess what? the UCC makes up 0.5% of the entire population of the United States. And then beyond that, how many of those folks really have similar views to mine? Who knows?
But it started me thinking about being in a minority group and a majority group simultaneously. As a Christian, I'm part of the 78% majority religion. But as a liberal mainline Christian, I'm probably in a group that's closer to 8-10% of the population (I'm guessing - I just divided the mainline churches (18%) in half to get that number).
So there are some advantages to this - Christmas is a national holiday, after all. But also some disadvantages. If you read much by Christopher Hitchens, you'll see that he's decided he knows what all Christians are about (actually, all religious people), and if I disagree with the picture he paints, well, I'm not really a Christian. Here's a writing sample. This interview on Interfaith Voices is even better.
But you know what? Why shouldn't Hitchens confuse fundamentalists with everyone else? They're kind of the loudest and most dramatic part of any given religion. I mean - who really wants to read about word-smithing at somebody's national church meeting? It's much easier to see and understand the people who do things in black-and-white. Plus, as the survey seems to show, there are more evangelicals than other kinds of Christians in the US. Not that all evangelicals are fundamentalists. But it's a good-sized number. And they have a relatively large number of television shows.
I mean, sure, he's a writer and should probably do his research and try to understand his subject with some nuance. But as an entertainer and seller of books, it's more important that he play off shallow stereotypes. So, I think he's just managed to nail the shallow stereotypes. I seem to have drifted into sarcasm. Time to stop. My basic point: being in the minority (a boutique Christian?) means people tend to misinterpret and misunderstand what you're about.
4 comments:
not to mention misunderestimate. But isn't it always the loudest and most opinionated who speak for every group? I imagine it's the same with Catholics--if you're a Catholic worker or in JVC or are a missionary in S. America, working for environmental justice for native peoples, your views probably don't completely jibe with the Vatican, either.
True, true, true. And with the pope, you're probably technically supposed to agree with them, while I have no duty at all to agree with the head of the Southern Baptist Convention.
or even with the president of the UCC. Or, as an ordained minister, are you?
Still, kinda shocking that "liberal mainline Christian" is such a minority.
Not really -- we've got this freedom of conscience thing.
And, yeah, it is surprising, considering we were running the place for a while there. Briefly. In the 50's.
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