The American religious landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation. White Christians, once the dominant religious group in the U.S., now account for fewer than half of all adults living in the country. (emphasis added)
Today, fewer than half of all states are majority white Christian. As recently as 2007, 39 states had majority white Christian populations. These are two of the major findings from this report, which is based on findings from PRRI’s 2016 American Values Atlas, the single largest survey of American religious and denominational identity ever conducted. This landmark report is based on a sample of more than 101,000 Americans from all 50 states and includes detailed information about their religious affiliation, denominational ties, political affiliation, and other important demographic attributes.
Among the major findings:
- White Christians now account for fewer than half of the public. Today, only 43% of Americans identify as white and Christian, and only 30% as white and Protestant. In 1976, roughly eight in ten (81%) Americans identified as white and identified with a Christian denomination, and a majority (55%) were white […]
Leave a CommentStephan: Christofascism is couched in religious language but, as the Evangelical demographic's response, or lack thereof, to Trump's multiple adulteries makes clear, their real interest is political power. In my view it all ultimately gets down to White Supremacy and the fear and anger this group has that they are a withering minority, whose status and power is dissipating. Part of what they are doing to recruit believers to their cause is to use tax payer money to pay for charter schools that indoctrinate children to their worldview. That's what Betsy DeVos is really about. Here's the story.
Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education Credit: Gage/Skidmore Wikipedia
The number of private schools that get taxpayer funds via school vouchers or tax credit scholarships is rising rapidly, but few states keep tabs on what these schools are actually teaching. In a recent investigation for Huffington Post, education reporter Rebecca Klein shone a light on three popular textbooks used by private religious schools. While she found materials touting creationism over evolution, or teaching that homosexuality is a sin, Klein also encountered right-wing propaganda embedded throughout these K-12 curricula.
In the latest episode of the Have You Heard podcast, AlterNet education contributor Jennifer Berkshire and co-host Jack Schneider talk to Klein about the extreme ideological teachings on offer at private religious schools, now being funded by public tax money.
The following is an edited transcript. Listen to the entire interview.
Have You Heard: You set out to try to figure out how many kids are now attending ‘voucher schools’—private religious schools paid for with public funds—and what those kids are being taught. […]
Stephan: Here is some significant research adding nuance to the lead piece of today's edition.
This is how quickly it happened. One moment we were passing sumptuous kebob platters around the table making polite introductions, and the next we were swapping trauma stories that we—all people of color, many LGBTQ—had experienced in what were essentially white Christian spaces.*There was the black nonprofit worker who attended a Christian conference in the rural Southeast, where she had to walk past white men staring her down from pickup trucks draped in confederate flags; there was the Indo-Latinx therapist who saw white Christians co-opt practices from other cultures, such as drumming or yoga, while erasing and demonizing the people they came from; and then there was me, the Chinese-American journalist who spoke at a Virginia Christian college where a white man verbally attacked and followed me prompting the provost to hide me in a secured room.
Among my dinner companions there was no need to explain the specter of racial violence and erasure lurking in our lives. Understanding came immediately, as did suggestions for coping in such a hostile climate: essential oils for anxiety, Valerian root for insomnia, comedy for […]
Stephan: One of the reasons the United States is so ill-prepared for climate change is the Christofascist community. Here, from this article, are the facts, "American Christians' concern about the environment had remained the same or declined..." Yes, that's right, the concern of this community is actually decreasing.
U.S. Christians’ concerns about the environment and climate change haven’t shifted much in the past two decades, despite a push by some religious leaders to increase attention on the issue, a new study finds.In fact, Christians’ views may be reversing course since the 1990s, according to David Konisky, an associate professor at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the study’s author.
“Not only has there not been an amplification of concern among Christians about the environment, there’s seemingly been a decline, at least over the time period I’ve been studying,” he said.
Konisky’s work is part of a decades long debate both in academia and among religious leaders about the degree that Christianity is a positive or negative influence on people’s attitudes on climate change. His study comes as some researchers have suggested there has been a “greening of Christianity” in recent years, as high-profile religious leaders like Pope Francis have made climate change a higher priority within the faith. Konisky wanted to find out whether this “organizational-level” emphasis on caring for the planet was having an […]
Stephan: There has been so much bad news about the state of the world ocean, coral reefs, fishing stocks, and increasing acidification, that it is a pleasure to publish some good news. Here it is.
Belize blue water lagoon
Credit:OceanaIn the last several weeks, Oceana and its allies won five important victories that will help protect biodiversity and increase abundance in our seas:
1. Belize bans offshore oil drilling in country’s marine waters, home to the largest barrier reef in the Americas.
Belize made history in late December when it signed into law a moratorium on offshore oil drilling in the entirety of Belizean waters, which contain the second largest barrier reef system in the world (and largest in the Western Hemisphere). This decision was the culmination of more than 10 years of campaigning by Oceana and its allies, and by the tens of thousands of Belizeans committed to stopping drilling in their barrier reef. The Belize Barrier Reef—a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1996—is home to nearly 1,400 species and is critical to the livelihood of more than half of Belize’s population due to its central role in Belizean tourism and fishing.
2. Chile bans bottom trawling in 98 percent of […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
