Author: Jonathan Dodson

Faith Stats on the Election

Posted on November 10, 2008

George Barna reports some interesting statistics from the presidential election. Breaking the voting down into faith groups, Barna tells us what percentage of the poplulation voted for McCain, Obama, or Independent. here are few of the categories:

Evangelicals: Two-thirds of all evangelicals who were registered to vote (65%) were aligned with the Republican Party. One out of five (21%) was Democrats and just one out of ten (10%) was registered independent of a party.

Protestants: Protestant voters were evenly split between being registered as Democrats and Republicans. However, they sided with Sen. McCain by a 53% to 46% split.

Catholics: Nearly half of all registered Catholics were aligned with the Democratic Party (48%), compared to only about one-quarter associated with the Republicans (28%) and one-fifth who remained independent (20%).

Atheist/Agnostics: The second largest faith group in America is atheists and agnostics. These religious skeptics represent about one out of every ten adults. About four out of ten skeptics were registered as Democrats, four out of ten as independents and just two out of ten as Republicans.Three-fourths of atheists and agnostics (76%) gave their vote to Sen. Obama, while only 23% backed Sen. McCain.

Other Faiths: About 5% of America’s adult population associates with faiths other than Christianity (e.g., Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, etc.). Within this group, about half (47%) were registered as Democrats, 30% were independent, and one-quarter (23%) were Republicans.The ballots of this group were most often cast for Barack Obama (62%) rather than John McCain (36%).

Paste and Culture

Posted on November 7, 2008

Paste Editor, Josh Jackson’s editorial is worth reading again. The more I read by this guy the more I’d like to sit down with him over a cup of coffee. An excerpt:

Nothing is worse than watchig a movie (like say, 10,000 BC–damn you with your enticing CGI saber-toothed tiger) and then wishing I had those two hours of my life back…At Paste, we see it as our job to help you discover entertainment pertinent to your search—not to serve as a replacement for your own story. I believe we were put on this earth to help redeem it. The best music, film, and culture will do you no good if you’re buried under it. Become a wise consumer of culture. Or better yet, become a creator of it.

Toward Steady State Community

Posted on November 5, 2008

Our church is trying to shake sinful individualism and move into steady state communities. We are having some success and some failure. The success is very life-giving, exciting, church-like. I ran across this quote by Dallas Willard that gets at our aim in cultivating steady state community:

Among those who live as Jesus’ apprentices there are no relationship that omit the presence and action of Jesus. We never go “one on one;” all relationships are mediated through him. I never think simply of what I am going to do with you, to you, or for you. I think of what we, Jesus and I, are going to do with you, to you, and for you. Likewise, I never think of what you are going to do with me, to me, and for me, but of what will be done by you and Jesus with me, to me, and for me. – The Divine Conspiracy, 236

If we would think of ourselves less as individuals and more as persons in community, our decision-making and discipleship would change radically. It has been said there is no pure individual. Its’s true. No man an island to himself. We all possess the seed of community, but supress or substitute it for other things. Solitary experiences and virtual forms of community, no matter how wonderful, do not sum up or satisfy our social identity as persons-in-community. The Triune God saw to that when he made us. If the American church could recover that social identity and harness it to gospel-centered mission, the world would be a very different place.

Fortunately, failure in Christian community points us back to the sufficiency of the Jesus. Our success reminds us that the Spirit of Jesus is powerful and counter-cultural. Jesus is strong for our successes and sufficient for our failure in striving for steady state community and gospel-centered mission.