Where are all these Texas atheists?

Near the end of its latest poll on the Beto O'Rourke-Ted Cruz Senate Race, Lyceum reports on the background of respondents, as most in-depth polls do.

There's this, on page 11: NINE percent claim to be atheist or agnostic. That's more than twice as many as who reported as Muslim. Throw out the 13 percent who were either "didn't know" (really?) or "refused," and you're at a little over 10 percent.

Really?

That said, counting 22 percent as either unaligned or third party, Lyceum claimed respondents were otherwise split, 39 percent each on Doinks and Rethugs.

Really?

But, let's get back to those atheists and agnostics.

I'm quite familiar with people misusing these terms to really mean "spiritual but not religious," or "irreligious vis-a-vis organized religion."

Let's say half our 10 percent falls there.

That's still 5 percent atheist or agnostic.

Let's say that 8 percentage points of the 13 percent refusniks are "nones," as are all 9 percent, in the original number, of alleged atheists or agnostics. Then, one-sixth of Texans are "nones."

That leads me to a piece by Psy Post. Until Friday, it seemed to me to be a pretty good psychology popularization blog and website. John Horgan is among its Twitter followers.

But then it blared: You live longer if you're religious.

Without saying that all we have on that is statistical correlation, not causal correlation, and without, in the western tradition, comparing today's US to today's Europe on that. (Well, it did kind of say that, but after the "blaring.")

Given that the power of intercessory prayer has been disproven by double blinded studies, in fact, we can say that almost certainly, it is NOT a causal correlation.

Add to that the fact that, especially in small towns, "church" and non-church general religious affiliation adds a degree of "community" to life for many people, especially in a place like red-state Texas. Also note that, especially in smaller communities, for those in need, many food banks and other forms of charitable outreach are church-based, or if not so explicit, at least religiously themed.

The only way to do a halfway scientific version of such a survey would be to look at churched vs unchurched people who are both also members of other organizations, like Rotary, Kiwanis, etc. And, you'd have to use more than obits. You'd have to use longitudinal time management research to confirm how often said people actually attended both churches and their social clubs.

And, there's been plenty of empirical research on the reality of a god already.

Speaking of empirical matters, we do also know that, by percentage of respective ethnic groups, more of those atheists are white than black or hispanic, but we also know that young blacks are consciously starting to catch up on leaving church, in part because African-Americans are finding more "secular" leaders willing to speak on "spiritual" issues. Like LeBron. Or Kaepernick. This is even as Congressional Black Caucus leader Jim Clyburn will suck up to Trump as much as those black ministers, to avoid churches paying new taxes.

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Update, with some related stats? In 2019, 23 percent of Americans went to church every week. Sounds fairly devoted, right, every week? But 29 percent never went once. Texas, Bible Belt stereotypes aside, is no exception. This site says that it was less than 20 percent, and they're a religious website.

is the black church dead?

If by black church, we mean its traditional, more social gospel, more politically liberally oriented version, then, yes, as discussed here, that's quite arguably the case.

If not dead, it's at least ailing and infirm.

Why?

Well, as the story notes, one big issue is the rise of black megachurches, more conservative in political tone and more focused on the prosperity gospel rather than social gospel. This became clear in the last decade when some pastors and other leaders at such churches even worked hand-in-glove with banks and other lenders to peddle toxic subprime mortgages to their flocks.

Not all black megachurches are quite that bad; T.J. Jakes, for example, seems to have a bit of the older sensibilities side by side with the social gospel. But many younger black ministers are indeed naked capitalists.

Related to that has been more blacks going to multicultural or even white-majority megachurches.

Along with this has been both the newer megachurches and many of the older black churches being openly illiberal on gay rights. From clandestine sex on the down low and its attendant AIDS fallout to the loss of Prop. 8 in California and what degree of effect black voters had on that (it may not have been a lot, but I reject some apologists, whether black and gay or not, who claim the effect was minimal to near-zero), it's also clear that on one major issue, the traditional and new black church are both losing relevance with one slice of black voters.

And, among a certain segment of the black underclass, black churches of any political bent are surely losing ground.

That said, none of this is bad.

While I'm certainly not a Republican or a generic political conservative, growing black political diversity would prevent their votes from being taken for granted.

Lessening political power of traditional black churches would lead to liberal push for black votes becoming less religiously focused, in turn.

Required reading for Amy Sullivan about ‘the black church’

Washington Post column Eugene Robinson, often underappreciated, makes clear there is no such thing as “the monolithic black church.”

(Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s) basic point — that any attack on him is an attack on the African American church and its traditions — is just wrong. In making that argument, he buys into the fraudulent idea of a monolithic, monocultural black America — one with his philosophy and theology at its center. …

The reality of the African American church, of course, is as diverse as the African American community. I grew up in the Methodist church with pastors -- often active on the front lines of the civil rights movement -- whose sermons were rarely exciting enough to elicit more than a muttered "Amen." They were excitement itself, however, compared with the dry lectures delivered by the priest at the Catholic church around the corner. And what I heard every Sunday was nothing at all like the Bible-thumping, hellfire-and-damnation perorations that filled my Baptist friends with the Holy Ghost -- and even less like the spellbinding, singsong, jump-and-shout sermonizing that raised the roofs of Pentecostal sanctuaries across town.

That said, Robinson also gets to the “throwing under the bus” line, which some white liberals, under the guise of calling it “overused,” seem to think is taboo.

Robinson says, clearly, that Wright threw Obama under the bus and it was time for Obama to return the favor.

Can white liberals who aren’t so skeptical be a little less PC at times?

Meanwhile, MoJo seeks new levels of inanity by comparing The Really Angry Black Man and Sort Of Angry Black Man. I don’t know if she saw all of Obama’s “denounce Wright” speech, or read the transcript; it’s clear that, like much of the MSM, she didn’t do that with Wright.

Jeremiah Wright on Bill Moyers – my analysis

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor and the focus of right-wing inflamed controversy smears, including death threats, was on Bill Moyers’ Journal tonight in what will surely be Moyers’ top-rated show for some time. (See the Moyers blog for more.)

Wright overall was pretty good, and especially with the “God Damn America” sermon, Moyers did a nice segue/setup.

That said, while Moyers was certainly a sympathetic, and knowledgeable, interviewer, he didn't give Wright a 100 percent pass on his relations with Farrakhan or what he noted Wright mentor Martin Marty called Wright's “rough edges” and “abrasiveness.”

Here are some other observations of mine.

First, I now know more about where Wright gets his “black Jesus” ideas from. Early in the show, a clip from Wright’s church showed him claiming almost all the Bible takes place in Africa.

WRONG.

The Fertile Crescent/Middle East are in Asia. Indeed, “erev” and “assu” or similar are old words in Hebrew and related Semitic languages, and are of course the roots of “Europe” and “Asia.” (The Greek myth of Zeus and Europa was lifted from the Fertile Crescent.)

Wright was right, in many ways, about the “prophetic voice.” I’ve heard preachers both white and black have a voice like that for this-world prophetic justice. Beyond that, as for the church’s slogan, “Unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian,” Wright had the quote of embracing Christianity without abandoning Africanity. That said, the motto was adopted under the pastor before Wright.

“Bad,” and more seriously from my small American minority point of view, came back, though.

Wright, as with Arianna Huffington, whom I blogged about earlier this week, though not so explicitly, seemed to indicate religious belief was necessary to find meaning in and give meaning to life.

WRONG.

And, that’s not just a white atheist guy saying that.


Meet The Infidel Guy, Reginald Finley, arguably America’s top black atheist. I know he would have the same condemnation.

Anyway, Wright then spoke in more detail about the “God damn America” book. First, getting back to that prophetic voice, the voice of people like Amos and Hosea, or the blessings and curses (or conDE/AMNnations, if you will) of Deuteronomy, he said religious leaders are supposed to, per their tradition, challenge government.

Of course, politically and socially conservative white evangelical churches are clueless about that in the pews, in large part from preachers who refuse to engage in such condemnations, unless it’s the hot-button issue of abortion or gays.

But, Wright spelled out the results of that.

When you start confusing God and government … you’re in serious trouble. (It’s like), ‘My government, right or wrong.’

The sermon clip was complete enough to show Wright explaining how the Roman government of Jesus’ time and the British Empire of a century ago both failed, then making a segue to the failures of American foreign policy before coming to the “God damn America” line.

I have a linguistic hair to split, though. Wright would have been better saying “God damnS America” to make that point clear.

Moyers also had Wright talk through the sermon he gave the Sunday after 9/11, where he used Psalm 137 as his text, the famous “By the waters of Babylon” psalm, for those of a Judeo-Christian background. It is called that from its opening line, which sets the words of the psalm on the lips of Jewish exiles in the Babylonian captivity under its King Nebuchadrezzer (the actual name of the biblically misrendered “Nebuchadnezzar”).

Anyway, here’s the last line of that psalm, Wright’s sermonic cornerstone:

O daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us —
he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against a rock.

Wright told Moyers he was speaking to the people of his church who, like many other Americans, wanted revenge after 9/11. He said the psalm showed they had biblical precedent for feeling that way, but that the Bible called people beyond that to growth.

But, one problem, not just of Wright, but of about any Christian minister or Jewish rabbi. The psalm itself ends with that as the last verse. Before a “bible,” or an Old Testament/Tanakh, or even a book called “Psalms,” or even one its five original separate books, was assembled, that psalm was read alone.

As a cry for vengeance.

Later on, Wright mentioned racism in all sorts of holy books, not just the Bible, but also places like the Babylonian Talmud and the Hindu Vedas. (And he’s right.) He also mentioned problematic passages, like the Levite of Judges 19 who has a concubine then abandons her to be gang-raped to death.

But, he ignored something like the holocaust Yahweh himself expressly commanded in I Samuel 15, in talking about Psalm 137.

No, Rev. Wright (and 99 percent of other preachers), your God was originally understood and embraced as a God who wanted vengeance. The author of that psalm understood that.

So, Wright did a pretty good job of selling his theology. And, by that, I mean Christian theology, not just black Christian theology. But, that “prophetic voice” has some devil’s tritone clarion calls.

Obama had Unitarian option Amy Sullivan ignores

Amy Sullivan talks about why Obama opted for a black church like Jeremiah Wright’s:

In his books, Obama says he might not have become a Christian — his mother was a skeptical secularist and his absent father an atheist — if not for the special character of the black church. “Out of necessity, the black church had to minister to the whole person. Out of necessity, the black church rarely had the luxury of separating individual salvation from collective salvation,” he writes in “The Audacity of Hope.” It also matched his intellectual curiosity. “Perhaps it was out of this ... grounding of faith in struggle that the historically black church offered me a second insight: that faith doesn’t mean that you don't have doubts.”

Several comments in reply to Sullivan’s backstory, as well as Obama’s stream of thought.

First, even secularists can be, and are, contributors to social justice, Amy. I know you keep flogging the issue that the Democratic Party in general and too many white Democrats in particular are anti-religious, which is of course not true.

Second, re both Sullivan and Obama, many white preachers at white majority churches also talk about doubt and its role in faith. That goes back to the Niebuhr brothers. Hell, it goes back to Martin Luther himself.

Third, Unitarians have been multicultural for far longer, and far more in-depth, than mainline Protestant denominations that have made the effort at fully inclusive outreach.

And, political bonus points — Unitarians are often the liberal elite Starbucks drinkers that are Obama voters!

Given Sullivan’s increasing vapidness, and now her name/assignment dropping she engages in, at every post at Washington Monthly, though, none of what she says in Time should be a surprise.

Oh, if you think Amy’s a twit on her guilt-the-Democratic-Party religious writing, or in general, show her a little “love” at her e-mail address.