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I always thought the evangelical numbers were inflated!

Thu, 05/08/2008 - 9:47pm — lambert

Now we've got the goods. Via the great Avedon, this from Christine Wicker:

A Southern Baptist by birth, and still a self-described evangelical, Wicker decided to investigate conventional wisdom about the numerical strength of America's moral majority. What she found should embarrass the secular media almost as much as it should evangelical leaders. The National Association of Evangelical's claim to represent 30 million souls? Wicker says the actual number is closer to 4.5 million. The Southern Baptist's Convention's estimate of 16 million members? Try a quarter of that number.

In her own words: "The idea that evangelicals are taking over America is one of the greatest publicity scams in history, a perfect coup accomplished by savvy politicos and religious leaders, who understand media weaknesses and exploit them brilliantly,"

Well, so much for the great and powerful Christ. One question:

Does this mean Obama can stop pandering to the Christianists now?

I sure hope so.

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How did Gene Lyons phrase this?

By DCblogger on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 10:30pm

The celebrity press corps, Fools for Scandal.

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When the Christian Coalition claimed 2 million members

By BAC on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 10:56pm

A records search by Americans United revealed they were only mailing their all-member publication to less than 300,000 people. Hummm ... did Pat break one of the Commandments?

BAC

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Simple Answers to Simple Questions

By BDBlue on Thu, 05/08/2008 - 11:40pm

Does this mean Obama can stop pandering to the Christianists now?

No.

From this point on, all Republicans have to do is prove to their base that Obama is not as conservative as he once appeared, which they will do by pointing to his pastor and the prophetic tradition of the Black Church in general. They can, in fact, point to any stirrings of black or grassroots outrage or militancy anywhere, which Obama will want to ignore anyway, and demand a ringing denunciation from Barack Obama. When Obama gets his way, he will be silent, sticking to content-free appeals to “unity”. And when Republicans prevail they will force him to denounce at every turn the grassroots activists he should be supporting.

And I always thought when Bill Clinton compared Obama to Jesse Jackson, Obama was not the one who should've felt insulted. Compare his movement to Jackson's:

By contrast, the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns of Rev. Jesse Jackson won white support too, but embraced the burden of challenging white American assumptions about the essential goodness of America, about empire, and race and class. If you were organizing against police brutality or farm foreclosures, organizing a union or protesting the illegal war in Central America, the campaign in many cases came to you and augmented your local efforts. The Obama must campaign avoid this kind of activism like Dracula avoids crosses, because its candidate's appeal is based on challenging none of the fake history, none of the racism, injustice and unearned privilege at the heart of American life.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.p...

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"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt

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