Note: Crossposted at StreetProphets.

Despite a drumbeat of public criticism by Faith in Public Life and others about biased exit polling on religion by the major media networks, the exit polls continue to ask more questions about religion to Republicans than Democrats.

I wrote yesterday in my "Dispatches from the Beltway" column in the debut issue of Religion Dispatches about how this bias distorts our understanding of religion among both parties.

Here's the current tally:

• 25 states have had both Republican and Democratic primaries
• 20 of these states had state-wide exit polls
• All of these states asked more questions about religious affiliation to Republicans than Democrats. (Only one of these, AZ, was a Super Tuesday state).

Upshot about the major media exit poll bias:

• They have asked Republicans about religion in every exit poll, but have NOT asked Democrats ANYTHING about religion in 3 states (IA, MI, NV).
• They have NOT asked Democrats ANYWHERE about whether they were "evangelical or born again."

It's time for the media to update their script and give us balanced coverage of the role of religion in both parties.

Labels: evangelicals, exit polls, media, primaries, religion

Today, I am standing as a co-author with Third Way at a national press conference to release a paper, "Come Let Us Reason Together: A Fresh Look at Shared Cultural Values between Evangelicals and Progressives." The Third Way paper--the result of nearly a year of research and coalition building--includes original analysis of the most recent public opinion research on Evangelicals and a corresponding set of recommendations on how progressives and Evangelicals can develop lasting and deeper coalitions. The paper also outlines new, common ground approaches to issues such as reducing the need for abortion, affirming the human dignity of gay and lesbian people, working for responsible progress in the treatment of human embryos, and respecting the role of religion in the public square.

E.J. Dionne wrote a strong column today about our paper, "A Treaty in the Culture Wars: Requiem for the Religious Right?", where he calls this effort an "important sign that religious conservatives are facing the disintegration of their movement."

The following are a summary of my remarks delivered at the press conference:

I stand here today keenly aware of my own multiple identities. First, I stand today with Third Way as a progressive. Like Rachel, prior to co-authoring this paper, I worked with a number of progressive organizations, most prominently serving as the founding director and senior fellow of the Center for American Values in Public Life at People for the American Way Foundation. I have published a book and several articles exploring future directions for liberalism, and I am currently completing a book on the growing progressive religious movement in America.

But I also grew up as an Evangelical in Mississippi, earned a degree from a Southern Baptist college and then a Master of Divinity degree from a Southern Baptist seminary in Texas where I trained for the ministry before pursuing a Ph.D. in religion.

Both of these identities have informed a growing conviction that I share with many others who know these two communities: that we are ready to end the culture wars. Long and bitter conflicts around cultural issues have not only stifled progress toward common goals, but have damaged our sense that a shared national life is even possible. We are here today to insist that it is possible and to chart a course forward together.

As we begin to chart that course, I want to draw your attention to one of the most important insights from our research about the diversity of Evangelicals as a group. During our research, we found a consistent pattern across a number of broad measures that we dubbed the one-fifth, one-third, one-half formula:

• One-fifth of Evangelicals [representing 5% of the general population] are progressive;
• One-third of Evangelicals [representing 8% of the general population] are moderates who share some progressive values; and
• One-half of Evangelicals [representing 13% of the general population] are conservatives who may be partners on particular issues.

These patterns suggest that while Evangelicals are more conservative than the general population, half of Evangelicals (representing 13% of the population, approximately 52 million adult citizens) have views that are in sync with or open to progressive ideas. The upshot is that Evangelicals are more diverse than conventional wisdom would suggest, and this one-fifth, one-third, one-half pattern persists even on the more challenging terrain of cultural issues.

This, I believe, is cause for great hope, as is the very presence here today of so many people, Evangelical and progressive, who are committed to doing the hard work of reasoning together.

Labels: culture wars, evangelicals, religion

This post originally written for Third Way Culture Project and can be seen here.

When I hear complaints about the “liberal media”, the additional adjective “secular” is usually a part of the phrase or not far behind. For example, last summer at the so-called “Values Voter Summit” in Washington, DC, speaker after speaker referred to how the “secular liberal media” has neglected religion and distorted coverage of religion and conservative values. A new study by Media Matters, however, documents two key findings that debunk this tired mantra: 1) since 2004, coverage of religion by the media has increased significantly; and 2) this coverage has actually been biased in favor of conservative religious leaders by a factor of nearly 3 to 1.

The new Media Matters for America report – Left Behind: The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media – demonstrates that the clear conservative bias in coverage of religion since 2004:

• Combining newspapers and television, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed in news stories 2.8 times as often as were progressive religious leaders.

• On television news – the three major television networks, the three major cable news channels, and PBS – conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed almost 3.8 times as often as progressive leaders.

• In major newspapers, conservative religious leaders were quoted, mentioned, or interviewed 2.7 times as often as progressive leaders.

(You can check out the highlights of the Media Matters press conference here.)

What are progressives to make of this? One response would be to concede the religious ground to the conservatives and simply lament the increased coverage of religion, which seems to bring in its wake increased coverage of conservative viewpoints. But one of the most exciting things happening in progressive politics today is that political progressives are remembering (even if the media are still coming around) that “religious” and “conservative”, “Christian” and “Republican” are not synonyms. Progressives are awakening from their short-term amnesia to remember that the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and the abolitionist movement—in fact virtually all major progressive political movements in American history—have had influential progressive religious voices helping to lead the charge.

Progressives are also realizing that the American religious landscape is much more diverse than the skewed media coverage leads the public to believe. Just a glimpse of some findings from the American Values Survey conducted in 2006 by the Center for American Values in Public Life illuminates our real religious diversity:

• The vast majority (9 in 10) Americans consider themselves religious, and most (50%) Americans are Religious Centrists.

• Religious Traditionalists—the voices overrepresented by the media—only represent 18% of Americans.

• Progressive Religious Modernists weigh in at 15% of the population, nearly matching the size of Traditionalists that too many assume are the whole of religion.

• Even among conservative religious groups such as white Evangelicals, only 44% said that conservative religious leaders like Pat Robertson and James Dobson represented their views.

• Despite the insistence by conservative religious leaders that religious Americans cared mostly about hot-button cultural issues, AVS found that more than 8 in 10 Americans agree that too many religious leaders use religion to talk about abortion and gay rights and don’t talk enough about more important things like loving your neighbor and caring for the poor.

So, progressives need not lament the increased coverage of religion—an important and influential part of American life—but the Media Matters study demonstrates that we need to demand better, balanced coverage that fairly portrays the voices that are both religious and progressive. Fortunately, there progressive religious leaders have been organizing and working to educate the media through efforts like Red Letter Christians, Faith and Public Life’s Voicing Faith Media Bureau, and Catholic Alliance for the Common Good’s Voices for the Common Good Speaker’s Bureau.

Progressives should encourage a more informed media that will not only paint a more accurate portrait of religion in America but it will also give the American public a more accurate understanding of what religious Americans care about—a broader religious agenda that goes beyond conservative values and hot-button issues to include progressive values and other moral issues like the budget, poverty, the war, and health care.

Labels: media, religion