Red, White and God: What We Believe

David van Biema over at Time magazine, one of the best in the biz, has an interesting take out on what America believes and why, based on the recent Baylor survey on America and religion. There’s a cool interactive graphic based on the 2000 Glenmary survey, as well as a snazzy graphic that shows America’s […]

David van Biema over at Time magazine, one of the best in the biz, has an interesting take out on what America believes and why, based on the recent Baylor survey on America and religion. There’s a cool interactive graphic based on the 2000 Glenmary survey, as well as a snazzy graphic that shows America’s “Four Gods” from the Baylor survey.

David’s analysis:

Denomination has been a sociological non-starter for a while. More interesting is that at least one Baylor team member is claiming that its Type of God categories are more predictive than church attendence or Bible reading. This is novel, and if it’s true, a lot of political strategists will be up late digesting the Baylor numbers.

But for the average reader, the big drawback of the study at present is that its categories do not have a natural ring to them. It was easy to understand “Presbyterian” or “frequent churchgoer.” It’s a lot harder to figure out what Baylor means by its Critical God, who “does not interact with the world.

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