Thanks for the link, Donal.

AmericanDreamer — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:28:11 +0000

In reply to Tea Party, Circa 1930s: A Response to Michael Kazin

Thanks for the link, Donal. Interesting site--I hadn't heard of it. Does Diane Winston have too many degrees? I've agreed for some time now with her view that the media doesn't seem to know quite what to do when it comes to the role of religion in politics. They seem uncomfortable on this and also for the most part not terribly knowledgeable about the (descriptive, not deep theological) lay of the land of religion in the US. I don't know if this view holds up to empirical scrutiny but I can definitely understand why many religiously devout people feel as though the media, by which I take them to mean the political media, has a poor understanding of religion generally, and of the complexity of the interplay between peoples' faith systems and their politics.

Most MSM coverage of politics that references religion references only right-wing religion, in the context of it being a key part of the base of the GOP. One rarely if ever reads about progressive religious groups that are supporting progressive candidates. So the default narrative you might get from what you read in the MSM seems to be something like this: on the one hand, you have these right-wing religious fundamentalists or evangelicals or what's the difference, really? supporting the Republicans, and on the other hand you have basically secular people who mistrust those folks and want to keep references to religion out of political discussion, who are typically Democrats or Independents or Klingons or whatever.

Which of course tends to marginalize progressive religious voices and influences. And makes it easy for religiously devout people who are conservative or right-wing in their politics, and whose religious beliefs have important influence on their politics, to believe the media is secularly biased and at best uncomfortable covering religion's roles in politics, if not unsympathetic to the only kind of religious involvement in politics it seems to notice, which is organized right-wing religion's political involvement.

Amy Sullivan, in her book The Party Faithful and elsewhere, has written in a related vein. I came across this book the other day, which looks interesting and which I hope to get to sometime before my number is called: Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the 21st Century, by Eric Kaufmann: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=shall+the+religious+inherit+the+earth&x=20&y=23

dagblog - Comments for "Tea Party, Circa 1930s: A Response to Michael Kazin"

Thanks for the link, Donal.