{"id":137368,"date":"2018-10-22T09:25:09","date_gmt":"2018-10-22T15:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/22\/when-a-majority-becomes-a-plurality.html"},"modified":"2018-10-22T09:25:09","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T15:25:09","slug":"when-a-majority-becomes-a-plurality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/22\/when-a-majority-becomes-a-plurality.html","title":{"rendered":"When a majority becomes a plurality"},"content":{"rendered":"

White Christians are no longer the majority population in the US. Between ethnic demographics and, especially, changes in religiosity among younger generations, they represent a "mere" plurality, about 43% of the population.<\/p>\n

Going from a tacit "we're large and in charge" position of unquestioned power to a headlined "we're shrinking and sinking" status has, unfortunately, somewhat unhinged some elements of that demographic, especially amongst the conservative evangelicals and those leaders among them who have always assumed they would have power and prestige. <\/p>\n

Thus we see retrenchment and resentment, attempts to undo freedoms around sex and sexuality, women's rights, and LGBT rights. They do this now under a banner of "religious freedom," as suddenly the idea that, of course,<\/i> the mingling of church and state would benefit them<\/i> and their<\/i> church no longer necessarily holds true. Those who have always preached that civil law should be obeyed as an extension of church law, now are swift to add, "except by us."<\/p>\n

These folk have become all the more desperate, hitching their star to Donald Trump as someone who will kowtow to them for political support, and in turn give them the culture war victories they are longing for, no matter how opposite his demeanor and actions and words are to those of Christ. They further sell their souls by telling stories of how God uses godless (but, sometimes, "good") pagan leaders in the Old Testament to protect and restore the nation of Israel, and assume if they can just get hold of the right pagan hero — like Trump — then the social changes of the last fifty years can be rolled back and some mythical, idealized world of beneficent Old-Fashioned Christian American can be restored.<\/p>\n

It can't. Demographics don't lie. European-Americans, particularly ones with no admixture of other "races," are a dwindling part of the population themselves. But, more importantly, they are failing on the religion front as well. The children-through-young-adults of today, including (and perhaps especially) the children of those White Christian Conservatives, see Christianity and religion more as tools of oppression than of hope. The "Good News" has become for them calls to imprison their gay friends, shun their transgender friends, have their women give up work and go back to birthing babies and doing the laundry — and, while at it, to ignore climate change, pay taxes for church indoctrination schools, stop spending time with people of different ethnic backgrounds, and whatever other twisted agenda the merger of God and Mammon dictates. And that just accelerates people falling away from a faith that could do those things.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, this battle has stopped being about doctrine and dogma, about evangelism and the Gospel. It's become about fear of change, and tribalism, and a perceived, existential threat to what they hold dear, not just in their own lives but in the future. The lashing about isn't going to work in the long run, any more than King Canute could order back the tides. But the damage these folk will do, are<\/i> doing, as they struggle for relevance, let alone domination, is going to be profound.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\n
\n<\/a>
\nWhite Christians are in retreat — and they’re getting more isolated and less tolerant<\/a><\/span>
\nLast year, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) put out a new report on religion in America that measured a truly remarkable shift: For the first time, almost certainly in the country’s history, people who identify as white Christians are a minority of Americans. Four out of every five Americans were self-described white Christians in 1976, but now that group only constitutes 43 percent of the U.S. population. There are a lot of reasons …\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Original Post<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

White Christians are no longer the majority population in the US. Between ethnic demographics and, especially, changes in religiosity among younger generations, they represent a "mere" plurality, about 43% of the population. Going from a tacit "we're large and in charge" position of unquestioned power to a headlined "we're shrinking and sinking" status has, unfortunately, … Continue reading “When a majority becomes a plurality”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":135587,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/09\/donald-trump-proud-minority-people-approve.html","url_meta":{"origin":137368,"position":0},"title":"Donald Trump is very proud that a minority of people approve of him","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 9-Dec-17 12:41am","format":false,"excerpt":"You can always tell when Donald Trump has a polling result that isn't wretched: he immediately tweets about it, even if the rest of the time he studiously ignores the polls (and just makes handwaving statements about his amazing popularity). In this case, it's a single outlying poll, showing a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Trump%2B45%2Bpct.PNGimgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Trump%2B45%2Bpct.PNGimgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Trump%2B45%2Bpct.PNGimgmax%3D660.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":23403,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/02\/ie-drops-from-majority-to-plurality-of-web-usage.html","url_meta":{"origin":137368,"position":1},"title":"IE drops from majority to plurality of Web usage","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 2-Nov-11 3:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Some convincing analysis in the article as to why that's so -- and why most of the competing growth has come from Chrome. Embedded Link The end of an era: Internet Explorer drops below 50% of Web usage Two things happened during October: Internet Explorer lost its majority share of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138307,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/14\/a-rank-choice-demonstrates-the-need-for-ranked-choice.html","url_meta":{"origin":137368,"position":2},"title":"A rank choice demonstrates the need for ranked choice","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Mar-19 7:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's a voting process that makes a lot of sense","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/ranked-choice-voting.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/ranked-choice-voting.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/ranked-choice-voting.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/ranked-choice-voting.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/ranked-choice-voting.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":27930,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/18\/dear-eagle-forum-get-used-to-being-only-a-plurality.html","url_meta":{"origin":137368,"position":3},"title":"Dear Eagle Forum – Get used to being "only" a plurality","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 18-May-12 4:38pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's the End of America, Goodness, Christianity, and Our Privileged White American Majority! Eeek! Awful non-whitish distinctly-un-pale types are no longer the majority, simply the plurality! Whatever shall we do, as this is a horrible, horrible, horrible disaster!_\"It is not a good thing. The immigrants do not share American values,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129064,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/04\/the-demographics-of-the-landline-less.html","url_meta":{"origin":137368,"position":4},"title":"The Demographics of the Landline-less","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 4-Dec-15 11:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"Cell phone-only households are now a plurality, and are nearly a majority as well, having now passed up households with both cell phones and landlines. The CDC tracks this both for their own surveying needs and because there are some interesting demographics among such households (mostly negative ones), even when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49788,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/09\/the-changing-demographics-of-the-united-states.html","url_meta":{"origin":137368,"position":5},"title":"The changing demographics of the United States","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Mar-15 2:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Of course they (we) are still a plurality in the vast majority of those states, but the interactions between race, religion, and other demographic groups continues to grow more complex and less something you can just assume. Which I think should be a good thing. White Christians Are No Longer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}