Comments on: Make money first, then find your church

By: Pohranicni Straze

Pohranicni Straze — Fri, 20 May 2011 02:17:40 +0000

My maternal grandfather- from a mostly German-American farm family- was raised Methodist; not sure what my maternal grandmother was raised, but given that she was from rural Arkansas, I’m guessing some sort of Methodist or Baptist. They later became, respectively, a successful physician and a high-level GOP official- and promptly became Episcopalians. A lot of the old country-club Republicans in Louisiana were Episcopalians, so it was a definite social marker.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 19 May 2011 04:01:30 +0000

“It helps that the Episcopalians are less likely to face restrictions on their membership in such golf clubs, Robert”

You could always convert nebbish; after all, it’s an Episcopalian tradition:

http://www.amazon.com/Philadelphia-Gentlemen-Making-National-Upper/dp/0887387896

By: nebbish

nebbish — Thu, 19 May 2011 03:17:05 +0000

It helps that the Episcopalians are less likely to face restrictions on their membership in such golf clubs, Robert.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 18 May 2011 22:00:40 +0000

Jews may have an SEI score of 62 to the Episcopalians 60 but in my experience the Episcopals belong to infinitely better golf clubs.

By: James Smith João Pessoa, Brazil

James Smith João Pessoa, Brazil — Wed, 18 May 2011 18:04:20 +0000

There is the study that shows that atheists make more money, get divorced less, and live longer than theists. Then the idea that, while atheists comprise at least 15% of the general population, they are only 1 % of the prison population.

There are flaws in all of these studies because of unasked questions, variable outside the scope of the study, how the surveys are phrased, conducted, and compiled. Nonetheless, atheists seem to generally do better in life without the stresses and delusions of religion. No surprise there.

By: ohwilleke

ohwilleke — Wed, 18 May 2011 15:42:24 +0000

One way to view religious denomination demographic analysis is as the best, albeit flawed, disaggregation of socially relevant ethnicity within the non-Hispanic white category (and to a lessert extent disaggregating other racial and ethnic categories). This ethnicity element probably drives the numbers more than the content of what people who identify with a religious denomination do in connection with their church, or some sort of “virtuous circle” hypothesis.

For example, many high socio-economic status non-Hispanic whites who have roots (distant or not so distant) in the Northeast United States self-identify as Episcopalian, even though they are strictly of the wedding/funeral/Christmas/Easter variety and have no regular involvement with the religious life of that denomination. Television and movies often use the Episcopalian liturgy as the “generic” American norm even though only a tiny fraction of Americans have that religious identification. (And, FWIW, the have much better traditional sacred music than the dumbed down efforts of most of the other denominations.)

A Lutheran religious identification, similarly, is probably a fairly reliable indica of socially relevant Northern European ethnicity.

A Baptist religious identification is a good way to track people who have roots in the American South but no longer live there.

This kind is disaggregation is valueable because it reveals that there is far more substructure and heterogenity to the non-Hispanic white census category than one might otherwise suspect. But, because it is broken out statistically only infrequently compared to race and Hispanic origin, many people aren’t nearly as aware of it.

Indeed, the divide between those who identify with conservative predominantly white Christian denominations and those who don’t (within which one can further break down Catholics and non-Catholics), is the single most significant dividing line in political identity and cultural values in the United States. The divide moreover, is far more a product of ethnic identity that the narrative of personal political and religious choice would suggest.