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Originally Posted by UtahDan
I would love to see, if anyone has it, data on how religious the country is as opposed to the past. Couple of thoughts come immediately to mind when I read your comment:
1. If there are more religious people is it because religions are increasingly more liberal and require less or is it the more "orthodox" religions that are more appealing or is it actually both?
2. Is there really more influence of religion in politics today than ever, or is it simply that in times gone by people generally had a much firmer base line of what their "morality" included and there was no need for a christian coalition? For example 50 years ago there didn't need to be an abortion debate or a gay rights debate because there was virtual unanimous opposition to them.
I guess I tend to believe as to (1) above that it is both.
With respect to (2), I think that the "christian right" has always been there and in much greater numbers than today but became better organized and more vocal in the last 30 years to combat the extremely well organized and mobilized special interest groups that emerged on the left. I also think, however, that the success of left wing special interest groups has prompted many of these folks on the christian right to to "hunker down" so to speak and become even more conservative and in many cases more strident.
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A good post. I actually took a religious studies class in college and the professor presented us with several studies showing America is more religous today than ever before (measured in church attendance and numbers of people identifying themselves as religious).
I will try to dig through old papers and see if I can find the sources of the studies.