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http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/04/25/red-dates-blue-dates-column/2114133/ I’ve said it before – I truly believe that people’s political views are the lens through which they see their religious beliefs, not the other way around. This study seems to support it. What does that mean for those in faith crisis? Well, for many people the aspects of the church that are irritating are really about political views that are coloring how someone interprets the gospel. For example, the following may correlate to political views:
– tradition roles of wives and husbands
– gay marriage
– building a shopping mall with the widow’s mite
– how we revere leaders
Anyway, just thought I would link to this interesting article. It is also interesting to note how many inter-faith marriages there are among Mormons now. That statistic is rising.
Very good post…I’ve had the same argument…political values and ethics are pretty well at the heart of most faith crisis, imo. There is s reason that most active lds folks are conservative republicans. Thanks.
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Some of you will recall that I’ve mentioned before that my home ward was very liberal – many of the leaders were very vocal democrats (and professors at the local liberal arts college). Their version of the gospel was actually quite different from what I heard when I was in Utah for college. Same manuals, same general conference talks, but different local interpretation and emphasis. They focused on helping the poor, not being materialistic, and welcoming everyone; they were definitely ones to question authority and to encourage questioning and new experience. My parents were conservative, and they felt they had to hide their views to be accepted at church; they were more “meritocracy” focused and believed we should show deference to authority for its own sake. When I got to BYU, it took me a while before I realized that most members were conservative politically. My mind was blown. Apparently my parents weren’t the big rebels I thought they were. The bizarre thing about this is that those of us who are Liberal recognise that we are part of a very Conservative church, and we accept that we disagree with most members on many social and political issues, yet that kind of acceptance and recognition is not reciprocated back in our direction!! I would say that our general worldviews are manifested by our religious and political views, not that our religious or political view determines the other. In other words, someone who has a liberal worldview will have liberal religious and political views, while someone who has a conservative worldview will have conservative religious and political views. I think individual worldviews tend to be influenced most prominently by heritage (most notably parental and immediate society), both positively and negatively, but I don’t see religious or political views “trumping” the other. I see them as complementary and indicative of one’s overall worldview.
I think that’s why I could be raised in a conservative society (both locally and institutionally during my formative years) but still end up being moderate overall and even liberal in some areas. Interestingly, most of my siblings now, in their adulthood, also are moderate in many areas – although, overall, they are not nearly as unorthodox as I am. I attribute that to my parents being orthodox in most areas, orthopraxy in all areas and generally accepting of us as individuals.
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