Pope, Anglican, Presbyterian leaders denounce anti-gay laws

[Alben Barkley]

https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-lgbtq-people-south-sudan-religion-ddd1e52de12a95216e798a9ddd103ade

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis, the head of the Anglican Communion and top Presbyterian minister together denounced the criminalization of homosexuality on Sunday and said gay people should be welcomed by their churches.

The three Christian leaders spoke out on LGBTQ rights during an unprecedented joint airborne news conference returning home from South Sudan, where they took part in a three-day ecumenical pilgrimage to try to nudge the young country’s peace process forward.

They were asked about Francis’ recent comments to The Associated Press, in which he declared that laws that criminalize gay people were “unjust” and that “being homosexual is not a crime.”

South Sudan is one of 67 countries that criminalizes homosexuality, 11 of them with the death penalty. LGBTQ advocates say even where such laws are not applied, they contribute to a climate of harassment, discrimination and violence.

Francis referred his Jan. 24 comments to the AP and repeated that such laws are “unjust.” He also repeated previous comments that parents should never throw their gay children out of the house.

“To condemn someone like this is a sin,” he said. “Criminalizing people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice.”

“People with homosexual tendencies are children of God. God Loves them. God accompanies them,” he added.

[John Dule]

One would think that a group of people who possess the Revealed Moral Truth of the Universe would be leading moral change in society, not following it.

[Associate Justice PiT]

One would think that a group of people who possess the Revealed Moral Truth of the Universe would be leading moral change in society, not following it.

     I know this is an old topic, but I think this post gets at the heart of why liberal churches have such a terrible youth problem despite generally being closer to the opinions of the youth. If you're a young progressive and you find that your pastor/priest/bishop/whatever is a less trustworthy source of morality than your atheist college friends and just comes to the same conclusions but at a later date, is there any real point in continuing to attend? Obviously this doesn't apply the same to Catholicism, which has a more complicated relationship with changing social mores, but the largest Mainline denoms have been following this trend in America and yet are stuck with some of the oldest congregations:

[All Along The Watchtower]

^This seems to be first and foremost a product of theologically conservative denominations having higher birth rates, which makes very obvious sense when you factor in their stances on abortion, contraception, and premarital sex. Religious conservatives get married at younger ages and have more children than religious liberals—of course they will have more young people!

And plenty of young people who were raised in liberal/mainline denominations drift off after college, and those denominations tend to be more affluent and college-educated than conservative ones anyway. The Philadelphia Main Line for which these denominations are named referred to the rich WASP part of town, and that bourgeois association with these churches continues to the present day.

Which leads me to my final point: it’s no revelation that a lot of women in professional-managerial roles and the broader college-educated segment are not exactly enamored of conservative religious views regarding sexuality, abortion, and the role of women more broadly. Perhaps it’s also no surprise that these women would be less receptive on average to religion in general, or at the very least don’t feel that they should regularly attend worship services or actively belong to any particular religion.

Of course, statistics are not individual people and their stories—they can mislead as much as they can inform, if not more.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Which leads me to my final point: it’s no revelation that a lot of women in professional-managerial roles and the broader college-educated segment are not exactly enamored of conservative religious views regarding sexuality, abortion, and the role of women more broadly. Perhaps it’s also no surprise that these women would be less receptive on average to religion in general, or at the very least don’t feel that they should regularly attend worship services or actively belong to any particular religion.

Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever seen a survey with a gender breakdown of mainline-to-none drifters. I'd be interested, although as I keep saying I'm not entirely convinced there's a complete correspondence between degree of "liberalism" in a political sense and likelihood of taking that trajectory anyway.

[Associate Justice PiT]

^This seems to be first and foremost a product of theologically conservative denominations having higher birth rates, which makes very obvious sense when you factor in their stances on abortion, contraception, and premarital sex. Religious conservatives get married at younger ages and have more children than religious liberals—of course they will have more young people!

And plenty of young people who were raised in liberal/mainline denominations drift off after college, and those denominations tend to be more affluent and college-educated than conservative ones anyway. The Philadelphia Main Line for which these denominations are named referred to the rich WASP part of town, and that bourgeois association with these churches continues to the present day.

Which leads me to my final point: it’s no revelation that a lot of women in professional-managerial roles and the broader college-educated segment are not exactly enamored of conservative religious views regarding sexuality, abortion, and the role of women more broadly. Perhaps it’s also no surprise that these women would be less receptive on average to religion in general, or at the very least don’t feel that they should regularly attend worship services or actively belong to any particular religion.

Of course, statistics are not individual people and their stories—they can mislead as much as they can inform, if not more.

     I think your analysis definitely is a factor in explaining the spread, but what interests me is thinking about how the Orthodox Church fits into this picture. There are some Orthodox ethnicities that are still very culturally conservative in America, marrying young and having many children; the Romanians are the biggest example that come to mind. On the other hand, the Greeks are the largest Orthodox ethnicity in this country and they are demographically pretty similar to the Episcopalians.

     The biggest reason why Orthodox are so young relative to other Christians seems to be that we are attracting lots of young converts. The interesting dimension of this is that we are getting larger numbers of youth converts than liberal mainline churches, even though our views on social issues are much further from the mainstream of American Millennials and Zoomers. The same applies with the Roman Catholic Church and Reformed Protestantism, which are overall similarly conservative but are attractive to young people looking to convert to Christianity.

     My thought, though I have no idea how one could demonstrate this, is that the reason for this disconnect between the political opinions of young Americans and the kinds of churches that they choose to join is that liberal religion gives one little reason to join. If you look to a largely secular crowd for your political opinions, it is easy to dismiss religion as something irrelevant and outdated. You might posit that these conversion cases are people who were already conservative, and some undoubtedly are, but there are also people who are, prior to conversion, very socially liberal but still make the leap. I'm one of them.

[TheReckoning]

Which leads me to my final point: it’s no revelation that a lot of women in professional-managerial roles and the broader college-educated segment are not exactly enamored of conservative religious views regarding sexuality, abortion, and the role of women more broadly. Perhaps it’s also no surprise that these women would be less receptive on average to religion in general, or at the very least don’t feel that they should regularly attend worship services or actively belong to any particular religion.

Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever seen a survey with a gender breakdown of mainline-to-none drifters. I'd be interested, although as I keep saying I'm not entirely convinced there's a complete correspondence between degree of "liberalism" in a political sense and likelihood of taking that trajectory anyway.

Women are more likely to be religious in general, although I’m not sure how much of that is true at all age levels.

[jojoju1998]

^This seems to be first and foremost a product of theologically conservative denominations having higher birth rates, which makes very obvious sense when you factor in their stances on abortion, contraception, and premarital sex. Religious conservatives get married at younger ages and have more children than religious liberals—of course they will have more young people!

And plenty of young people who were raised in liberal/mainline denominations drift off after college, and those denominations tend to be more affluent and college-educated than conservative ones anyway. The Philadelphia Main Line for which these denominations are named referred to the rich WASP part of town, and that bourgeois association with these churches continues to the present day.

Which leads me to my final point: it’s no revelation that a lot of women in professional-managerial roles and the broader college-educated segment are not exactly enamored of conservative religious views regarding sexuality, abortion, and the role of women more broadly. Perhaps it’s also no surprise that these women would be less receptive on average to religion in general, or at the very least don’t feel that they should regularly attend worship services or actively belong to any particular religion.

Of course, statistics are not individual people and their stories—they can mislead as much as they can inform, if not more.

Anecedtotally; I've seen the inverse at the Catholic Church I go to.

Mostly college educated suburban families;  college educated moms. I even know a family where both parents are Doctors; and they attend Church. We also have Nurse Practitioners, Teachers, Pharmacists, Engineers,

And my church is relatively packed on Sundays.

[jojoju1998]

^This seems to be first and foremost a product of theologically conservative denominations having higher birth rates, which makes very obvious sense when you factor in their stances on abortion, contraception, and premarital sex. Religious conservatives get married at younger ages and have more children than religious liberals—of course they will have more young people!

And plenty of young people who were raised in liberal/mainline denominations drift off after college, and those denominations tend to be more affluent and college-educated than conservative ones anyway. The Philadelphia Main Line for which these denominations are named referred to the rich WASP part of town, and that bourgeois association with these churches continues to the present day.

Which leads me to my final point: it’s no revelation that a lot of women in professional-managerial roles and the broader college-educated segment are not exactly enamored of conservative religious views regarding sexuality, abortion, and the role of women more broadly. Perhaps it’s also no surprise that these women would be less receptive on average to religion in general, or at the very least don’t feel that they should regularly attend worship services or actively belong to any particular religion.

Of course, statistics are not individual people and their stories—they can mislead as much as they can inform, if not more.

     I think your analysis definitely is a factor in explaining the spread, but what interests me is thinking about how the Orthodox Church fits into this picture. There are some Orthodox ethnicities that are still very culturally conservative in America, marrying young and having many children; the Romanians are the biggest example that come to mind. On the other hand, the Greeks are the largest Orthodox ethnicity in this country and they are demographically pretty similar to the Episcopalians.

     The biggest reason why Orthodox are so young relative to other Christians seems to be that we are attracting lots of young converts. The interesting dimension of this is that we are getting larger numbers of youth converts than liberal mainline churches, even though our views on social issues are much further from the mainstream of American Millennials and Zoomers. The same applies with the Roman Catholic Church and Reformed Protestantism, which are overall similarly conservative but are attractive to young people looking to convert to Christianity.

     My thought, though I have no idea how one could demonstrate this, is that the reason for this disconnect between the political opinions of young Americans and the kinds of churches that they choose to join is that liberal religion gives one little reason to join. If you look to a largely secular crowd for your political opinions, it is easy to dismiss religion as something irrelevant and outdated. You might posit that these conversion cases are people who were already conservative, and some undoubtedly are, but there are also people who are, prior to conversion, very socially liberal but still make the leap. I'm one of them.

Tim Keller, one of the most prominent Presbyterian Pastors in America say that his Churches get a lot of Young People; especially college students, and guess what ? They're more likely to be people of color too....

[Associate Justice PiT]

^This seems to be first and foremost a product of theologically conservative denominations having higher birth rates, which makes very obvious sense when you factor in their stances on abortion, contraception, and premarital sex. Religious conservatives get married at younger ages and have more children than religious liberals—of course they will have more young people!

And plenty of young people who were raised in liberal/mainline denominations drift off after college, and those denominations tend to be more affluent and college-educated than conservative ones anyway. The Philadelphia Main Line for which these denominations are named referred to the rich WASP part of town, and that bourgeois association with these churches continues to the present day.

Which leads me to my final point: it’s no revelation that a lot of women in professional-managerial roles and the broader college-educated segment are not exactly enamored of conservative religious views regarding sexuality, abortion, and the role of women more broadly. Perhaps it’s also no surprise that these women would be less receptive on average to religion in general, or at the very least don’t feel that they should regularly attend worship services or actively belong to any particular religion.

Of course, statistics are not individual people and their stories—they can mislead as much as they can inform, if not more.

     I think your analysis definitely is a factor in explaining the spread, but what interests me is thinking about how the Orthodox Church fits into this picture. There are some Orthodox ethnicities that are still very culturally conservative in America, marrying young and having many children; the Romanians are the biggest example that come to mind. On the other hand, the Greeks are the largest Orthodox ethnicity in this country and they are demographically pretty similar to the Episcopalians.

     The biggest reason why Orthodox are so young relative to other Christians seems to be that we are attracting lots of young converts. The interesting dimension of this is that we are getting larger numbers of youth converts than liberal mainline churches, even though our views on social issues are much further from the mainstream of American Millennials and Zoomers. The same applies with the Roman Catholic Church and Reformed Protestantism, which are overall similarly conservative but are attractive to young people looking to convert to Christianity.

     My thought, though I have no idea how one could demonstrate this, is that the reason for this disconnect between the political opinions of young Americans and the kinds of churches that they choose to join is that liberal religion gives one little reason to join. If you look to a largely secular crowd for your political opinions, it is easy to dismiss religion as something irrelevant and outdated. You might posit that these conversion cases are people who were already conservative, and some undoubtedly are, but there are also people who are, prior to conversion, very socially liberal but still make the leap. I'm one of them.

Tim Keller, one of the most prominent Presbyterian Pastors in America say that his Churches get a lot of Young People; especially college students, and guess what ? They're more likely to be people of color too....

     I don't know too much about Tim Keller, but two minutes of research tells me that he belongs to PCA, which is considered the major conservative Presbyterian denomination in America. While PCA is overall a very old group according to the chart I posted, this observation would tend to support the point I am taking (especially as I named Reformed Protestantism as a popular destination for young Christian converts). Not sure if your intention was to support to rebut my point there.

[Del Tachi]

I'm just flabbergasted that ABORAD THE PAPAL PLANE is the dateline chosen for the article LOL