In my last post, I discussed the article in USA Today (September 12, 2006) about the Baylor University and Gallup Poll on religious views and politics. It developed four images of God that affect political views.
The four views of God varied a good bit from region to region of the nation.
Authoritarian God received the support of 43.5% in the South (31.4% overall).
Benevolent God received the support of 28.8% in the Midwest (23% overall).
Critical God received the support of 21.2% in the East (16% overall).
Distant God received the support of 30.3% in the West (24.4% overall).
Atheism was the choice of 7.9% in the West, 7.5% in the East, 3.7% in the Midwest, and 2.6% in the South (5.2% overall).
2 comments:
It's interesting that the authoritarian God won... but even more interesting (and exciting) is that the article acknowledged that one's view of God has more influence on forming political opinion than other factors. (!)
Yes, I agree. It is also revealing in that it shows that just because about 95% of Americans say that they believe in God does not mean that they believe in the God of the Bible. While the first two views might not be complete, taken together they contain elements of the biblical definition of God, but the third and fourth views of God are clearly unbiblical (as well as atheism), and these views account for over 45% of Americans!
In other words, instead of saying that 95% of Americans believe in God, we probably ought to say that at least 45% of Americans do not have a biblical view of God, if they believe in him at all.
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