In the media narrative, often progressive Christian political stances equates with liberal or non-orthodox theology. While that is undoubtedly sometimes true, the flip side, that somehow traditional, orthodox Christian faith is at odds with progressive political values, is a troublesome part of the political media narrative.
In view of this, I came across a real gem looking over John C. Green’s piece in First Things breaking down religious voters between the 2004 presidential race and the 2008 presidential race. The data split the White Catholic vote into three categories: modernist, centrist, and traditionalist. In what is not a major surprise, Obama slightly underperformed Kerry amongst the modernist and centrist Catholics — after all, Kerry himself fell somewhere in those two categories. Obama’s modernist vote dropped from Kerry’s level of 74 to 66, and his centrist vote from 41 to 34.
Here is where it gets interesting though: Among the White traditionalist Catholics, Obama had a 17 point gain over Kerry, jumping from Kerry’s 22 points to 39. Just as interesting, that also means that Obama did better in the traditionalist vote than the centrist vote.
Confused? Well, according to religion and politics CW you should be. That is not supposed to happen.
I think there could be a number of factors at play here. One that is less exciting but deserves mention is that Kerry’s abortion views may have received more play and done more damage to him among the traditionalists precisely because he was Catholic. However, a lot more than an intra-Catholic backlash is at play here. A 17 point swing like that means that something serious is afoot here.
John Greene noticed the same jump, and suggests a main factor was the deepening unpopularity of the Iraq War, which the Vatican has always been critical of. I agree, but I think this “traditionalist awakening” owes itself to two broader dual movements.
First, this shift follows the re-prioritizing of social justice in the Catholic dialogue. This includes anti-war sentiment, but it also means the renewed focus on economic justice and health care rights in an election where the economy and health care were front and center.
Second, this shift was made possible due to the subduing of the culture wars. These traditionalists are staunchly pro-life, yet 39% voted for Obama. How is this possible? One reason is that, as mentioned above, in the rising tide of other social justice areas, abortion lost its right to its one-issue pedestal. The other reason, however, is that Obama, unlike Kerry, actually reached out across this battle line to push for abortion reduction programs.
For all those critics of abortion reduction from the Left (most vocal amongst them perhaps Street Prophets’ pastordan), this is why abortion reduction matters from a political standpoint (which is not even to bring up the issue’s obvious moral and policy importance). To bring in these traditionalist votes, Obama did not need to agree with them on abortion; he just had to make it an issue they could move beyond. Once that bridge was built, many traditionalists noticed that the political grass did look greener on the other side.
And this is the real finding: Theologically “traditionalist” need not equal politically “conservative.” If this traditionalist awakening could be cultivated over the next few years and widened to the Protestant circles, the implications for the political landscape could be seismic.
After the jump I posted the full polling data chart.
