How old does a “think piece” need to be for people to stop thinking about it?
Let me state that another way: What if a “think piece” is a year old and I am still thinking about it?
Part of my logic, in this case, is that discussion of certain topics linked to this particular Religion in Public blog piece have, if anything, only heated up in the 12 months since it was published. Consider the urgent push for reporting, publishing and polling about “Christian nationalism,” which has almost turned into an industry of its own, especially in certain niche corners of the press.
Oh, has the Associated Press ruled on whether the “n” in that term is upper- or lower-case? If this is a movement, it really needs its own website and corporate headquarters, or is that like asking for official contact information about the Mafia?
Anyway, this brings me to a really interesting piece by researcher Paul A. Djupe of Denison University, who is best known in these parts as a frequent co-writer with Ryan Burge, a contributor to this website. Here is the headline: “Congregations are Doing Acceptable Amounts of Political Engagement.”
The question at the heart of the essay: Do people who claim to want churches to stay out of politics include their own for of organized religion (and maybe unorganized sort-of religion)? Djupe is reacting, in part, to a Pew Research study posted online with this headline: “Americans Have Positive Views About Religion’s Role in Society, but Want It Out of Politics.”
So here is the first major chunk of material that readers — journalists especially — need to think about.
In October 2020, at the height of the voting phase of the presidential election, we asked 1,306 worship attenders about the level of political engagement in their house of worship, soliciting whether the congregation needed to be less political, more political, or had just the right level of political engagement. The (weighted) response is almost the exact opposite of the Pew result from a few years ago — 60 percent believe their congregation was just right or should be more political, while 40 percent say it should be less (or way less) political.
