So here is the question: Is podcaster Jess Fields just going to work his way through the entire GetReligion team, sooner or later?
I think it would be logical to do that, since Fields is especially interested in topics linked to religion, current events and the impact of journalism on all of that. You can see that with a quick glance at his homepage at Apple Podcasts.
The other day, I spent an hour or so online with him and that podcast link was included in the GetReligion post that I wrote about Fields and his work: “Jess Fields got tired of short, shallow news interviews: So he started doing loooong podcasts.”
You may recall that Fields is a small businessman in Houston who also has worked quite a bit in nonpartisan think tanks linked to state and local governments. He is an Eastern Orthodox Christian, and that has affected a few of his podcasts.
So now he has had a lengthy chat (very long, even by Fields standards) with social scientist, and progressive Baptist minister, Ryan Burge.
Why not? Burge is all over the place right now — writing and chatting about the tsunami of charts, survey samples and commentary that he keeps releasing, day after day, on Twitter. He also showed up the other day in an NBC special:
So what were the topics that dominated the Fields interview?
Well, Jess isn’t a soundbite kind of guy. He sent me this ultra-detailed outline of the whole shebang. Hang on, because this looks like a wild ride. I think that journalists who cover politics and/or religion are going to want to tune this one in:
5:30 - what is Prof. Burge’s political affiliation?
7:10 - Who are the “nones” and where do they come from?
16:30-22:00 - Voas and Chaves study response (secularization)
22:00-24:00 - Do “Born agains” overlap with Catholics? - Yes, he says the share is “as high as it’s ever been”
25:00 - Voas and Chaves again – is religion declining?
27:00 - Age groups - every successive generation is less religious
27:30 - Boomers becoming less religious over time
29:00 - Gen Z and Millennials trends - are nones plateauing?
31:30 - Why wouldn’t America become as non-religious as Europe? - He doesn’t think this will happen
33:45 - What does he think of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism?
37:30 - Are people becoming more ignorant of religion?
39:45 - He thinks that knowledge of religion is decreasing
41:45 - What is data on shifts in religious affiliation over time?
43:30 - “Nones” are now a religious tradition across generations
44:45 - Catholic church attendance has plummeted - he says that many Catholics are actually nones
46:45 - He talks about how some kids rebel and leave church and some don’t, and how hard it is to measure that
48:45 - What is the fate of Christians who leave their faith tradition? - he says, for ex., evangelicals almost always become nones
52:00 - He says that nothing in particular individuals change over time and have malleable affiliation
53:30 - How many of those lumped in with religious traditions could actually be classified as nones?
55:45 - What about other religious groups?
57:20 - Does the “none” phenomenon apply to other faith groups?
1:02 - What does he think will happen in the 2020 election? - He breaks down his prediction by group following this question. He says that evangelicals will keep voting Republican at an 80% level regardless of candidate.
1:05:20 - How will mainlines vote?
1:06:30 - He says ELCA and Episcopals have become more Republican despite liberal church leadership
1:10:45 - What is the fate of “progressive” Christians?
1:16:00 - Is partisanship a more important sociological phenomenon than religion? - He says “100 percent yes” and says people change their church more than their politics
1:19:40 - Where else does politics determine how people place themselves? - He discusses how evangelicals are economically conservative
1:21:45 - He talks about pastor influence versus the policitized media
1:22:30 - Question about free trade and other malleable issues, he says that many such issues defer to partisan standard bearers
1:25:15 - Where do minorities shake out in the religious/political landscape? - He starts talking about black protestants
1:28:15 - Youngest black protestants are becoming less Democrat
1:33:15 - How are the swing factory worker voters making their decision? How are they won?
1:41:00 - As a pastor, how is he navigating the complicated sociopolitical landscape?
1:44:00 - What are examples of where he feels pastors are sharing inappropriate things on social media?
1:49:15 - What does he think of the Benedict Option?
1:54:00 - What aspects of the church as an institution provide the fabric of community?
1:57:00 - How is his congregation dealing with coronavirus?
I asked Burge for his main takeaways and, as you would expect, he responded with charts. Like this:
Here’s another one. You know how stories about the “religiously unaffiliated” or nones crowd tend to make it sound like they are rebels sitting in graduate-school coffeehouses reading intellectual takedowns of traditional forms of morality, culture and religion?
Check out the last line on this chart:
I could go on and on.
There is so, so much to soak up out of this encounter!