Progressive vs conservative Christians and their politics

A Facebook friend who is Evangelical, and generally conservative politically, but despite that seems to not be the kind of conservative Evangelical who conflates Christian values with voting for Trump, posted this article:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/research-progressive-conservative-christians/

I have trouble believing some of this article’s points, and I'd want to know a lot more about their data and methodology before I would accept their conclusions. After all, if they HAVE used flawed or even fake science to support their point, this wouldn't be the first time Evangelical Christians did so (see: Young Earth Creationism, climate change denial, anti-maskers/ anti-vaxxers). But other points the article makes do at least make intuitive sense.

The overall idea - progressive Christians being more prone to politicization and marching in lock-step - is difficult to believe. After all, 80% of Evangelicals voted for Trump twice... and I've never known 80% of progressive Christians to agree about ANYTHING. Try asking a group of them whether to try a new hymn next Sunday, and you'll see what I mean.

Episcopalians, for instance, are probably the most theologically progressive Christian denomination anywhere; and yet according to an Episcopalian bishop I once spoke with (in a deep blue state), a large percentage even of Episcopalians in his diocese are politically conservative. (Breaking down on the usual rural vs urban lines - Episcopalians in the country vote red, Episcopalians in the city vote blue). According to Pew Research, only about half of Episcopalians are Democrats, about 40% are Republicans, and about 10% are neither. Hardly similar to the political monolith that Evangelicals have become.

I would also contest their assertion that progressive Christians get their identity from politics while conservative Christians get theirs from theology. 

Progressive Christians become progressive voters through this route:

1.       1. Ask yourself what the most important piece of theology IS.

2.      2.  Read what Jesus replied when he was asked that question.

3.      3. Note that it’s the parable of the Good Samaritan – Jesus says that the key to eternal life is to love your neighbor as yourself, and to treat EVERYONE as your neighbor.

4.     4. Note that Jesus ALSO told the parable of the sheep and the goats, and begins it by saying that the NATIONS will be judged by how they treat the poor, the hungry, the sick, the old, the prisoner, the stranger in our midst.

5.      5. Realize that it’s not good enough to just work as an INDIVIDUAL to help our neighbors and “the least of these”; Jesus was demanding that we work as a SOCIETY to do so.

6.      6. Vote accordingly.

In other words, their politics became progressive as a side effect of their theology – which is far more related to the fundamentals of Christianity than fundamentalist theology ever was.

But conservative Christians get their identity from theology rather than from politics? Picture a typical conservative Christian. Picture what they’re wearing, what their vehicle looks like, what their house looks like. Are you picturing someone in a MAGA hat, with Trump flags and NRA stickers all over their truck and their house? Someone whose Facebook profile is far more likely to have a "Don't Tread on Me" flag than a cross or ichthus? If you went to their church and wanted to blend in, would you talk during coffee hour about "Sola Fide", or would you talk about what a threat illegal immigrants are?

Now picture a typical progressive Christian. Note that there’s MAYBE a Biden bumper sticker on their car, but probably not; and pretty much zero chance that they’ve got Biden clothing or flags ANYWHERE. If you went to their church and wanted to blend in, your ability to recite the Nicene Creed - the THEOLOGY - would be far more important than whether you bothered to say anything nice about Democrats.

Who’s branding themselves, identifying themselves, by their politics instead of their theology? It’s not progressive Christians.

I realize that anecdotal evidence is the weakest kind of evidence, but can't help being swayed by my own life experience, which was evenly split between both camps. I spent 20 years as a conservative Christian, and another 20 as a progressive Christian. My experience was that conservatives will leave a church for conflicting with their politics; but progressives will leave a political party for conflicting with their theology.

I would agree, however, with the article’s point that many progressive Christians feel more urgency (at least in the past 5 years) about converting people from conservatism than about converting people from Islam or atheism. That's because when you get conservative religion (any religion, not just Christianity) merged with politics, people die horribly. It was religious conservatives with political power who made Socrates drink hemlock; who had Jesus crucified; who started the Crusades; who started the Inquisition; who started the Salem witch trials; who killed each other for centuries in "holy wars" all over Europe and are still killing each other in "holy wars" in the Middle East; who started the Klan; who instigated 9-11. Whereas when progressive religion gets political, you get things like the Abolition movement, the Civil Rights movement, hospitals and homeless shelters being built.

I'd also agree with their point that "There are more paths by which conservative Christians defy conservative political ideology than paths by which progressive Christians defy progressive political ideology"... But I don't think they realize why. It's because there are more points where conservative politics come in conflict with Christian values than points where progressive politics do so. The article itself names them: immigration, poverty, racial justice, and environmentalism. Whereas there's only kinda sorta a case to be made that abortion is in conflict with Christian values. And it's a weak case, given that Jesus never mentioned abortion at all, and the only Old Testament reference to it gives a recipe for how to perform one on a woman suspected of infidelity, and the Jewish understanding of when life begins (which Jesus would have been raised to share, and never said anything to contradict) is that life begins not at conception but at the first breath. In other words, conservative Christians who are committed to core Christian values are more likely to realize that their political values don't match their religious ones, because they DON'T match. Progressive Christians have religious and political values that ARE consistent with each other, so it makes sense that they would be less likely to vote against progressive policies or people than conservative Christians are to vote against Trump.

Also worth noting: It wasn't progressive Christians who tried to overthrow the government when they didn't like the results of an election. That was conservative Christians. The people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th were so Christian that they waved Christian flags and had a prayer circle before beating a cop to death and trying to hang their erstwhile hero Pence (for Jesus I guess)? By the same token, it wasn't progressive Muslims who flew planes into the Twin Towers - it was conservative Muslims.

In summary: The article is correct in pointing out that progressive religious people aren't immune to the risk of conflating their political agenda with the will of God. But when religion and politics mix, it seems that the ones most likely to become dangerous zealots are conservatives.