A new report entitled “The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey” released yesterday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in America offers some fascinating insights into religion in our country. The report provides a deeper look into the variegated approach to religion in general and even within particular religious traditions in our country.
A couple of points that were of particular interest to me were:
- a majority of those involved in religious groups do not think that their religious affiliation is the only way of salvation
- there is a coordinated relationship between the more or less heart-felt and involved one’s approach to religion is and one’s political leanings
- to be more specific on that last point, in general, individuals with a more conservative political leaning tend to be more involved and heart-felt in their approach to religion, and, conversely, individuals with a more liberal political leaning tend to be less involved and heart-felt in their approach to religion.
- to quote the summary report, “the connection between religious intensity and political attitudes appears to be especially strong when it comes to issues such as abortion and homosexuality.”
You can read a fairly thorough assessment of the survey at Christianity Today’s web-site here.
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Matthew Erickson 
A Universalist bent seems core to most religious views. I’m certainly on board with this, being a conservative Christian myself; yet rather than seeing universalism as a threat, I think the challenge for Jesus followers is to use universalism as an open door to conversations. If everyone is open to every view, that means they will probably be open to yours.