Friday, October 17, 2008

Tribal Politics

With the election less than three weeks away, it seems appropriate to return to this endeavor with a political blog.

Most often, the confluence of religious orientation and politics is considered to be the "Religious Right" and "everybody else." In 2004, BeliefNet, in collaboration with John Green at the Bliss Institute of the University of Akron, devised a more comprehensive system of looking at how politics and religion interact. Using a familiar Biblical typology of 12 Tribes, they classify folks into these groupings: the "Religious Right", Heartland Culture Warriors, Moderate Evangelicals, White Bread Protestants, Convertible Catholics, the "Religious Left", Spiritual but not religious, Seculars, Latinos, Jews, Muslims & Other Faiths, and Black Protestants.

You can view the full descriptions of these twelve at:
http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Politics/The-Twelve-Tribes-of-American-Politics-in-the-2008-Election.aspx.

Let me encourage you to look at the BeliefNet site. Which group do you think fits you? Do you think the analysis of each group is accurate and fair? Would you add or delete any groups from the listing? Do you think this list with its multiple divisions of the American people says anything about how divided or unified the nation is?

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