This survey has surprising results

But if you add the “definitely”s to the “probably”s, they’re only a point apart. I wonder what that means?

I first filled in the blanks with “premillennial dispensationaists” and “amillennialists,” but that didn’t work with the second half, so I read the complete article and was surprised to learn it was Democrats over Republicans expecting Christ to return sooner than later. I wonder—showing my own bias—if it’s Republicans (i.e., more conservative) that know their Bibles better and thus the dangers of any kind of date-setting. It was heartening to read that many people of all political persuasions are looking forward to Christ’s return.

[Gary Peterson] I first filled in the blanks with “premillennial dispensationaists” and “amillennialists,” but that didn’t work with the second half, so I read the complete article and was surprised to learn it was Democrats over Republicans expecting Christ to return sooner than later. I wonder—showing my own bias—if it’s Republicans (i.e., more conservative) that know their Bibles better and thus the dangers of any kind of date-setting.

First, it ignores the huge percentage of Republicans who follow the John Hagee/Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell/Mike Huckabee premillennial dispensational/religious right sort of politicking. I still remember McCain and Huckabee competing for Hagee’s support in 2008, and Hagee spent nearly two years “prophesying” that America and Israel would attack Iran before Bush left office with the rapture coming soon after. Second, while “20 percent of the Democratic Party is composed of highly religious whites who attend church once a week or more”, first that number includes a ton of “Reagan Democrats” in the south and midwest who vote for conservative Democrats in local races but Republicans in national races. Also, though the article made the assumption that this 20% “highly religious whites” are the people who have the “We Stand With Israel” bumper stickers on their cars, it is a bad one to make. It pretends as if the “moderate” churches either don’t exist, or don’t have regular churchgoers. This dualism that the media (and often religious leaders themselves) depict where it is fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals on one side and liberal mainline Protestants on the other doesn’t exist in reality. There is a huge swath of “moderate” churches that have their very devoted regular attendees as well. Where Jim Wallis, Bill Moyers, Jesse Jackson and Barry Lynn represent the far left and the “religious right” represents the other end of the spectrum, the rather significant group “in the middle” that dislikes Jackson and Robertson equally has no religio-political representation and prefers it that way. They are the ones that are more likely to make no association between their very strong religious convictions and their political beliefs … for instance the sort who may personally disagree with abortion and homosexuality but doesn’t think that it should be legislated, and who believes that religion has no place in politics. The truth is that the ” devout religious middle” has a sizable constituency in both parties. I guess you can propose that they make up a good portion of the more conservative Democrats, more liberal Republicans, and particularly the independent and swing voters who are more likely to vote on economic and national security issues than on cultural and social ones.

So, one should pay more attention to “There is bound to be a significant amount of tension between the more secular white Democrats and the more religious non-white Democrats in the years to come, especially as minority Democratic politicians emerge as political powerhouses of their own without help from the mostly white union and current Democratic leadership structures.” I’d say that the significant percentage of the 25% of Democrats who believe that Jesus Christ will definitely return in 40 years are black and Hispanic fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals who agree with Hagee, Robertson, Falwell and Huckabee theologically but (for race/class reasons) not politically.

[Dave G] I’m thinking many people are ready for the person they THINK Christ is to make an appearance…but I think what they’re really looking for isn’t the genuine Son of God, because the Bible says He is despised and rejected of men. It’s close, people…\o/

Get ready, the timer starts when the abomination of desolation takes place….only the Father knows when the last trump will sound tho…wooohooo!

How can a Jewish temple be a holy place? A Jewish temple - one that denies Jesus Christ - would be abominable and desolate already.