The religious affiliations of the new congress members

[kwassa]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/05/AR2007010501507_pf.html

New Congress Brings Along Religious Firsts

By Jonathan Tilove
Religion News Service
Saturday, January 6, 2007; B09

The new Congress, for the first time, includes a Muslim, two Buddhists, more Jews than Episcopalians and the highest-ranking Mormon in congressional history.

Roman Catholics remain the largest single faith group in Congress, accounting for 29 percent of all members of the House and Senate, followed by Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Jews and Episcopalians.

While Catholics in Congress are almost 2-to-1 Democrats, the most lopsidedly Democratic groups are Jews and those not affiliated with a religion. Of the 43 Jewish members of Congress, there is only one Jewish Republican in the House and two in the Senate. The six religiously unaffiliated members of the House are all Democrats.

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Baptists generally divide along partisan lines defined by race. Most black Baptists are Democrats, while most white Baptists are Republicans. Notable exceptions include House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), president pro tem in the new Senate, both white Baptists.

Because 2006 was such a good year for Democrats, they have regained their commanding advantage among Catholics, which had slipped during an era of GOP dominance. In Pennsylvania alone, five new Democrats, all Catholics, were elected to Congress in November, including Robert P. Casey Jr., who defeated Sen. Rick Santorum, a far more conservative Catholic.

In the new Congress, two-thirds of all Catholic members will be Democrats. By contrast, after big Republican gains in 1994, 44 percent of Catholic members of Congress were Republican, according to Albert Menendez, a writer and researcher who has been counting the religious affiliation of members of Congress since 1972.

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Evangelical Christians -- a category that cuts across denominational lines -- are even more underrepresented, according to Furman University political scientist James L. Guth, all the more so after this year's defeat of Republican incumbents such as Reps. John N. Hostettler of Indiana and Jim Ryun of Kansas.

But perhaps the most underrepresented group in Congress is the 14 percent of all American adults who, according to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, conducted by scholars at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, claim no religion at all. Only six members of Congress, all Democrats, identify themselves as religiously unaffiliated: Reps. John F. Tierney and John W. Olver of Massachusetts, Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Mark Udall of Colora

(much more in the article)

[SydneyBristow]

1. my fave part

"Evangelical Christians -- a category that cuts across denominational lines -- are even more underrepresented"
i can just see the freepers going nuts! looks like God loves the jews and catholics more! lol

Syd

[54anickel]

3. How did the term Evangelical end up getting hi-jacked by "fundies"

anyway?

The term 'evangelical', in a lexical but less commonly used sense, refers to anything implied in the belief that Jesus is the Messiah. The word comes from the Greek word for 'Gospel' or 'good news': ευαγγελιον evangelion, from eu- "good" and angel "message". In that strictest sense, to be evangelical would mean to be merely Christian, that is, founded upon, motivated by, acting in agreement with, spreading the good news message of the New Testament.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism

[SydneyBristow]

4. my apologies

if you were offended, i was making a generalization that i maybe should have not. again, my apologies, no offense was intended

Syd

[badgerpup]

2. Catholics have come along way, baby...

...remember when JFK was elected the FEAR that Catholicism would become the mandatory religion and we'd all be subject to the Pope?
:scared:
I think the guy wearing the white dress at the time was Pope Paul...

----> baptized Catholic but it didn't take. :shrug:

[BurtWorm]

5. I'm guessing Bernie Sanders is an atheist/agnostic.

But I don't know that for sure.