Poll: Obama Not a Christian, But Neither is…Glenn Beck!?

Image courtesy of Westminster John Knox Press

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Last week I told you about the drama in the Texas speaker’s race, where conservative Christian activists have been accused of anti-Semitism for suggesting that incumbent (and Jewish) speaker Joe Straus is not sufficiently Christian. The catch is that this kind of attack is hardly unique to Straus. Here’s a new poll from the Christian firm Lifeway Research, which illustrates that pretty well.

Lifeway surveyed 1,000 protestant pastors—liberal and conservative, evangelical and mainline—about the religious views of a handful of well-known politicians and celebrities. The good news is most of the pastors (a supermajority, even!) think Sarah Palin is a Christian. On the other hand, 33 percent of them don’t. Obama checks in at 41 percent. And Glenn Beck? Just 27 percent, largely on account of his Mormon faith. That’s better than Oprah (19 percent), but not what you might expect from the man who’s built a movement (and a bank account) preaching the Christian influence of the Founders.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I’d add that “Protestant pastors” is a fairly specific cohort; actually, it sounds dangerously close to a Mark Penn Microtrends demographic (“station-wagon seminarians,” perhaps?). And Lifeway doesn’t really get into the details, except to note that liberals are more likely to say everyone’s a Christian, and conservatives are more likely to say no one is. But you can see the larger point: Being a “Christian,” and being identified as such by others is not mutually inclusive. Politics only magnifies that.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate