Get Religion’s Terry Mattingly revisits the “Pew Gap” and looks at three Politico religion stories:
As we head into the election-day coverage, let’s all flash back to the story line of the 2000 and 2004 elections that was supposed to fade, seriously, in this election. I refer, of course, to The Pew Gap.
Some journalists, including me, often slip and call this the “God gap.” The omnipresent folks over at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life even held an excellent press forum with a title linked to that. The alleged closing of the God gap has provided one of the most important religion-news story templates during this White House campaign, as journalists have — rightly — stressed that it is wrong to say that Democrats are Godless and that GOP stands for “God’s Own Party.”
This misses the point in the actual numbers. Forget the “values voters.” The key statistic in all of this has been linked to something else — the fact that the more often voters attend worship services, the more likely they are to vote for culturally conservative candidates, most of whom are Republicans (alas).
This brings us to an amazing trilogy of stories published in the last few days by The Politico.
Continue reading here.