Blog from the Capital

ABP's Rob Marus follows up on the recently released Faith in Public Life poll showing political diversity among evangelicals.

“The media is operating with an outdated script, and the experience I’m having on the road confirms the data,” said Jim Wallis, founder of the Sojourners/Call to Renewal movement.
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“I would say that all the data, the Barna data, the Pew data, this data, shows that evangelicals are leaving the Religious Right in droves, and the Religious Right is being replaced by Jesus, and that’s progress,” Wallis said. He referred to another recent survey -- from evangelical pollster George Barna -- that showed 40 percent of born-again voters said they will vote for the Democratic presidential in November while only 29 percent plan to vote for the Republican. The remainder remain undecided or said they would vote for a third-party candidate.

However, Wallis added, “That does not mean that people are moving from being partisan Republicans to being partisan on the other side.” White evangelicals -- after years of close identification with GOP politics -- are going to be more independent, Wallis said. And that’s a good thing for both politics and religion.