Educated, rich white people and God
Over at The Mystery is the Truth is a quick look at some demographic studies that starts with listing US States by what percent of people believe in god. The post then goes on to connect the dots of how white and how rich the states are and I concluded that Educated, rich white people are less likely to believe in god.
What thoughts do you have when you first soak in that statement?
Why has the church been so poor at reaching educated white people?
Is it the Sunday school answers and feel good country club vibe that a lot of churches have modeled?
Some questions you should ask yourself:
Can I allow people room and time to process through truths about God without forcing the issue?
Can I articulate truths about God without referencing the Bible?
Can I put my socio-political stigmas aside and join the conversation objectively?
As someone born into this socio-economic group, I've often wondered this. I attended a ludicrously wealthy private school where everything we wanted was just there
I'm fairly certain that at least in part, there's the control factor – I find rich white people are least likely to be amenable to the concept of surrendering control because they generally hold it in society – politically, economically, socially.
Would be interesting to break this down further to new money vs old money. My suspicion is that old money would be even less likely to believe…always had what they (think they) need?
Eye of the needle and all that (sorry, used a Bible reference, but it's kinda moved into cultural idiom these days anyway)
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and then Pat Robertson comes along and does what he did today
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A classic question posed by a rich, white, educated friend : how do you expect me to take your God seriously when His people appear to be more worried about gay marriage than poverty?
Anne's post on Flowerdust.net the other day is similar.
Pat never helps, but today of all days would have been a great day to hold the tongue.
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