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Lizette Beard: [00:00] Podcasting from Nashville, Tennessee, this is “Keep Asking,” the weekly podcast that helps you dive in a bit deeper and wider into the research providing insight into today’s church and culture.
[00:23] Welcome, everyone. I’m Lizette Beard. I’m here with my colleagues Scott McConnell and Casey Oliver. [00:31] Before we talk about who knows what today, I just want it to be known that I tried to talk my way out of this episode of Keep Asking but no luck. [00:39] Since we are here, I thought I would start out asking everyone to name a song that they really enjoyed or thought they enjoyed and thought was catchy until you stopped and listened to the lyrics and realized, “Wow, I don’t share those values at all,” and it ruins the song for you.Casey Oliver: [00:56] This sounds autobiographical for you.
Lizette: [00:59] I’m going to start out. I’ll start out and give you guys a moment to think about that.
[01:06] I won’t use the one Casey already knows, “Follow Me” by Uncle Cracker which was, as I said, perfectly enjoyable until Casey cruises by my office one day and asked if I really thought about just how vulgar the lyrics are.Lizette: [01:18] After a little investigation, it’s ruined, the catchy little tune.
[01:25] In general, I can be kind of bad about waiting too long before I discern the quality of the lyrics in country music. Sometimes those tunes do not encourage healthy relationships or healthy…Scott McConnell: [01:40] Or positive thinking.
Lizette: [01:42] Yes, exactly. For example, it wasn’t until I had an 11‑year‑old in my car ‑‑ I was driving around ‑‑ point out that I was singing along to Dierks Bentley’s “Drunk on a Plane.” That was not actually something I would ever want her to do or to be thinking about that.
[02:00] We had to turn off the radio and take a moment to actually talk about the song and brainstorm healthier ways to deal with disappointment in relationships like journal, pray about it. There’s better ways, but it’s a really catchy tune. [02:17] It’s nothing like a child to…Scott: [02:19] You just used it as an icebreaker, to get to that productive teaching moment that you were after all along, the entire time.
Lizette: [02:26] Yes, that’s it. That’s it.
[02:27] All right, I gave you guys a moment to find your tune.Scott: [02:31] I’m horrible at remember names of songs and artists and actually putting them together but I grew up listening to classic rock and really enjoy the genre. And yet, the lyrics of almost every song in classic rock has moral deficiencies.
Lizette: [02:52] That’s a very diplomatic way to say that.
Scott: [02:56] A specific one is not coming to mind. I don’t turn the dial there very often anymore, as I have kids, but if I do I’m careful not to sing along.
[03:08] I do remember one time we were on our way to the beach and a friend’s mom was driving. There was a Billy Joel song on. It got to a line in the lyrics that I knew there was a curse word. I very conveniently coughed really loud right at that moment to try to keep the tension from getting too crazy in the car.Lizette: [03:33] That’s good. All right. And you did that as a kid?
Scott: [03:36] Oh, yeah. Teenager. Sure.
Lizette: [03:38] I love that you were policing lyrics as a teenager. That’s awesome. All right, how about you, Casey?
Casey: [03:44] Scott actually helped jog my memory because the Billy Joel song “Only the Good Die Young” is actually very, has a pessimistic outlook on religion in general, and on faith, I think, but is also very catchy. You don’t really pay attention to it until you stop and listen and go, “This is really not promoting the same values that I have,” I guess.
Scott: [04:11] Definitely would not fit with the true love waits theme.
Lizette: [04:16] See, I, now, am very curious because I have no idea what the lyrics are. I know the song.
[04:20] All right, I meant to tell us, we’re talking about sexual freedom today. That’s where that came from. I meant to throw in that thing. I thought I’d get us warmed up on sexual freedom. This is going downhill. [04:40] I’m interested in how we ask one of our questions. We were asking some questions about religious freedom and sexual freedom. In general, what do you think motivates sincere religious believers who oppose sexual freedom? Is that a good one to start with?Scott: [05:02] Sure. Tell us a little more what you have in mind.
Lizette: [05:07] The question, in general, “What do you think motivates sincere religious believers who oppose sexual freedom?” We did not give them a nice, big, rich array of responses. It was either hate, faith, or not sure.
[05:29] It seems kind of harsh.Casey: [05:32] Pick a side.
Lizette: [05:33] Yeah, decide. It seemed a little…it’s these three. What was going on there?
Scott: [05:43] Typically, with the quantitative questions, you’ve got to give a defined list for people to respond to. Otherwise, if there’s a blank there it’s an open‑ended question.
[05:53] As we come up with those lists, inherently we’re forcing a choice. The question is how many choices are we going to give them in making them decide. In this case, we were essentially trying to mirror some of the dialog that’s been going on in our culture. [06:11] I think, too often, the dialog that’s been going on about sexuality in America has been one that the debate itself has not necessarily been very rational. It’s gotten very personal, very quickly. And so, if people are assuming the other’s motives are those of hate they’re not going to listen to anything they say. They’re going to disengage. [06:42] So, we wanted to find out whether they thought that these feelings coming from the religious community were religious based or whether it was a personal hate toward those that are expressing their freedoms in ways that the religious folks don’t agree with.Lizette: [07:00] Casey, you were a little antsy to answer that one yourself. Did you have a thought on that?
Casey: [07:03] I guess, just thinking “forced choice” both on that question and also on the…we asked the question, “Different people have different views on the issue of sexual freedom today. When sexual freedom and religious freedom conflict, which freedom do you feel is more important?”
[07:21] We asked them, “Sexual freedom, religious freedom, or not sure.” Again, it was the same sort of deal where it’s come down on one side or the other in a very straight line. We didn’t allow a lot of nuance in terms of how they answered that question. [07:34] We wound up asking another question where there was some more nuance but I think that, to some extent, we’re asking them, in the absence of specifics in this case, to say, “Here’s what side I tend to be on.” That can be a hard thing to answer. [07:55] We could have given them another bucket that says, “About equally both,” or something like that but I think sometimes it’s interesting to find out, “Hey, this is the way that I lean.” If you really had to say which way do you tend to lean on some of these things, which way would it be? As opposed to just giving them something that a lot of people might feel comfortable saying, like, “It depends.” [08:19] I think, for most people, it does depend on the circumstances but in the absence of knowing all the specifics how do we tend to frame these issues? What’s the driving principle for you?Lizette: [08:31] I was surprised at how many more did pick religious freedom than sexual freedom. We had 48 percent pick religious freedom and 24 percent pick sexual freedom. 28 percent not sure.
[08:41] I don’t know if I’ve become more pessimistic. I was expecting that sexual freedom option to come up much higher.Scott: [08:57] We definitely see, when we ask the morality of certain, specific activities that it’s a much more 50/50 split in America on many of those topics. Even the majority saying that many of those activities are OK and that there’s not a moral problem with them.
[09:15] You’re right. On a question like this we didn’t see the 50/50 split. Some of that is I think a lot of people aren’t necessarily recognizing the tradeoff even though we’ve had some very high‑profile cases where people have refused to serve people with their business because of their religious beliefs. [09:39] Even though those are very public things, I don’t think people are seeing quite the tradeoff that…in most cases, if we’re going to give somebody more freedom then we’re actually going to have to take away freedom in another area. It tends to be religious community that is feeling like their freedoms are being limited in recent years in trying to give more freedom, as a nation, to those who want additional sexual freedom.Lizette: [10:10] The one thing you guys can tell me that showed up in the cross tabs, what was significant, but the one thing I wondered is among those who picked, 48 percent, does that change if you force the point of this is all religions? Were there folks who were thinking of terms of my religious freedom?
Casey: [10:39] We didn’t necessarily get into that component of asking religious freedom for you versus other religions but I think we saw in there religious people versus non‑religious people. You see a really big shift.
[10:52] People who identify as atheist, agnostic, or no religious preference, that they have the exact reverse happening where 49 percent of them are saying sexual freedom is more important and 15 percent of them say religious freedom is more important. [11:08] I think that gives some signal that if it’s not a freedom that’s important to you, like if religious freedom isn’t something that you’re thinking about as much, or the implications of what it means for my faith to be acting in these different ways in the public square. If that’s a less pressing issue for you, then the way you start to view that issue, when these things come in conflict, is a lot different.Lizette: [11:31] I guess, even, would Christians be in conflict…would more Christians have jumped over to the not sure side if they were thinking, “Oh, there’s a question about evangelicals and promiscuity, being disciplined in the church versus the religious freedom of building a mosque.” Those kind of things.
[11:53] I don’t know how those come into conflict with each other, but it really stood out to me thinking, “How much of this are we thinking about? Are we naturally thinking about my freedom?” Because I think I do when I think about my choices being limited. [12:12] Big gap, at least it seemed to me, when we look at the older, 55‑64 and 65 plus, much more likely to select religious freedom than those in the younger, 35, 25, and then the 18‑24 group. Those older two groups have right around a 55, 56 percent. Then it drops down to 42, 41, and 33 percent.Scott: [12:43] We continue to see in the surveys we’ve done that Americans value religious freedom. It’s a very small number of Americans, especially older Americans that have grown up hearing about religious freedom and enjoying religious freedom. It’s not surprising that they would be holding on to that.
[13:05] I noticed as I was preparing that Franklin Delano Roosevelt talked about four freedoms that should be true across all cultures. Those were the freedom of speech, the freedom to worship, the freedom from fear, and the freedom from want. [13:21] Our questions were forced choice, where we were pulling out that freedom of worship and religious freedom and comparing it to one small slice of freedom that’s been changing, but it’s a tug of war that we’ve seen. We wanted to focus on that and to see where people’s sentiments were. [13:44] Freedom of religion is a long‑standing freedom in America and one that many believe should be true across any nation.Lizette: [13:53] Anything else stand out to you, Casey?
Casey: [14:00] We talked about, just as I’m thinking through the two big trends of nonreligious feel differently than those who are religious on a lot of these issues, and that there’s a tightening. You talked about 48 versus 24. Even in the hate and faith one, it’s 49 percent saying faith is what’s driving them versus 20 percent saying hate is what drives them when people are opposing sexual freedom.
[14:27] That’s also tightening among young people. You see a completely different trend in nonreligious versus religious. If we looked at the evangelical beliefs number, for instance, that’s three percent saying hate is usually the driver there versus 77 percent saying faith is.
[14:43] If you looked and said nonreligious, for instance, then 34 percent saying hate is the typical driver versus 29 percent saying that faith usually is. [14:54] Even to the element of saying, “What’s the underlying motivation there?” You see differences. Who should be given the wider berth in terms of laws or whatever, but even asking about the underlying motivations people view it a lot differently depending on what camp they’re in.Scott: [15:18] I think we use the term “hate speech” a lot in our culture today and even across the border in Canada it’s used a lot. Hate speech is not having the wrong opinion. I believe hate speech is when you give your opinion and then you harbor such resentment that you don’t even listen to the other side.
[15:39] I think those in the religious community, if we’re coming across as doing that latter, where we have an opinion but we’re not willing to listen to the other and engage in dialogue, then that is going to be seen as hateful. [15:56] That’s true on both sides. If we’re simply stating our opinion and saying the other is wrong, then there’s no hate speech going on. It’s whether… [16:06] Too often, today, we’re not willing to engage in the dialogue at all and it’s a one way broadcast. What I think. What I think.Lizette: [16:16] Jesus hanging around, sitting with hussies and thieves. His example is doing that without compromising. There’s conversation. There’s friendship.
[16:32] I know that I would be, probably, uncomfortable with the level of engagement and conversation we see modeled there, but it definitely communicates that if you’re going to hold those strong opinions, understand who you’re talking to, where you’re drawing those lines. [16:52] The other one, before we look at the next question, I also thought it was interesting that high school graduates or less, they were the least likely to pick sexual freedom and the most likely education category to pick religious freedom. That one stood out as a pretty big gap between those two choices. They sorted out. [17:19] The next question was trying to spread them out on those a little bit more and see who was putting their stake in the ground. In your opinion, is choice of sexual or religious freedom always more important or usually more important? [17:37] We saw that 31 percent hung in there and said always religious freedom.Casey: [17:46] This is where we gave them a little bit more opportunity for nuance if they would have answered, “It depends.” If they said that, “I lean towards religious freedom,” or, “I lean towards sexual freedom,” we gave them that follow up of, “Is that always how you feel or usually how you feel, depending on the circumstances there?”
[18:08] I think that for a lot of people, even if they said always on one of these you could come up with circumstances contrived enough that you’d say, “This is absurd. These things aren’t really in conflict among rational people here. This is clearly an example of somebody taking advantage of whatever.” [18:23] It’s interesting to me that on those who selected religious freedom that 31 percent said always and 17 percent of that 48 originally said usually. Then, on the sexual freedom side, there still was some recognition that religious freedom is only sometimes the thing that should drive. 14 percent saying usually sexual freedom versus 10 percent saying always sexual freedom.Scott: [18:55] At the same time, the not sure group of 28 percent is still sitting there. That’s going to be a combination of folks that were annoyed that we were making them make this forced tradeoff.
[19:07] We also live in a society today where many people deny that there are tradeoffs to make and assume that we can always have what we want. [19:18] I think, as leaders, we have to be really aware of that, that our role as a leader is to identify the tradeoffs. If we’re never saying, “No,” then we’re not leading. [19:33] We need to recognize those tradeoffs, but we also need to know that those that we’re serving aren’t always going to recognize that they have tradeoffs. They’re going to expect us to deliver on everything they want. [19:47] Obviously, our goal is to deliver on as much of that as we can, but understand that we can’t. I think, in leadership, we have to be more aware than the average American that there are tradeoffs to make.Lizette: [20:04] It makes sense that Christians and other religions were more likely to select always religious freedom than nonreligious. Nonreligious, only seven percent picked that. That group, the nonreligious, they’re at least…maybe they’re fighting right there for their right to have no choice of religion.
[20:23] But among Christians, 39 percent selected always religious freedom and other religions was 34 percent. Again, this is me thinking about my qualitative side. I would love to have conversations with that 61 percent of Christians, people who identified as Christians, who would not say always religious freedom.Casey: [20:46] If you want to think about within certain parts of Christianity, maybe they have a different moral framework that they’re thinking about this, but even among evangelical beliefs it’s 74 percent. There’s still, even in that group, when they’re saying inerrant word of God.
[21:04] That’s what the Bible is and all these other statements. That’s still 26 percent of them would say that it’s only usually religious freedom or less. It’s not always religious freedom that should be the driving principle there.Lizette: [21:17] Maybe the challenge of saying always. There’s that hesitancy.
[21:23] Going back to the hate and faith choice, I thought it was interesting that the black non‑Hispanics were the least likely group to select hate at 11 percent and the most likely group to select faith, 61 percent. That made me wonder if they’re having healthier conversations, if they’re just a better spirit in how they’re talking about any kind of tough issue.Scott: [21:55] I think all of us on the religious side need to admit that there are sexual indiscretions going on inside the church. So we’re not admitting we’re perfect even on the standards that we put out there. But at the same time, understanding that it’s our faith that’s giving us our lens of what’s a wise choice.
[22:21] I think we see that a lot of African Americans are much more likely to see that and to depend upon that, their faith, to give them that lens of what’s a wise choice.Lizette: [22:33] Anything else on any of these questions before we wrap up today?
Scott: [22:38] No. It’s not necessarily the most comfortable topic but I think it’s one that is being engaged in in our culture. I think, as Christian leaders, we need to be thinking through this topic but also realizing how it reflects how we lead on other topics that might be a little more comfortable.
Lizette: [23:01] Thanks guys. Thanks for everyone for listening. If you like what you’ve heard today we would greatly appreciate it if you could pop into iTunes and rate the podcast positively, as I always like to encourage.
[23:13] Feel free to let us know by email or Twitter any questions or comments you have. You can email us your feedback at research@lifeway.com. You can also find us on Twitter, @lifewayresearch, @smcconn, @statsguycasey, and @lizettebeard. [23:28] We look forward to talking to you next time. Keep asking, learn more, do better.See also
Americans Have Mixed Feelings About Sex and Religion by Lifeway Research