Revolution in Jesusland

I've been meaning to post about a very cool blog - www.RevolutionInJesusland.com. I learned about it at RootsCamp in Ohio. It's a blog that's tracking a progressive movement among (formerly conservative) evangelical Christians. Some really amazing work by the blogger, Zack, on this site. Today, there's a post on a recent poll of born again voters, including evangelicals. Over the last 20 years, born again voters have consistently favored Republican candidates for President. But this year, there's a change in the wind:

Compared to recent presidential elections, the current leanings of the born again constituency have reversed. The new Barna study shows that if the election were to be held today, 40% of all born again adults who are likely to vote in November would choose the Democratic candidate and just 29% would choose the Republican candidate. The remaining 28% are currently not sure whom they would choose, preferring to make their selection on the basis of the candidate than strictly on the basis of his or her party affiliation.
If the election were held today, and all of the remaining candidates from both parties were on the ballot, the frontrunners among born again voters would be Hillary Clinton (favored by 20% of born again likely voters), Barack Obama (18%) and Mike Huckabee (12%). No other candidate reached double figures. Thirty percent of the born again likely voters said they were still undecided as to who they would choose.

Evangelicals, a subset of born again voters, have a stronger conservative bent -- 56% are registered as Republican and only 24% registered as Democrat. But there seems to be a big shift to the left even among these voters:

If the election were held today, only 45% of evangelicals say they would support the Republican nominee for president, and 11% would support the Democratic representative. Most significant is that a whopping 40% of evangelicals are undecided. This is extraordinary, given that 62% of evangelicals voted for the Republican candidate in 1992, 67% did so in 1996, along with 67% in 2000 and 85% in 2004.

There may be a lot of reasons for this, but part of the explanation seems to be a clear shift in priorities:

"Today we have a greater proportion of faith-driven voters who are concerned about issues that are often thought of as 'liberal' social policy concerns, such as poverty and health care. Abortion and family protection remain significant issues to the faith constituency, but they are not the only issues that matter to the group - or even the driving issues. Relying upon traditional stereotypes of born again or evangelical voters will not serve candidates well this year."