If you're not following it already, here's a Twitter hashtag for you: #RNA2017.
The Religion News Association's 68th annual conference is underway is Music City — Nashville, Tenn. — and two GetReligionistas (Julia Duin and I) will be on the scene.
At the conference this morning, a new survey on U.S. religion was released by Baylor University. Both Religion News Service's Adelle M. Banks and The Tennessean's Holly Meyer had quick stories on the embargoed findings:
Here is the RNS lede:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — Americans who voted for President Trump are often very religious, believe in an authoritative God and hold traditional views about gender.
A new Baylor Religion Survey also found that Trump supporters are more likely than other voters to see Muslims as threats to America and to view the nation as a Christian one.
Almost three-quarters of Trump voters said Islam is a threat, compared with 18 percent of those who voted for Hillary Clinton. An even higher percentage — 81 percent — of Trump voters strongly agreed that Middle East refugees are a terror threat, compared with 12 percent of Clinton voters.
“Today, divisions in the American public are stark,” said Paul Froese, a Baylor University sociology professor and director of Baylor Religion Surveys. “We can trace many of our deep differences to how people understand traditional morality, theology and the purpose of our nation.”
And from The Tennessean:
Americans who voted for President Donald Trump tend to call themselves very religious, think Muslims are a threat to the country and see the U.S. as a Christian nation.
Those are some of the core values shared among Trump voters, a new Baylor Religion Survey shows.
Baylor University researchers analyzed responses from 1,501 adults to find out how religious beliefs and behaviors predicted a person's political support. They also found that Trump voters tend to believe in an authoritative God and prefer men and women to adhere to traditional gender roles.
"This collection of values and attitudes form the core ethos of what we might call Trumpism. It is a new form of nationalism which merges pro-Christian rhetoric with anti-Islam, anti-feminist, anti-globalist, and anti-government attitudes," the report states.
The results of the survey administered by Gallup Organization in the spring were released Thursday during the annual Religion News Association conference, which is meeting this week at Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville.
I may have missed other news reports on the survey. I am, after all, trying to listen to the current session and type quickly at the same time. If there are other news reports of note, please share the links in the comments section.
I'm not going to attempt to critique the above articles in this post. I share them for informational purposes. I make note of the convention hashtag because much of what is being discussed here will interest GetReligion readers.
In closing, enjoy a few of my favorite #RNA2017 tweets from today:
I focused on the witty and humorous in the tweets I highlighted, but there is a lot of serious discussion and insight if you follow the full thread. Go for it.