God.com
: At the Personal Democracy Forum, I’m in a session on God online with Hugh Hewitt, Steve Waldman of Beliefnet and Halley Suitt.
Steve says that that recent polls show that religion is bigger than politics online. He says that religion spreads like porn online because of privacy and anonymity. He quotes Hugh’s book on the reformation (see the post below) and how printing spread reformed religion and quoted a recent headline of his: What if Luther had had email?
Hugh says that whenever he talked about religion on the air, the ratings jumped. At Salem Broadcasting, they want to own the right-center religious market and he says that if he were a Democrat (straight line) he’d hire religious bloggers. Again, see the post below: Engage.
Asked about the Schiavo case, Hugh says that it will be a watershed moment and probably affected the papal conclave.
I ask Hugh what he would advise the liberal, reformed religious to engage. He says the first and most important thing is to “lay down the hostility” and not “hiss’ when conservative religion is mentioned.
Hugh says that pastors who are constrained from talking politics in the pulpit because of their nonprofit status are not constrained on the web and should start web sites and blogs.
Steve says the divide in the election was not a God gap but a church attendance gap (see the link to the CBSNews piece in the post below). But he says it right: It’s not as if this means the other side is not religious; Americans are religious. It means they have a different view.
