Intersection

One important feature of the historic 2008 presidential election was the presence of progressive religious voices in the campaign.

So begins a letter I received on Christmas Eve. With that letter was a survey addressed to me specifically and explaining that my name was chosen at random from lists of “active citizens who have a unique perspective on the 2008 campaign”.

Here is the final paragraph from the cover letter explaining the purpose of the survey:

This survey is conducted exclusively for scholarly purposes. It is paid for by the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. John C. Green is the Institute's director, a distinguished professor of political science, and a long-time student of national politics. He is widely quoted in the news media, from the Christian Century to the New York Times. His most recent book is The Faith Factor: How Religion Influences American Elections. Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., a religious studies scholar who is president of Public Religion Research and author of the new book Progressive & Religious, is serving as an advisor to the project. Thank you for your time and consideration.

This is a 9 page survey and therefore somewhat time consuming to complete. Generally I consider myself a moderate in most things and it was a challenge not to choose the “neither yes or no” answer on certain questions.

Here are examples of just a few questions:

•In your judgment, how important was the 2008 election to the future of the country?
•Overall, how would you describe your views on political issues?
•What is your view of the Scriptures?
•What should be the main goal for religious people when they engage in politics?

When I see poll statistics, I often wonder why I am never polled. So this was a welcome opportunity to "speak my mind". Although I am still trying to figure out how I came to be on this list of “active citizens”. But I was glad for the opportunity to take the survey and found many of the questions thoughtful. I was grateful for the chance to stretch my mind a bit when considering my responses.

I will be getting a summary of the results sometime in the Spring of 2009.