This Week in John's Newsletter
Pat Robertson, Higher Education, and Snap Polls
So I missed a week of putting out my SubStack. The good news is that the dogs are doing quite well together.
They’re playing well with romps in the backyard. Juno loves all of Mazy’s toys and regularly unpacks the toy basket. Walking two dogs at once is going well. Big remaining challenge is that Juno thinks we have to get up at 5:15. I’m happy that in only a week’s time, they’ve fallen into a good (if way too early) routine.
On Monday, I’ll be exploring the lasting impact of Pat Robertson who died last week at 93. There were some excellent pieces about this last week, especially one from the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent. But I’ve been thinking about the many ways that Robertson was responsible for creating a parallel Christian universe that has shaped the contemporary religious, educational, media, and political landscapes. In each area, he took the basic institutional form and coopted it into a Christian-centric perspective: The 700 club (Johnny Carson for Christians), CBN (cable news for Christian perspectives), Regent University Law School (a professional program feeding the Federalist Society), and the Christian Coalition (political organizing building on churches and training conservative Christians for local government). Each of those elements have fed the rise of Christian Nationalism and the polarization of our popular discourse.
On Wednesday, I’ll discuss a variety of recent issues in higher education. There was an analysis critiquing accrediting agencies for not doing more to make sure programs had a proper “return on investment” for money spent. I’ve got some problems with the ROI measure and the story misinterprets what accrediting bodies actually do. Another story worth exploring documented the large percentage of elite college admission slots that go to legacy or athletic slots. This is a much larger issue than cries about the imagined harms of affirmative action. We’re also seeing some much-needed pushback to the anti-DEI efforts in conservative states and the overreach of college trustees.
On Friday, I’ll return to a topic I’ve written about before: the over-reliance on polling data with limited background information, small sample sizes, and self-reported responses (YouGov). I was stunned today to read reports of attitudes toward the Mar-a-Lago indictments based upon data gathered on Friday and Saturday. Given that the indictment was just unsealed Friday afternoon, it’s hard to know what those attitudes were based on other than already existing preconceptions. Then there’s the problem the circular reasoning between reporting on what people are concerned about followed by polling that shows people are concerned about that followed by reporting on what the poll results might mean. Finally, there’s a real challenge in how to interpret shifting percentages over time. Finding a poll that shows a shift from before to now isn’t hard but attributing deep meaning to a shift of a few percentage points on a cross-sectional survey isn’t particularly informative.
On the off days, I’ll keep working on chapter four of my book. I’ve identified the general characteristics of culture war battles in Christian Universities and analyzed the stance using Christian Smith’s subcultural identity theory of evangelicalism. I’m currently working on a detailed history of LGBTQIA+ issues in Christian Universities over the course of the last decade, demonstrating why those culture war fights are not going to succeed over the long run.
As always, I appreciate your comments, shares, and recommendations of this SubStack to your friends.