As we enter another election cycle, one dominant theme is the idea that Republican Candidates are beholden to Christians. In several reports I've heard or read this idea is coupled with the representation that 70% of Americans are Christians. This creates a syllogism that leads to a false conclusion. I don't know if this is lazy reporting or purposeful deception, but in the end this habit misrepresents the beliefs of a majority of Christians and I believe it needs to be shot down.
The syllogism is constructed like this: Republicans have crafted their positions to appeal to Christians. Christians represent 70% of Americans. Therefore Republicans represent the positions of 70% of Americans. This is demonstrably false. A syllogism can lead to a false conclusion as in "God is Love, Love is blind, Ray Charles is blind, therefore Ray Charles is God." The logical fallacy arises from the lazy tendency to treat all Christians as a homogenous whole with uniform beliefs. Only by lumping all Americans who nominally believe in Jesus into one group can you make the claim that 70% of Americans are "Christian." The religious freedom guaranteed by the establishment clause of the Constitution has created an environment where there are dozens of major Christian denominations and perhaps hundreds of non-affiliated churches. The fact that there is such diversity in American Christian churches demonstrates that all Christians do not believe the exact same thing. The major Christian denominations range from very liberal (ie Unitarians, Congregationalists, UCC) to Very Conservative (Baptist, Lutheran.)
When news people speak of the relationship between Republicans and Christians, they are generally referring to a very small minority of denominations and non-affiliated churches predominately located in the south and lower mid-west. When you look a demographic information about church membership, you begin to see how small a minority. The loudest and most politically active denominations are the Evangelicals (1,032,000 US members), Pentecostals (4,407,000 US members) and Fundamentalist (61,000 US members).
Compare this with the Catholic Church, with 50,873,000 members in the United States. I was raised in this tradition. Catholics think of themselves as Catholic, and don't generally call themselves "Christian." I'll concede that some American Catholics have found common cause with the more vocal Christian Denominations on issues like abortion and gay rights, but as Pope Francis has demonstrated most effectively, the Catholic Church has long spoke truth to power about the rights of the poor and oppressed. Catholic beliefs and traditions do not allow for things like prosperity doctrine, which many Evangelicals espouse. Conservative disdain for the Pope's stances on income inequality and the environment proves to me that Republicans do not speak for all Catholics. Republican antipathy towards Spanish speaking immigrants widens the divide between the GOP and Latino Catholics.
You might counter that Baptists are number 2 in the US with 33,830,000 members. As a rule, they are socially conservative, and largely concentrated in the South. However, no one can claim that the modern Republican party represents the views of the nearly 5,000,000 black Americans who follow in the African American Baptist traditions of Martin Luther King. Nor do they represent all white Baptists. Baptists believe in the absolute autonomy of the local congregation, and within that framework, you find people like Jimmy Carter who work for social justice and peace.
The 1,378,000 Congregationalists and the United Church of Christ outnumber Evangelicals. One of their stated purposes is "to seek justice and liberation for all." They openly allow gay members, advocate for peace, and seek to help the oppressed here and abroad. Historically, Northern Congregational churches were the wellspring of the abolition movement. John Adams was a Congregational and the quintessential "Patriot." I think he would have been appalled at the attitudes of the modern GOP.
I could go on ad infinitum, but I will jump to my conclusion. Republicans do not speak for all Christian Denominations. Blaming the deplorable state of the Republican Party on its' need to appease its' so called "Christian" base is imprecise. Claiming that this base represents 70% of all Americans is an outright lie. Young Americans are being driven away from church in general by the endless association of religion with the hate, intolerance, and bigotry of a cynical political strategy. This does an enormous disservice to the majority of Christians in America who actually try to follow Christ's message of love. The next time you hear this from a source, speak up.