This caught my eye today, from a recent issue of the Harvard University Gazette.
A poll conducted on Harvard University Students about religion, morality and the current US presidential race revealed that 70% of students considered religion either somewhat important or very important in their lives. Over half that group (40% overall) “are religious and secular centrists who incorporate religious views with their political attitudes and actions.”
What stood out to me on reading this was not the fact that it’s unusual for people to think this way. It’s not. This really just served as a reminder that those voices in the ivory towers of academia insisting that no really or properly democratic society mixes its religious values with its political decision making – those voices with which I have been engaging in postgrad study for the last few years until recently – really do not represent ways of thinking about values and society shared by the majority. And for that, at least, I am relieved.
Incidentally, the poll included the Harvard Institute of Politics Political Personality Test. You can take that test here.