This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

PEW Research came up with a story on what it called “the religious composition” of the 118^th Congress, the one just now in session in Washington, D.C.

Okay.  The phrase “religious composition” works.

But the headline didn’t.  It was this:  “Faith on the Hill.”

I submit that it’s possible to come up with a tally of how many Members of Congress attend church or identify with a particular religion or denomination, or for that matter, with no affiliation.

It is not possible, I submit, to tabulate “faith.”  That is an individual characteristic.  If you have it, you have it before and with God.  If you don’t have it, well, that is your personal business.

The PEW report began this way:

“As it begins its 118th session, the U.S. Congress remains largely untouched by two trends that have long marked religious life in the United States:  A decades-long decline in the share of Americans who identify as Christian, and a corresponding increase in the percentage who say they have no religious affiliation.

“Since 2007, the share of Christians in the general population has dropped from 78 per cent to its present level of 63 per cent. 

“Nearly three-in-ten U.S. adults now say they are religiously unaffiliated, describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular,’ up from 16 per cent who did not identify with a religion 16 years ago.

“But Christians make up 88 per cent of the voting members of the new 118th Congress – only a few percentage points lower than the Christian share of Congress in the late 1970s.

“In the 96th Congress, which was in session in 1979-1980, 91 per cent of members of Congress identified as Christian.”

Interesting statistics?  I suppose so.

But, I always find stats on subject like this mostly irrelevant.  A person’s faith – or, for that matter, non-faith – is up to them, not to be reflected in a poll.

So, I say to PEW:  Thanks, but try to be more precise when you take off on issues such as this.