“It Started to Dawn on Me That It's Hard for Me to Love My Neighbor if I'm Shooting Him From 200 Yards Away”: Three Pathways for How Politics Shapes Religion

ABSTRACT There is growing empirical evidence that “politics affects religion,” yet most of this work has been quantitative. This article contributes to this burgeoning literature by drawing on two qualitative research projects to examine the narratives of progressive religious individuals who explicitly suggest that their current faith identity grew out of their politics. We find three “pathways” through which people's politics shape their religion: (1) returning , where someone raised religious drifts away from faith as a young adult then finds their way back via politics; (2) reorienting , where a religious individual radically changes their faith to align with their politics; and (3) becoming , where a previously irreligious person finds faith entirely through politics. We conclude with suggestions for future research on the basis of these three pathways.