From The Christian Century:

Although mainline Protestant denominations for decades have been closely linked to liberal causes—civil rights, women's movements, abortion rights and antiwar protests—most of their members have been mainstays of the Republican Party.

However, a recent survey found that 2008 marks "a historic tipping point" in party identification among mainline Protestants, with 46 percent now calling themselves Democrats and 37 percent saying they are Republicans.

That was the first time Democrats outnumbered Republicans in mainline churches since the New Deal era prior to World War II, according to research sponsored by the Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics at Calvin College....

Mainline Protestants are just under 20 percent of adult Americans, and their centrists are just 7 percent of the U.S. population, but that could be enough to swing a close election, Smidt said.

Social justice issues and the Iraq war might have been the major influences for change by centrist mainline Protestants, Smidt said.

Sociologists say the partisan identification figures tend to be the most stable indicators of political allegiance. "You may change your voting choice without necessarily changing your party identification," he said. "Over time, if you start voting in a particular fashion, and you think a candidate of the opposing party articulates your own viewpoints, then a change in partisan identification can occur."

Mainline churches were known for having activist leaders who called for change in the social revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s, and in later years brought more women into leadership and struggled with gay issues. "The leadership and clergy acted as the vanguard in the prophetic mode," said Smidt, "and maybe over the years this might have had some impact."

Full story.

As I've said before, people of good faith can come to different conclusions on political issues and, as Jim Wallis would say, "God is neither a Republican...or a Democrat."  But I appreciate that in these recent poll results there is solid evidence that fewer people of faith are identifying themselves with a political movement that has historically taken positions one might call contrary to Biblical teaching.  We need our political parties to be concerned with the environment, with those Jesus called the "least of these" and with the promotion of foreign policy goals where war and violence are a last resort - not a first move.  Does the Democratic Party live up to Biblical ideals?  No.  But maybe we can push them along a little and at the same time promote and protect the pluralistic democratic ideals that have guided this nation when we are at our best.

Related Link:  Why I’m Joining Obama For America: “People of Faith for Barack”