United States
RNS
What do most Americans think of faiths not their own? Not much.
That’s according to a new Pew Research survey that asked 10,588 Americans if they had positive or negative feelings toward other faiths. Between 40 per cent and 60 per cent answered “neither favorable nor unfavorable” or “don’t know enough to say.”
“It may speak to people not liking to rate entire groups of people,” said Patricia Tevington, the lead researcher. ”Maybe there’s some fear of stereotyping.”
But some religious groups ranked higher in Americans’ estimations. Jews, for example, scored fairly positively: 35 per cent of Americans expressed a very or somewhat favourable attitude toward Jews, with only six per cent expressing an unfavorable attitude. Catholics, too, got good marks (34 per cent favourable vs 18 per cent unfavourable), as did mainline or ecumenical Protestants (30 per cent favourable vs 10 per cent unfavourable).
Atheists and Muslims scored overall negative views. At the bottom of the list? Latter-day Saints, or Mormons. Only 15 per cent of Americans had a favourable opinion of Mormons, while 25 per cent said they had unfavourable views of them.
As for evangelicals, Americans were divided: 28 per cent had favourable opinions of evangelicals while 27 per cent had negative opinions (44 per cent felt they didn’t know enough to say). But as the study points out, there’s a big difference between the way evangelicals are rated by all Americans (including roughly 20 per cent of US adults who describe themselves as evangelicals) and the way they are rated by Americans who are not evangelicals.
That’s because most religious groups rate themselves highly, including 60 per cent of evangelicals who have favorable opinions of themselves. But when evangelicals were excluded from the question, only 18 per cent of Americans had favourable opinions of this group; 32 per cent had somewhat unfavourable views (49 per cent didn’t register an opinion).
By contrast, mainline or ecumenical Protestants are viewed far more positively than negatively (only 11 per cent of nonmainline Protestants viewed this religious group unfavourably).
Political partisanship may explain why evangelicals are viewed negatively by non evangelicals. The overwhelming majority of evangelicals identify with the Republican Party and this bloc is usually highly correlated with the so-called religious right.
Democrats and Democratic leaners, the survey found, view evangelicals much more negatively – nearly half (47 per cent) had an unfavourable view of evangelicals. Only 14 per cent of non-evangelical Republicans had unfavourable views of evangelicals, by comparison.
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Evangelicals aside, Americans’ views of other faiths may be influenced by whether they personally know people of other faiths, the study concludes. Some 88 per cent of Americans know someone who is Catholic, for example. But few personally know a Muslim or a Mormon, which may account for why they view these groups negatively. (The balance of nonevangelical opinions toward evangelicals is the exception; it was negative regardless of people’s personal familiarity.)
The survey found that an increasing number of Americans personally know an atheist. In 2019, 65 per cent of Americans reported they knew an atheist. By 2022, it was 71 per cent. That may account for why Americans view atheists has moderated somewhat and why Muslims and Mormons are viewed less favourably.
“There’s a big distinction on whether or not you know someone of that religious group,” Tevington said. “That tends to increase favourability.”
The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.
