Religion in America

The New York Times and the Boston Globe reported this morning on the range of religious beliefs in America.  The data are interesting.  They come from a massive new study of religion in America conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. (Go to the study results at the Pew site to see the extensive data Pew collected.)

You can see comparative data (broken down by region or different demographic characteristics) looking at the political and social views of people from different religious faiths.  Very interesting stuff.

One of the ways in which this subject is important for our consideration of American government is that religious beliefs shape values, including many of the values people pursue through political action.  The movements to abolish slavery, prohibit alcohol, extend civil rights to African Americans, end the war in Vietnam, and ban abortion have all been strongly imbued with religious ideals.

Moreover, differences in religious beliefs often underlie differences in political opinions, especially on social issues.  People who are secular (no religious preference), Jewish, or members of one of what scholars call the traditional Protestant denominations, such as Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, tend to be more liberal on social issues.  Evangelical Protestants, such as Southern Baptists and Pentecostals, tend to be very conservative.  Roman Catholics, who form the largest single denomination, fall in between, but only on average; there are a wide variety of social views held by Catholics.  Regardless of religious affiliation, the more active people are in religious life, the more likely they are to be politically and socially conservative.  Thus, as the Globe summarized the Pew study:

Mormons and evangelical Protestants are the most likely to be doctrinally orthodox and politically conservative, while Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists are more liberal in both their theology and their politics, the study finds.