Foreign policy views of churches & religions in one graph

[rug]

Last edited Mon Sep 8, 2014, 10:13 PM - Edit history (1)

What are the foreign policy views held by members of religions and churches in America? This new graph maps the ideologies of 44 different religious groups using data comes from Pew’s Religious Landscape survey. This survey included 32,000 respondents. It asked very specific questions on religion that allow us to find out the precise denomination, church, or religion of each person.



Tobin Grant | Sep 8, 2014

Observations from the graph

•Religious traditions differ from each other in how they view the relative efficacy of military strength or diplomacy. In general, evangelicals are the most in favor of using the military, followed by mainline Protestants and then Catholics. Black churches, those with no religion, and minority/non-Christian religions are most in favor of diplomatic solutions.

•The question of how engaged the U.S. should be in the world divides churches within the same religious tradition. For example, evangelicals hold similar positions on military-vs-diplomacy, but nondenominational evangelicals are more interventionist than Baptists. Among the mainline churches, Episcopalians (Anglicans) and Presbyterians are more in favor of being involved in global affairs; Lutherans are less so; and American Baptists are isolationist.

•Catholics are in the middle on both dimensions. This belies important differences among Catholics. I present some additional insights on Catholics on a second graph (here). Spoiler: Catholics are divided from isolationist-diplomacy positions held by Latino Catholics to more hawkish-interventionist views of traditional Catholics.

•There’s an interesting pattern among American Jews. Overall, Jews are in favor of involvement with world affairs, but there is disagreement on how this should be done. Conservative and Orthodox Jews are strongly in favor of using the military to bring peace. Reform and other streams of Judaism lean much more toward the use of diplomacy.

http://tobingrant.religionnews.com/2014/09/08/foreign-policy-churches-religions-one-graph-military-diplomacy-interventionist-isolationist/

[edgineered]

1. Very interesting graph.

Until reading what the left/right placement represented it seems a bit off though.

[cbayer]

2. Really interesting stuff, and some of it is very surprising.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Interesting set of fellow travelers in the upper left quadrant.

[cbayer]

4. United Church of Christ is the denomination most similar to the one

I grew up in. Very politically liberal and activist bunch.

[Brettongarcia]

5. Note this is for "American" branches of this. So Islam shows up asnonmilitary, noninterventionalist

Big difference with international Islam. Or the most prominent branch.

Watch out for PEW. PEW results are often much, much narrower, less generalizable, less accurate, than people think they are. I've found them to often be simply inaccurate and misleading.

For example? In the matter of church attendance, PEW simply asked respondents how often they went to church ... and wrote that down what was self-reported, at face value. Whereas my own quick observations suggested that respondents over-state their actual attendance by as much as 88%.

People like to piously SAY they go to church all the time. But very few actually do that.

(As you can determine by say, comparing Sunday traffic to business day traffic. Then the number of cars in church parking lots on Sunday, vs. total population. Etc.).

In short, most Christians are pious hypocrites.

Rather as Jesus warned in fact.

[cbayer]

6. What is the most prominent branch of international Islam?

And are you saying they are military interventionists?

In which verse did Jesus warn that most christians are pious hypocrites?

[Brettongarcia]

7. Shite Isalm goes rather beyond the Koran, in supporting violence.

Over the Sunnis, who I know well. The problem is that the Shias have some additional traditions outside the Koran, added on after Muhammet; many of which are very violent.

Jesus warned about "hypocrisy" in religious leaders in general, like the Pharisees. I'm combining this with warnings that many Christians would be "false" in their "heart"s; claiming to love their neighbors, while "hating" their brothers and sisters, and refusing to support others like the Good Samaritan. Along with many other similar references.

You could call this Christian hypocrisy or inconsistency. Or both.