A new study, whose findings were released Sept. 17, says Americans aren’t as divided as we think we are, especially when it comes to faith and politics.
That’s hard to believe if you spend much time watching or reading commentary about the news. Polarization practically oozes from every “certainly” and “of course” a commentator utters.
More in Common, a non-partisan non-profit based in New York, published a 140-page report last week called “Promising Revelations: Undoing the False Impressions of America’s Faithful.”
Its survey of more than 6,000 citizens — with a focus on Christian, Jewish and Muslim Americans —from September of 2023 to August of 2024, suggests that people and their beliefs don’t necessarily add up to the stereotypes.
The study’s website, faithperceptiongap.us, identifies what it calls “significant perception gaps —disparities between what Americans imagine people of faith to believe and what they actually believe.”
For example, non-Catholics believe more than a third of Catholics — 37 percent — see their political party as their most important idenitity. In reality, about 10 percent of Catholics give their political affiliation that level of import.
On the same question, only four percent of evangelical Christians see their political affiliation as their most important identity, while non-evangelicals estimated 41 percent.
“The findings in this study challenge some key parts of the story that we have been hearing about our polarized landscape,” such as “narratives that evangelicals are chiefly concerned with politics, that the relevance of religion is fading, that young generations feel distant from their faith, and that religious Americans are mostly intolerant of others.”
These false impressions have real consequences that can provoke unfounded hostility, ever-widening the distance between poles.
Two findings of the study are encouraging, especially for people of faith. And they may be key to helping us bridge these gaps.
First, the report indicates faith leaders, in particular, enjoy high levels of trust. Because of that, they are in a unique position to build bridges.
Faith leaders can draw on “shared values and practices such as self-reflection, humility, kindness, and dignity,” the report says. And they “can build common ground, reduce fear, and foster unity.”
Clergy, religious, seminarians and lay leaders can all play a role here. And Catholics in the pew can follow their lead.
That brings us to the second key finding: Kindness and respect for human dignity were the top values identified by the study participants. That was true regardless of the participants’ religion.
That bodes well for followers of Christ, for whom respect for human dignity is foundational.
So, if most of us hold kindness and human dignity most dear, why doesn’t it always feel that way?
Well, maybe we aren’t talking to each other enough. Maybe we need to turn off the divisive commentary and engage with the real people we encounter everyday.
We can honor the human dignity of everyone we meet by seeking understanding. This study should give us a little more confidence that we’ll be met with kindness and respect for our human dignity in return.
Maybe we’ll find we have more in common than not.
MARNIE McALLISTER
Editor
