THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP AND PREJUDICE

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Quotations:

"Some people say the only cure for prejudice is more religion; some say the only cure is to abolish religion." G.W. Allport, 1954.

"If we accept the logic of the Declaration [of Independence] , reverence for God is not just a matter of religious faith, it is the foundation of justice and citizenship in our republic." Alan Keyes, Republican presidential candidate, 1995

"Faith is a euphemism for prejudice and religion is a euphemism for superstition." Paul Keller, American rationalist

Applying the Golden Rule:

One of the most important doctrines within all major world religions is the Ethic of Reciprocity -- the belief that we should treat others as we would like to be treated. This appears in the Bible as the Golden Rule:

Unfortunately, many people do not extend the Ethic:

The opposite of the Golden Rule is prejudice: arbitrarily classifying an entire group of individuals on the basis of gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation, language, age, ability status, etc. as sub-human -- people who are not worthy to receive full human rights. 

In recent centuries, such prejudice has been supported by some denominations and fought by others. Past and present ethical/religious battles include: the abolition of slavery, accepting women for ordination, allowing inter-racial marriage, ending racial segregation, and, most recently, working towards equal rights for gays and lesbians, including the right to marry.

Sociologists and psychologists have been studying the relationship between faith and prejudice for half a century.

Studies of prejudice during the 1940's:

The first studies of prejudice among church members were rather simplistic. The researchers divided the test subjects into two groups: those who were church members and those who were not. _1,2 The results of each study consistently showed that church "members were more prejudiced than nonmembers. The interpretation that easily came to mind was that the church produces prejudice." ₃ Subsequent studies showed that this was a naive conclusion. Their data was correct: on average, church goers are more bigoted than non-church goers. However, they were asking the wrong question, and so obscured valuable information.

Studies of prejudice dur ing the 1950's:

Researchers examined the level of prejudice as a function of the test subject's degree of commitment to their faith. They measured the subjects' involvement with, and loyalty to, their faith by inquiring how often that the individual went to church  _4,5,6 They found that:

Results from a typical study were: ₆

These three studies showed that churches did not create prejudice in people. If they did, then one would expect that level of prejudice would continue to grow indefinitely as church attendance increased. The significant decrease in prejudice among highly committed church members indicates that some other factor or factors are at work.

Studies of prejudice during the 1960's: 

One of the main researchers, G.W. Allport, developed the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic religion:

Researchers found that most parishioners exhibited an extrinsic religious belief system, and that these principles led to a high level of prejudice and bigotry.

Various investigators such as Strommen, Tisdale Vanecko, Gorsuch and Aleshire "also noted more prejudiced people among fundamentalists," compared to other Evangelicals, and followers of mainline and liberal denominations.

References: