Prejudice and Churchgoing
(photo by James P. Morse)
Here’s a great web page that sheds some light on the connection between churchgoing and bigotry.
On the whole, people who don’t go to church at all are significantly less prejudiced and less bigoted than regular churchgoers. But the relationship between church attendance and prejudice isn’t a simple one: those who go to church most frequently (more than 11 times per month) have lower levels of prejudice than their bigoted churchgoing brethren, and even lower levels than non-churchgoers. So it can’t be a simple causal relationship where going to church directly makes people bigoted (or, conversely, where being bigoted makes people go to church).
So what’s the difference between this minority of less-prejudiced churchgoers and the prejudiced majority?
According to Gordon Allport’s research, these two different types of churchgoers are differentiated by whether or not they have intrinsic religious beliefs or extrinsic religious beliefs. Those with intrinsic belief are more inclusive and accepting of others, view God as loving and forgiving, and view religion as a search for truth. Those with extrinsic religion, however, see God as stern and punishing, are prone to be more exclusive than inclusive, and are concerned with religion as a means to an end (I’m assuming this means access to heaven, answering of prayers, etc.) The majority of churchgoers possess extrinsic religious beliefs and are more strongly prejudiced.
Keep in mind that these factors simply describe different types of churchgoers — they’re not definitive explanations for why this is the case. It may be the case that there’s some outside factor (like, say, social dominance orientation) that’s responsible for causing people to be both prejudiced and extrinsically religious.
Regardless, I think there are two important take-away lessons here:
1) Yes, it’s true that there’s some kind of link between churchgoing and prejudice.
But …
2) There’s still a portion of churchgoers who are open-minded, tolerant, and accepting of others. So it’s important not to lump together all religious people as being racist, bigoted, or whatever. And, it’s possible to reach some churchgoers with messages of tolerance, and possibly even get them to convince some of their churchgoing companions to become more tolerant themselves.
