Religious Freedom Survey Reveals Outsized Evangelical Angst
No surprises here, this is what happens after decades of Evangelicals politicizing their religion.
Data from a survey released by the Barna Group on January 18th suggests that Evangelicals view religious freedom differently than other Americans and that they are far more likely than others to see their freedoms as endangered.
Evangelicals were more than twice as likely (71%) as the average adult (29%) to say that they were ‘very concerned’ about religious freedoms becoming ‘more constricted’ in the next five years. They were almost twice as likely (60% ) as average (33%) to say religious freedoms had been constricted in the past ten years. Evangelicals were the only group for which a majority of respondents believed this.
Evangelicals, however, have a different view of religious freedom than other groups reported on by the survey. Unlike every other group, Evangelicals overwhelmingly oppose traditional pluralism and believe instead that Christian values should be given preference in the United States.
While 2/3 of all adults surveyed agreed that ‘no one set of values should dominate the country,’ only 37% of Evangelicals agreed with this statement. They were more than twice as likely to say that Judeo-Christian values should be given preference in the U.S. (54% to 23%). Again, no other group held this as a majority viewpoint, even Catholics and other Christian segments of the population.
More: Religious Freedom Survey Reveals Outsized Evangelical Angst - National Skepticism