If you were to be given a list of various categories of people and be asked to rank them according to least tolerant to most tolerant, and "Right-Wing Christian Fundamentalists" was one of the category groups, we suspect that most people would think that they would feature as one of the least tolerant of social or religious groups.
We were intrigued to read the following in a book published by MatthiasMedia in Sydney on some research that has been carried out on this very question:
In a book called The Religious Factor in Australian Life, Gary Bouma analyses the results of an extensive "values survey" that was carried out in Australia in 1983.
One part of the survey dealt with "tolerance" by asking people about their attitudes to various "undesirable" groups. People were asked: "Would you object to your next door neighbours being--people with a criminal record; people of a different race; students; left-wing extremsists; never-married mothers; heavy drinkers; people with large families; right-wing extremists; emotionally unstable people; members of minority religious sects or cults; immigrants/foreign workers; unemployed persons; aborigines; homosexuals?"
The answers were analysed according to various social and religious groupings and an "index of tolerance" was calculated showing, on average, the tolerance level of different groups. In the religious category there were five groupings:
-Roman Catholic
-Anglican
-Presbyterian, Methodist, Uniting
-Right Wing Protestants
-No Religion
Can you guess which group was the most tolerant?
The survey results ranked them as follows, from most to least tolerant:
- Right-Wing Protestants
- Anglican
- Presbyterian, Methodist, Uniting
- Roman Catholic
- No Religion
The result surprised everybody. The hardline, fundamentalist, Bible-bashing Christians turned out to be the most tolerant group by a significant margin. Those with no religion came last, also by a significant margin. We might well wonder why this is the case.Why indeed? Here is our take on it. Bible-believing Christians have a clear view on what is right and wrong. Such things are defined by Holy Writ. Therefore, they will have convictions that such practices as abortion, homosexuality, and drunkenness are wrong and sinful. People naively assume that having such strong convictions means that Bible-believing Christians will be intolerant and uncaring of people taken in such sins.
But Bible-believing Christians also are deeply convicted over their own sinfulness and sins. Because of the gracious on-going work of the Holy Spirit in their lives they constantly see the logs in their own eyes. When face-to-face with one taken in such sinfulness, they are more likely to have a sorrow over sinfulness, rather than a haughty disgust and condemnation.
Moreover, all Bible-believing Christians hold to the redeeming love of Christ towards sinful men and that whosoever comes to Christ will be saved from their sin. Therefore, living next to notoriously sinful people or interacting with others in general tends to be framed by an over-arching desire that they, too, would come to know the Lord. Bible-believing Christians know that "there but for the grace of God, go I" and that at best they are nothing more than one beggar telling another beggar where he can find food.
Hence, while the survey results may surprise those who subscribe to the urban myths about "fundamentalist Christians", they will certainly not surprise those who walk in fields of grace.
4 comments:
Er, I'm not sure you're using science properly...
You need more than one study to show anything in science. Such results need to be replicated a number of times, with different samples (including different cultures) and asking different questions, dissecting the issue a bit more: What about American christians? Were the trends of tolerance towards different groups? What about other questions to address tolerance (e.g. willing to live in the same house with / willing to have friends / willing to allow in government).
What we have is one study, one instance where we have one pattern. It could be an indication of something bigger, or it could be a chance finding, or a badly constructed study. We need to look at the bigger picture.
So as to demonstrate that the big picture isn't quite as neat as you've made it out, I quote from the abstract from an article in Sociological Inquiry 75(2) pp177-196. "A number of studies over the years have reported that members of conservative Protestant churches tend to be less tolerant—that is, reluctant to extend civil liberties—vis-à-vis homosexuals."
See abstract here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118690004/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
If you want more details of the research, you can read a paper presented in a conference by the same authors, presumably from the same research:
http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/0/8/0/4/p108040_index.html
It covers some of the studies that have examined this, and some of the issues that have been brought up (e.g. disentangling an individuals views on ethics and how they actually treat people)
Thanks for your thoughts, Spanku.
One wonders what heuristic authority "science" has in this case. After all, we are considering human beliefs, convictions, morals, ethics, and behaviours in this particular case, not the make-up of matter--unless of course your world-view is deterministic materialism, in which case ethics and moral actions and behaviour is determined by clusters of electrons and the behaviour of quarks.
If your point has to do with the margin of error in the particular Australian research cited, or some other statistical inadequacy, the point would be relevant, except in your comment you do not address these issues.
But the other studies you cite are interesting, only insofar as they appear to equate tolerance with extending civil rights (presumably freedom rights) to immoral behaviour. This is precisely the kind of tolerance which was not being researched in the study cited.
As the old chestnut has it, "for me to love the whole world is no real chore, my only problem is my neighbour next door." It is the "neighbour next door" that is in focus here. Therefore, it is perfectly proper within the Christian world-view to abhor murder and argue strongly for the full sanction of the law to fall upon those convicted of it, yet be kind, loving, and solicitous of the welfare of a convicted murderer who may live next door.
Thus, in the particular matter you cite, there is no inconsistency whatsoever in the Christian faith to argue that homosexuals should not have civil rights (freedom rights) to practice their homosexuality, whilst being kind and generous to the homosexual who lives next door.
If you find that incongruous, so be it. Therein lies the heart of the matter under discussion. We suggest that the studies you cite are measuring tolerance in a legalistic sense, where tolerance means granting freedom rights to all and sundry within the polity, not in the sense of personal human relationships. It is the latter which is far more important, in many ways. In any event, it is what was in the purview of the post.
Er, so if you're going to reference a scientific study, you are accepting it's authority. You can't consistently make a point using science, and then turn around and attack the use of science in making such points?
And because you're using science, you cannot just pick and choose one study. Science needs to be replicable. In any branch of science, from physics to psychology, ground-breaking studies are repeated many times to ensure the results are not from chance. That is how science works (or should).
If I may make my point from analogy - consider making an argument from a biblical reference - I'm sure you would agree, it would be entirely inappropriate for me to develop any meaningful argument from an individual reference, out of context. Science is obviously not theology, but it does bear this similarity.
In terms of addressing the statistical methodology of the original study, I'd say it's not possible given there isn't that sort of detail in the post.
And sorry, I realize you've interpreted my argument as a total disagreement with your point. Not so, I'm sticking up for the proper use of science, and I believe that means being critical of all the research. So I was acknowledging that there is no inconsistency between not permitting behavior and being kind, but that these two things can be difficult to disentangle.
If one had the time, one could do a more complete literature search, and see how various researchers from various locations have approached the issue, and then perhaps draw some conclusions. Maybe Christians are more loving? Maybe it's just Australian Christians? Or maybe it's that American Christians aren't? Maybe this study was an anomaly? Or maybe other studies found similar things?
I don't know. At the moment I think it could be either.
Hi, Spanku. Replication is an important criterion as to whether a heuristic process is to be considered "science" or not. On this we may both agree. However, in reality we wonder whether something else is going on in the discussion. We wonder whether you have conflated "science" and therefore replication with mathematics in general and counting in particular--which after all is what how statistical survey is conducted.
We have been far more guarded about whether the Australian survey in question can be called scientific or not--that is something which you have asserted, but not defended or justified, whereas we have not claimed it. It is our view that "social science" amounts to little more than an oxymoron, precisely because we have such a high view of science.
To illustrate the point, allow us to quote John Polkinghorne: "Science is looking at the world as an object — as an “it”—which you can pull apart and do with what you want. And with science you can repeat things. You can do the same experiment over and over again until you feel sure you understand what is going on. And that gives science a great secret weapon. But there are great swaths of human encounter with reality where you meet reality not just as an object but where there is a personal dimension. Unlike with the scientific experiment, no personal experience is ever going to be exactly repeated. If we listen to a Mozart quartet, even if we play the same disc twice, we shan’t experience it in quite the same way on each occasion." In other words, when it comes to human attitudes and actions, replication is fundamentally impossible. Those that claim to have achieved it or to employ it are self-deceived.
It is possible, is it not, that the Australian survey consisted of nothing more than a focus group of half a dozen people, each respectively representing the various categories of people.
Our article proceeded on the assumption that it was statistically robust and the margin of error sufficiently tolerable to make some generalisations. We then sought to provide some theological and sociological rationale as to why this may be the case. But, as you point out there may be all sorts of reasons why these particular results were achieved in Australia.
However, granting you the benefit of the doubt for the moment, you have sought to question the scientific credibility of the Australian study by alleging that its results are not replicated by other surveys. You cite some examples.
However, you also concede that you know nothing about the Australian research per se. If you know nothing about it, how can you assert that other (potentially very different research, using different sampling techniques, question sets, attitudinal biases, etc) replicates the Australian research, but not its results, and therefore the Australian research is wrong.
Rather question begging, one would have thought. We suggest the claim that the Australian research is not "scientific" because its results have not been replicated elsewhere is an assertion, nothing more, and has not been established one way or the other. So, it would be helpful not to make the claim in the first place.
We certainly never did. We suggest that it would be far closer to the truth not to confuse natural (or hard) science with research into the behaviour and attitudes of human beings. They are very different things. In the case of the latter, as Polkinghorne points out, replicability (in the heuristic, scientific sense) is an impossibility.
It is our view that none of the research you have cited can be called scientific in part because it all fails the replication test, as all research into the attitudes and behaviours of human beings inevitably does. Those who assert the contrary, it seems to us, are confused or self-deceived.
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