Spokane religious leaders address faith myths

Spokane religious leaders address faith myths

Faith remains relevant in Americans’ lives; religious Americans are committed to pluralism; and faith is not all about politics, data shows

News story by Emma Ledbetter | FāVS News

A survey found Americans hold several myths about people of faith and their political positions, including wrongly believing that faith is all about politics and that religious Americans are intolerant.

The report, “Promising Revelations: Undoing the False Impressions of America’s Faithful,” released by non-profit research organization More In Common, highlights three misperceptions about America’s faithful and includes data obtained from more than 6,000 participants. 

Faith is all about politics

The first myth Americans believe is that faith is all about politics. For example, the more people overestimate the percentage of evangelical Christians who are Republican, the more negatively they feel toward all evangelicals. This phenomenon is called collateral contempt.

“The greater your perception gap is about a religious community, the more negative you feel about them,” said lead author Coco Xu. “A lot of times, the partisan animosity we feel toward our political opponents is misdirected toward an entire religious community based on this perceived association between a religious group and a political party.”

Correcting this misperception can dial down the tension and increase feelings of warmth between opposing groups, Xu said.

Some in Spokane’s religious community believe the same.

Many members of Rabbi Tamar Malino’s congregations at Temple Beth Shalom and Congregation Emanu-El are politically active because they see social justice as part of their religious identity. However, she encourages congregants to be civil and humble even as political conversations become increasingly strident. 

“I know people have a lot of strong feelings about what’s happening on the political landscape, but there’s generally an effort to make sure communications are very civil when there are people of varying political perspectives in the same room,” Malino said.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ stance is that individuals should consider each candidate based on their merit.

Congregants are encouraged to participate in the religious process by voting, but the church does not promote any candidate, said Spokane Stake President Tim Cobb.

Faith is becoming irrelevant in Americans’ lives

The second myth is that faith is becoming irrelevant. 

The study found 73% of Americans say their faith is an important part of their identity.

Malino has noticed a decline in religious community involvement, especially with young people. Congregants are still participating in religious groups but seem to be doing so differently than previous generations, she said. Some people are choosing to engage culturally with their Jewish heritage but not religiously.

“There are a lot of folks out there who are living their Jewish lives outside the context of the synagogue, deliberately, not just because they’re not interested in the community,” Malino said.

Religious faith is becoming harder to support because there are more distractions easily available to people, Cobb said. Despite this, he has seen more people coming to the LDS faith than leaving it.

Religious Americans are intolerant

The study’s final misperception is that religious Americans are intolerant or not committed to religious pluralism.

“Many Americans say that they want to acknowledge the historical significance of Christianity in America. But at the same time, people are still committed to the idea of religious pluralism,” Xu said. “Americans often hold both to be true.”

For instance, survey respondents tended to reject policies that discriminate against religious minorities or prioritize the rights of Christians over others.

Judaism has a built-in sense of tolerance because it is a religious minority in the U.S., Malino said.

However, larger religious groups don’t always seem to show the same tolerance. Christian nationalist voices tend to be louder than others, especially in the Pacific Northwest, she said.

The authors of the report’s Executive Summary conclude if change is to happen, it is likely to begin in our local communities, including in churches, synagogues and mosques, as well as in more secular spaces like workplaces, schools and sports activities.

“From the pews and prayer mats, it feels more possible to imagine an America less divided than it is today,” said the summary’s authors. “And as this report finds, a majority of Americans who practice a faith say that they are looking to their religious leaders to better understand how to navigate our polarized landscape.”

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