Religious Prejudice

The gap between the humanitarian ideals of most religions and the often inhumane actions of their practitioners is wide and widely observed. Religious people are clearly not immune to the tendencies toward biased judgments, intolerance, contempt, and even violence that are apparently universal features of human societies.

The specific relationship between religion and prejudice, however, is complex. During the past 4 decades, social science research has focused on the following sets of questions: If religiosity correlates with higher levels of prejudice, as many studies show, is that correlation a matter of individual personality features or intergroup dynamics? Are some religious worldviews more likely than others to foster prejudice; that is, does what they believe affect the kind and degree of prejudice found among religious people? Are different groups—racial or ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, or religious others, for instance—more or less likely to be targets of prejudice among various religious groups?

Historically, most research on religious prejudice focused on the racial and ethnic bias of religious people. Recent work on religion and prejudice suggests that findings in that area cannot be generalized to religious groups' attitudes toward other forms of difference, and that besides psychological and social factors, researchers must consider theological and philosophical aspects of religious worldviews in order to define, recognize, and understand religious prejudice.

Definitions of prejudice usually include both cognitive and affective aspects—ideas about a person or group in the absence of relevant information as well as feelings for or against that person or group. Religious prejudice can refer to the ideas and judgments that [Page 778]religious people hold toward others or to the prejudices of nonreligious people toward those who are religious. Although most research shows a high correlation between religiousness and prejudice, important definitional challenges emerge when worldview—rather than such traits as race, ethnicity, or even sexuality—defines the targets of negative responses. At issue is whether or not negative assessments about what others believe should be understood as prejudice.

Because it emerged from the field of social psychology, unsurprisingly, research on religion and prejudice most often sought personality-based explanations. Redirecting most of this research was Allport and Ross's 1967 study that found a high rate of prejudice among those whose religious orientation the authors characterized as “extrinsic”; that is, defined by motivations (social status, a sense of belonging, etc.) unrelated to the authentic teachings of a religion, and decreased levels of prejudice among those with “intrinsic,” or sincere and mature religious faith. Despite challenges to, and the complexity of, the intrinsic-extrinsic model, religious personality trait analysis remains a prominent tool in the study of religious prejudice. Additional scales using categories like authoritarian, orthodox, fundamentalist, and “quest” personalities also show correlations with various levels and types of prejudice.

Most recent studies show little or no correlation between religion and racial or ethnic prejudice regardless of personal religious orientation, a finding that coheres with the egalitarian teachings at the core of most religions. When the target is sexual minorities, however, prejudice runs high among those with both extrinsic and intrinsic religious orientations, as well as among fundamentalists and those with orthodox beliefs. Negative attitudes toward gays and lesbians cut across these various scales and therefore must be understood in terms other than individual personal religious dispositions. Some research shows that whether the teachings of religious groups proscribe or tolerate prejudice toward gays and lesbians has a significant effect on the attitudes of members, although other studies suggest that the controlling factor is right-wing authoritarianism, not the specific ideologies of any religious group. Also, researchers have found that anti-gay prejudice exceeds that mandated by the religious ideologies of many of those who express it, suggesting a persistent personality component to this type of prejudice.

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