The United States calls itself one nation under God, but Americans don't all have the same image of the Almighty in mind. A new survey of religion in the country finds four very different images of God -- from a wrathful deity thundering at sinful humanity to a distant power uninvolved in mankind's affairs. Forget denominational brands or doctrines or even once-salient terms like "religious right." Even the oft-used "evangelical" appears to be losing ground. Believers don't see themselves the way the media and politicians -- or even their pastors -- do, according to the national survey of 1,721 Americans, by far the most comprehensive national religion survey to date.Written and analyzed by sociologists from Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion in Waco, Texas, and conducted by Gallup, the survey asked 77 questions with nearly 400 answer choices that burrowed deeply into beliefs, practices and religious ties and turned up some surprising findings:
Though 91.8 percent say they believe in God, a higher power or a cosmic force, they had four distinct views of God's personality and engagement in human affairs. These Four Gods -- dubbed by researchers Authoritarian, Benevolent, Critical and Distant -- tell more about people's social, moral and political views and personal piety than the familiar categories of Protestant/Catholic/Jew or even red state/blue state.
Sociologist Paul Froese says their survey finds the stereotype that conservatives are religious and liberals are secular is "simply not true."
"Political liberals and conservative are both religious. They just have different religious views," he said.
About one in nine respondents has no religious ties at all. The Baylor survey, unlike others, asked people to write in the names and addresses of where they worship, and many who said "none" or "don't know" when asked about their religious identity named a church they occasionally attend.
The paranormal -- beliefs outside conventional organized religion -- is immensely popular. Most people said they believe in prophetic dreams.
"Evangelical" may be losing favor as a way Americans describe themselves. About one in three Americans say they belong to denominations that theologians consider evangelical, but only 14 percent of all respondents in the survey say this is one way they would describe themselves. Only 2.2 percent called it the single best term. Top choices overall: "Bible-believing" (20.4 percent) or "born-again" (18.6 percent).
These are part of the first wave of results from the random survey of Americans who completed and mailed in a 16-page questionnaire. Conducted in the fall of 2005, the survey is a statistically representative sampling of the U.S. by age, gender and race.
The Baylor team will spend two years digging through the findings and releasing reports on subtopics such as civic involvement and volunteerism, then repeat the core questions in fall 2007 to track trends. The research is funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
