Devout Racism

Is there a connection between racial animus and devout religious beliefs? The recent completion of a study of over 20,000 people seems to point to this very idea.

Science and Religion Today reports on the finding of Professor Wendy Wood

according to Wendy Wood, a professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California. Wood and her colleagues looked at 55 studies over the last 45 years involving more than 20,000 people (mostly Christians) and found a strong correlation between religious beliefs and racism. The studies show there’s significantly less racism among people who don’t have strong religious beliefs, while highly devout religious communities exhibit more prejudice against people of other races (with seminaries showing the highest degree of racism). The researchers found barely any difference between the amount of racism among religious fundamentalists and more moderate Christians. “Only religious agnostics were racially tolerant,” they write in their paper.
We shouldn’t be shocked, Wood explains.

Needless to say, the fine, upstanding, non-racists at Fox"Nation" are not pleased with this.

Having grown up in a devout, conservative, Baptist family, I can attest that there is a definite racial divisiveness characteristic that threads itself through this demographic. This is especially true in smaller, more rural, communities.

It is not surprising that the commenting populous at the Fox"Nation" would attempt to debunk such a study, considering their own problems with racially charged language.