May 8, 2007 7:16 AM
Jewish research group finds anti-evangelical prejudice rife on college campuses
You know, for all the minorities still screaming about discrimination in a country that has bent over backwards to level the playing field, recruiting people who don't meet requirements to fill desks and jobs, in which Oprah Winfrey is queen and Barack Obama skips from two years Senate experience to serious consideration for the White House, and in which if you don't support the gay political agenda you're guilty of "hate crimes" - there's one group which is fair game: evangelical Christians.
According to the Institute for Jewish and Community Research:
Our research shows 53%of non-Evangelical university faculty hold cool or unfavorable views of Evangelical Christians and one-third of all faculty also hold unfavorable views of Mormons. “This survey shows a disturbing level of prejudice or intolerance among U.S. Faculty towards tens of millions of Evangelical Christians,†said Gary Tobin president of IJCR
From the Washington Post May 5:
Tobin asked professors at all kinds of colleges -- public and private, secular and religious, two-year and four-year -- to rate their feelings toward various religious groups, from very warm or favorable to very cool or unfavorable. He said he designed the question primarily to gauge anti-Semitism but found that professors expressed positive feelings toward Jews, Buddhists, Roman Catholics and most other religious groups.The only groups that elicited highly negative responses were evangelical Christians and Mormons.
"When we ask questions like this, we're asking the respondent to say how they feel about an entire group of people, and whatever image they have of that entire group comes through," Tobin said. "There is no question this is revealing bias and prejudice."
Read WaPo's entire article: Is There Disdain for Evangelicals in the Classroom?
Posted in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
IMO, some of it is deserved. Evangelical Protestants have left a bad taste in my mouth, so much so that I hesitated to call myself a "christian" for years. Independent, fundamental, Bible-based, all of those are buzz words that offend even other Christian people. And I consider myself mostly conservative, just not graceless.
Anyway, for every poor example of a Christian, there is of another group, too, I suppose.
And Miss Read? I haven't read those in years. I used to love them. Such lovely, relaxing books!
Posted by: Marsha | May 8, 2007 8:43 AM
Marsha -
What you said is like saying some prejudice against blacks is deserved because of rap music or higher crime rates.
Prejudice means prejudging indivdiuals based on the perceived characteristics of a group. That is unacceptable - always.
How sad that you hesitated to call yourself a Christian. I guess that's like fair-skinned blacks who tried to "pass" for whites back in the old days when they might have chosen to work to eliminate prejudice themselves.
I don't like Christian jargon or gracelessness either - but I'm doing my best to be a clear communicator with both sides rather than being ashamed of my faith. I think it's graceless of you to pour contempt on other Christians when I've just pointed out how under fire evangelical Christian students are.
btw, the ads on the right sidebar are not necessarily things I recommend (although I screen out ads for things I find objectionable - the ads pay for the upkeep here).
Posted by: barbara | May 8, 2007 9:18 AM
I could never understand people who say they don't want to call themselves Christians, because of all the bad reputation "some" Christians give to the name. I have never heard of a muslim saying he/she is refusing to be called muslim because of what other muslims are doing. Yes, there are some "bad" Christians out there, there was one walking right next to Jesus, but the disciples didn't stop calling themselves disciples just because of one "bad" disciple. Prejudice is prejudice, whether it comes from the outsiders or from the ones within the ranks.
Posted by: LadyLovas | May 8, 2007 12:02 PM
My two cents? I worked at the University of Michigan for 6 years and every possible source of information told you that the "worst" thing to be on campus is a white, straight, Christian man.
Posted by: Beth/Mom2TwoVikings | May 8, 2007 1:14 PM
Pardon me for expressing my opinions, even when they aren't the popular ones. I will refrain from doing so in the future.
Posted by: Marsha | May 8, 2007 2:10 PM
A very interesting survey. I wonder what would be the results if the same questions were asked at UK colleges. I would hazard a guess that the prejudice against evangelicals would be the same - if not worse.
Posted by: Baleboosteh | May 8, 2007 3:52 PM
Barbara, your article mentioned Mormons along with the Evangelical Christians. I'm a Mormon, and I've found all the discussion surrounding Mitt Romney being a mormon and running for the White House to be interesting but also aggravating. After the first televised Republican debate, one commentator said that Mormons don't believe in the same God as the other Christian religions. That's news to me.
Thinking that a person can be understood simply by their inclusion in a race, religion or other group is a recipe for misunderstanding. Want to get to know someone? Go to the source. If that seems like too much work, acknowledge that you've got an incomplete picture of the individual. But whatever you do, don't fall back on myths, stereotypes and dead wrong prejudices.
Posted by: Christie | May 8, 2007 4:48 PM
I am Catholic and I would like to say that Catholics are bashed regularly anytime and anywhere. Just watch prime time t.v. and you'll see subtle to outright blasphemous actions, jokes, or dialogue against priests, nuns, the Mass, the Pope, and anything else Catholic! As Christians, we can expect to be persecuted more and more as our country becomes more and more anti-Christian. If we don't speak up when there are attacks against us, it will only get worse. Remember, if Jesus suffered and we are his followers, then we can expect suffering and persecution as well. Don't we love Jesus enough to suffer with Him?
To Christie, who is Mormon, I have studied the LDS faith since I live in an area with many good Mormons. Yes, it is true that Mormons believe in a different kind of God than the rest of Christianity. Christians believe in ONE God with 3 persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Although there is only one God, there are three distinct persons. This is called the Holy Trinity. Mormons believe that the Father is one God, the Son, Jesus, is another God, and the Holy Spirit is still another God. Mormons don't believe in the Trinity. For example, the Catholic Church does not accept a person's Mormon baptism because they would have been baptized under a God that was not Trinitarian, but rather a plural set of Gods.
Posted by: Julie | May 9, 2007 10:47 AM
