Have white, protestant, evangelical Christians lost their religious values?

The Pew Research Center did a poll, asking whether the United States has an obligation to take in refugees.    Data was collected and sorted to compare results by age, race, education level, religious affiliation, etc.

Results, as reported by Hannah Hartig for the Pew Center showed that the deep division among Americans on this question has only grown wider.   While overall  51% of Americans say we do have a responsibility to take in refugees, 43% say we do not.

However, when broken down by political parties, the division is stark:    26% of Republicans say No;  74% of Democrats say Yes.    The 26% of Republicans who say No has dropped from 35% shortly after Trump took office.  It was likely an even bigger drop from before the 2016 campaign, where immigration was such an emphasis by Trump.

The more conservative the respondent, the less likely they are to feel a responsibility toward refugees;   the more liberal, the more likely to feel responsible.

The one finding that does not makes sense to me is what seems a reverse correlation to a certain religious group.    Of all the demographic subcategories measured (age, gender, race, education level, religion) the group with the lowest feeling of obligation to take in refugees is white, evangelical protestants, of whom 25% say Yes -- and 68% say No.

For comparison:

   YES      NO
    51%     43%      Total
     
    48%    46%      Men
    54%     40%     Women

    46%     48%     White
    67%     23%     Black
    59%     34%     Hispanic

    61%     33%      Age 18-29
    51%     44%      Age 30-49
    51%     46%      Age 50-64
    43%     48%     Age 65+

    71%     26%     Postgrad ed.
    63%    32%     College grad
    49%    45%     Some college
    43%    50%     HS or less

    25%    68%     White evangelical protestants
    43%    50%     White mainline protestants
    63%    28%     Black protestants
    50%    45%     Catholic
    65%     31%    Unaffilited

So we see that those who profess no affiliation with a religion have the highest obligation toward refugees in the religion category, while one subset -- who presumably follow the teachings of Jesus, white evangelical protestants, feel the lowest obligation.   On the other hand, black protestants, blacks in general, as well as those with higher educational levels, have roughly the same high sense of obligation to refugees as do those not affiliated with a religion.   Mainline white protestants (Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, liberal Methodist groups) and catholics  are somewhere in between.

The only conclusions I can draw from all this are:   (1)  that political party politics trumps morality;   and (2) that nominal religious affiliation does not tell us much about a person's moral sense -- not as much as education level, race and ethnicity.

Perhaps another way of saying it is really a criticism of these demographic categories in polling:   Maybe it's a fallacy to simply ask for religious affiliation category, as though a devout believer and practitioner of a faith is the same as someone who once joined and "belongs" in name only.

But, on the other hand, the reason we talk about the "white evangelical protestants" is because of their fervid influence in politics, both from their pulpits and in their ability to mobilize voters on certain socially conservative issues.

This needs a lot more thought and discussion.    It reminds me of another question that has bugged me during this whole election cycle.   Back during the civil rights activist era, churches, synagogues, and interfaith groups were very active.   It was often this activism first bridged the racial divide in religious groups.  Ministers, priests, nuns, rabbis were leaders in the activism movements toward justice and civil rights.     Where are these groups now?

It seems that religion has divorced itself from social justice -- at least in the field where stuff is happening.    Has social-justice religion been co-opted by the far right conservatives, and so the liberal religious groups want to have nothing to do with it?    I think there may be something to that.

It's almost as if the politically conservative evangelicals have given religion a bad name -- and the Unitarians, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, social justice Catholics, and reformed rabbis have gone into hiding.

Having lived through both eras -- the 1960s and now Trumpism -- I'm struck by the absence of an important force for good that seems to have gone missing.

Ralph

Late last night, as I was about to post this, I ran across an article from the New York Times about the estrangement and conflict within the evangelical movement -- essentially between the pro-Trump and the anti-Trump factions -- including the refusal of Jerry Falwell, Jr. to allow a protest group of evangelical ministers to hold a revival on the campus of Liberty University.   I'll share some of this in another post later.