Intolerance in the world's religions

Links between religion and prejudice have been interpreted to suggest that religion can both reduce and exacerbate prejudice. Here, the analysis of religion as a meaning system illuminates how religion can affect intergroup attitudes. Traditional psychological perspectives on religion and prejudice are summarized, followed by a discussion of religion and prejudice in cross-cultural and cross-religious contexts, involving varying target groups. Next, we explore possible explanatory mechanisms by proposing how four levels of meaning associated with religioncognitive, motivational, societal, and intergroup-may both promote and attenuate prejudice. Finally, additional factors that might facilitate the paradoxical coexistence of religious egalitarian intentions with prejudiced attitudes are considered, and we speculate about the potential for religious groups to reduce prejudice within their adherents.

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“…How could this be? Religions teach tolerance (Coward, 1986); how could more frequent church attenders be more prejudiced?…”

Section: How Religion Is Related To Prejudicementioning

confidence: 99%

Religion, Meaning, and Prejudice

Hunsberger¹,

Jackson²

2005

Journal of Social Issues

397

368

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“…According to Allport (1954), prejudiced thinking is largely dependent on the beliefs proscribed by the group an individual belongs to. Therefore, Christian orthodoxy might well be positively related to racial or ethnic prejudice in populations in which local beliefs fail to proscribe, or even encourage, racism (see Batson, Shoenrade, and Ventis 1993;Coward 1986;Hunsberger 1995). For example, Griffin, Gorsuch, and Davis (1987) found intrinsic religious orientation to be positively correlated with prejudice against Rastafarians among Seventh-Day Adventists in St. Croix, where such prejudice was not generally regarded as socially undesirable.…”

Section: Predicting Racial Prejudicementioning

confidence: 99%

Religious Fundamentalism as a Predictor of Prejudice: A Two‐Component Model

Laythe¹,

Finkel²,

Bringle

et al. 2002

Scientific Study of Religion

176

145

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The present study aims to determine whether the empirical relationship between religious fundamentalism and prejudice can be accounted for in terms of the mutually opposing effects of Christian orthodoxy and rightwing authoritarianism using multiple regression. Three separate samples (total n = 320) completed measures of religious fundamentalism, right-wing authoritarianism, Christian orthodoxy, ethnic prejudice, and homosexual prejudice. Consistent with previous research, fundamentalism (1) was essentially unrelated to ethnic prejudice when considered alone; (2) was positively related to ethnic prejudice when orthodoxy was statistically controlled; and (3) was negatively related to ethnic prejudice when authoritarianism was statistically controlled. Finally, when both authoritarianism and orthodoxy were controlled simultaneously, fundamentalism was again unrelated to prejudice, whereas orthodoxy was negatively related and authoritarianism positively related. In contrast, fundamentalism was a significant positive predictor of prejudice against gays and lesbians irrespective of whether authoritarianism and/or orthodoxy were statistically controlled.Religion is an extremely complex and multifaceted phenomenon, as reflected by the existence of the enormous number of psychometric scales that have been developed over the years to measure various aspects of it (Hill and Hood 2000). Because the various dimensions or aspects of religiousness tend to be intercorrelated or confounded with one another, it is notoriously difficult to tease apart the effects of different dimensions in assessing the empirical relationships between religiosity and other variables. An unfortunate consequence of this is that the research literature contains numerous examples of inconsistent and contradictory results with respect to such relationships.One prominent example of this problem in the research literature concerns the relationship between religious belief and prejudice. This is a particularly vexing issue because it has long been observed that different aspects of religiousness may relate to prejudice not only to varying degrees, but in opposite directions. In an oft-quoted passage, Allport (1954:444) summarized the problem by observing:The role of religion is paradoxical. It makes prejudice and it unmakes prejudice. While the creeds of the great religions are universalistic, all stressing brotherhood, the practice of these creeds is frequently divisive and brutal. The sublimity of religious ideals is offset by the horrors of persecution in the name of these same ideals. . . . Churchgoers are more prejudiced than the average; they are also less prejudiced than the average. The solution at which Allport eventually arrived in attempting to resolve this paradox concerned variation in the motivations behind people's religious beliefs. Thus, the most influential Brian Laythe is a doctoral student in the

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“…According to Coward (1986), the world's major religions espouse altruism, love, and kindness. Thus, it is likely that some people would perceive religious involvement as a way both to sustain and enhance their desire to be other-oriented.…”

Section: Other-orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting Reaction to a Message of Ministry: An Audience Analysis

Wright

2008

Scientific Study of Religion

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This study investigated whether audience characteristics identified as important in the conversion and religious recruitment literature could predict reaction to a Christianity-themed recruitment message. More specific goals involved (a) comparing the impact of potential recruits' dispositional attributes and personal motivations versus their situational availability on the persuasive effect of religious recruitment messages; and (b) rank ordering the audience characteristics examined based on their predictive power. Results indicated that dispositional and motivational considerations were more reliable predictors of receivers' responses to the recruitment message than were situational factors. Specifically, five of the six dispositional and motivational variables (i.e., loneliness, perceived childhood attachment history, meaning and purpose, other-orientation, and problem-solving perspective) were-at least under certain conditions-related to participants' interest in the church. The two variables representing situational availability, free time and membership status, however, were either unrelated to interest in the church or related to participants' reactions, but in the opposite direction of what was expected.

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Intolerance in the world's religions

Cited by 21 publications

References 0 publications

Religion, Meaning, and Prejudice

Religion, Meaning, and Prejudice

Religious Fundamentalism as a Predictor of Prejudice: A Two‐Component Model

Predicting Reaction to a Message of Ministry: An Audience Analysis

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