The comparative lack of support for religious pluralism is so sad to me. I can't imagine wanting a world where every other person thought and believed exactly what I did; how boring that would be!
Diversity and unity are held in tension. Religion is about bonds of unity as are conservative values. Too much diversity and you have a fractured society, too much unity and you have totalitarian group think. This country has incredible religious diversity within Christianity and Christian adjacent religions. Since most Christians will view the question from within Christianity, they could reasonably view it as too diverse (too many denominational fractures)
Very insightful. We can value the diversity that we have without believing that ever more diversity will always be better. We can be unified in our values while being grateful for the pluralist legal framework we live under.
That said, homogeneity in societies is on a spectrum, and it has been shown that greater homogeneity is indicative of more stability. It's the idea that people who are seen to be alike, implicitly not only understand each other better but agree to the laws and underpinnings of beliefs that built the society in the first place. Many places in the world are experiencing what the write Samuel Huntington would refer to as a 'Clash of Civilizations'. Hence, the rancor as of late about immigration, legal and illegal. There can be such a concept as too many, too fast which destabilizes the home culture.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Multiculturalism is a lie. Only one culture can be dominant, a nation divided against itself cannot stand. Multi ethnic cultures are a different and really we need this distinction. I except to be praising God eternally with fellow believers of all ethnicities. Melanie Phillips in her recent book The Builders Stone, Os Guinness in the Magna Carta of Humanity explains how the West is a Judeo-Christian culture. R R Reno’s Return the Strong Gods captures a lot of what is happening well lays this out well. Unfortunately, the American political parties are very divided over moral issues. Good Christians can disagree over the best immigration policy but not abortion or euthanasia.
People want more of what they identify with. So two broad categories of people embrace religious and ethnic diversity:
People LESS represented in the population, religiously and ethnically. ("Diversity" just means "more for us." "More" of whatever.)
People MORE represented in the population, religiously and ethnically, but not identifying by choice with either. ("Diversity" just means "less for us." "Less of whatever.)
I would be grateful if at some point you could explicitly separate the data by race. Americans *overall* are becoming more accepting and tolerant of racial diversity, from 14% opposed to 5% opposed, and religious diversity, from 24% opposed to 11% opposed. However, when comparing the 1940 cohort to the 2000 cohort, we're also talking about a population that went from 90% white to 43% white. It's not clear to me whether or not whites are embracing diversity.
The best inference I can make is that younger Evangelicals are more pro-diversity than older Evangelicals, but what about white Evangelicals alone? I would expect them to follow the trend, but spelling this out explicitly in the data is important to address claims of racial polarization.
You seem to equate in your writing church attendance with evangelical as if everyone who goes to church regularly is an evangelical- I find this a problematic extrapolation
It is worth pointing out that the survey on racial diversity was taken after a good 60 years of non-stop propaganda and a not so shy willingness to punish and ostracize the "heretics."
But the real point is that anyone who thinks that the United States is strong today is insane.
And I mean literally insane, as in not living in reality. Because the reality is that the USA is weak.
The explanation for this isn't just the obvious lack of cohesion, but that its institutions don't work.
Without fully functioning social institutions a country is a country in name only, like the USA.
It's not that the United States is not worth saving. It's that the United States is unsavable. And the main reason is an insane belief in the word "Diversity." Nietzsche was right, "Insanity in individuals is rare, in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it's the norm." #RIPUSA
For the sake of argument, consider that diversity does not actually improve any society and that the belief in "open society" pluralism is a dying post-WW2 intellectual fad (as evidenced by the recent rise in populism). What makes some religious people more resistant to accepting such fads? Is there something in religious belief that inoculates people from the bad ideas of social scientists?
The point about religious diversity being more threatening than cultural diversity is interesting in light of Mamdani...what do you make of NYC in your analysis?
To widen the lens, I wonder if we should pair your survey frame with a “tribal-power” frame: groups sometimes seek tolerance when weak and restrict rivals when strong. If that dynamic is real, it could help explain why support for religious diversity lags racial diversity—religion encodes competing moral orders and institutions. I know that this is outside your dataset, but UK might serve as an early laboratory (think the U.S. fast-forwarded): deep secularization and ethnic mixing alongside oscillations in campus speech rules, policing guidance, and DEI policy. As the UK becomes de-Christianized, will it show that the grand experiment of pluralism and respect give the UK a more stable society or do we see more polarization, and cycles of power?
I would like to see what happens when you consider the two types of diversity (ethnic, religions) separately. I would hope to see that non-Trump-influenced evangelicals are quite appreciative of ethnic (etc) diversity. That is appreciating all the different people God created. But I think religious diversity is more complicated.
I would hope evangelicals would welcome people of all faiths and none, and seek to love and care for them and share Christ with them. This should come from a defining characteristic of evangelicals (at least traditionally), which is their desire for all people to come to Christ. But that same desire might very reasonably make them say it would be better for there to be more and more Christians (more results of sharing Christ) in the world and in every nation.
So I think an analysis based solely on the top right corner mixes two different things, with potentially misleading results.
Is there convincing evidence that more diversity would strengthen America? Does anyone believe diversity has strengthened Western Europe? Our most powerful military and economic competitors China, Russia, India, Japan, etc. certainly do not encourage diversity. It appears that America is most strengthened by hard work, intellect, creativity, and cultural cohesiveness without regard for race, creed, color, sex, or national origin.
On religion, it's pretty clear the traditional Christian values of the primacy of scripture and the Gospel have defeated progressive changes to align Christianity with the changing culture.
Like others commenting, that last bit about attendance and acceptance of diversity was a bit of a shocker. But as I thought more about it, I remembered the questions being asked, about whether diversity "strengthens American society". So yeah, it would be hard to accept that anything less than Christian values and ethics would strengthen American society. That would be tantamount to denying some fundamental aspects of the faith. Such as the Golden Rule, Love your enemies, the entire Sermon on the Mount! Most faiths don't have such commitments (and, of course, Christians themselves have trouble following them from the heart).
The comparative lack of support for religious pluralism is so sad to me. I can't imagine wanting a world where every other person thought and believed exactly what I did; how boring that would be!
Diversity and unity are held in tension. Religion is about bonds of unity as are conservative values. Too much diversity and you have a fractured society, too much unity and you have totalitarian group think. This country has incredible religious diversity within Christianity and Christian adjacent religions. Since most Christians will view the question from within Christianity, they could reasonably view it as too diverse (too many denominational fractures)
Very insightful. We can value the diversity that we have without believing that ever more diversity will always be better. We can be unified in our values while being grateful for the pluralist legal framework we live under.
I love diversity
That said, homogeneity in societies is on a spectrum, and it has been shown that greater homogeneity is indicative of more stability. It's the idea that people who are seen to be alike, implicitly not only understand each other better but agree to the laws and underpinnings of beliefs that built the society in the first place. Many places in the world are experiencing what the write Samuel Huntington would refer to as a 'Clash of Civilizations'. Hence, the rancor as of late about immigration, legal and illegal. There can be such a concept as too many, too fast which destabilizes the home culture.
This makes a lot of sense to me. Multiculturalism is a lie. Only one culture can be dominant, a nation divided against itself cannot stand. Multi ethnic cultures are a different and really we need this distinction. I except to be praising God eternally with fellow believers of all ethnicities. Melanie Phillips in her recent book The Builders Stone, Os Guinness in the Magna Carta of Humanity explains how the West is a Judeo-Christian culture. R R Reno’s Return the Strong Gods captures a lot of what is happening well lays this out well. Unfortunately, the American political parties are very divided over moral issues. Good Christians can disagree over the best immigration policy but not abortion or euthanasia.
People want more of what they identify with. So two broad categories of people embrace religious and ethnic diversity:
People LESS represented in the population, religiously and ethnically. ("Diversity" just means "more for us." "More" of whatever.)
People MORE represented in the population, religiously and ethnically, but not identifying by choice with either. ("Diversity" just means "less for us." "Less of whatever.)
Isn't that what we see in these data?
I would be grateful if at some point you could explicitly separate the data by race. Americans *overall* are becoming more accepting and tolerant of racial diversity, from 14% opposed to 5% opposed, and religious diversity, from 24% opposed to 11% opposed. However, when comparing the 1940 cohort to the 2000 cohort, we're also talking about a population that went from 90% white to 43% white. It's not clear to me whether or not whites are embracing diversity.
The best inference I can make is that younger Evangelicals are more pro-diversity than older Evangelicals, but what about white Evangelicals alone? I would expect them to follow the trend, but spelling this out explicitly in the data is important to address claims of racial polarization.
You seem to equate in your writing church attendance with evangelical as if everyone who goes to church regularly is an evangelical- I find this a problematic extrapolation
Excellent work! Thank you!
It is worth pointing out that the survey on racial diversity was taken after a good 60 years of non-stop propaganda and a not so shy willingness to punish and ostracize the "heretics."
But the real point is that anyone who thinks that the United States is strong today is insane.
And I mean literally insane, as in not living in reality. Because the reality is that the USA is weak.
The explanation for this isn't just the obvious lack of cohesion, but that its institutions don't work.
Without fully functioning social institutions a country is a country in name only, like the USA.
It's not that the United States is not worth saving. It's that the United States is unsavable. And the main reason is an insane belief in the word "Diversity." Nietzsche was right, "Insanity in individuals is rare, in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it's the norm." #RIPUSA
For the sake of argument, consider that diversity does not actually improve any society and that the belief in "open society" pluralism is a dying post-WW2 intellectual fad (as evidenced by the recent rise in populism). What makes some religious people more resistant to accepting such fads? Is there something in religious belief that inoculates people from the bad ideas of social scientists?
The point about religious diversity being more threatening than cultural diversity is interesting in light of Mamdani...what do you make of NYC in your analysis?
To widen the lens, I wonder if we should pair your survey frame with a “tribal-power” frame: groups sometimes seek tolerance when weak and restrict rivals when strong. If that dynamic is real, it could help explain why support for religious diversity lags racial diversity—religion encodes competing moral orders and institutions. I know that this is outside your dataset, but UK might serve as an early laboratory (think the U.S. fast-forwarded): deep secularization and ethnic mixing alongside oscillations in campus speech rules, policing guidance, and DEI policy. As the UK becomes de-Christianized, will it show that the grand experiment of pluralism and respect give the UK a more stable society or do we see more polarization, and cycles of power?
I would like to see what happens when you consider the two types of diversity (ethnic, religions) separately. I would hope to see that non-Trump-influenced evangelicals are quite appreciative of ethnic (etc) diversity. That is appreciating all the different people God created. But I think religious diversity is more complicated.
I would hope evangelicals would welcome people of all faiths and none, and seek to love and care for them and share Christ with them. This should come from a defining characteristic of evangelicals (at least traditionally), which is their desire for all people to come to Christ. But that same desire might very reasonably make them say it would be better for there to be more and more Christians (more results of sharing Christ) in the world and in every nation.
So I think an analysis based solely on the top right corner mixes two different things, with potentially misleading results.
Is there convincing evidence that more diversity would strengthen America? Does anyone believe diversity has strengthened Western Europe? Our most powerful military and economic competitors China, Russia, India, Japan, etc. certainly do not encourage diversity. It appears that America is most strengthened by hard work, intellect, creativity, and cultural cohesiveness without regard for race, creed, color, sex, or national origin.
On religion, it's pretty clear the traditional Christian values of the primacy of scripture and the Gospel have defeated progressive changes to align Christianity with the changing culture.
Absolutely shocking. Looks like we're really missing the boat in our religious silos.
Like others commenting, that last bit about attendance and acceptance of diversity was a bit of a shocker. But as I thought more about it, I remembered the questions being asked, about whether diversity "strengthens American society". So yeah, it would be hard to accept that anything less than Christian values and ethics would strengthen American society. That would be tantamount to denying some fundamental aspects of the faith. Such as the Golden Rule, Love your enemies, the entire Sermon on the Mount! Most faiths don't have such commitments (and, of course, Christians themselves have trouble following them from the heart).