Most View Christians, Jews as Good Influences, Survey Finds

In a national survey of the public images of different faith groups, most respondents said they view Christians in general, Jews and, on balance, Mormons as good influences on U.S. society. But more than 30% viewed Muslims, Buddhists and Scientologists as negative influences.

However, even those small spiritual groups fared better than atheists: 60% said nonbelievers have a negative effect on U.S. culture, according to findings released this week by pollster George Barna of Glendale.

“While many Americans are not practicing Christians, they retain some identity with the Christian faith and remain protective of it,” said Barna, noting that 85% gave Christians a positive evaluation and only 4% thought they were a bad influence.

Although 83% of Americans say they are Christian, Barna’s polls have found that only half of those are weekly churchgoers.

Christians, he said, “are suspicious of other faith groups because they are unknown but different, and we are generally uncomfortable with those who are not just like us.

“Diversity may be a rallying cry for the politically correct, but for the average American, the acceptance of diversity in religion, as in politics and race, is not a widely embraced notion,” said Barna, who specializes in opinion polls on religious issues and has written 20 books for the evangelical Christian market.

Nevertheless, the findings of a telephone poll of 1,007 adults in July appear to contradict a common charge by U.S. Muslims that their faith has a poor public image in America because of distorted media coverage and unfair association with violent acts.

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Buddhism--a low-profile faith rarely in the news--was rated virtually the same as Islam. Muslims were seen as a positive influence by 28% and a negative influence by 32%, nearly the same as the 29% positive and 33% negative assessments of Buddhists. (More than one-third of those polled had no opinion of either group.)

Although the survey confirmed Muslims’ relatively negative image, that comparison with Buddhists was actually somewhat encouraging, said Salam Al-Marayati, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles.

“The public at large apparently has a different impression of Muslims than opinions you find in major media and in Washington political circles,” said Al-Marayati. “Perhaps many know of Muslims at work or in their neighborhoods who alleviate misapprehensions they might otherwise have.”

About half the “born-again Christians”--theologically conservative believers--surveyed said they view Muslims and Buddhists as negative influences in America, whereas only about 15% viewed them positively.

Other results of the survey, which Barna estimates is accurate to within plus or minus 3 percentage points, were:

* Only 15% felt that Jews had a negative influence and 58% said their influence was good--a finding that one Los Angeles Jewish official called “very heartening.”

* Mormons were seen as a positive force by 43% and as a negative one by 27%.

* Scientologists were rated by 39% as negative influences and 21% as positive forces, but nearly four of 10 survey respondents had no opinion on the 41-year-old religious group.

* Atheists not only received the highest negative rating (61%) but also the lowest positive evaluation (14%).

That came as no surprise to organized nonbelievers. “We certainly don’t have a good reputation among believers,” said Kenneth Bonnell of Eagle Rock, co-president of Atheists United. “We would rather that the figures were the other way around.”

Bonnell attributed the negative view of atheists to the “religious texture of the United States” and to conservative Christians who he said often blame atheists for opposing school prayers even though many Jewish and Christian bodies also advocate strict church-state separation.

David Lehrer, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in Los Angeles, said he was heartened by the large number who regard Jews as positive influences in U.S. society. At the same time, he said, “it clearly indicates there’s a lot of work yet to be done in terms of acceptance and understanding of nontraditional religions in this country.”

Buddhist leader Henry Shinn of Redlands said the 33% negative evaluation of Buddhist influence in this country “is because [people] don’t know much about Buddhism. As students learn more about the basic teachings of Buddhism, we will have better opinions expressed in the future,” said Shinn, who is one of five co-presidents of the American Buddhist Congress.

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Likewise, with 26% saying they did not know if Mormons are a positive or negative influence today, the poll “demonstrates there is still a large part of the population that do not know us,” said Keith Atkinson, the California public affairs representative for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the formal name for Mormons.

Church spokesman Don Lefevre of Salt Lake City added: “We’re happy that our positive influence was seen as higher than a negative influence, but we are disappointed that the survey was crafted in a way that implied [we] are other than Christian.”

The worldwide Mormon church body recently launched a public relations effort to discourage nonmembers from identifying it primarily as “the Mormon Church.” The church also announced that “Jesus Christ” will be printed in larger letters in its name on written materials and eventually on its church buildings.

Church of Scientology spokeswoman Wendy Beccaccini took the survey results as a challenge:

“It tells us that we need to concentrate on the 40% of the population who don’t yet know about the many benefits and positive effects that Scientology creates in society,” she said, noting that the Internal Revenue Service certified Scientology as a religious, tax-exempt body in 1993.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Rating Faiths

A random telephone survey of 1,007 adults in July by pollster George Barna of Glendale ranked faiths according to their influence on American society.

Question: “For each major faith group 1 mention, please tell me if you think that group has a positive or negative influence on American society. Overall, do you think that [these religions] have a positive or negative influence on American society today?”

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THE RESULTS: Positive Negative Both Don’t Know Christians 85% 4% 4% 6% Jews 58 15 4 23 Muslims 28 32 4 35 Mormons 43 27 5 26 Scientologists 21 39 3 38 Buddhists 29 33 2 35 Atheist 14 61 4 22

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Note: Figures are rounded.