Abstract
In this chapter, our focus is on racial/ethnic subgroups of evangelicalism, and our data source is one massive survey—the 2016 Comprehensive Congressional Election Survey (N = 65,000)—which allows comparisons of the immigration perspectives of white, Hispanic, African-American, and Asian evangelicals. The four groups of evangelicals are very similar in terms of general doctrine and religiosity, but very different in their immigration perspectives, with white evangelicals more conservative than the other three groups (see also Wong JS, Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2018). The church attendance item in particular reveals that the oft-cited conclusion associating evangelical religion with conservative political attitudes and behavior (Cf. Olson and Green 2006 among others) may well be spurious when multivariate controls are employed. Indeed, frequent exposure to evangelical church services softens, rather than hardens, immigration attitudes when social/demographic and political variables are controlled for. In addition, the link between evangelical Protestant affiliation and conservative political attitudes and behavior did not hold for racial/ethnic minority evangelicals when an immigration attitude scale served as the dependent variable, and multivariate controls were instituted. The relationship did remain for white evangelicals.
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Notes
- 1.
Such divisions have been used extensively in previous research among whites (Cf. Kellstedt et al. 1996; Steensland et al. 2000; Green 2007; Smidt et al. 2009) but have not been applied to other racial and ethnic groups for numerous reasons. Small sample size is one reason, but failure to recognize that minority groups can meet “evangelical” criteria is another. Denominational affiliation serves as the basis for the evangelical/mainline distinction. To oversimplify, denominations in the National Council of Churches are assigned to the mainline, while their counterparts in the National Association of Evangelicals are placed in the evangelical category. See the above citations for nuances of assignment. See Smidt (2013) for an effort to look at the variety of evangelicals among racial/ethnic groups.
- 2.
The average inter-item correlation was 0.34. The Cronbach’s alpha for the four items was an acceptable 0.67.
- 3.
The mean score on the factor was zero (with a standard deviation of one) with negative scores indicating “conservative” perspectives and with positive scores reflecting “liberal” views.
- 4.
Table 4.10 did not divide Latino or Black Protestants into evangelical and mainline subgroups because the other surveys included in the table either would not permit such a division or had numbers too small. Asians were not included in the table at all, as the number of Asian respondents in the surveys did not permit their inclusion.
- 5.
- 6.
See Hohmann (2018) for an analysis of the debate over the use of Romans 13 by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in his defense of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy at the southern border.
- 7.
This strikes us as important in that the growth area among Latino Protestants tends to be among Pentecostals. In addition, the results contrast with the conservative tendencies of white Pentecostals.
- 8.
The four items are highly correlated with one another (averages range from 0.53 to 0.64) and form an acceptable scale (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.77). The scale was divided into three equal categories—traditionalist, centrist, and modernist. The scale has the virtue of minimizing the measurement error present in the individual items.
- 9.
The relatively small number of Asian evangelicals is not central to this finding in that the relationship holds for all Asians in the survey.
- 10.
It would be useful to look at the countries of origin for Hispanic respondents to see if immigration attitudes vary on this basis. To do so would involve a complicated process that was beyond the scope of our analysis.
- 11.
The regressions for each of the independent variable categories—religion, social, and political—are excluded from the table to save space.
- 12.
However, other variables not included in the CCES survey like white identity and attitudes toward Hispanics might also have an impact.
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Melkonian-Hoover, R.M., Kellstedt, L.A. (2019). The Evangelical Kaleidoscope: Racial/Ethnic Similarity and Difference. In: Evangelicals and Immigration. Palgrave Studies in Religion, Politics, and Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98086-7_5
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