Half Of Americans Say Obama Holds Different Religious Values

By Kevin Eckstrom
Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) President Obama faces significant challenges on how Americans perceive his religious faith, as 51 percent say his beliefs differ from their own, according to a new poll.

The 2010 post-election American Values Survey detected a link between views of the president's beliefs and his favorability ratings: More than nine in 10 Americans who see his religious beliefs as similar to their own view Obama favorably; eight in 10 those who see differences view the president unfavorably.

"Given that Americans generally want political leaders who share their values, this could be a serious problem for the president moving toward 2012," said Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute, which conducted the poll with the Brookings Institution.

The findings follow earlier surveys that found as many as one in five Americans mistakenly believes Obama is a Muslim. Only 34 percent could correctly identify him as a Christian, according to a Pew Research Center poll released in August.

Three-quarters of Republican and Tea Party voters say Obama holds different religious beliefs; that view is also prevalent among older adults and those with no college education.

Nearly half (49 percent) of Catholics say Obama holds different religious beliefs, along with 60 percent of white Christians. One in four Americans say Obama's religious beliefs guide his decisions "a lot," compared to 42 percent who said "a little" and 28 percent who said "not at all."

In other findings, the PRRI poll found that nearly half (49 percent) of Americans do not think the values of Islam are compatible with American values, while 45 percent said they are.

Two-thirds of Tea Party and Republican voters said Islamic values are incompatible with American values, as well as 57 percent of evangelicals, 53 percent of Catholics, 47 percent of mainline Protestants and only 28 percent of the religiously unaffiliated.

The poll, based on 1,494 follow-up interviews with 3,013 U.S. adults who were polled before the midterm elections, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Comments

[soma77]

03:09 PM on 12/29/2010

This shows that half of Americans need to enrich their minds, rectify their hearts, nourish their inner light and cultivate virtue. It is too bad that their religion has neglected this. http://thinkunity.com

[MIKEinNYC]

08:42 PM on 11/26/2010

From everything we've seem President Obama does not seem overtly religious.

[MohammedAbbasi]

05:57 PM on 11/26/2010

Well half of Americans love Fox News and love being dumb, but what is more dangerous is having politicians and assorted crazies from the Tea Party following this reasoning

[konybvg]

06:22 PM on 11/24/2010

Half of Americans are racist and they are the once that hold that view. Hint hint! he is not like us,

[jnw147]

11:35 AM on 11/23/2010

The wealthiest country in the world and yet we are so, so ignorant!

[petman2001]

09:34 PM on 11/22/2010

It was bad enought when presidential candidates had to proclaim their Christianity to get elected. Now, obviously that is not enough. Now you have to proclaim the RIGHT kind of Christianity. We're moving backwards on the whole religious thing, folks!

[AlexChris617]

09:00 PM on 11/22/2010

Whether or not Obama is Christian shouldn't matter anyway. I personally don't think I would care if he were Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, or even an Atheist.

[wbthacker]

04:45 PM on 11/22/2010

The linkage between your approval of the President and a belief that he shares your faith is obvious to me. But I'm not sure about the causality.

I don't think all that many Americans disapprove of Obama because they don't think he shares their religion. Consider how many of the people who think he's Muslim were prepared to vote for Mitt Romney (a Mormon).

I think it might be working the other way around: that a larger number of Americans doubt Obama shares their religion because they disapprove of his actions. Religious people really seem to believe that if you accept their doctrine it will make you a righteous person, so it follows that anyone who's not righteous cannot really share their creed.

So if you disagree strongly with someone, I think it follows that you'll exclude him from your religion. And evidence doesn't really matter. Fred Phelps (the guy who pickets funerals with offensive signs) is an ordained Baptist minister, and the first thing moderate Christians say is, "He's not a Christian." No, he clearly *is* a Christian, he's got the documents to prove it. Pick any controversial religious leader and you'll find people denying that he's "one of us".

[pat2 718]

11:30 PM on 11/22/2010

But they started disbelieving Obama was a Christian early in the presidential campaign -- long before they had a chance to observe him doing something they disapproved of. So, no -- they disbelieved that he was Christian because they were fed that information by the opposition. And the one big thing he did that some people didn't like was be black.

[one1byke]

05:01 AM on 11/22/2010

I want you all to know that I embrace that "HALF" of America - like they've always embraced me.

[greenlass]

01:02 PM on 11/21/2010

People who persist in saying the President is not Christian/is Muslim do so because of skin color: the red of their necks, and the unwhite-ness of his.

[GreaterPliny]

12:52 PM on 11/21/2010

He should have known that presidents can only be "Church Of Whatever Is Socially Acceptable In DC." Religion has always been a problem for presidents. With Kennedy, like 90% of the population thought the pope was telling him what to do.

[springsm]

10:53 AM on 11/21/2010

Oh for Gawd's sakes.  He is a christian and his church was the United Church of Christ (Cong. and E&R) which is a progressive church.  Of course he is different....that is not a denomination that is acceptable to the far right, it is not Catholic so obviously it is different.  If 51% are so damn hung up on his relgious beliefes, it is spawned by the dobsons, buchanans, fearful nut cases, bachmann  and all the rest who would like to see Obama gone.  He is Af Am who these nutballs can not accept.  So will start any lie they can.  What gd business is it of anybody else.  The good christians are fundies and are against that 49% who are not.  Petty petty petty.

[jayrag123]

02:21 AM on 11/21/2010

I am Muslim an Muslims the know that Obama is not a muslim. its hillarious that White Americans keep saying that Obama is a muslim.
I guess all the Christians in Africa need to realize that White Americans don't see them as real Christians because they have a foreign sounding name...............everyone knows that Jesus was a European.................with blond hair and blue eyes.

[springsm]

10:54 AM on 11/21/2010

He is AF AM therefore he can not be a Christian is the mindset and level of real intelligence of these white fearful stupid americans.

[jayrag123]

02:10 AM on 11/21/2010

75% ot Americans are Caucasian.....................?
This poll was more about Blacks than about Religion.
Back in the 60's when Blacks in the South wanted Civil Rights you had White Churches that were telling their followers to attack the Blacks and others who were marching for Civil Rights.
Christianity in America is often more about RACE than religion.
In the Civil Rights era back in the sixties the JEWS were the only ones to march with the Blacks for civil rights.

[Nicholas H]

01:31 AM on 11/21/2010

Rightly said!

Most religious Americans don't love God rightly, rather they love their own advantage. Americans have created a criminal arrogance of religion that equate our own desires with the desires of God and leads to an inverted set of values. The "blessed" accumulate tangible, material good.

Americans worship many "No-Gods" including military might, money and capitalism, "family values," "the war on terrorism," and most especially it's state form of piety clothed in evangelical Christianity. Matthew 5:3-11, Jesus said those who are blessed are poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, those who are merciful, those who are pure in heart, those who are peacemakers and those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

The United States, as a nation, does not possess any of these qualities of blessedness. We are a rich nation, where the meek, the hungry and the peacemakers are marginalized, not just in Society but church as well.

*pieces taken from an amazing article written by Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge: "God Bless America!" And the sin of arrogance.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-candace-chellewhodge/god-bless-america-and-the_b_776394.html

[springsm]

11:00 AM on 11/21/2010

The United States as the mindset of entitlement...the City on the HIll.  Generally there has been a myth that we are beyond criticism, beyond self examination, beyond bettering our philosophies and certainly self centered and selfish.   There are two sides of the coin..the ones who think they are the one and all and most and the others who see the problems and want to fix them, to help and who want to progress.  Going after Obama for whatever they think about religion shows the side of the ignorant, the uninfomred, the bigots, the racists and the fearful.  And they resent that he is more intelligent that they are.