May 6, 2002

Americans know little about other
faiths but don't want to be critical
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--Many Americans know little about people of other faiths but believe Christians should be tolerant of those of other religions and not work to convert them, a new poll shows.
___While 94 percent of Americans polled said they were personally acquainted with someone who is Christian, only half (51 percent) said they could say the same of a Jew, 28 percent said they knew a Muslim and 17 percent each said they knew a Hindu or a Buddhist.
___The poll was conducted as part of a joint project of the "Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly" television program and U.S. News & World Report magazine.
___"We have this extraordinary, very deep tolerance, but at the same time ... we say we don't know very much about anybody else's beliefs and we don't know anybody of the other religions," said Bob Abernethy, executive editor and host of the PBS program, which released the poll April 26 as it began a special series on "Exploring Religious America."
___"It certainly reminds you of how we live in clusters."
___When asked to compare a statement saying Christians should convert people of other faiths to Christianity to one saying they should be tolerant of people of other faiths and "leave them alone," 71 percent said the latter statement was closer to their own views, compared to 22 percent who sided with the first one.
___In a similar vein, 78 percent of those surveyed said a statement declaring "all religions have elements of truth" was closer to their own views, compared to 17 percent who were more comfortable with a statement declaring that the religion they practice is "the only true religion."
___On the "Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly" program, Princeton University sociologist Robert Wuthnow said the findings mark a change that merits further study.
___"For many, many centuries, Christians have thought they had the truth, and that other people did not have the truth in the same way," Wuthnow said. "And now Christians are not quite so sure of that. They are more likely to say, 'This is true for me.' And that radically changes the meaning of truth, when it's just true for you and not necessarily true for somebody else."
___Among the poll's other findings:
___u 81 percent of Christians think members of their faith are tolerant of people of other faiths, while 54 percent of non-Christians think the same way about Christians.
___u 78 percent of Americans said their faith was important after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
___u 76 percent said America's growing religious diversity is a source of strength to individual religious beliefs while 13 percent said it was a threat to those beliefs.
___u Asked about the television coverage of news about religion, 39 percent said there was the right amount, 36 percent said there was too little and 17 percent said there was too much.
___The poll of 2,002 adults across the country was taken by telephone between March 26 and April 4. Conducted by Mitofsky International of New York and Edison Media Research of Somerville, N.J., it had an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

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