New Poll Shows Americans Employ Double Standard on Religious Violence
A new poll revealed that many Americans exhibit a double standard when it comes to religious violence. This was gleaned from a survey released on Feb. 16 which indicated that Americans may blame an entire religion for the act of those who stand for religion but not on Christianity.
According to the Public Religion Research Institute, 75 percent of the public say that violence done in God's name does not represent Christianity while half of them say the same of Islam. But Americans manifest a double standard approach on the issue when the responses are divided based on religious groups.
When a Christian commits an act of violence, 77 percent of white mainline Protestants and 79 percent of Catholics are ready to disown the perpetrator. But then, 41 percent of white mainline Protestants and 58 percent of Catholics aren't nearly as forgiving of a Muslim employing violence.
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Evangelicals show the biggest double standard with 87 percent of them disowning Christian terrorists but are the least likely to say the same thing for Muslims at 44 percent. Those who aren't affiliated with any religion showed the least double standard with 61 percent giving Christians the benefit of the doubt versus 54 percent for Muslims.
Rev. Susan Thistlethwaite, professor at the United Church of Christ's Chicago Theological Seminary, said that Christians should face the issue honestly and accept the existence of terrorists within their faith. "[I]t has been complicit in horrific and systemic violence across history, from the Crusades to the Inquisition to the Nazis, and today's Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis," she told Daily Beast.
But evangelical professor Paul Copan of Palm Beach Atlantic University sees the validity of the double standard, citing the nature of both Christianity and Islam. "Jesus repudiated violence — that is, the unjust use of force — done in his name," his said. "By contrast, Muhammad himself engaged in violent, ruthless actions during his career. He taught such ruthlessness as normative in the Quran," he added.
