Recent research published in Religious Science Research Journal We suggest that racial resentment plays a major role in promoting conservative political beliefs among white Americans who are not religiously conservative. Although white religious conservatives tend to support right-leaning policies regardless of their racial attitudes, racial resentment is evidence of a conservative political shift among white religious moderates, liberals, and nonreligious people.
Philip Schwadel, a sociology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, conducted the new study to examine how racial attitudes influence the political leanings of various religious groups. “Research and popular discourse on racism, racial resentment, religion, and politics has focused on how racial views connect white evangelical Christians with conservative politics and the Republican Party,” Schwadel said.
“While it is true that white evangelicals and political conservatives are both relatively likely to express racial resentment, that does not mean that non-evangelical whites do not express racial resentment,” Schwadel told SciPost. “So we thought it would be useful to examine how racial resentment explains differences in political affiliation and orientation among various white religious groups, not just evangelicals and conservative Christians.”
To understand this relationship, it is helpful to examine how experts define modern prejudice. Racial resentment, sometimes called symbolic racism, is different from older forms of discrimination that rely on false beliefs about biological inferiority. Instead, the concept describes a belief system that suggests that nonwhite Americans are solely responsible for their social status and should overcome disadvantage without special assistance.
To test his ideas, Schwadel analyzed data from the General Social Survey, a nationally representative survey of adults living in the United States. He focused on responses collected between 2002 and 2022 to ensure the data reflected the contemporary political and religious landscape. After filtering the data to include only white respondents and removing incomplete responses, the final sample size included exactly 8,048 people.
The researchers measured political orientation using a seven-point scale ranging from extremely liberal to extremely conservative. He also tracked whether participants identified as Republicans. To ensure accuracy, the analysis controlled for a number of external factors that can influence voting habits, including attendance at religious services, age, gender, household income, education level, marital status, region of the country, and city size.
To assess religious conservatism, Schwadel looked at two main factors. First, he considered religious tradition, categorizing participants as evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Catholics, members of other religions, or no religious affiliation. Second, he evaluated views of the Bible by grouping individuals based on whether they believed the text to be the literal Word of God, the inspired Word of God, or an ancient book of fables.
To measure racial resentment, this study used a combination of four specific survey questions. These questions were: Do black Americans have to overcome prejudice without special benefits? Does a lack of motivation cause racial inequality? Is discrimination the cause of racial disparities? The final question asked participants to rate how hardworking or lazy they perceived different racial groups to be.
The data revealed that white evangelical Protestants and those who view the Bible as the literal word of God tend to be very politically conservative. “White evangelicals are significantly more likely to be politically conservative, and there is little difference in the likelihood of being politically conservative between those with high and low levels of racial resentment,” Schwadel said. “We call this the ceiling effect.”
“In other words, racial resentment alone cannot explain differences in the likelihood of being politically conservative among white evangelicals, because nearly all white evangelicals are politically conservative,” Schwadel said. For non-evangelical white Americans, the pattern looks quite different.
“On the other hand, non-evangelical white Americans are not particularly likely to be politically conservative,” Schwadel explained. “But non-evangelical whites with higher levels of racial resentment are much more likely to be politically conservative than non-evangelical whites with lower levels of racial resentment.”
This study provides evidence that racial resentment is a strong predictor of conservative political views among white mainline Protestants, Catholics, members of other religions, and nonreligious individuals. “Looking at it another way, among people with low levels of racial resentment, evangelical whites are much more likely to be politically conservative than non-evangelical whites,” Schwadel added.
“Among people with high levels of racial resentment, there is very little difference in the likelihood of being politically conservative between white evangelicals and non-evangelical Americans,” Schwadel said. When people in the moderate or liberal religious categories express high levels of racial prejudice, their political orientation aligns well with the conservatism of evangelical Protestants.
Readers should not misinterpret these findings to mean that white religious conservatives do not experience racial resentment. “Let’s be clear: white evangelicals are significantly more likely to express racial resentment than non-evangelical whites,” Schwadel said. “Racial resentment simply cannot explain political differences among white evangelicals any more than it can explain political differences among other white Americans.”
One limitation is that this study relies on survey data obtained at a specific point in time. This makes it difficult to accurately determine cause and effect chains. It remains unclear whether changes in an individual’s religious affiliation lead to changes in racial attitudes over time, or whether changes in political or racial beliefs prompt people to leave or join a particular religious community.
Future research should study participants over longer periods of time to see how these beliefs evolve over the lifespan. Tracking an individual’s age could help scientists understand the pathways that link faith, prejudice, and voting behavior. Researchers could also benefit from using other measures of racism to see if the same pattern holds for different forms of prejudice.
The study, “White Religion, Politics, and Racial Resentment in the United States,” was authored by Philipp Schwadel.
