c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) One out of five Americans believe in a God who favors the United States in worldly affairs. Among those believers, Republicans are four times as numerous as Democrats.

These findings in a sweeping new survey of American religious beliefs conducted for Baylor University underscore the relationship between religion and politics in 21st century America.

Nineteen percent of the 1,721 people surveyed said they either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “God favors the United States in worldly affairs.”

Paul Froese, an assistant professor who teaches the sociology of religion at Baylor _ a Baptist institution in Waco, Texas _ helped devise the survey questions. He said the results show that “The idea of God, the belief in God, can be in a political sense exploited for nationalist purposes, at least for that fifth of the country. In that sense it’s an important finding.”

Froese said it’s unclear whether more people subscribe to the belief now than in the past, because no professional survey had asked the question before. But he speculated that more believe it now than before 9/11, which he said caused many young and middle-aged Americans to consider the idea for the first time.

Americans are hardly the only _ or the first _ people in the world to assume God favors their country or cause. Previous world powers thrived _ and eventually declined, historians say _ on that conviction.

But the mindset fit with the 19th century American belief in Manifest Destiny, the notion that westward territorial expansion was the inevitable mission of the nation.

Today, affirmation of the American belief that God favors the nation is more subtle, Froese said, but still present. “The idea of God is very much tied up in the national culture,” he said. “The Pledge of Allegiance says `one nation under God.’ The money says `In God We Trust.’ Whenever the president says something on TV, he says, `May God bless America.”’

Of course, while those citations may denote widespread belief in God, they don’t necessarily entail certainty that God favors the United States.

For that sense, said Keith Myer, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Union, N.J. _ a Southern Baptist congregation _ many Americans today probably rely on the country’s prosperity relative to other countries, its foundation on democratic ideals, and what are viewed as biblical principles.

“There are certain ideas that the United States has stood for that I think, in his own wisdom, that he might prefer this country to another,” Myer said. “Is the United States perfect? Absolutely not. We’ve got plenty of problems. … But I think it is certainly better than many nations.”

Myer said: “There’s nothing about the population that would make God prefer it over other countries. But the ideal that it stands for might. … I know it’s not proper to say one’s country is better than another these days, but I think it’s apparent by the fact that so many people want to come here.”

Froese, the Baylor researcher, saw a connection between the findings on God and Uncle Sam and the survey’s most trumpeted results, which involve Americans’ sense of God’s “personality.” Respondents were given 16 words _ including Absolute, Fatherly, Forgiving, Friendly, Loving, Punishing, Wrathful _ and asked to rate how each word described God.

Researchers found the respondents effectively fell in one of four groups. Thirty-one percent believed in an “authoritarian” God who is active in daily life and largely concerned with punishing humans; 23 percent believed in a “benevolent” God who is less interested in punishment; 16 percent believed in a “critical” God who doesn’t interfere with daily life but keeps score for an afterlife; and 25 percent believed in a “distant” God who set the laws of nature in motion but is no longer involved in events of this world.

The Baylor researchers contend that how people describe God is more indicative of their stance on various political issues than their party registration is. People who believe in an authoritarian God are more likely to oppose abortion and premarital sex than people who believe in a distant God, according to poll results.

The conservative connection is also present among people who see God playing a role in international affairs. “Clearly, the people who tend to think God favors the United States are more likely to believe in this authoritarian God,” Froese said. “This means they think of God as being very active in the world, guiding events, and (with) quite a wrathful nature. So if God is displeased with something, he’s going to let you know.”

(Jeff Diamant writes for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)

KRE/RB END DIAMANT

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