Simon Cox Blog: Pew: What Christians Worry About Most

Sunday, 30 July 2017

Pew: What Christians Worry About Most

How five religious groups rank seven bad scenarios.

President Donald Trump might do better to focus on fixing health care instead of tackling terrorism.

The white evangelicals who largely voted for him are more worried about their health than about terrorism or gun violence, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center.

Among self-identified white evangelicals, 75 percent worry about a personal health crisis, while only 66 percent worry about being the victim of a terrorist attack and only 38 percent worry about being the victim of a mass shooting.

In fact, 26 percent worry “a lot” about their health, compared to only 15 percent who worry a lot about terrorism and just 5 percent who worry a lot about mass shootings.

The questions about worries were broken out for CT by Pew as part of its in-depth study on firearms, which includes who loves God and guns. (Though two-thirds of black Protestants identify as evangelicals, Pew could not break them out on many questions due to small sample size.)

White evangelicals are more concerned about health than any of the other six problems posed by Pew, including not being able to pay bills, losing a job, having their home invaded, or being the victim of a violent crime.

But they still aren’t as worried about a health crisis as other major religious groups, including Catholics (90%), black Protestants (88%), white mainline Protestants (86%), and the religiously unaffiliated or “nones” (84%).

Americans who attend religious services weekly are just as worried (76%) about their health, while those who attend less often are even more concerned (86%). Americans with low levels of religious commitment—measured by weekly church attendance, daily prayer, saying religion is very important in their lives, and ...