On college campuses throughout the country, political affiliation significantly correlates to a person's levels of religious engagement and views on spirituality, according to a recent study.
For The Spiritual Life of College Students: A National Study of College Students' Search for Meaning and Purpose
more than 112,000 students were asked to identify their political orientation on a five-point scale: far right, conservative, middle-of-the-road, liberal and far left. These students were then asked questions about religion and spirituality, as well as pressing moral issues.
Findings from the report showed a strong correlation between religious views and politics.
These days there's been a much stronger confluence of religious and political identities all across America said Alexander Keefe, an Ohio University professor in the department of Classics and World Religions. There's an increasing willingness to call into question the boundaries of church and state.
Among students entering their first year of college, highly religious conservatives outnumbered their highly religious liberal counterparts 3 to 1.
Andy Snell, an OU freshman and member of the College Republicans, said he was not surprised by this finding.
Individuals actively involved in religion tend to end up as conservatives
Snell said. Conservatism holds to truths and absolute standards
and the consensus of religions tend to follow this same path.
The types of religious identities that are generated by participation in those more conservative churches tend to be harder
faster and more articulated
so that students who self-identify as highly religious are more likely to come from socially and political conservative backgrounds
Keefe said.
Rabbi Danielle Leshaw, head of the Hillel Jewish Student Programs, said that surveys gauging religious involvement can often be misleading.
Jewish students -who are a very liberal group as a whole -are overwhelmingly more participatory in social actions and social justice work than their non-Jewish counterparts in surveys
she said. However
(social justice work) isn't considered a religious act when surveys are taken.
The report did not count social justice work as part of religious engagement but instead measured it as a separate attribute. On this measure, liberal students outnumber conservatives 3 to 1. Liberals also outnumber conservatives 2 to 1 on measures of Ecumenical worldview -the ability to empathize with and show tolerance for other religions.
Social justice has typically been the liberal concern
Snell said. Whereas conservatives think that society should enforce liberty as the foremost value
