Religion's Impact on the Divergent Political Attitudes of Evangelical Protestants in the United States and Brazil

In the United States, Evangelical Protestants' political attitudes have been attributed to their conservative theological beliefs. As this religion's membership has increased around the world, other Evangelicals would logically be expected to demonstrate a similar conservatism in their pol...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Politics and religion 2013-09, Vol.6 (3), p.483-511
Main Authors: McAdams, Erin S., Lance, Justin Earl
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abortion
Attitudes
Conservatism
Economic policy
Evangelicalism
Ideology
Membership
Morality
Political attitudes
Political culture
Political parties
Protestantism
Protestants
Public life
Religion
Religious orthodoxy
Theology
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Summary:In the United States, Evangelical Protestants' political attitudes have been attributed to their conservative theological beliefs. As this religion's membership has increased around the world, other Evangelicals would logically be expected to demonstrate a similar conservatism in their political views. And yet, this anticipated result does not hold. In Brazil, for example, Evangelicals maintain moderate-to-liberal attitudes on several issues. To address this anomaly, this article relies on the Pew Forum's Multi-Country Religion Survey to examine the impact of religion on Evangelicals' ideology as well as attitudes on moral and economic issues in the United States and Brazil. While doctrinal orthodoxy predicts Evangelicals' moral conservatism, neither religious component examined significantly predicts Brazilian Evangelicals' ideology or economic attitudes. Significant differences in Brazilian and American attitudes on these dimensions in general suggest that the political environment plays a much larger role in whether — and how — religion influences these political attitudes.
ISSN:1755-0483
1755-0491
DOI:10.1017/S1755048312000582