About half of nonevangelical university faculty acknowledge that they have cool or unfavorable feelings about evangelical Christians, a new survey shows.
A survey released May 7 by the San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish & Community Research found that 53 percent said they have "cool/unfavorable feelings" toward evangelical Christians. In comparison, 30 percent said they have favorable feelings toward them, 9 percent are neutral, 4 percent said they didn’t know and 4 percent refused to answer.
Researchers found this portion of the findings to be the "most troubling" result of the survey.
"Faculty do not feel positively about evangelicals at all," concluded Gary A. Tobin and Aryeh K. Weinberg, co-authors of "Religious Beliefs & Behavior of College Faculty."
"In fact, they feel less positively about evangelicals than about any other religious group. The combination of responses … raises serious concerns about how evangelical Christian faculty and students are treated or feel they are treated on campus. The levels of faculty disapproval are high enough to raise questions about the overall climate on campus."
One-third of non-Mormon faculty reported unfavorable views of Mormons. Views about other religious groups were more positive, with Muslims getting a 22 percent unfavorable rating, followed by atheists (18 percent), Catholics (13 percent), persons not practicing any religion (10 percent), nonevangelical Christians (9 percent), Buddhists (4 percent) and Jews (3 percent).
Faculty from any particular group were excluded from rating other members of their faith. (RNS)
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