Glad you asked
Are Black People More Religious?
By Jabari Asim
Monday, April 12, 2004; 10:23 AM
While reading a Washington Post article about Americans' reactions to "The Passion of the Christ," I was struck by a researcher's observation that "blacks tend to be more religious and more likely to say the Bible should be taken literally."
The second part of that statement I'd like to examine in a future column. As for the first part, I asked the man who said it exactly what he meant. Michael Dimock, research director at the Pew Research Center, told me he based his comment on blacks whom the center has surveyed. "We ask how often do you attend services, how important is religion in your life, how often do you pray? We get a higher percentage of African-Americans saying religion is important."
Dimock declined to indulge in any grand generalizations, and discouraged me from doing the same. "Even a question as precise as that could be interpreted differently by different people," he said. "Maybe there really isn't that much of a difference but a difference in the way people think about religion."
