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While Groups Share Many Key Values, Evangelicals Have Little Interest in Interacting with Muslims
NEW YORK – The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (FFEU) released a first of a kind study today that shows that Evangelical Christian and Muslim relations is the greatest interreligious challenge in America today. The study found that Evangelicals have little interest in interacting or learning more about Muslims.
While more than half of Muslims regularly interact with Christians and believe that interaction has led to better understanding between the groups, only 22-percent of Evangelicals share similar experiences.
Both Muslims and Evangelicals see room for improvement in their relationship with the other group. The two groups share similar religious values such as daily prayer, family and improving the world and see these three commonalities as a way to bond and improve relations. Despite this, Evangelicals are more likely to see differences between the two religions. Frequent interactions lead to more perceived similarities between the groups. Evangelicals show low familiarity of Muslim terms/holidays, but many of those familiar with Muslims and Islam are able to correctly define these terms such as Ramadan, hijab and sharia.
Evangelicals and Muslims alike acknowledge that Muslims have been discriminated against because of their faith and agree that there is anti-Muslim sentiment in the Evangelical Christian community. Sixty-two percent of Evangelicals report there is anti-Muslim sentiment in their own community. With this in mind, when asked if Muslim holidays should be observed in the United States with a day off from work/school like Christmas is, fifty-seven percent of Evangelicals say that they shouldn’t be observed.
The study also examined U.S. political and geopolitical issues that unite and divide the two faiths:
“Evangelical Christian-Muslim relations is today’s largest interreligious challenge and the poll shows that there are causes for concern and elements of hope and optimism on both sides to narrow the divide between the two faith communities,” said FFEU President Rabbi Marc Schneier. “As a next step towards bridging this divide, I recently led a mission of the leading Evangelical Christian leaders from the United States to Azerbaijan, a Muslim-majority country, which is a leading advocate for interreligious dialogue and coexistence so that we can start bridging the gap.”
The FFEU, in partnership with PSB Research, conducted a national online survey of 1,000 total respondents (500 self-identified American Evangelical Christians and 500 self-identified American Muslims) between January 3rd-15th, 2019.
Click here to read the 2019 FFEU Evangelical Christians-Muslim Poll.
Founded in 1989, the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding is the global address for Muslim-Jewish relations and the national address for African American-Jewish relations. The organization is committed to the belief that direct dialogue between ethnic communities is the most effective path towards reconciliation. For more information, visit https://www.ffeu.org/.
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