Jeff Bridges

Study: The Bible Makes You Liberal

Want to get your conservative Christian friends to think more liberally about social justice, science, and conservation? Try getting them to read the Bible more often.

A study by Baylor University researcher Aaron Franzen found that increased frequency of reading the Bible correlated with greater support for a broad range of progressive issues—with the exception of gay marriage and abortion.

According to the Huffington Post’s breakdown of the study:

• The likelihood of Christians saying it is important to actively seek social and economic justice to be a good person increased 39 percent with each jump up the ladder of the frequency of reading Scripture, from reading the Bible less than once a year to no more than once a month to about weekly to several times a week or more.

• Reading the Bible more often also was linked to improved attitudes toward science. Respondents were 22 percent less likely to view religion and science as incompatible at each step toward more frequent Bible reading.

As interesting as these findings may be, the study only shows correlation and does not provide insight into whether or not frequently reading the Bible caused these views. (In Latin, cum hoc ergo propter hoc.)

It is also important to note that this study only looked at “Christian respondents” from within a broader survey on religion done in 2007. I suspect that adding responses from atheist/agnostic Americans who never read the Bible might skew these results.

But as a once-a-week to once-a-month kind of guy myself, I can certainly understand how more frequently reflecting on the central message of the Gospels could cause someone to become more progressive. The Bible exhorts care for the poor far more often than tax cuts for millionaires.

(Cross-posted—but with edits to take out the funny—on Faith in Public Life’s blog, Bold Faith Type)