Most White Evangelicals Don’t Believe Muslims Belong in America

As much of American society undergoes a secular shift, most Muslims and Christians continue to attend worship, adhere to tenets of their traditions, and proudly identify with their faiths.

But despite this shared sense of religious devotion, as detailed in a new Pew Research Center report on what US Muslims believe and practice, survey data also show a huge gap in their perceptions of each other.

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72 percent of white evangelicals—compared to 44 percent of Americans overall—see a natural conflict between Islam and democracy. And 30 percent of Muslims themselves agree that the two are in conflict.

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A majority of Muslims in the Pew report believe that the rest of America does not see them as part of mainstream society (62%) and indicated they were worried about President Donald Trump (68%), whose immigration policy has targeted people from certain Muslim-majority countries. In surveys, evangelicals have largely approved of Trump’s approach, though many prominent evangelical leaders have spoken out against it.

Evangelicals are slightly more likely than Muslims (14% vs. 12%) to agree that it is often or sometimes justified to target and kill civilians in order to further a political, social, or religious cause. (Also in agreement: 19 percent of black Protestants, 16 percent of Catholics, and 14 percent of all Americans.)