BERLIN — Christians in western Europe are less accepting of immigrants and non-Christians than people without religious affiliations, a study based on a 15-country survey found.
The Pew Research Center report revealed that Christians are more likely than western Europeans who don’t identify with a religion to express negative views of Muslims, Jews and migrants. They also are more inclined to think their country’s culture and values are superior.
“On balance, more respondents say immigrants are honest and hardworking than say the opposite,” the study’s authors wrote. “But a clear pattern emerges: Both church-attending and non-practicing Christians are more likely than religiously unaffiliated adults in Western Europe to voice anti-immigrant and anti-minority views.”
The study was based on a telephone survey of 24,599 randomly selected adults in the 15 countries. Pew researchers compared the attitudes of respondents who described themselves as practicing Christians, non-practicing Christians and religiously unaffiliated, including atheists and agnostics.
One of their findings was that ethnic Europeans as a whole hold “mixed views on whether Islam is compatible with their country’s values and culture.”
In Britain, 45 percent of churchgoing Christians and 47 percent of non-practicing Christians agreed with the statement that “Islam is fundamentally incompatible with our values and culture,” the survey showed. Among non-religious Britons, 30 percent shared that view.
In France, 72 percent of Christians who attend church agreed it was important to have French ancestry to be “truly French.” Among non-practicing Christians, 52 percent took this position, compared to 43 percent of those without religious affiliations.
The survey was conducted from April to August 2017, after more than 2.3 million migrants and refugees had entered Europe during the previous two years, according to the European border control agency Frontex.
The survey found that Swedes were the least likely to express anti-migrant and anti-minority views, while Italians were the most likely.
A hotly debated question in some parts of Europe is whether Muslim women should be prohibited from wearing concealing garments such as burkas. Most of the adults Pew surveyed supported at least some restrictions on religious dress.
