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A NOTE ABOUT IDENTIFYING CHRISTIANS AND "BORN AGAIN" CHRISTIANS RICHARD D. DIXON ROGER C. LOWERY Social scientists continue to debate the impact of religious beliefs upon electoral attitudes and voting behavior. A prominent example of this debate concerning the political sphere of religion centers upon the "rebirth" of fundamental religious values experienced by many "born again" Christians and the controversy about whether they have emerged as an important force in American politics. One observer called these fundamentalists ". . . a sleeping giant. They were a powerful force and overrated in 1980 . . . In 1984, I think they will be a powerful force and underrated" (Washington, 1984). In the same vein, Crawford (1980) identified the major, overlapping components of the New Right as the "moral major- ity", fiscal conservatives, and ahti-Communists. On the other hand, Mueller (1983) presented evidence that contradicts such claims that a newly politicized "religious right" or "moral majority" has emerged. Any effort to assess the political muscle wielded by "born again" Christians necessarily must begin with an effort to identify them. However, we recently have found that differences in the format of survey questions used to do so can yield radically different proportions of respondents in the "born again" category. Below we first illustrate this fact and then, with the objective of cautioning pollsters, we present our thoughts about where the heart of this problem is to be found. 169

A NOTE ABOUT IDENTIFYING CHRISTIANS AND “BORN AGAIN” CHRISTIANS

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A NOTE ABOUT IDENTIFYING CHRISTIANS AND "BORN AGAIN" CHRISTIANS

RICHARD D. DIXON

ROGER C. LOWERY

Social scientists continue to debate the impact of religious beliefs upon electoral attitudes and voting behavior. A prominent example of this debate concerning the political sphere of religion centers upon the "rebirth" of fundamental religious values experienced by many "born again" Christians and the controversy about whether they have emerged as an important force in American politics. One observer called these fundamentalists ". . . a sleeping giant. They were a powerful force and overrated in 1980 . . . In 1984, I think they will be a powerful force and underrated" (Washington, 1984). In the same vein, Crawford (1980) identified the major, overlapping components of the New Right as the "moral major- ity", fiscal conservatives, and ahti-Communists. On the other hand, Mueller (1983) presented evidence that contradicts such claims that a newly politicized "religious right" or "moral majority" has emerged.

Any effort to assess the political muscle wielded by "born again" Christians necessarily must begin with an effort to identify them. However, we recently have found that differences in the format of survey questions used to do so can yield radically different proportions of respondents in the "born again" category. Below we first illustrate this fact and then, with the objective of cautioning pollsters, we present our thoughts about where t h e heart of this problem is to be found.

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The Gallup "BOrn Again" Question Format

For nearly a decade now, the Gallup organiza- tion has been looking at the role of religion in America (Gallup, 1982). In this series of polls, Gallup has investigated religious fundamentalism by exam- ining responses to three measures of 'evangelicalism'. The first asks whether respondents describe them- selves as "born again" Christians. The two additional items ask whether respondents have encouraged someone to accept Jesus Christ and whether respon- dents hold a literal view of the Bible. Gallup has rep.orted that the proportion of adults classified as 'evangelicals' by all three measures changed little between 1976 (18%) and 1982 (17%). The three- measure level of stability over this time period reflected a high degree of stability in responses to each input measure between 1976 and 1982. For example, in response to the "born again" question, 34% of Gallup's 1976 cases identified themselves as "born again." The corresponding result in 1982 was 35%.

In January, 1983, w e conducted a telephone poll (N =392) of adults from seven contiguous counties in Southeastern North Carolina regarding a package of statewide Driving While Impaired (DWI) laws that had been proposed by Gov. J i m Hunt. Phone numbers called were obtained by determining exchanges in the area, weighting them, 'and appending four-digit, ran- dom suffixes to them, each beginning with any number predetermined to be a possible working number. This survey was jointly sponsored by a local newspaper and television station, who disseminated the results to that seven-county market. Since the key issue of the poll was a moral one - alcohol - we suspected that opinions about the proposed legislation would exhibit variation on the basis of religious conviction, especially along the axis of religious fundamentalism in this part of the "Bible Belt." We elected to tap the notion of religious fundamentalism

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with one item: determination of whether or not our respondents reported themselves to be "born again" Christians. Gallup's phrasing of this question was as follows:

"Would you say that you have been born again or have had a born-again expe- rience - that is, a turning point in your life when you committed .yourself to Jesus Christ?"

We were concerned that some of our respondents would be confused by the "turning point" clause in Gallup's question, perhaps interpreting it as a ref- erence to the ceremony of baptism. Therefore, we revised the question to read as follows:

"Would you say that you are a born again Christian?"

In response to our version of this question, 56% of our 392 cases identified themselves as "born again'' Christians, a proportion substantially higher than Gallup's 35%. A moment's reflection about our sampling area, however, led us to conclude that this was due to "Bible Belt" geographical effects rather than to question phrasing.

A Revised "Born Again" Question Format

In March, 1984, we used the same methodology to conduct a telephone poll of New Hanover County residents only ( N = 434). This southeastern North Carolina county is the most urbanized, highest SES one among the seven contiguous counties served by our two sponsoring media. The topic of this poll was another moral issue; i.e., opinions concerning a Sunday closing "blue law" in the County's central

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ci ty , Wilmington. Again suspecting that opinions would vary on the basis of religious fundamentalism, we decided to include t h e llborn again" Christian qbestion. However, we were troubled by a suspicion thet some of our interviewers in the DWI poll had mentioned to us about this item. Specifically, it appeared to them that the key focus of attention among many of their respondents was upon the word .Christian rather than upon the phrase "born again" Christian. That is, the question phrasing seemed to leave certain individuals wi th the impression that not being "born again" Christians was the same as not beiog Christians. Therefore, we elected to resolve this possible problem by rephrasing the question wording as follows:

"In terms of your religious beliefs, would you describe yourself as a - " 1( ) Christian, 2( ) "born again" Christian, 3( ) or, other than these?

Both the question and the responses were read to respondents by our interviewers. This wording yielded the following response distribution among our "blue law" poll cases: 73% 'Christian'; 1 2 % "'born again"

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Christian'; 14% 'or, other than these'. This was a sharp decrease in the proportion of "born anain" - - Christians compared to our earlier seven-county poll (55%) or Gallup's national results (35%).

Discussion

What was responsible for the precipitous de- crease in self-proclaimed "born again" Christians in t h i s latter poll? Our a priori suspicion is that only a very small proportion of it was accountable to either the modest passage of time between the polls or the change in sampling frame from seven counties to one.

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Rather, we infer that the difference primarily was due to the change in how t h e question was posed. Furthermore, we speculate that the actual proportion of "born again" Christians is more accurately depicted by using a question format that explicitly provides respondents with a choice between 'Christian' and "'born again" Christian'.

The provision of this choice circumvents prob- lems that can arise from Gallup's - and our own earlier - phrasing of the "born again" question. Specifically, it provides respondents with an accept- - able alternative. Many persons responding to Gallup's question may have hesitated to report not having experienced a "turning point" of commitmexto Jesus Christ due to their concern that this would be interpreted by interviewers to be equivalent to no commitment to Jesus Christ. Similarly, some of our earlier study respondents may have thought that interviewers would interpret not being "born again" Christians to signify not beingChristians.. Of course, many respondents themselves might attribute these meanings to these questions, responding wi th answers that avoid alternatives that they consider unaccept- able. In short, both of these two question formats may leave many respondents feeling confronted with alternatives unacceptable to themselves or regarded as less acceptable by the interviewers. In our opinion, these problems are rectified by t h e revised "born again" question format that w e have discussed.

We anticipate that social scientists will con- tinue to find it prudent to include an assessment of religious belief in many surveys. This will apply especially to political pollsters, since w e so fre- quently probe issues that divide respondents who hold opposing moral positions. In this regard, we endorse the commonly held view that l'born again" Christians are distinguishable from most flotherff Christians in political as well as religious convictions. Our purpose here,, however, is not to promote this view. Rather,

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we submit our results to caution pollsters that a validity problem is invited when respondents are not provided with an explicit choice between 'Christian' and "'born again" Christian'. An evident effect of not providing an explicit - and "acceptable" alternative to the "born again" response is inflation of the- pro- portion identifying themselves as having been "born again." With such a result, Type I1 error also will obtain in analyses involving this variable as an independent variable whenever its actual significant effects are diluted by including individuals in the "born again" category who don't belong there.

We recognise that our conclusions are predi- cated upon data from samples differing in size, frame, and contact times. Our suspicion is that these differences are not of crucial importance for our results. However, we intend to check this empirically by means of a statewide split-ballot telephone survey in which our two phrasings of the "born again" question will be posed, one to each half of the sample. In addition, we are planning a local area telephone survey that will include Gallup's three measures of evangelicalism as well as our two forms of the "born again" question.

REFERENCES

Crawford, Alan 1980 Thunder on the Right. New York: Pan-

theon Books.

Gallup, George 1982 "Proportion of Evangelicals Has Changed

Little Over Last 5 Years." The Gallup Report, No. 201-202: 31-32.

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Mueller, Carol 1983 "In Search of a Constituency for the 'New

Religious Right.'" Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 47 NO. 2: 213-29.

Washington, Elsie B. 1984 "The Moral Majority's Campaign '84.''

Newsweek, Vol. CIII, No. 15:21.

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