The Samaritan, a member of a group despised by Israelites of that time, proves himself more charitable to an injured traveler than two members of the Jewish clergy.

Devout listeners startled by the Samaritan’s charity would have had to confront a difficult message: Piety and prejudice keep close company.

It appears not much has changed.

A meta-analysis of 55 independent studies carried out in the United States with more than 20,000 mostly Christian participants has found that members of religious congregations tend to harbor prejudiced views of other races.

In general, the more devout the community, the greater the racism, according to the authors of the analysis, led by Wendy Wood, Provost Professor of Psychology and Business at USC College and the USC Marshall School of Business. The study appears in the February issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review.

“Religious groups distinguish between believers and non-believers and moral people and immoral ones,” Wood said. “So perhaps it’s no surprise that the strongly religious people in our research, who were mostly white Christians, discriminated against others who were different from them — blacks and minorities.”

Most of the studies reviewed by Wood’s team focused on Christians because Christianity is the most common religion in the United States.

Her analysis found significantly less racism among people without strong religious beliefs.

Wood speculated that racist tendencies would not be limited to one religion: “All religions offer a moral group identity, and so across world religions — including Buddhism, Hinduism, Muslim, Judaism and Christianity — the religious ingroup is valued over outgroups.”

Wood and her co-authors — Deborah Hall from Duke University and David Matz from Augsburg College — analyzed data from all available studies on religion and racism since 1964, when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. A quarter of the studies in the analysis were conducted after 2000 and just over half after 1990.

Despite the involvement of religious individuals in the civil rights movement, and in later struggles for racial equality, the authors found a strong correlation between religious belief and racism, as measured through commonly used survey tools that rate respondents’ attitudes toward religion and racial minorities.

Studies of highly devout groups showed the greatest correlation between religion and racism.

“The effect is strongest in the seminary,” Wood said. Of the 55 studies, 14 dealt with highly religious populations such as frequent church attendees and seminarians.

The results may ring false to practicing Christians in mixed-race congregations. But those are only a minority, according to Wood.

“There aren’t many churches that practice with a mixed-race congregation,” she said.

Wood emphasized the value of religion.

“Religion has clear benefits for the individual who is practicing that religion,” she said.

However, “religion has a downside, like any group membership, particularly a group membership that is associated with morality.”

She attributed the association between religion and racism to the combination of ingroup identity and morality, which encourages distinctions between people. The appeal of tradition and social convention also played a role.

“People who were religious because of their respect for tradition and social convention were especially likely to be racist,” Wood said, though adding that the strength of the correlation declined somewhat as racism became less socially acceptable.

“The effect stays significant even in recent years. For people who are religious for conservative reasons [respect for tradition, social conventionalism], they have become less racist in recent years as racism has become less socially acceptable. But even they are still significantly racist, just that the effect has reduced in magnitude,” Wood explained.

Wood and her co-authors also found little difference in racist attitudes between religious fundamentalists and more moderate Christians. The second group tended to pay lip service to racial equality but harbored the same prejudices.

“What we found with that group of people was really no different from everyone else,” Wood said.

Wood’s analysis echoes what Martin Luther King Jr. wrote more than 40 years ago in his famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” in which he reserved some of his sharpest criticism for religious leaders who, with few exceptions, embraced integration in principle but resisted it in practice.

Do the findings mean that being religious makes one a racist? Not necessarily.

The Samaritan in Jesus’ parable himself was a member of a religious group that held other religions in contempt.

Yet he stopped for an outsider who needed help.

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger has said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response was posted on the internet and is best regarded as an essay clearly meant for a wider audience than just Dr Laura. It is a general reminder that many belief systems pick and choose their way through biblical teachings in determining what is “right” and “wrong”. Authorship has been attributed to several, but remains unconfirmed.

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination… End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbours. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath.Exodus 35:2. Clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle- room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16.Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan.

The Jesus & Hitler Comedy Hour is an episodic web series and web comic available at www.redhatbluepants.com

It gives me no pleasure to report that, like almost every Republican politician, Marco Rubio is a creationist — and he wants to see his anti-science dogma taught in public school science classrooms: Rubio: Florida House open to legislative fix on evolution.

TALLAHASSEE (FBW) – An evolution compromise approved on Feb. 19 by the State Board of Education was the best that could be achieved in that body but legislative action to protect academic freedom of teachers offering criticisms of Darwinian evolution is possible, House Speaker Marco Rubio told Florida Baptist Witness in a Feb. 20 interview.

Rubio said the Board of Education’s addition of “scientific theory of” before each reference to “evolution” in new science standards for Florida’s public schools was “the best fix available” with “the way those votes were lining up.” …

Rubio said there also could be activity in the legislature by evolution proponents who wish to remove the theory compromise language. “I think there’s still going to be folks out there talking about this – on both sides. … I think this will be a battle that will go on for quite some time,” he said.

The “crux” of the disagreement, according Rubio, is “whether what a parent teaches their children at home should be mocked and derided and undone at the public school level. It goes to the fundamental core of who is ultimately, primarily responsible for the upbringing of children. Is it your public education system or is it your parents?”

Rubio added, “And for me, personally, I don’t want a school system that teaches kids that what they’re learning at home is wrong.”

To Marco Rubio, teaching evolutionary science to children is the first step to becoming just like Fidel Castro’s Cuba:

Rubio, a Cuban-American, made a comparison to the strategy employed by the Communist Party in Cuba where schools encouraged children to turn in parents who criticized Fidel Castro.

“Of course, I’m not equating the evolution people with Fidel Castro,” he quickly added, while noting that undermining the family and the church were key means the Communist Party used to gain control in Cuba.

“In order to impose their totalitarian regime, they destroyed the family; they destroyed the faith links that existed in that society,” he said.

Although the evolution issue is “obviously” on a “much smaller scale,” both matters are related to the “fundamental question of who is in charge of the upbringing of children. Is it parents or is it the government? I believe it’s parents. And we should do nothing in government that undermines that relationship.

“And there are parents that passionately believe in this and they should be given the opportunity to teach that to their children without someone undoing it,” Rubio said.

This has to be the only industrialized country in the world where people are clamboring for ignorance.