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Research Shows Black Americans More Likely to Read the Bible

Research Shows That Black Americans More Likely To Read Bible In U.S.
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Black Americans Exhibit Higher Religiosity Compared To Other Races

A Pew Research survey revealed Black Americans in the United States are much more probable to read the Bible regularly. A majority of the African-Americans surveyed showed that they among all the demographics tend to regard the Bible as the word of God. For them, the exodus tale in the Bible can be compared with the pain the community felt during the slavery era. The Israelis in the Bible were also slaves.

Research Shows Black Americans More Likely to Read the Bible[/tweetthis]

About 54 percent of Black Americans, both Christian and non-Christian, claim to read the Holy Scripture or the Bible a minimum of one time in a week other than religious services. Hispanics come at a distant second with 38 percent or Whites even further down at 32 percent. As per the 2014 era Religious Landscape Study, only 24 percent of Blacks say they have never read or seldom read the Bible.

Black Americans are much more probable than people of other ethnic or racial groups to believe that the Holy Scripture or the Bible must be subject to literal interpretation. About 51 percent of African-Americans feel this. Among Hispanics and Whites, the numbers are 38 percent and 26 percent respectively. About 59 percent of Black Protestant tradition holds this view. In contrast, only 26 percent of Catholics and 24 percent of mainline Protestants subscribe to this line of thinking. Evangelical Protestants at 55 percent are comparable to Black Protestant tradition.

When it came to Christian groups, 61 percent of African-Americans following the Black Protestant tradition read the scripture a minimum of one time a week. This statistic is similar to 63 percent of evangelical Protestant tradition. It is found that members of the Black Protestant tradition are much more probable than mainline Protestants (30 percent) and Catholics (25 percent) to read the scripture at least once a week. All these numbers, however, are much less than that of Mormons at 77 percent and Jehovah’s Witnesses at 88 percent.

African-Americans participate more in scripture study and prayer groups. The Pew Research study discovered that 39 percent of Black Americans are more likely than Hispanics (27 percent) and Whites (22 percent) to participate in this activity. Members of Black Protestant tradition make up 44 percent of those polled compared to 44 percent in the evangelical tradition. Catholics at 17 percent and mainline Protestants at 19 percent fall much behind. The last two rarely attend scripture and prayer study groups.

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