By S. Brent Plate

Noted last week by CNN, NBC, NPR, and multiple newspapers, Baylor University’s “Institute for Studies of Religion” has just released the findings of a major survey on religious beliefs in the United States. The full title of the report is “American Piety in the 21st Century: New Insights to the Depth and Complexity of Religion in the US.” The introduction begins in a defensive mode, noting how many European commentators have suggested religion in the United States is “a mile wide and an inch deep.” This group of Baylor scholars set out to show the diversity of US religion, and it is indeed a great addition to the canon of surveys already out there, and a needed antidote to certain trivial perspectives from without.

However, I’m not sure we get more than two inches here. It seems the real highlight is the diversity of evangelicalism in contemporary America.

The survey begins broad, asking “With what religious family do you most closely identify,” providing boxes for “Hindu,” “Muslim,” and “Buddhist,” and about 30 options for flavors of Christianity (depending on how one counts such things). No diversity within Buddhism is possible, however, nor is there any difference between Lubavitch or Reform Judaism, nor is there seemingly anything more specific than Orthodox Christianity, which on this survey includes Eastern, Russian, and Greek strands.

By questions three and four, we are already firmly into Christian-only territory, with options for religious identity tags being: “Born-Again,” Bible-Believing,” “Fundamentalist,” “Mainline Christian,” et al., and nothing corresponding to a non-Christian identification. Most of the tags would fall under the general rubric of “evangelical Christian,” and here is where I begin to believe the concerns of the survey were not to show the diversity of religion, but of evangelicalism more specifically.

So, while early questions remain neutral by asking about “religious services/places of worship,” by question thirteen we find that our “friends” can either, A) go to my church, B) go to a different church, or C) they are not religious at all. My friends have no other options, leaving me to realize I can no longer use the apology, “But some of my best friends are Jewish.” (Hint: Jews don’t go to “church,” and neither do Muslims, Buddhists, or most of the world.)

If we non-Christians were not feeling left out enough, in question 13 our options for prayer are limited to the possibilities: A) Pray to God, B) Pray to Jesus, C) sometimes God/sometimes Jesus, or D) “other (please specify).” (I love getting the chance to specify my favorite deity in a box the size of my fingernail.)

Where the survey does break new ground is in its section on “Consumption of Religious Goods,” offering marketing questions about how much people spend on “religious products,” and when they do, do they buy religious jewelry, t-shirts, books, or music?

Nonetheless, here too the questions about what books have been read are almost entirely in the Christian, and more specifically evangelical, realm. People are asked whether they have read the Left Behind series, books by Jim Wallis, Rick Warren, or James Dobson. A few “new-age” products are the only competitors to the evangelical marketplace. But why not include on the list Irshad Manji’s New York Times Best Seller, The Trouble with Islam, or the hugely popular books by Thich Nhat Hanh or the Dalai Lama? Actually, many evangelical Christians read those too. So, just what is it these researchers were looking for?

The results of the survey indicate that over 80% of Americans are within one Christian tradition or another, and a full third of the population identifies as “evangelical Christian.” So perhaps it would be natural to ask all the questions about Christianity. But then again, of course, that is to make the always-tenuous polling extrapolation from a 1,700-person survey to a population of almost 300 million.

I suppose, were I a Jain and received this survey to complete, I might not be very interested in filling in the boxes and returning it, since only a few of the questions really pertained to me and my family, or my friends. And considering a fair amount of current, well-publicized hostility in the US toward those of other nationalities and religious traditions, and considering the rampant data collection on individuals being undertaken by the current Federal administration, I might be a tad unwilling to discuss my true views.

In the end, the Baylor survey reminds me of the Parson Thwackum character in Henry Fielding’s novel Tom Jones, who forthrightly acknowledges his definition of religion: “When I mention religion, I mean the Christian religion; and not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant religion, but the Church of England.”

Many of us living in this country experience true religious diversity on a daily basis. But we are still waiting for a survey that actually reflects the practices and beliefs in the streets.

Dr. Plate is currently Visiting Fellow at the Baker-Nord Center for Humanities, Case Western Reserve University, and has published several books including Walter Benjamin, Religion, and Aesthetics, and Re-Viewing the Passion: Mel Gibson’s Film and Its Critics.