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ble, compared with 50% of whites and 40% of Hispan- ics. Scripture’s importance to the black population in the U.S. is reflected in Pew Research Center survey data showing that black people are more likely than most other Americans to read scripture regularly and to view it as the word of God. Black people overall are also more likely than people in other racial or ethnic groups to be- lieve the Bible or other holy scripture should be inter- preted literally. Roughly half (51%) of black Americans feel this way, compared with 26% of whites and 38% of Hispanics. Among those in the historically black Prot- estant tradition, 59% hold this view, compared with 24% of mainline Protestants and 26% of Catholics. On this issue, the views of those in the historically black Protestant tradition are more comparable to those of evangelical Protestants (55%).
Research has shown that men in the United States are generally less religious than women. And while this pat- tern holds true among black Americans – black women tend to be more religious than black men – black men are still a highly religious group. In fact, black men are not only more religious than white men, but they also tend to be more religious than white women, a Pew Re- search Center analysis shows. Black men are also more religious than Hispanic men and at least as religious as Hispanic women on a number of key indicators of reli- gious observance.
About seven-in-ten (69%) black men say religion is very important to them, compared with 80% of black women. But black men place more importance on re- ligion than white women (55%) and Hispanic wom- en (65%), according to the 2014 Religious Landscape Study.
The same dynamic holds true when it comes to belief in God. Roughly eight-in-ten (78%) black men say they believe in God with “absolute certainty,” a higher level of belief than is found among white women (67%) and Hispanic women (65%), though, again, lower than the level of belief seen among black women (86%).
The Center also uses a scale that combines responses to four questions – frequency of prayer, belief in God, attendance at religious services and importance of reli- gion in their lives – to classify Americans’ levels of reli- gious belief and practice as high, moderate or low.
On this scale, black men (70%) are less likely than black women (83%) to be categorized as highly religious. At the same time, they are more likely than white women (58%) and roughly as likely as Hispanic women (67%) to be in the highly religious category. They are also much more likely than Hispanic men (50%) and white
men (44%) to be highly religious. Mississippi, Alabama and other Southern states are among the most high- ly religious states in the nation, while New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine in New England are among the least devout, according to some of the key measures used to determine levels of religiosity in the Pew Research Center’s most recent Religious Landscape Study.
So why don’t people read the Bible? They:
Don’t prioritize it (27 percent).
Don’t have time (15 percent).
Have read it enough (13 percent). Disagree with what it says (10 percent). Don’t read books (9 percent).
Don’t see how it relates to them (9 percent). Don’t have one (6 percent).
The LifeWay Research was a survey of 1,000 people, drawn from a panel designed to be representative of the U.S. pop- ulation, was conducted Sept. 27-Oct. 1, 2016, and had an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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