Western European Christians are more likely than the religiously unaffiliated to express anti-immigrant and anti-minority views, with Catholics tending to have more negative views of Muslims than Protestants, a new Pew Research Center survey said.
The survey, “Being Christian in Western Europe”, researched last year after a surge in immigration from Muslim-majority countries, emphasised that most Western Europeans reject negative statements about Muslims and Jews. However, identifiable minorities of practising Christians and self-identified Christians who are not regular churchgoers were more hostile to outsiders than “nones” in almost all of the 15 countries surveyed, and more wanted to limit immigration. “The study shows a strong association between Christian identity and nationalist attitudes, as well as views of religious minorities and immigration, and a weaker association between religious commitment and these views,” the survey said.
While identification with Christianity has declined across the region, graphs showed small recent upticks in Britain, Spain and Denmark.
In the UK, 45 per cent of practising Christians and 47 per cent of non-observant Christians said that Islam was fundamentally incompatible with British values and culture, compared to the 30 per cent of religiously non-affiliated Britons who said the same.
By contrast, Britain scored among the lowest among countries calling for less immigration.
The study said Catholics hold more negative views of Muslims than Protestants when asked if they would welcome a Muslim into their family, or whether Muslim women should be able to wear religious clothing.
Pew said this trend was hard to explain, but that it was visible both in Catholic-majority countries along the Mediterranean and in countries such as Britain and Germany with large populations from both denominations.
The survey showed lower but persistent levels of prejudice against Jews across Western Europe. In general, the survey said that despite Western Europe’s widespread secularisation, 71 per cent of the 24,599 adults surveyed identified as Christians, although only 22 per cent attend church at least once monthly.
Non-observant Christians make up the largest group in the survey, at almost half the sample, double the number of unaffiliated. Churchgoers made up 18 per cent of the sample. “Christian identity remains a meaningful marker in Western Europe,” the survey said.
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