One God, four views

Not all Americans see the powerful old man in the sky

WACO, TEXAS -- We may be "one nation, under God," but Americans actually worship at least four versions of the Lord, according to the Baylor Religion Survey released Monday. "American Piety in the 21st Century: New Insights into the Depth and Complexity of Religion in the United States," conducted by the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, leveled more than two dozen questions about God's character and behavior at 1,721 Americans nationwide. They perceived of God in one of four ways:

Authoritarian God: Individuals who follow this model feel God is highly involved in their personal lives and world affairs, they give the Deity credit for their decision-making, and they feel God is angry and meting out punishment to the wicked.

Benevolent God: These believers also think God is very active in their daily life, just not as wrathful. They believe Benevolent God is mostly a force for positive influence in the world, and reluctant to condemn individuals.

Critical God: The faithful of this subset believe God is not meddling in world affairs but is nonetheless looking on in disapproval. These people tend to believe that God's displeasure will be felt in another life, and that divine justice is not of this world.

Distant God: Individuals in this group think that Distant God is not active in human affairs, and is not especially angry, either. Believers consider the Deity more of a cosmic force who sets the laws of nature into motion.

Which of the God models you follow is an accurate predictor of a number of factors, including race, political stances, even where you live, said Paul Froese, a Baylor sociologist who worked on the BISR project headed by Rodney Stark and Byron Johnson.

For example, there is a strong gender differential in belief in God. Women, he said, tend toward the more engaged versions (types A and B), while men tend toward the less engaged and are more likely to be atheist. More than half the blacks in the study said they believe in the Authoritarian God. None surveyed said they were atheist.

Lower-income and less-educated folk were more likely to worship God types A or B, while those with college degrees or earning more than $100,000 were more likely to believe in the Distant God or be atheists.

Froese noted that the geography also seemed to correlate: Easterners disproportionately seem to believe in a Critical God; Southerners tend toward the Authoritarian God; Midwesterners worship the Benevolent God; and West Coast residents contemplate the Distant God.

American Piety found also that God's anger alone (such as type C) does little to inspire religious participation. The authors suggest religion may most successfully motivate individuals through what it can offer them in spiritual intimacy and congregational connectivity rather than through demands backed by threats of divine punishment. Believers in an "angry" God tend to reject the idea that church and state are or can be separate, and are more likely to feel that one's religious faith is exclusively the correct path of righteousness. The belief that God is engaged in the world also is associated with higher expressions of religious involvement and commitment, the study found. Other findings in the expansive, newly released Baylor study:

* Catholics and mainline Protestants are more apt to see God as distant, as are Jews.

* Evangelical and black Protestants lean toward the Authoritarian God.