Study examines the importance of religion to Black men

(Defender News Service) — Black men are second only to Black women at the top of several measures of religious belief among Americans, a study said.

While men tend to be less religious than women, nearly 70 percent of Black men said they are religious – compared to 65 percent of Hispanic women and 55 percent of White woman – the Pew Research Center reported.

Black women are the most religious demographic in the nation at 80 percent, the analysis of 2014 data from more than 35,000 Americans across the county found.

Research has shown that men in the United States are generally less religious than women. And while this pattern 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 Research 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 religious observance.

About seven-in-ten (69 percent) Black men say religion is very important to them, compared with 80 percent of Black women. But Black men place more importance on religion than white women (55 percent) and Hispanic women (65 percent), according to the 2014 Religious Landscape Study.

The same dynamic holds true when it comes to belief in God. Roughly eight-in-ten (78 percent) Black men say they believe in God with “absolute certainty,” a higher level of belief than is found among white women (67 percent) and Hispanic women (65 percent), though, again, lower than the level of belief seen among Black women (86 percent).

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 religion in their lives – to classify Americans’ levels of religious belief and practice as high, moderate or low.

On this scale, Black men (70 percent) are less likely than Black women (83 percent) to be categorized as highly religious. At the same time, they are more likely than white women (58 percent) and roughly as likely as Hispanic women (67 percent) to be in the highly religious category. They are also much more likely than Hispanic men (50 percent) and white men (44 percent) to be highly religious.

This article originally published in the October 8, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.