Non-Christian Asian Americans and Religious Tolerance

Last updated on: December 10, 2011 at 4:37 pm by Jerry Park

Non-Christian Asian Americans and Religious Tolerance 2011-12-10T16:37:57-05:00 Jerry Park

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In earlier posts I’ve shown how difficult it is to get a good survey of religion among Asian Americans, and I’ve shown what we sort of know about the actual religious prevalence of this racial group. The one group I have neglected to mention are the religiously-affiliated non-Christians. In the following pie charts I illustrate data using the Pew Religious Landscape Survey 2008 of the estimated distribution of major world religions for the entire sample and within the Asian American sample. As you recall this was only translated into Spanish so, the Asian American findings pertain to those who are comfortable answering a survey over the phone in English.

The largest three non-Christian traditions among English-preferred Asian Americans are Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, and they take up 10, 15 and 4% respectively of all Asian Americans in the sample. This may not seem like much but consider the comparison to the overall sample where Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam combined account for less than 3%.

Another way of saying this is that major non-Christian religions are over-represented among Asian Americans. In gross numbers that around 5 million people. Keep in mind this estimate is based on a sample with no Asian-language translation, so this is a low estimate. In my opinion, if we want to understand the social and political (as well as religious) views of our non-Christian friends, neighbors and co-workers, we should survey Asian Americans.

Since 9/11 attention to our religious diversity and our tolerance of religious difference has been at an all-time high. From my limited purview of American history, we’ve not had a great track record at respecting our religious differences. It’s true, the magnitude of violence against religious minorities whether Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Native American has not been as severe compared to the religious wars in Europe, but the issue is one of ideals: as a nation we actually were founded in part on religious tolerance, so if there’s one characteristic that should stand out as particularly American, it should be that. My hometown of Philadelphia was particularly known for advocating this idea. Nevertheless what we know is the following: anti-Catholic sentiment persisted right until Kennedy (and some would say continues so with the unbalanced attention given to the sexual misbehavior among Catholic clergy compared to Protestant clergy). Anti-Semitism remains the highest reported religious hate crime according to the FBI’s hate crime report (each report shows this as far back as 2002 in a quick look). And implicitly, with the exclusion of the Chinese and all Asian immigrants from the 1880s through the 1960s anti-Buddhist, anti-Hindu and anti-Muslim sentiment was implied. And most important, anti-Muslim sentiment has continued unabated since 2001.

Since this blog is largely aimed at a Christian audience, my question is this: what are our responsibilities toward our religious non-Christian friends and neighbors and co-workers? For some, I would guess that religious tolerance is one of the hallmark characteristics of a good American Christian. Just as we want our freedom to express our faith, so we wish that others would share in that freedom. In that way, being Christian and upholding the ideal of American religious tolerance go hand in hand. Such believers tend to say that Christianity is not the only religion containing ultimate truth. Other Christians might see this view at odds with their understanding of Christianity. Tolerance sure, but at the end of the day, Christianity (particularly their version of it) has the exclusive hold on ultimate truth. Sociologist Robert Wuthnow describes these two perspectives as “religious inclusivism” and “religious exclusivism” in his study on Americans’ views on religious diversity.

He found that Christians generally are quite supportive of religious diversity but the support seems to be rather thin. While religiously inclusive Americans tend to be more supportive of religious diversity, very few of these folks actually know all that much about Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam. On top of that, they tend not to know anyone who follows these religions. Religious exclusivists may believe that their religion is the one that gets them to heaven, but apparently they too do little to actually try and “win” over their non-Christian co-workers and teammates. Apparently a culture of tolerance dampens their zeal. Indeed his chapter on interreligious marriages suggests that the main solution for respecting one another’s religious differences is to not talk about it at all.

Mazie Hirono US Rep (HI, 2010-), Buddhist American

actor Kal Penn, Hindu American

Actor/ Comedian Aasif Mandvi, Muslim American

As a point of scholarly interest, it would be interesting to learn what religious Asian Americans think about religious tolerance since they are much more likely to encounter diversity than other Americans either in their families or friendships.

What do Chinese Christians and Buddhists think of one another? What do Indian American Christians, Hindus and Muslims think of one another? Do they have meaningful relationships with each other while still holding to their faith? Does their ethnic minority status trump their religious differences in their identity?

On a prescriptive note, in a nation that prides itself on religious tolerance, it seems unfortunate that we choose to disengage one another. It’s great that we’re so tolerant but surely we can do better than just advocate for religious tolerance. Could we not learn from one another by having a dinner conversation or catching a game on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon?

Jerry Park

American

Asian American Religion

Previous Post

December 8, 2011

Why Do Christians Leave the Faith? The Relative Unimportance of Non-Christians

Next Post

December 10, 2011 The New Evangelicals?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Amy Reynolds Becky Hsu Brad Wright critical realism George Yancey Gerardo Marti Jeremy Rhodes Jerry Park John Schmalzbauer Margarita Mooney Mark Regnerus Nicolette Manglos positive sociology Richard Flory Robert Woodberry Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2017 August 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz