{"id":422,"date":"2011-03-24T21:34:49","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T01:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=422"},"modified":"2011-03-24T21:45:20","modified_gmt":"2011-03-25T01:45:20","slug":"poll-u-s-christians-conflicted-about-why-disasters-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/poll-u-s-christians-conflicted-about-why-disasters-strike.html","title":{"rendered":"Poll: U.S. Christians Conflicted About Why Disasters Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This month&#8217;s<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/03\/24\/poll-most-americans-dont-_n_840239.html\">\u00a0new Public Religion Research Institute poll <\/a>asked how America&#8217;s evangelicals, mainline Protestants,\u00a0 Catholics and minority Christians felt about natural disasters, like Japan&#8217;s earthquake-tsunami-nuclear crisis, as it relates to their understanding of God. The findings include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Most white evangelicals (84 percent) and minority Christians (76 percent) believe <strong>God is in control of everything<\/strong> that happens in the world, compared to a slim majority of white mainline Protestants (55 percent) and Catholics (52 percent).<\/li>\n<li>White evangelicals (53 percent) are most likely to agree that<strong> God punishes nations for the sins of some citizens<\/strong>, followed by 40 percent of minority Christians and just 20 percent of white mainline Protestants or Catholics.<\/li>\n<li>Most minority Christians (61 percent) believe <strong>natural disasters are God\u2019s way of testing our faith<\/strong>, while evangelical Christians are somewhat divided (51 percent agree, 43 percent disagree, 5 percent don\u2019t know). Most white mainline Protestants (57 percent) and Catholics (56 percent) disagree.<\/li>\n<li>Most white evangelicals (59 percent) and minority Christians (53 percent) see <strong>natural disasters as a sign from God<\/strong>; most white mainline Protestants (63 percent) and Catholics (63 percent) disagree.<\/li>\n<li>Nearly half of Americans (44 percent) say the increased severity of <strong>recent natural disasters are evidence of biblical \u201cend times,\u201d <\/strong>but more (58 percent) believe they are evidence of climate change. The only religious group more likely to believe that natural disasters are evidence of \u201cend times\u201d than climate change is white evangelicals (67 percent to 52 percent).<\/li>\n<li>Most white evangelicals (67 percent) and minority Christians (67 percent) think the severity of recent natural disasters is a sign of biblical \u201cend times;\u201d most white mainline Protestants (68 percent) and Catholics (61 percent) disagree.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/religion\/2011-03-25-God_disaster_24_ST_N.htm?csp=34&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Religion-TopStories+%28News+-+Religion+-+Top+Stories%29\">my Religion News Service story here<\/a>\u00a0; <a href=\"http:\/\/religion.lohudblogs.com\/2011\/03\/24\/poll-asks-was-japanese-disaster-a-sign-from-god\/comment-page-1\/#comment-15945\">The Journal News<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/03\/24\/most-americans-think-god-is-in-control-for-better-or-worse\/\">CNN <\/a>and other outlets are also reporting on this poll.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p>*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to\u00a0<strong>subscribe to Belief Beat\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to\u00a0<strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This month&#8217;s\u00a0new Public Religion Research Institute poll asked how America&#8217;s evangelicals, mainline Protestants,\u00a0 Catholics and minority Christians felt about natural disasters, like Japan&#8217;s earthquake-tsunami-nuclear crisis, as it relates to their understanding of God. The findings include: Most white evangelicals (84 percent) and minority Christians (76 percent) believe God is in control of everything that happens&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Poll: U.S. Christians Conflicted About Why Disasters Strike - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/poll-u-s-christians-conflicted-about-why-disasters-strike.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poll: U.S. Christians Conflicted About Why Disasters Strike - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This month&#8217;s\u00a0new Public Religion Research Institute poll asked how America&#8217;s evangelicals, mainline Protestants,\u00a0 Catholics and minority Christians felt about natural disasters, like Japan&#8217;s earthquake-tsunami-nuclear crisis, as it relates to their understanding of God. The findings include: Most white evangelicals (84 percent) and minority Christians (76 percent) believe God is in control of everything that happens&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/poll-u-s-christians-conflicted-about-why-disasters-strike.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-25T01:34:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-03-25T01:45:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Poll: U.S. Christians Conflicted About Why Disasters Strike - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/poll-u-s-christians-conflicted-about-why-disasters-strike.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Poll: U.S. Christians Conflicted About Why Disasters Strike - Belief Beat","og_description":"This month&#8217;s\u00a0new Public Religion Research Institute poll asked how America&#8217;s evangelicals, mainline Protestants,\u00a0 Catholics and minority Christians felt about natural disasters, like Japan&#8217;s earthquake-tsunami-nuclear crisis, as it relates to their understanding of God. The findings include: Most white evangelicals (84 percent) and minority Christians (76 percent) believe God is in control of everything that happens&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/poll-u-s-christians-conflicted-about-why-disasters-strike.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-03-25T01:34:49+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-03-25T01:45:20+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/poll-u-s-christians-conflicted-about-why-disasters-strike.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/poll-u-s-christians-conflicted-about-why-disasters-strike.html","name":"Poll: U.S. Christians Conflicted About Why Disasters Strike - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-03-25T01:34:49+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-25T01:45:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/poll-u-s-christians-conflicted-about-why-disasters-strike.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/poll-u-s-christians-conflicted-about-why-disasters-strike.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/03\/poll-u-s-christians-conflicted-about-why-disasters-strike.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Poll: U.S. Christians Conflicted About Why Disasters Strike"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions\/425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}