The Structuring of Political Attitudes among Liberal and Conservative Protestants

Abstract

Twenty years ago Johnson (1967) found that conservative Protestant clergy took less consistent stands than their liberal Protestant counterparts on a variety of political issues. Later research, however, suggests that members of conservative Protestant denominations may have become a politicized mass public. We approach this question by comparing conservative and liberal Protestants on their level of abstract political conceptualization and political belief system consistency. Using data from the 1972, 1980, and 1984 American National Election Studies, we find that conservative Protestants continue to show somewhat lower levels of political sophistication, attitude consistency, and consensus on issues. The results show that the conservative Protestant mass public remains less likely to link issues to the left/right political ideology in which political conflicts are framed and suggest a somewhat lower level of psychological involvement with politics among conservative Protestants.