Q+A with Coco Xu

Coco Xu is a research associate for More in Common, an organization trying to tamp down political polarization. She's the lead researcher on a groundbreaking study released Tuesday examining attitudes within and towards the nation's religious communities. Xu sat down with Ledyard King to discuss the report—Promising Revelations: Undoing the False Impressions of America’s Faithful—and the myths it tries to dispel surrounding faith in the U.S. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Give us an overview of what you wanted to unearth here and what you found.

We found that there are three big myths, three misperceptions when it comes to religion in America. The first one is people wrongly assume that faith is all about politics. There's this misperception that a religious setting is now a political arena where people prioritize politics over all else. Our research found that that's not true at all. Most people still turn to their faith for spirituality and for a relationship with God.

The second misperception we found is that faith is becoming irrelevant. A lot of this comes from our discourse's emphasis on the rise of the religious "nones" and the decline in church attendance rate, which is all true, and this narrative is justified. But at the same time it doesn't capture the whole story. What we found in our research is that faith is still relevant to many Americans, and faith identity is still an important part of who they are, regardless of whether they go to church or not. And we also found that young Americans, Gen Z, are actually more likely than average to turn to faith for belonging and community, which is something that's rarely talked about in the news cycle, and something to really ponder on when it comes to the future of faith.

And the third misperception we found is that many people believe that religious Americans are intolerant, which was also not true at all. We found that Americans underestimate the support for religious pluralism among evangelicals, Muslims, Catholics, and the religiously unaffiliated folks. And these misperceptions all together really hinder our ability to see our common ground across differences. By acknowledging that these are misperceptions, we can open up more spaces to think about what's the role of faith in countering polarization.

How did we get to a place where religion is so identified with polarization even if it’s not true?

One of the driving factors for some misperceptions is social media use. We are here partly because of the information silos that we've reduced ourselves to and that we've been confined to. And a lot of the time, the narratives that we tell about different faith communities are not rooted in personal contacts or relationships with these individuals. It’s rooted in what we see online, and a lot of times those are not the full picture. So I think it's the information bubble. And it's really important to address them right now because the more we believe in these misperceptions, they become perceptions and they become the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

Your study talks about how prominent faith leaders are openly endorsing presidential candidates, and religious affiliation is now one of the key predictors of voting behavior. Are faith leaders speaking for their followers?

The phenomena we're seeing that faith leaders are endorsing candidates—that's definitely in the minority, and our research found that most Americans of faith across different communities don't want their faith leaders to endorse candidates. They are open to discussing social issues. But when it comes to politics, especially partisanship, people are really averse to those conversations.

So your research suggests a political endorsement by a prominent rabbi or evangelical leader, a Muslim imam, really doesn't have much sway on their followers?

I would say that our research speaks more to the local faith leaders. So the way we've asked our question is whether people want their local imams or rabbis or pastors to endorse candidates, and the answer is "no." They still turn to those faith leaders for more spiritual guidance on a range of issues, including how to navigate polarization, but they're not looking for candidate endorsement.

The report finds that non-evangelicals significantly overestimate the importance that evangelicals place on their political identity and partisan affiliation. What do you mean by that?

We found that only 4 percent of evangelical Christians say that being a Democrat or being a Republican is their most important identity. But non-evangelicals estimate that over 40 percent of evangelicals would say their political party affiliation is their most important identity. So we see this huge gap between what we think evangelicals believe in versus what they actually believe in. In reality, evangelicals actually prioritize their faith identity, or being a Christian, the most, and politics is not the way they see themselves.

And on the question on partisan affiliation, we found that only 20 percent of evangelicals say being a good Christian means supporting the Republican Party, but non-evangelicals estimate that over half of evangelical Christians would agree with that statement. In reality, most evangelical Christians don't see voting habits or political party affiliation as the litmus test for who is the devout believer. In conversations with evangelicals, it's mostly still moral values and religiosity that people emphasize when it comes to who is a good Christian.

Have the misperceptions that non-evangelicals hold about the evangelical community fed into polarization?

Yes. We found in our research that the larger non-evangelicals’ misperceptions are towards evangelicals, the more negative or the more coldly they feel towards evangelicals. So a lot of the misperceptions actually shape interfaith relations, which is really why it's crucial to correct these wrong assumptions, because they feed into this cycle of misunderstandings and greater distance from each other. The more we misperceive each other, the less willing we are to engage in personal relationships, which leads to more misunderstandings.

The report uses the term"collateral contempt." Can you explain what that means?

Collateral contempt is the tendency for animosity towards political opponents to spill over towards faith communities based on their perceived alignment with a political team. So what our research found is that the more Democrats and independents overestimate the percentage of evangelicals who are Republicans, the more negative they feel towards anybody who identifies as evangelicals. So essentially, this partisan animosity that's directed towards Republicans is sort of misdirected towards all evangelicals because of this perceived association with the Republican Party.

It’s been a rough year for Jews and Muslims, especially given what's happening in Gaza. How does that play into the point your report makes?

What our research found is that Jewish and Muslim Americans really stand out among all the religious groups we surveyed, especially in their experience with threats to their safety and daily lives. We don't see that in other groups as strongly. And this is a phenomenon that's observed across Jewish and Muslim Americans, regardless of their political association, generations, traditions, or sex. This is just very prevalent across the board, and we think this is an issue that really deserves to be highlighted.

Many Americans feel that their faith group is under attack, but it is Jewish and Muslim Americans who really have to endure the threats to physical safety. And one other point that we found is oftentimes Jewish and Muslim Americans feel that they're not seen as American enough, when in reality both groups have very high levels of American identity salience. So I think this really is related to what we're seeing on the ground. When it comes to conversations about the war in Gaza and about Israel, it's that while those conversations are really important, a lot of the time Jewish and Muslim communities are discussed through this lens. In reality, there are different experiences that need to be highlighted.

Who’s to blame for where we are? A particular party? Political leaders? Social media?

It’s more about the perspective of who has bigger misperceptions about different communities. And what we found is that liberals tend to have greater misperceptions about evangelicals, and when it comes to misperceptions about Muslims, conservatives tend to have bigger misperceptions. And so our report doesn't delve into whether this is a result or consequence of elite cues or information silos, or just the different sources of information we have.