The Least of These: Exploring the Impact of Religious Beliefs on Viewpoints of Economic Inequality

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  • February 26, 2019
Creator
  • Phipps, Catherine
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology
Abstract
  • This honors thesis addresses the importance of understanding how religious beliefs, specifically within Christian denominations, impact/affect perceptions of economic inequality. Religion is an important and pervasive force for understanding how people view economic inequality and has traditionally been painted as a conservative force in regards to responses to economic inequality. However, three prominent theologians, Sider, Chilton, and Keller, highlight/encapsulate a lack of consensus on the effect of religion on beliefs about inequality, which poses a question regarding the role of religion in shaping beliefs about inequality. The majority of sociological literature regarding the connection between religion and viewpoints of inequality focuses on demographic characteristics and measuring generosity as indicators of attitudes toward inequality via the 1986 GSS (Kluegel and Smith 1986, Will 1993, Pyle 1993, Will and Cochran 1995, Regnerus, Sikkink, and Smith 1998, Clydesdale 1999, Robinson 2009). However, quantitative research on demographic factors and measures of generosity has proven to be insufficient to explain the impact of religious beliefs on viewpoints of inequality. Therefore, this study, through a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with pastors from the Durham- Chapel Hill area, seeks to more closely examine the impact that Christian beliefs have on views of economic inequality. The results from these interviews indicate that religious beliefs act as a non-conservative force due to an emphasis on the Bible as the foundational framework through which they view inequality, the belief that Christians are specifically called to fight inequality, as well as an obligation to adopt the heart of God in regards to the poor.
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  • In Copyright
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  • Funding: None
Advisor
  • Mouw, Ted
Degree
  • Bachelor of Arts
Academic concentration
  • Sociology
Honors level
  • Honors
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Graduation year
  • 2017
Language
  • English

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