Sinners, immigrants and climate change aren’t to blame for the coronavirus — it’s governments here and abroad, according to most religious Americans. In a new study by the University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, Americans who said they believe in God were polled about whether COVID-19 is a message from God, if the pandemic has challenged their spirituality and how freedom of religion fits into it all. They were also asked about “the cause of the current coronavirus situation in the United States.” “What is striking is that when it comes to blame, people are not pointing fingers at particular groups such as sinners, non-believers, or followers of other faiths. Nor are they looking for natural causes ,” David Nirenberg, Dean of the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, said in a news release. “People are pointing fingers at governments.” To conduct the study, researchers polled 1,002 individuals from April 30 to May 4 using a probability-based panel designed to represent the U.S. household population. Surveys were conducted online or over the phone in both English and Spanish with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points at a […]
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