The More Research the Better

Humanists say LifeWay Research was biased, but both polls are helpful

Can an evangelical research firm poll fairly on matters of religion?

Hemant Mehta, the “Friendly Atheist,” references our poll and compares it to a more recent one commissioned by the American Humanist Association (AHA). He said the AHA chose to conduct a new poll because they felt our results were “skewed.”

Actually, originally he indicated that the poll was useless since, of course Americans would say they wanted to keep the pledge. It appears that the AHA felt differently—so differently that they had to commission another poll, specifically to disprove the useless LifeWay Research poll.

The AHA recently released the results of a survey, asking Americans if the words “Under God” should be removed from the Pledge. They found that about a third of Americans say the phrase, “Under God” should be taken out.

By contrast, a 2013 poll from LifeWay Research found that only 8 percent of Americans support such a change.

Why such a big difference? The AHA’s researchers says our poll was biased.

The full report on the survey points out that LifeWay Research is a “evangelical research firm.”

“As such, it appears to have an inherent bias in conducting research on religious attitudes,” says the report.

I disagree.

Perhaps the good folks at the AHA missed this poll from 2013, which showed that less than 4 in 10 Americans believe that homosexuality is sin, and the number of Americans who think that homosexuality is sinful continues to drop.

That’s not the outcome that most evangelicals want to hear. But it’s what the survey said, so that’s what we reported.

I’ve got a better explanation for why the LifeWay and AHA polls …