New analysis of research is challenging common stereotypes about politically conservative religious people, who, though thought to be religious and “cold-blooded,” report being as empathetic as political “bleeding-heart” liberals when surveyed.

According to a study examining data from the General Social Survey — a National Science Foundation-funded sociological survey created and collected since 1972 out of the University of Chicago — political conservatives who are highly religious are as likely as political liberals to report similar levels of empathy, such as “having tender feelings of concern for others or being greatly disturbed by the others misfortunes of others,” noted David Briggs, writing Tuesday in the Association of Religion Data Archives.

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Obscured by a vitriolic political climate today, the actual attitudes of religious conservatives are much more complicated, he said, as evangelicals are a diverse group of people….

They concluded: “In the current polarized political landscape, the capacity to see beyond caricatures of ‘the left’ and ‘the right’ is essential for finding some degree of social cohesion and unity.”

(Excerpt from Brandon Showalter article in The Christian Post)