A recent article at The Atlantic reported that white evangelicals in the United States think they suffer more discrimination than Muslims. Among white evangelicals, 57 percent say there is a lot of anti-Christian discrimination. Only 44 percent say there is a lot of anti-Muslim discrimination. Are evangelicals guilty of bias blindness?

Many of my progressive friends on Facebook poked fun at these persecution-crying Christians, wondering how evangelicals could be so blind. (For the record, I would have answered that there is plenty of both types of discrimination).

Research, Not Anecdotes

But what if white evangelicals are right? Could they be? I looked at current social research, including some of my own, to find out. The answer turns out not to be so simple; it depends on the situation and the context.

Every group has stories of being mistreated, so I knew anecdotal evidence wouldn’t show who has it worse. Instead I looked for systematic research directly comparing Christians, especially evangelicals, to Muslims.

Anti-Muslim Discrimination

As the Atlantic article correctly points out, Muslims are more vulnerable to hate crimes. FBI statistics show there were 307 Muslim victims of hate crimes in 2015, compared to only 48 Protestant victims. The disparity is large, considering that the number of Muslims is a fraction of the number of Protestants in the United States.

While Muslims face bias in certain settings, so too do evangelical Christians in other settings.

There’s other evidence of systematic discrimination that Muslims face. Bradley Wright, a Christian scholar, documented that Muslims applying for entry-level jobs in the South and New England are less likely to get callbacks from potential employers than Christians. This discrimination is not on a par with the historical structural racism experienced by African-Americans. Muslims are not economically worse off than evangelical Christians or Catholics. But it is unfair nonetheless.

Anti-Christian Discrimination

While Muslims face bias in certain settings, so too do evangelical Christians in other settings. In my own discipline, for example, I have documented that 38.8 percent of sociologists would be less willing to hire someone as a professor in their departments if they knew he or she was an evangelical. Only 4.8 percent of sociologists have the same attitude towards Muslims. I found similar disparities in a variety of disciplines, both in the sciences and the humanities.

Little research has been done to examine prejudice against conservative Christians.

Little research has been done to examine prejudice against conservative Christians, which is not surprising given that academics have a clearly identifiable bias against them. My own research is the only work that compares anti-Christian and anti-Muslim bias directly. I list some of the small body of existing research here.

In addition to that list, there is also research that reveals a negative framing of fundamentalist Christians in the media. I’ve also just wrapped up some new research on this subject. I found that when media personnel are presented with identical situations involving Christians and Muslims, they express more concern over hatred against Muslims than against Christians. (I will have more to say about this after it’s been published.) This strongly suggests that the media’s treatment of Christians is less sympathetic than its approach toward Muslims.

Who’s In Charge?

Some people have complained about religious discrimination in President Trump’s temporary travel ban proposals. I think those concerns are on the right track, and I have written about Christians’ need to defend Muslims’ religious liberty. Many of the same people complaining today about Trump’s immigration policy were silent, however, when Obama’s immigration policy discriminated against Syrian Christians. It seems that religious bias shows up in immigration policy depending on which administration is in charge, rather than any consistent societal bias against one religious group.

Making Sense of the Differences

How do we make sense of the different contexts in which Muslims and conservative Christians face bias? In my research on Christianophobia I found that about the same percentage of people who hate Muslims also hate fundamentalist Christians. There were important differences, however, in who expressed that hatred. Those who expressed dislike toward Muslims tended to be white, male, older and politically conservative. Those who expressed similar feelings toward conservative Christians tended to be white, male, wealthy, highly educated and politically progressive.

The answer isn’t as clear cut as many progressives think it is.

Muslims may therefore be at a disadvantage in settings where white conservative males predominate, for example, entry-level hiring. Conservative white males may also be relatively more likely to engage in violence than wealthy educated progressives.

On the other hand, highly educated, wealthy political progressives tend to hold power in cultural institutions such as academia and the media. It makes sense that there would be comparatively more anti-Christian bias in those institutions.

It’s reasonable to argue that Muslims suffer more damaging bias than evangelical Christians. They are at more risk of religious-based violence, and they tend to have a harder time obtaining entry-level occupational positions.

At the same time — and without contradiction, since the contexts differ — it’s also reasonable to argue that evangelical Christians experience more damaging bias than Muslims. They face prejudice from the powerful cultural centers of our society.

So then, who faces worse bias? The answer isn’t as clear cut as many progressives think it is.