The Pew Research Center surveyed 742 Americans including white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated during the week of April 14-21 and found that 60% of evangelical churchgoers favored torture while only 40% of the unaffiliated agreed with them.
CNN reports:
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.
Mainline Protestants were the most likely to say torture is never justified, the report says. Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans and Presbyterians. Three in 10 mainline protestants say torture is never justified compared to 2 in 10 non-hispanic Roman Catholics and 16% of white evangelicals.