The Influence of Prevailing Regional Political Narratives on Intuitions Featured in Religious Messages

Recent research suggests that political beliefs in different geographic locations shape religious groups’ sensitivity toward and representation of moral intuitions. Guided by moral foundations theory, we test this possibility with content analysis. We compared moral intuitions represented in church sermons of one religious denomination located in counties with liberal versus conservative voting records. Fifty-eight sermons based on identical biblical texts were selected from churches located in 28 liberal and 30 conservative counties throughout the United States. Chi-square analyses revealed: (1) sermons from conservative counties featured more moral intuitions overall than sermons from liberal counties, and (2) ingroup loyalty was overrepresented in sermons from conservative counties.