A recent study published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion suggests that racial resentment plays a major role in driving conservative political beliefs among White Americans who are not religiously conservative. While White religious conservatives tend to support right-leaning policies regardless of their racial attitudes, harboring racial resentment provides evidence of a conservative political shift among White religious moderates, liberals, and nonreligious individuals. Philip Schwadel, a sociology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, conducted the new study to explore how racial attitudes influence the political leanings of different religious groups. “The research and popular discourse on racism/racial resentment, religion, and politics focuses on how views of race connect white evangelical Christians to conservative politics and the Republican party,” Schwadel said. “While it is true that white evangelicals and political conservatives are both relatively likely to express racial resentment, that does not mean non-evangelical whites express no racial resentment,” Schwadel told PsyPost. “So, I thought it would be informative to examine how racial resentment explains differences in political affiliations/orientations among various white religious …