Evangelical Protestants, regardless of their race, provided the most detailed descriptions of God and were less likely than those from other religious groups to be at a loss for words. Each of the major religious groups is about equally likely to describe God as loving, caring or compassionate. Overall, evangelicals, both white and black, had more to say about God in the poll than did mainline Protestants and Catholics. In addition to looking at the broad categories, answers to this question were coded to identify the one or two key words used in the description. Men and women use the same words to describe God, though their lists differ slightly.
Women place somewhat more emphasis on love than do men.
Love is the top response of each of the major religious groups, and beyond that, there is a good deal of overlap in terms of the words these groups use to describe God. There are, however, a few terms that stand out within the various groups. Among religious groups, black evangelical Protestants are most likely to take the Bible literally as the actual word of God. By contrast, less than half of black mainline Protestants and less than a quarter of white mainline Protestants and white non-Hispanic Catholics say the Bible should be taken literally. Majorities in these groups say the Bible is the word of God, but should not be taken literally.