Blessings
Secularization and the Tribulations of the American Working-Class
Brian Wheaton
Harvard Working Paper, November 2020
Abstract:
Over the past several decades, working-class America has been plagued by multiple adverse trends: a sharp increase in social isolation, an even sharper increase in single parenthood, a decline in male labor force participation rates, and a decline in generational economic mobility – amongst other things. Material economic factors have been unable to fully explain these phenomena, often yielding mixed results or – in some cases, such as that of single parenthood – lacking explanatory power altogether. I study the decline in religiosity and, using a shift-share instrument leveraging the fact that different religious denominations are declining at different rates, I find that religious decline has a strong adverse effect on the aforementioned variables. The effects are not weakened by including other potential explanatory factors (such as China trade shocks and variation in public assistance). I present evidence that, to the extent reverse causality exists, it creates bias in the opposite direction of my estimates. These findings are also robust to several alternative instruments, including the repeal of the state blue laws banning retail activity on Sundays and the Catholic church scandals of the 2000s. Two instruments – the blue laws and the state anti-evolution laws mandating teaching of creationism in school – allow me to ascertain whether the effect proceeds through religious attendance or beliefs. I find that, for most outcomes, the bulk of the effect is driven by religious attendance.
The Political Mobilization of America's Congregations
Kraig Beyerlein & Mark Chaves
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
We use data from the National Congregations Study (NCS), including data from the fourth wave, to describe congregations’ political activity in 2018–2019, and to examine change in that activity since 1998. Congregations have become more politically mobilized since 1998, with the majority of congregations (56 percent) engaged in at least one of the political activities asked about in 2018–2019. Black Protestant congregations in particular experienced a surge in political activity since 2012, and congregations with politically liberal convictions or in traditions with more immigrant members have substantially increased their advocacy on behalf of immigrants in recent years. Overall, since 2012 and possibly since 1998, the political mobilization of congregations on the left has increased more than political mobilization of congregations on the right. We also find that 4 percent of (overwhelmingly Catholic) congregations have declared themselves sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants, and a surprisingly large minority (17 percent) of congregations would publicly endorse or oppose political candidates if doing so would not put their tax status at risk. Ironically, in light of the support for this tax law change among conservative leaders, African American and politically liberal congregations are by far most likely to publicly endorse a candidate if they could.
Product Quality and Performance in the Internet Age: Evidence from Creationist-Friendly Curriculum
Ananya Sen & Catherine Tucker
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Curriculum is at the core of school quality. Curriculum changes often attempt to cater to local preferences while adhering to national standards. This tension often drives a school’s decision to invest in curriculum changes even though little is known about how these affect student performance. To examine these interrelated issues of product quality and performance in the education sector, the authors analyze the effect of the Louisiana Science Education Act (2008) on students’ science test performance in nationally administered tests. The law allowed the teaching of creationism as an alternative “theory” to evolution in Louisiana schools. Using detailed data on Louisiana schools, the authors employ a difference-in-differences strategy to document that science test achievement declined after the law was passed, relative to schools in neighboring Texas. The effect of the law was driven by regions with high Internet penetration and low parental education levels. After the change in policy, Louisiana students were more likely to seek out information on the Internet using search terms that led them to web pages that reinforced a creationist message.
Conversionary Protestants Do Not Cause Democracy
Elena Nikolova & Jakub Polansky
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy, Robert D. Woodberry (2012) claims that conversionary Protestantism influenced the emergence of stable democracies around the world. While his historical analysis is exhaustive, the accompanying empirical evidence suffers from severe inconsistencies. This letter replicates Woodberry's analysis using twenty-six alternative democracy measures and extends the time period over which the democracy measures are averaged. These two simple modifications lead to the breakdown of Woodberry's results. We find no significant relationship between Protestant missions and the development of democracy, which raises concerns about the robustness and broader applicability of Woodberry's findings. The letter discusses some alternative explanations for Woodberry's results, which can inform future research on this topic.
Individuals’ Experiences with Religious Hostility, Discrimination, and Violence: Findings from a New National Survey
Christopher Scheitle & Elaine Howard Ecklund
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, November 2020
Abstract:
While concerns about the consequences of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of religious bias have grown in the past several years, the data available to examine these issues have been limited. This study utilizes new data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults featuring oversamples of key religious minority groups and an instrument dedicated to measuring the extent to which individuals experience hostility, discrimination, and violence due to their religion. Findings show that, while a sizable minority of Christian adults report such experiences, a much greater share of Muslim and Jewish adults report experiences with interpersonal hostility, organizational discrimination, and violent victimization due to their religion. Analyses show that these patterns are largely unchanged after accounting for individuals’ race and ethnicity, national origin, and other characteristics, suggesting that experiences with religious hostility are not epiphenomenal to other social locations.
Devotion and Development: Religiosity, Education, and Economic Progress in Nineteenth-Century France
Mara Squicciarini
American Economic Review, November 2020, Pages 3454-3491
Abstract:
This paper studies when religion can hamper diffusion of knowledge and economic development, and through which mechanism. I examine Catholicism in France during the Second Industrial Revolution (1870–1914). In this period, technology became skill-intensive, leading to the introduction of technical education in primary schools. I find that more religious locations had lower economic development after 1870. Schooling appears to be the key mechanism: more religious areas saw a slower adoption of the technical curriculum and a push for religious education. In turn, religious education was negatively associated with industrial development 10 to 15 years later, when schoolchildren entered the labor market.
Belief in Hell and Parenting Priorities Concerning Child Independence and Obedience: Does Economic Context Matter?
Jong Hyun Jung
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines the ways that belief in hell is associated with parental goals concerning child independence and obedience. Further, it assesses how this association is contingent upon economic circumstances of a nation, reflected by a country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. Multilevel analyses with data from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey (2010‐2014) show that belief in hell is associated with a greater likelihood of opposing independence and endorsing obedience. Yet, these observed associations differ across national economic context. Specifically, the negative association between belief in hell and parental endorsement of independence is greater in countries that are more economically developed. Similarly, the positive association between belief in hell and parental endorsement of obedience is greater in countries that are more economically developed. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed regarding the interplay of religion, parental values about child socialization, and social context.
The economics of Puritanism’s treatment of bewitchment: Exorcism as a potential market-pull innovation?
Franklin Mixon & Kamal Upadhyaya
European Journal of Law and Economics, October 2020, Pages 203–222
Abstract:
A long history of research on the witchcraft hysteria in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692 contends that a group of Puritan ministers, including Salem Village’s Samuel Parris, developed and used the witchcraft hysteria in order to boost religiosity and church attendance in an effort to augment corporate and personal wealth. In carrying out this effort, these ministers pitted churched colonists against unchurched colonists, resulting in the wrongful convictions of 20 American colonials. This study argues that it might have ended without the executions of the colonists, and perhaps in even greater corporate wealth for the Puritan church, had Puritanism been receptive to the potential market-pull innovation represented by exorcism. Scrutiny of this proposition through the lens of rational choice theory suggests, however, that exorcism was inferior to executions as a technology choice for the congregant-maximizing Puritan ministers in Salem Village in 1692.
Bidirectional associations between Tibetan Buddhism and vertical space
Fang Guan et al.
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prior research has revealed that encoding of divinity-related concepts is linked to vertical metaphors, suggesting the association between religious concepts and vertical position may exist. However, most studies are conducted in Western culture. Because oriental religious traditions, especially Buddhism, shares similar concepts of compassion−wisdom but differs in worldviews, position of human and secular life, and fundamental values, this study extends this view by investigating whether such an evaluation tendency also adapts to Tibetan Buddhism, using a sequential priming paradigm. In Study 1, we used religious concepts to prime vertical spatial concepts, to examine whether the representation of Tibetan Buddhist concepts is associated with vertical metaphor. In Study 2, we inverted the sequence, using vertical metaphor to prime religious concepts, to investigate whether this religion−vertical relationship is bidirectional. Both studies are conducted with indigenous Tibetan participants. Study 1 revealed that participants encoded the letter P or Q on the upper part of the computer screen faster when following religious concepts than when neural concepts were primed beforehand, indicating that the religious concepts activated the spatial attention bias in the subsequent evaluation tasks. Study 2 showed that the participants encoded religious concepts faster following the spatial discrimination on the “up” than on the “down” position, indicating that the activation of areas of visual space does also prime evaluations. These studies suggest Tibetan Buddhism concept has a physical tendency; meanwhile, the upward spatial position also primes religious concepts. Therefore the metaphoric association between religious concept and vertical spatial position among Tibetan Buddhists is bidirectional.