Establishment of Religion
Government Has No "Religious Agency": James Madison's Fundamental Principle of Religious Liberty
Jeffrey Sikkenga
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Religious liberty has reemerged as a problem in liberal democracy. For guidance we can turn to James Madison. Unfortunately, his fundamental principle of religious liberty has been misunderstood. Madison believed that power over religious conscience always remains with the individual, which means that government never has a power to attempt to cause or prohibit religious opinions or profession and only has the power to prohibit religious practices that are "adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." Madison's fundamental principle of religious liberty is therefore that government has no "religious agency." In matters of religious establishment, "no agency" means that government lacks even the power to cognize religious opinions or practices. But in matters of free exercise, "no agency" means that government can accommodate citizens' religious consciences, even if that accommodation requires cognizing their religious opinions. An important but widely overlooked example of Madison's complex but principled approach to religious liberty is his 1790 proposal for a statutory exemption from federal militia service for religious objectors.
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Lee Ross, Yphtach Lelkes & Alexandra Russell
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present study explores the dramatic projection of one's own views onto those of Jesus among conservative and liberal American Christians. In a large-scale survey, the relevant views that each group attributed to a contemporary Jesus differed almost as much as their own views. Despite such dissonance-reducing projection, however, conservatives acknowledged the relevant discrepancy with regard to "fellowship" issues (e.g., taxation to reduce economic inequality and treatment of immigrants) and liberals acknowledged the relevant discrepancy with regard to "morality" issues (e.g., abortion and gay marriage). However, conservatives also claimed that a contemporary Jesus would be even more conservative than themselves on the former issues whereas liberals claimed that Jesus would be even more liberal than themselves on the latter issues. Further reducing potential dissonance, liberal and conservative Christians differed markedly in the types of issues they claimed to be more central to their faith. A concluding discussion considers the relationship between individual motivational processes and more social processes that may underlie the present findings, as well as implications for contemporary social and political conflict.
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Tracing the threads: How five moral concerns (especially Purity) help explain culture war attitudes
Spassena Koleva et al.
Journal of Research in Personality, forthcoming
Abstract:
Commentators have noted that the issue stands taken by each side of the American "culture war" lack conceptual consistency and can even seem contradictory. We sought to understand the psychological underpinnings of culture war attitudes using Moral Foundations Theory. In two studies involving 24,739 participants and 20 such issues (e.g. abortion, immigration, same-sex marriage), we found that endorsement of five moral foundations predicted judgments about these issues over and above ideology, age, sex, religious attendance, and interest in politics. Our results suggest that dispositional tendencies, particularly a person's moral intuitions, may underlie, motivate, and unite ideological positions across a variety of issues and offer new insights into the multiple "moral threads" connecting disparate political positions.
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The Role of Randomness in Darwinian Evolution
Andreas Wagner
Philosophy of Science, January 2012, Pages 95-119
Abstract:
Historically, one of the most controversial aspects of Darwinian evolution has been the prominent role that randomness and random change play in it. Most biologists agree that mutations in DNA have random effects on fitness. However, fitness is a highly simplified scalar representation of an enormously complex phenotype. Challenges to Darwinian thinking have focused on such complex phenotypes. Whether mutations affect such complex phenotypes randomly is ill understood. Here I discuss three very different classes of well-studied molecular phenotypes in which mutations cause nonrandom changes, based on our current knowledge. What is more, this nonrandomness facilitates evolutionary adaptation. Thus, living beings may translate DNA change into nonrandom phenotypic change that facilitates Darwinian evolution.
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The maximum rate of mammal evolution
Alistair Evans et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
How fast can a mammal evolve from the size of a mouse to the size of an elephant? Achieving such a large transformation calls for major biological reorganization. Thus, the speed at which this occurs has important implications for extensive faunal changes, including adaptive radiations and recovery from mass extinctions. To quantify the pace of large-scale evolution we developed a metric, clade maximum rate, which represents the maximum evolutionary rate of a trait within a clade. We applied this metric to body mass evolution in mammals over the last 70 million years, during which multiple large evolutionary transitions occurred in oceans and on continents and islands. Our computations suggest that it took a minimum of 1.6, 5.1, and 10 million generations for terrestrial mammal mass to increase 100-, and 1,000-, and 5,000-fold, respectively. Values for whales were down to half the length (i.e., 1.1, 3, and 5 million generations), perhaps due to the reduced mechanical constraints of living in an aquatic environment. When differences in generation time are considered, we find an exponential increase in maximum mammal body mass during the 35 million years following the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event. Our results also indicate a basic asymmetry in macroevolution: very large decreases (such as extreme insular dwarfism) can happen at more than 10 times the rate of increases. Our findings allow more rigorous comparisons of microevolutionary and macroevolutionary patterns and processes.
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By design: James Clerk Maxwell and the evangelical unification of science
Matthew Stanley
British Journal for the History of Science, March 2012, Pages 57-73
Abstract:
James Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic theory famously unified many of the Victorian laws of physics. This essay argues that Maxwell saw a deep theological significance in the unification of physical laws. He postulated a variation on the design argument that focused on the unity of phenomena rather than Paley's emphasis on complexity. This argument of Maxwell's is shown to be connected to his particular evangelical religious views. His evangelical perspective provided encouragement for him to pursue a unified physics that supplemented his other philosophical, technical and social influences. Maxwell's version of the argument from design is also contrasted with modern ‘intelligent-design' theory.
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Does faith limit immorality? The politics of religion and corruption
Udi Sommer, Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom & Gizem Arikan
Democratization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Critically considering scholarship relating religiosity to ethical behaviour, we contend that religion is systematically related to levels of corruption, and that the nature of this relationship is contingent on the presence of democratic institutions. In democracies, where political institutions are designed to inhibit corrupt conduct, the morality provided by religion is related to attenuated corruption. Conversely, in systems lacking democratic institutions, moral behaviour is not tantamount to staying away from corrupt ways. Accordingly, in non-democratic contexts, religion would not be associated with decreased corruption. Time-series cross-sectional analyses of aggregate data for 129 countries for 12 years, as well as individual level analyses of data from the World Values Surveys, strongly corroborate the predictions of our theory. The correlation of religion with reduced corruption is conditional on the extent to which political institutions are democratic.
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Todd Williams et al.
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Terror management theory posits that cultural worldviews buffer people from thoughts and concerns about death. In support of this claim, numerous studies have shown that mortality salience (MS) increases an individual's motivation to uphold and defend important cultural worldviews. We hypothesized that the motivation to defend cultural worldviews following MS would also enhance people's ability to comprehend worldview affirming (vs. disconfirming) information. Three studies investigated this possibility. Study 1 showed that MS (vs. control) increased reading comprehension of a pro-evolution essay among participants with a strongly evolutionist worldview, but decreased reading comprehension among participants with a strongly creationist worldview. With the use of a pro-creation essay, Study 2 conceptually replicated these effects and demonstrated that the interactive effect of worldview and death anxiety on reading comprehension was mediated by defensive motivation. Study 3 replicated the results of Studies 1 and 2 among participants with a strongly evolutionist worldview, but only when the information in the essay was perceived as veridical. Discussion focused on the specific process through which MS affects reading comprehension of worldview relevant ideas.
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Religiosity and fear of death: A three‐nation comparison
Lee Ellis, Eshah Wahab & Malini Ratnasingan
Mental Health, Religion & Culture, forthcoming
Abstract:
Numerous studies have sought to determine if religiosity is correlated with fear of death. Findings have been anything but consistent, with reports of negative relationships, positive relationships, no relationship, and even curvilinear associations. To shed light on this still contentious issue, the present study was undertaken among college students in three countries - Malaysia, Turkey, and the United States. Overall, the patterns in all three countries were similar. When linearity was assumed, there is a substantial positive correlation between most religiosity measures and fear of death. Assuming curvilinearity added slightly to the strength of the relationships in the US data and nothing to data from Malaysia or Turkey. Other findings were that on average females were more religious and feared death more than did males, and Muslims expressed considerably greater fear than did members of any other major religion. Results were discussed in the context of a new theory - called death apprehension theory. Among other things, it specifically predicts that death apprehension will be positively related to most religious beliefs and practices.
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Charles Darwin's use of theology in the Origin of Species
Stephen Dilley
British Journal for the History of Science, March 2012, Pages 29-56
Abstract:
This essay examines Darwin's positiva (or positive) use of theology in the first edition of the Origin of Species in three steps. First, the essay analyses the Origin's theological language about God's accessibility, honesty, methods of creating, relationship to natural laws and lack of responsibility for natural suffering; the essay contends that Darwin utilized positiva theology in order to help justify (and inform) descent with modification and to attack special creation. Second, the essay offers critical analysis of this theology, drawing in part on Darwin's mature ruminations to suggest that, from an epistemic point of view, the Origin's positiva theology manifests several internal tensions. Finally, the essay reflects on the relative epistemic importance of positiva theology in the Origin's overall case for evolution. The essay concludes that this theology served as a handmaiden and accomplice to Darwin's science.
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Exclusion, Intergroup Hostility, and Religious Fundamentalism
Juliette Schaafsma & Kipling Williams
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The goal of the present study was to examine whether exclusion leads to increased intergroup hostility and stronger fundamentalist religious beliefs. Using Cyberball, we examined how adolescents from different ethnic groups in the Netherlands (of Moroccan, Turkish, and Dutch descent with either Muslim, Christian, or secular beliefs) responded to being included or excluded by ethnic in- and outgroup members. We expected that exclusion by ethnic outgroup members would represent a categorization threat and would result in greater hostility. We hypothesized that exclusion by ethnic ingroup members would represent an acceptance threat and would result in responses that reduce uncertainty and increase one's chances of being accepted by others (e.g., a stronger endorsement of fundamentalist religious beliefs). The results revealed that among all ethnic groups, exclusion by ethnic outgroup members led to more hostility toward the co-players and the co-players' ethnic group than exclusion by ethnic ingroup members. This was mediated by the extent to which people attributed their exclusion to the racist attitudes of their co-players. Among Muslims and Christians, exclusion by ethnic ingroup members led to more support for fundamentalist beliefs. We discuss the theoretical extension that these results provide, and practical issues raised regarding the consequences that may occur through the marginalization of religious and ethnic groups.
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Perceptions of religious leaders' culpability in the United States
Michael Kane & Robin Jacobs
Mental Health, Religion & Culture, forthcoming
Abstract:
The aim of this study was to explore perceptions of religious leaders who are discovered in compromising situations. Respondents (N = 374) read one of four vignettes about a well-known, 50-year-old religious leader who was found in the back of a car by police partially clothed and intoxicated. His accomplice in the back of the parked car was (a) a 19-year-old woman, (b) a 19-year-old man, (c) a 39-year-old woman, or (d) a 39-year-old man. The accomplice in the vehicle told police and the media that s/he had been seeking spiritual counselling from this religious leader. In the General Linear Model (F = 2087.929, df = 34, p < .001) significance was observed in 10 of the 34 items following each of the vignettes. Eight other items possessed p-values slightly larger than 0.05 that merit consideration. Willingness to overlook infractions of professional behaviours were associated not with the religious leader's behaviour itself but with the age and gender of the accomplice of the religious leader. Overall, respondents were more accepting of the behaviours of the religious leader when he was found with a 39-year-old woman than with a 39-year-old man. Respondents were least likely to be understanding of his engaging in sexual behaviours with a 19-year-old adult, particularly a 19-year-old male.
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The Cross-Pressures of Religion and Contact with Gays and Lesbians, and Their Impact on Same-Sex Marriage Opinion
Brittany Bramlett
Politics & Policy, February 2012, Pages 13-42
Abstract:
This article examines the influence of two cross-pressures, religion and contact with gay individuals in the United States, on same-sex marriage opinion. Close relationships with gays and lesbians may influence people of varying faiths differently or not at all. Results indicate that despite religious teachings against homosexuality, people of most religious traditions are more likely to support same-sex marriage when they have a close relationship with a gay individual. The effects are the greatest for black Protestants and Latino Catholics. However, white Protestants with close relationships with gay people are just as opposed to same-sex marriage as those without similar contact.
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Todd Nicholas Fuist, Laurie Cooper Stoll & Fred Kniss
Qualitative Sociology, March 2012, Pages 65-87
Abstract:
Emerging research suggests that existing culture, including religious culture, serves to constrain and enable the rhetoric and claims of social actors in situations of conflict and change. Given that religious institutions continue to have significant authority in framing moral debates in the United States, we hypothesize that groups connected to each other through a religious tradition will share similar orientations towards the moral order, shaping the kinds of rhetoric they use and the kinds of claims they can make. To test this, we compare the official rhetoric of the 25 largest religious denominations on gay and lesbian issues, as well as their orientation towards the moral order more broadly, with the rhetoric of each denomination's respective movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender inclusion, affirmation, or rights. We use Kniss' heuristic map of the moral order to analyze and theorize about the patterns that emerge from these comparisons. Ultimately, we find that the existing rhetoric of the parent denomination on gay and lesbian issues, along with the broader moral stances they take, do appear to shape the rhetoric and ideologies of associated pro-LGBT organizations. This provides support for the notion that existing culture, belief, and rhetoric shape the trajectories of conflict and change.
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Gossip, Humor, and the Art of Becoming an Intimate of Jesus
Donald Capps
Journal of Religion and Health, March 2012, Pages 99-117
Abstract:
In Living Stories (Capps 1997) I addressed the rather broad consensus among clergy and laity alike that gossip is destructive of congregational life, a consensus based on the view that gossip invariably involves negatively critical conversations about other individuals and groups. However, this view is not supported by social scientific research and literary studies on gossip, which present a more complex picture of this form of human communication. On the other hand, the claim that gossip is trivial is more difficult to challenge, so I made a case for the importance of the trivial through consideration of the formal similarities between gossip and the narratives that comprise the Gospels, including the fact that both employ an "esthetic of surfaces" that focuses on specific personal particulars and that the stories that are told derive their power from the freedom that the participants in the conversation gain from entering imaginatively into the life of other persons. The present article furthers the exploration of the affinities between gossip and Gospel narratives by noting the role of humor in fostering good gossip and the mutually supportive role of gossip and humor in the art of becoming an intimate of Jesus.
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Jeremy Rhodes
Sociological Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has overwhelmingly found that Evangelical Protestants are generally less tolerant of outsiders than those of other religious traditions such as Catholics or Mainline Protestants. Using data from the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey, I examine the extent to which political tolerance is related to a bonding type of social capital that is typical of Evangelical Protestantism. Findings support most of the previous research into the relationship between religion and political tolerance, and support the hypothesis that social embeddedness within one's congregation predicts intolerance among Evangelical Protestants, but not among those of other religious traditions. Implications for research into religious friendship networks and their potential dysfunctions are discussed.
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Samuel Perry
Qualitative Sociology, March 2012, Pages 89-108
Abstract:
Re-conceptualizing habitus as a complex of inculcated moral dispositions that - particularly within the racialized social system of the United States - are racially-constituted, this article proposes a framework through which racial conflict and structural/cultural domination within interracial religious organizations, and perhaps other volunteer organizations, may be analyzed. Drawing upon qualitative data from a study of fundraising experiences within interracial evangelical organizations, I demonstrate, first, that racial conflicts within these organizations are best framed as disputes over moral standards arising out of divergent, racially-constituted, moral dispositions, and second, that these conflicts are worked out via the institutionalization and instilment of white cultural norms, ultimately resulting in the hegemony of white moral standards within the organizations.
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Psychological Distress Among Religious Nonbelievers: A Systematic Review
Samuel Weber et al.
Journal of Religion and Health, March 2012, Pages 72-86
Abstract:
Studies of religious belief and psychological health are on the rise, but most overlook atheists and agnostics. We review 14 articles that examine differences between nonbelievers and believers in levels of psychological distress, and potential sources of distress among nonbelievers. Various forms of psychological distress are experienced by nonbelievers, and greater certainty in one's belief system is associated with greater psychological health. We found one well-documented source of distress for nonbelievers: negative perceptions by others. We provide recommendations for improving research on nonbelievers and suggest a model analogous to Pargament's tripartite spiritual struggle to understand the stresses of nonbelief.
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Saied Reza Ameli & Hamideh Molaei
International Journal of Intercultural Relations, January 2012, Pages 31-40
Abstract:
Intercultural sensitivity is one of the most important factors that significantly influence effective communication. This paper aims to investigate intercultural sensitivity among the followers of two Muslim sects, the Shia and Sunni in Iran. To this end, we have applied Bennett's Intercultural Sensitivity theory as a conceptual framework. This theory states that the development of communication among people decreases their intercultural sensitivity levels. In this paper, religious affiliation has been assumed as an index of development of communication among the inhabitants of three cities in Iran. We measured the levels of intercultural sensitivity in two groups separately and have concluded that development of communication has decreased their intercultural sensitivity. We also found that, according to the six stages of intercultural sensitivity model, the orientation of these groups towards each other is "Minimization" (Bennett, 1998, p. 27), meaning that they tend to highlight their similarities and to ignore their differences.
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Cartoonish Claims: Editorial Cartoon Depictions of Religion
Brian Kaylor
Mass Communication and Society, March/April 2012, Pages 245-260
Abstract:
During the 2006 controversy surrounding the Danish cartoons mocking Muhammad and Muslims, many conservative Christians claimed that the media were harsher on Christians than Muslims. This study explores those claims by analyzing how religion and religious individuals are depicted in editorial cartoons. This study offers insights into differences in the treatment of various religions, as well as the topics in which religious individuals are discussed and the reasons religious individuals are mocked in the cartoons. Implications address the partially inaccurate claims by conservative Christians concerning media attention and the impact the editorial cartoon portrayals may have on the religions involved.