Living in sin
The Enduring Influence of Religion on Senators’ Legislative Behavior
Daniel Arnon
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, September 2018, Pages 567-584
Abstract:
Does a senator's personal religion influence their legislative behavior in the Senate? To date, empirical research has answered this question only using senators’ religious traditions, while more concurrent work implies that religion should be measured as a multifaceted phenomenon. This study tests this proposition by compiling a unique data set of senators’ religion, conceptualized and measured by three different elements - belonging, beliefs, and behavior. The study estimates the association between these three religious facets and senators’ legislative behavior on economic, social, and foreign policy issues, while controlling for their constituencies’ political and religious preferences. It finds that religious beliefs are a strong predictor of senators’ legislative behavior, while religious tradition and behavior are mostly not. Furthermore, it finds that religious beliefs are associated with legislative behavior across a wide array of policy areas and are not confined to sociocultural issues.
Local Religious Subcultures and Generalized Social Trust in the United States
Joey Marshall & Daniel Olson
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, September 2018, Pages 473-494
Abstract:
Using multilevel analyses of 21,193 General Social Survey respondents nested within 256 metropolitan areas and counties, we find that individuals’ willingness to trust others is strongly related to the denominational make‐up of geographic areas. The percent of evangelical Protestants in the population negatively predicts individual‐level generalized trust, while percent mainline Protestant and percent Catholic positively predict trust. The effect sizes of these results are large and robust to statistical controls, and they hold even among nonmembers of the religious groups; for instance, “percent evangelical” predicts lower trust even among nonevangelicals. Black Protestant population share initially appears to predict lower trust, but the association disappears after adjusting for racial residential segregation. Following a longstanding theoretical tradition in the sociology of religion, we argue that the religious characteristics of places - not just individuals - shape local subcultures in ways that affect a broad range of behaviors, attitudes, and values such as generalized trust.
Death, Trauma and God: The Effect of Military Deployments on Religiosity
Resul Cesur, Travis Freidman & Joseph Sabia
NBER Working Paper, August 2018
Abstract:
Learning to cope with man’s mortality is central to the teachings of the world’s major religions. However, very little is known about the impact of life-and-death trauma on religiosity. This study exploits a natural experiment in military deployments to estimate the causal effect of traumatic shocks on religiosity. We find that combat assignment is associated with a substantial increase in the probability that a serviceman subsequently attends religious services regularly and engages in private prayer. Combat-induced increases in religiosity are largest for enlisted servicemen, those under age 25, and servicemen wounded in combat. The physical and psychological burdens of war, as well as the presence of military chaplains in combat zones, emerge as possible mechanisms.
The Prophetic and the Prosperous: Religious Ideologies and the Maintenance of Group Consciousness
Eric McDaniel
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Integral to the development of group consciousness is the establishment of independent entities, which allow individuals to develop a common identity and solidarity. In the case of African Americans, the black church has facilitated racial group consciousness by bringing blacks together and advocating a belief system that emphasizes justice and community, commonly referred to as the social gospel. In contrast to the social gospel, the prosperity gospel emphasizes individualism and material gain. Scholars and critics argue its growth in the black religious discourse may erode the group cohesion developed by the social gospel. Using a unique data set that measures support for these religious belief systems and black group consciousness, I find support for these assertions. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the nature of these relationships is contingent upon exposure to religious institutions.
Political Mobilization in American Congregations: A Religious Economies Perspective
Paul Djupe & Jacob Neiheisel
Politics and Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
It has become an article of faith that congregations in America play an important role in the political mobilization of the faithful, but the reasons why congregations themselves provide political opportunities are not well understood. We unite various strands of work about congregational political engagement under the canopy of the religious economies model. Using the 2001 U.S. Congregational Life Study and 1998 National Congregations Study datasets, we show that market forces shape churches’ provision of political goods, suggesting that the congregational embrace of political activities should be understood not as a politically strategic exercise, but as another way to reach out to new members and retain current ones.
Religious Fundamentalism in Eight Muslim‐Majority Countries: Reconceptualization and Assessment
Mansoor Moaddel & Stuart Karabenick
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
To capture the common features of diverse fundamentalist movements, overcome etymological variability, and assess predictors, religious fundamentalism is conceptualized as a set of beliefs about and attitudes toward religion, expressed in a disciplinarian deity, literalism, exclusivity, and intolerance. Evidence from representative samples of over 23,000 adults in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey supports the conclusion that fundamentalism is stronger in countries where religious liberty is lower, religion less fractionalized, state structure less fragmented, regulation of religion greater, and the national context less globalized. Among individuals within countries, fundamentalism is linked to religiosity, confidence in religious institutions, belief in religious modernity, belief in conspiracies, xenophobia, fatalism, weaker liberal values, trust in family and friends, reliance on less diverse information sources, lower socioeconomic status, and membership in an ethnic majority or dominant religion/sect. We discuss implications of these findings for understanding fundamentalism and the need for further research.
Sexuality, Political Polarization, and Survey Reports of Religious Nonaffiliation
Philip Brenner
Politics and Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Survey estimates of the religiously unaffiliated in the United States - between 20% and 25% - make this group one of the largest “religious” categories in the country. Recent research argues that political polarization pushes political liberals and moderates to report no religious affiliation to distance themselves from religious conservatives. One key point of polarization behind this phenomenon is sexuality-focused politics, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) rights and discrimination. The current research uses a split-ballot survey experiment to investigate sexuality-focused political polarization as a cause of the reports of religious nonaffiliation. A sample of 2,238 respondents, stratified by sexual orientation (half LGBQ, half straight), completed a brief web survey starting with two randomly ordered series of questions on religion and sexuality. Findings suggest that sexuality-focused political polarization is not likely to be a primary cause of survey respondents’ claims of religious nonaffiliation.
Church, Space, and Pluralism: Two Puritan Settlements, Territory, and Religious Tolerance
Samuel Stabler
Sociology of Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Sociologists argue that religious diversity motivates violent conflict and the embrace of religious tolerance in response. These accounts struggle to explain the histories of two coterminous Puritan ventures: Massachusetts, where religious intolerance became a legal norm, and Providence Island, a colony in the West Indies where religious infighting undercut the church-state. Drawing settlers from the same religious circles, both faced conflicts about the religious state’s management of territory and banishment. Existing accounts overlook how the difference in territorial size between the colonies altered these debates. Weakened by a massive frontier, leadership in Massachusetts urged that religious toleration could be avoided through the territorial division of spiritual authority and limited confederation. In contrast, Providence Island’s size precluded such divisions, and interaction among the settlers propelled religious conflict. Although frontiers are often theorized as refuge for religious dissenters, this account demonstrates that there are also contexts where frontiers can reinforce religious orthodoxy.
Associations of Religious Upbringing With Subsequent Health and Well-Being From Adolescence to Young Adulthood: An Outcome-Wide Analysis
Ying Chen & Tyler VanderWeele
American Journal of Epidemiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the present study, we prospectively examined the associations of religious involvement in adolescence (including religious service attendance and prayer or meditation) with a wide array of psychological well-being, mental health, health behavior, physical health, and character strength outcomes in young adulthood. Longitudinal data from the Growing Up Today Study were analyzed using generalized estimating equations. Sample sizes ranged from 5,681 to 7,458, depending on outcome; the mean baseline age was 14.74 years, and there were 8-14 years of follow-up (1999 to either 2007, 2010, or 2013). Bonferroni correction was used to correct for multiple testing. All models were controlled for sociodemographic characteristics, maternal health, and prior values of the outcome variables whenever data were available. Compared with no attendance, at least weekly attendance of religious services was associated with greater life satisfaction and positive affect, a number of character strengths, lower probabilities of marijuana use and early sexual initiation, and fewer lifetime sexual partners. Analyses of prayer or meditation yielded similar results. Although decisions about religion are not shaped principally by health, encouraging service attendance and private practices in adolescents who already hold religious beliefs may be meaningful avenues of development and support, possibly leading to better health and well-being.
Are the Sanctified Becoming the Pornified? Religious Conservatism, Commitment, and Pornography Use, 1984-2016
Samuel Perry & Cyrus Schleifer
Social Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Methods: We fit a series of binary logistic regression models using data from the 1984-2016 General Social Surveys.
Results: Holding other variables constant, American evangelicals are indeed increasing in their reported porn viewership at rates identical to other Americans. Frequent church attendees and biblical literalists, however, show a divergent trend, with both remaining constant in their reported porn viewership across time. Analyses also show clear cutoff points for the divergence starting in the mid‐1990s, roughly when Internet pornography became available.
Prayer and Helping
Shane Sharp
Social Currents, forthcoming
Abstract:
I propose a theoretical framework to understand how the religious practice of prayer influences helping. Drawing on work from symbolic interaction and cognitive psychology, I argue that individuals’ concepts of divine others become more cognitively accessible during the act of prayer. Because most people attribute the characteristics of omniscience and the desire for humans to help others to divine others, people are more likely to help known and unknown others the more cognitively accessible divine other concepts are to them. This leads to the prediction that frequency of prayer will be positively and linearly associated with frequency of helping. Using data from the General Social Survey (GSS), I find support for my argument. Frequency of prayer is positively and linearly associated with the frequency in which individuals engaged in several helpful behaviors toward known and unknown others in the past year, even after accounting for other religious and sociodemographic factors.
Losing or Choosing Faith: Mother Loss and Religious Change
Renae Wilkinson
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Maternal religiosity is associated with children's religiosity even as they grow into adults. Yet, experiencing the death of one's mother during the transition to adulthood could modify the transmission of maternal religiosity across the life course. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), I find that the relationship between mother loss and religiosity is bidirectional. Results from longitudinal models of child religiosity across the transition from adolescence to adulthood show that mother loss is negatively associated with service attendance but is positively associated with salience. Further, mother loss predicted higher frequency of prayer among bereaved children at lower levels of maternal religiosity but lower prayer frequency at higher levels of mothers’ religiousness. Overall, these findings direct attention to differences in the associations between mother loss and indicators of religiosity and to the interplay between mother loss and maternal religiosity as important factors in the transmission of religiosity across generations.
Death penalty decision‐making: Fundamentalist beliefs and the evaluation of aggravating and mitigating circumstances
Logan Yelderman, Matthew West & Monica Miller
Legal and Criminological Psychology, forthcoming
Purpose: Jurors’ religious characteristics are related to death penalty attitudes and verdicts. Jurors’ religious characteristics might also relate to endorsements of aggravating circumstances (aggravators) and mitigating circumstances (mitigators) - factors that make a defendant more or less deserving of the death penalty, respectively. The purpose of this research was to assess the extent to which religious fundamentalism was related to endorsement and weighing of aggravators and mitigators and subsequent death penalty decisions while controlling for relevant religious and demographic characteristics.
Methods: Two studies were conducted. Study 1 included a regression analysis in which participants filled out religious and demographic measures via an online survey. In Study 2, participants acted as mock jurors in a death penalty trial in which the defendant was already found guilty. Mock jurors read the case facts and attorney arguments and then weighed aggravators and mitigators before recommending a sentence for the defendant.
Results: In Study 1, fundamentalism negatively predicted mitigator endorsement, intrinsic religiosity negatively predicted aggravator endorsement, and orthodoxy positively predicted aggravator endorsement. In Study 2, fundamentalism was related to death penalty sentences, and this was mediated by people's weighing of aggravators and mitigators. Specifically, fundamentalism was related to a lower likelihood of choosing a life sentence because fundamentalism was negatively related to weighing mitigators over aggravators.
“It's All About the Journey”: Skepticism and Spirituality in the BDSM Subculture
Julie Fennell
Sociological Forum, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research on BDSM (bondage & discipline, dominance & submission, sadism & masochism) subcultures has largely ignored the spiritual aspects of BDSM for participants. Drawing primarily from my years of experience and participant observation as an insider in the DC/Baltimore BDSM pansexual community and 70 interviews conducted with self‐identified kinksters throughout the Mid‐Atlantic United States, as well as a convenience sample (n >1,100) survey of American and Canadian kinksters, I show that the BDSM subculture, as a noncriminal deviant subculture, provides a hospitable social environment for cultivating the “lived religious” (Wilcox 2012) experiences of this mostly agnostic/atheist and Pagan group. Nearly half of all American and Canadian kinksters who are heavily involved say they sometimes engage in BDSM for spiritual fulfillment. Many kinksters demonstrate discomfort with the more mystical aspects of this spirituality, and often adopt an epistemic stance I call post‐rational to reluctantly acknowledge mystical experiences within a preferred framework of scientific and rational knowledge. Nonetheless, interviewees described spiritually connective, transcendental, and cathartic experiences from their BDSM practices. Further research is recommended on the spiritual experiences of religious “nones,” the social construction of catharsis, and potential applicability of a post‐rational stance to contexts such as alternative medicine.