Has Society Grown More Hostile Towards Conservative Christians? Evidence from ANES SurveysReview of Religious Research - Tập 60 - Trang 71-94 - 2017
George Yancey
Several conservative Christian activists have complained of increasing hatred directed towards them and a majority of Christians today believe that persecution against them has increased in the United States. To date there has not been an empirical assessment of whether there are increasing levels of anti-Christian animosity with two groups as representative of conservative Christians: Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. Levels of anti-Christian hostility has not significantly risen over the past few decades, however those with this hostility have become wealthier. Furthermore, there has not been a coalescing or lessening of support for conservative Christians by other Christians, as seen in the persistent level of mildly negative score by progressive Christians. One may envision hostility against conservative Christians in the twentieth century as something possessed by highly educated progressives with cultural influence but little ability to punish conservative Christians economically. The ability to threaten conservative Christians’ material well-being and the lack of support of conservative Christians by other Christians augments those with hostility towards conservative Christians in the twenty-first century. Conservative Christians are incorrect asserting that Christian hostility recently dramatically increased but may be correct in asserting that they face more problems due to that hostility.
Changes in Religious Group Affiliation During Older Adulthood: Evidence from an 11-year Longitudinal StudyReview of Religious Research - Tập 56 - Trang 539-554 - 2014
R. David Hayward, Neal Krause
Although older adults tend to be among the most religiously-involved groups of people, and are more likely to be affiliated with a religious group in comparison with their younger counterparts, very little is known about the extent to which older adults change their affiliations from one group to another, or what factors are associated with likelihood of changing religion during this part of the life span. This study uses longitudinal data covering a period of between 3 and 12 years from a survey of religion and health in older adults to describe changes in reported religious group affiliation and to examine the demographic and religious factors that predict these changes. The extent of change observed depended on how religious affiliation was coded. 69 % of older adults changed some element of their response regarding religious affiliation during the course of the study, but once responses were classified more broadly by religious tradition, the proportion changing was 27 %. There were also significant changes between Protestant denominations, and between specific organizations within Protestant denominations. Catholics and members of historically Black Protestant groups were less likely to change affiliations than Mainline Protestants or Conservative Protestants. Greater frequency of religious service attendance was related to lower likelihood of changing religious affiliation. Results indicate that religious affiliation change continues to occur in a significant proportion of individuals during the span of older adulthood, and that many of those who change tend to do so repeatedly.
Is ‘Spiritual But Not Religious’ a Replacement for Religion or Just One Step on the Path Between Religion and Non-religion?Review of Religious Research - Tập 60 - Trang 503-518 - 2018
Joey Marshall, Daniel V. A. Olson
We analyze survey data collected from six universities in the United States, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (n = 6571). Survey respondents were asked to self-identify as “spiritual and religious,” “spiritual but not religious,” “religious but not spiritual” or “not religious or spiritual.” Using a battery of items describing both religious and spiritual beliefs, we uncover which beliefs are most regularly shared by persons choosing each of the four self-identity labels. Even though American students are generally more religious than the Scandinavian students, we find that three of the four self-identity labels have quite similar meanings across cultural settings. Factor analyzing the belief items, we find two latent factors that we label as “religio-spirituality” and “anti-institutional spirituality.” However, when plotted in a two-dimensional space defined by these two latent factors, respondents in each of the four self-identity categories mostly align along a single continuum from “spiritual and religious” to “not spiritual or religious.” Nevertheless, the “spiritual but not religious” students stand out for their high scores on “anti-institutional spirituality.”
How Many “Nones” Are There? Explaining the Discrepancies in Survey EstimatesReview of Religious Research - Tập 62 - Trang 173-190 - 2020
Ryan P. Burge
While there has been a great deal of media focus recently on the rise of those without religious affiliation (also known as the “nones”), there is an underlying issue facing this line of research: different surveys come to completely different conclusions about how many nones actually exist in the United States. Using the General Social Survey (GSS) and the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) this work details how each of these instruments measures religious affiliation in a different manner and how that results in an estimate of the nones that diverges by over 8% points in 2018. Statistical analysis reveals that the GSS has a much higher share of Protestants who never attend church than that found in the CCES. In addition, the CCES Protestant subsample is more Republican, while the nones in the GSS are more to the left of the political spectrum than the nones in the CCES. Some advice and caution is offered to researchers who are interested in studying the religiously unaffiliated in these two surveys.
Falling through the Cracks: Dealing with the Problem of the Unclassifieds in RELTRADReview of Religious Research - - 2021
Ryan P. Burge, Paul A. Djupe
Background RELTRAD is the most popular and widely used classification scheme for sorting religious traditions in the social sciences, however it struggles with how to sort non-denominational Protestants into one of the existing categories, with a growing number falling into an often ignored “unclassified” category.
Purpose To demonstrate the growing problem of excluding non-denominational protestants who attend infrequently in the current iteration of RELTRAD. We assess the assumption that the “unclassified” respondents are akin to those who select a “don't know” option and should be excluded. We also propose several ways to reintroduce low attending non-denominationals back into the larger sample.
Methods As a means to assess the political and religious characteristics of these “unclassified” respondents, we compare non-denominationals to a prototypical evangelical denomination—the Southern Baptist Convention and a prototypical mainline denomination—the United Methodist Church using General Social Survey data from 2000 to 2018. We also re-run models of social and political phenomena, originally shown by Steensland et al. (Soc Forces 79:291, 2000), with the new and old RELTRAD categories.
Results Analyses indicate that non-denominational Protestants who attend church at least once a month have similar characteristics to evangelicals, justifying their current classification. However, non-denominationals who attend less frequently are more difficult to sort cleanly as they are more conservative than United Methodists but more liberal than Southern Baptists. However, the gaps caused by attendance among the three groups is comparable, undermining the RELTRAD assumption that low attending non-denominationals should be excluded from the sample.
Conclusions and Implications We reject the decision to exclude low attending non-denominationals from samples. Combined with other analyses of non-denominational Christians that show differences by denominationalism, we conclude that the best way forward may be creating an entirely new RELTRAD category for non-denominational Protestants that would solve the problem of the unclassifieds and not lose measure specificity. This choice brings new questions into focus as researchers can acknowledge the rapidly growing non-denominational category and assess the degrees of overlap and distinction with traditional religious families in the United States.
Interrogating and Constructing the ‘Authentic’ Roman Catholic Church: Feminist Perspectives Among Canadian Women ReligiousReview of Religious Research - Tập 57 - Trang 365-396 - 2015
Christine Gervais, Claire Turenne Sjolander
Based on qualitative interview and questionnaire data among 32 current and former women religious, this article explores the alternative constructions of the church by Canadian women religious and the corresponding practices they have engendered. It reviews the insights of feminist women religious with respect to their understandings and experiences of patriarchal structures and practices within the Roman Catholic Church, their resistance to, and dismissal of these structures and practices, and the construction of understandings and practices which, for the women religious in our study, more closely correspond to their vision of the ‘authentic’ church than to the hierarchical and patriarchal practices with which they are institutionally familiar. In so doing, we highlight examples of the sisters’ divergence from the patriarchal church, including their promotion and practice of feminist spirituality and activism. Our theoretical discussion of the constructions of the ‘authentic’ church within and alongside the hierarchical Catholic Church, as well as of the significance and challenges of these, are integrated throughout the recounting of the experiences of feminist women religious as they navigate the spaces they create in their relationship to the Church.
Development of a Measure of Attachment to God for MuslimsReview of Religious Research - Tập 59 - Trang 183-206 - 2017
Maureen Miner, Bagher Ghobary-Bonab, Martin Dowson
Attachment to God has received theoretical and theological warrant for its applicability to Christian and Muslim populations. However, existing measures of attachment to God have been developed within Christian contexts and do not necessarily constitute the best instruments for measuring attachment to God amongst Muslims. This paper addresses the lack of a religiously sensitive measure of attachment to God amongst Muslims by describing the development of the Muslim Spiritual Attachment Scale (M-SAS), the psychometric properties of the M-SAS, and its use in an Australian study of psychological health amongst Muslims. Implications for understanding Muslim attachment styles, and for future research into attachment to God amongst Christian and Muslim populations using culturally sensitive measures are discussed.
