Volume 10 (2014)

Many studies have found inverse correlations between intelligence and religiosity, intelligence and political conservatism, and intelligence and political extremism. Other studies have found that academics tend to be significantly less religious and more liberal than the general population. In this article, we argue that interdisciplinary differences in religiosity and political perspective among academics are predicted by interdisciplinary differences in intelligence between academics. Once personality factors correlating with religiosity have been substantially controlled for, physicists, who have higher average intelligence, are less religious than are social scientists, who have lower average intelligence. Physical scientists are also less politically extreme than are social scientists.

Data from a large national survey of China confirm that it is the best-educated Chinese who are most likely to have converted to Christianity. We argue that this is the result of spiritual deprivation generated by the cultural incongruity that was produced when the rapid industrial and technological modernization of China was juxtaposed against traditional Chinese religious and philosophical perspectives. The best-educated Chinese are the ones who are most apt to perceive this incongruity and respond accordingly - some by converting to Christianity and many by abandoning Buddhism and other traditional faiths. We then examine five other rapidly industrializing Asian nations and find support in each for the cultural incongruity explanation.

The current study seeks to examine what Catholic young adults think about the Roman Catholic Church's pro-life teachings and how their attitudes toward these teachings could inform the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' strategy for politically engaging this constituency. In the fall 2013 semester, I conducted four focus group sessions at a midsize Catholic university in the northeastern United States. Each focus group lasted about one hour, and participants were recruited via snowball sampling. At each focus group session, the participants were asked a series of questions related to their knowledge of and attitudes toward the Church's pro-life teachings. The results fell into three main categories: their feelings about the pro-life movement; their feelings about the Catholic Church and what they, as Catholic young adults, want from the Church; and the potential of Pope Francis to influence them to alter their feelings toward the Church.

Against a global backdrop of steadily rising religious restrictions and hostilities, we expand the religious economies theory by articulating how religious freedom contributes to better economic and business outcomes. Most important, we expand on previous empirical work on the social impact of denying religious freedom, first by examining and finding a positive relationship between global economic competitiveness and religious freedom as exemplified by low government restrictions on religion and low social hostilities involving religion. Second, going beyond correlational relationship, we empirically test and find the tandem effects of religious restrictions and hostilities to be detrimental to economic growth while controlling for other theoretical, economic, political, social, and demographic factors. We conclude that religious freedom contributes to better economic and business outcomes, as is suggested by the religious economies theory.

For over a decade, the United Methodist Church has directed that throughout the organization, individuals who serve in positions of authority should lead through the use of servant leadership. By surveying over 300 United Methodist congregants and over 300 United Methodist pastors, using Barbuto and Wheeler’s servant leadership instrument, we measured the perceptions of the observed leadership behaviors of both groups of responders and considered the differences between them. Through the use of descriptive statistics, congregants rated pastors at or below the median average (at or below 3 on a five-point Likert-type scale) in four of the five categories defined by Barbuto and Wheeler. Results of t-test and regression analyses also revealed that (1) congregants perceive that pastors generally apply greater levels of servant leadership to themselves than the congregants do, (2) pastors generally apply greater levels of servant leadership to themselves than the congregants perceive about themselves, (3) congregants perceive that pastors generally apply the same levels of servant leadership to themselves that the pastors themselves perceive that they do, and (4) a positive linear relationship exists between congregants’ perceptions of their pastors as servant leaders and perceptions of themselves as servant leaders.

This study examined relationships between conscientiousness and intrinsic spirituality, with the proposed trait "mindfulness" as mediator. The results from 161 functioning adults in Australia revealed that mindfulness was significantly predicted by conscientiousness. In this study, we investigated the relationship among conscientiousness, trait mindfulness, and intrinsic spirituality. We hypothesized that trait mindfulness would mediate the relationship between conscientiousness and spirituality. We found that this hypothesis was partially supported. The results suggest that conscientious individuals do significantly connect with mindfulness, and it was only the more mindful of conscientious individuals who also displayed high levels of intrinsic spirituality. Additional analyses suggest that conscientious individuals connect with mindfulness through attending to current actions or regulating impulses and have an accepting attitude toward thoughts and feelings. Possible explanations and implications of these results are discussed in relation to the theory, practice, and delivery mechanisms of mindfulness.

How do the faithful keep their faith when their spiritual leaders say one thing but then do some- thing else? How do they manage the dissonance that such contradictory behavior evokes? In this article, I examine these questions through a case study of Diamond Mountain, a convert Buddhist community under the charismatic leadership of Geshe Michael Roach and Lama Christie McNally. Drawing on previous scholarly work on failed prophecy, I analyze the rationalizations that members use in the face of less dramatic but more frequent occurrences of leader-induced dissonance. Three prominent rationalizations found in the failed prophecy literature aligned with the rationalizations used by students of Roach and McNally in managing ongoing tensions. The last of these, “test of faith,” also provides a way to understand how dissonance, confusion, and chaos are not so much deflected by the community but interpreted as a necessary part of the spiritual path. These rationalizations are examined not in isolation but in the context of a broad set of beliefs and group social dynamics.

Many studies that have examined the relationship between religion and community involvement have indicated that religious people are more likely than nonreligious people to be involved in the community. However, these studies fail to explain why some attenders of religious congregations are involved in the community while other attenders are not and how religious congregations can promote community involvement. This study begins to address these questions, using data from the 2008/2009 U.S. Congregational Life Survey. Using a unique measure of community involvement, that is, involvement in congregational activities that focus on the community, this study examines how involvement in these activities varies among religious traditions. Results suggest that religious tradition matters for understanding why some attenders are involved in these activities while other attenders are not and that religious tradition does not always correlate with involvement in these activities in a way that is similar to how it correlates with involvement in community organizations. These activities are an important venue through which congregations can promote community involvement.

This study examines the relationship between religious giving (an accessible behavioral indicant of religious commitment or religiosity) and expenditure patterns in the United States. Using a log- normal double-hurdle model adjusted for heteroscedasticity to estimate both the likelihood of participating in a purchase and the amount of a participant’s expenditures provides evidence of significant differences from the impact of religious giving on expenditure categories predicted by scripture. These include spending in moderation on housing and managing risk with insurance and healthy living (lower tobacco and alcohol consumption). Region was also found to delineate differences in the impact of religiosity on expenditure patterns. Results of this study support the hypothesis that religious givers are indeed making conscious expenditure allocation choices requiring a rational choice and that many of those choices are consistent with Judeo-Christian or biblical principles.

The objective of this study was to test Hunter’s Durkheimian theory of atheism by examining the impact of age, race, and gender on external locus of control and, in turn, the impact of external locus of control on atheist/theist identification. I hypothesized that the lower likelihood of atheist identification among women, minorities, and the elderly would be explained by their greater external locus of control. I sent a nineteen-question online survey to various atheist, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic organizations and conducted univariate ANOVAs to examine relevant external locus of control differences between demographic and atheist/theist groups. I then used a path analysis to examine the model in question (N = 1,002), with the variables of age, race, gender, external locus of control, and atheist/theist identification. Nonwhites, females, and theists were found to have higher external locus of control than whites, males, and atheists. After control- ling for age, race, and gender, the latent variable of external locus of control showed a small capacity to explain variance in atheist/theist identification (R2 = 0.18). Results demonstrate partial support for Hunter’s Durkheimian theory. I discuss alternative explanations for atheist identification demographic patterns across age, race, and gender; examine shortcomings of Hunter’s theory; and recommend specific future research into locus of control and atheism/theism.