Volume 20 (2024)

IJRR's "Book Talks" are comparable to traditional book reviews. However, instead of a unidirectional “evaluation,” this is a space for constructive and collegial dialogue between scholars with similar expertise. In each Book Talk, a reviewer responds to a recently-published book, providing a brief synopsis along with a set of critical/collaborative questions or comments, much like a letter between colleagues. Unlike most book reviews, the book's author has a chance to reply.

Seeking to understand how Mosaic Law became a barrier for Christian homosexuals, we completed a quantitative integrative review of N=110 scholastic sources; the results show that the barrier likely arose because 97.3 percent of homonegative exegesis is silent regarding Moses' and NT personal jurisdiction (PJ) statements; that silence results in an overinclusive argument that likely incorrectly implicates Gentile Christian homosexuality. More specifically, homonegative exegesis does four things: (1) 97 percent of exegetes omit citations and discussion of Moses' PJ that limit Moses' Gentile reach to "resident aliens" within Israel (e.g., Leviticus 18:2, 26, 20:2), (2) 92 percent of exegetes do not discuss Acts 10; 15:5-29, and 21:25, which reiterate Moses' PJ that exclude Gentiles from homosexual proscriptions, (3), 88.18 percent of scholars employ a different interpretive method to determine whom Romans 1 addresses than employed for the remainder of their analysis, and (4) 88.7 percent of exegetes engage ipse dixit when stating that the Romans 1 audience is Gentile when structural analysis and contextual evidence reflects that Paul addressed a Jewish audience concerning Jewish beliefs. Consequently, this research expatiates relevant PJ from Moses, NT, Didascalia, Halakha, Roman Law, and reflections of American Law, and adds the same to Romans 1 exegesis. The results—though unexpected—support the thesis that when added, Romans 1 forms no scriptural basis for Gentile Christian homonegative doctrine. We discuss the significance of the results.

IJRR's "Book Talks" are comparable to traditional book reviews. However, instead of a unidirectional “evaluation,” this is a space for constructive and collegial dialogue between scholars with similar expertise. In each Book Talk, a reviewer responds to a recently-published book, providing a brief synopsis along with a set of critical/collaborative questions or comments, much like a letter between colleagues. Unlike most book reviews, the book's author has a chance to reply.

The Book of Mormon has been studied for its thematic, literary, and theological content using almost exclusively qualitative methods (e.g., Turley, 2019; Morrill, 2017). However, scholars have conducted little analysis comparing it to the Bible, even though those who view it as scripture consider it directly comparable in purpose. (e.g., The Book of Mormon, 2015; McConkie, 1985). The present study applies quantitative linguistic analysis to statistically derive the distinctive language from the two volumes of scripture and identifies the key themes and language from the two books. To accomplish this, corpora of The King James Version of the Bible (66 books; 737,817 words) and The Book of Mormon (16 books; 256,286 words) underwent a bidirectional keyness analysis using a combination of log-likelihood and log ratio statistics as filtering criteria. Researchers iteratively categorized 86 keyword types from the Bible and 147 from The Book of Mormon using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Based on thematic and grammatical relations, this process resulted in four key categories for the Bible and seven for The Book of Mormon and characteristics. The categories describe key messages unique to each book, revealing linguistic, stylistic, and thematic differences between the two books. For instance, the analysis indicated that the Bible focuses much more on documenting history, rituals, and law. In contrast, the Book of Mormon is more concerned with record keeping and war/conflict. The new insights gained from this analysis indicate that the two companion volumes of scripture explain God's will, plan, teachings, and relationship with His children. These results also linguistic methods can be applied to textual religious studies to provide additional insight into demonstrate how quantitative historically more qualitative areas.

IJRR's "Book Talks" are comparable to traditional book reviews. However, instead of a unidirectional “evaluation,” this is a space for constructive and collegial dialogue between scholars with similar expertise. In each Book Talk, a reviewer responds to a recently-published book, providing a brief synopsis along with a set of critical/collaborative questions or comments, much like a letter between colleagues. Unlike most book reviews, the book's author has a chance to reply.

While research identifies predictors of theistic beliefs, especially regarding theistic certainty, less research examines predictors of adopting an atheistic worldview—that is, shifting from a non- atheistic worldview to explicitly not believing in God. Much prior research examines religious apostates or nones, focuses on atheist identity rather than belief, and uses cross-sectional data. Berger (1967) argued that religious pluralism relativizes religious worldviews, undermining their plausibility. We hypothesize that exposure to diverse worldviews as a teenager will increase one’s odds of adopting an atheistic worldview as an emerging adult. We use waves 1 and 3 of the National Study of Youth and Religion to test the relationship between exposure to diverse worldviews and adopting an atheistic worldview. Exposure to diverse worldviews through volunteering as a teenager is associated with increased odds of adopting an atheistic worldview as an emerging adult. We also find that teenagers with two nonreligious parents have significantly higher odds of adopting an atheistic worldview as emerging adults compared to those who have two parents of the same religious faith.

IJRR's "Book Talks" are comparable to traditional book reviews. However, instead of a unidirectional “evaluation,” this is a space for constructive and collegial dialogue between scholars with similar expertise. In each Book Talk, a reviewer responds to a recently-published book, providing a brief synopsis along with a set of critical/collaborative questions or comments, much like a letter between colleagues. Unlike most book reviews, the book's author has a chance to reply.

It is well documented that homosexuality in the Catholic priesthood outpaces homosexuality in the general population, a phenomenon that has captured the attention of many. In this study, we examined whether homosexuality is diminishing in the American Catholic priesthood. Data are from a 2002 survey of Catholic priests in the U.S. conducted by the Los Angeles Times (N=1,854) and the 2020-21 Survey of American Catholic Priests (N=1,036), which mostly replicated the former. The findings indicate that Catholic priests’ perceptions of a homosexual subculture in their diocese or religious institute, as well as during their own seminary experience, have declined. The distribution of sexual orientations among Catholic priests remains unchanged since 2002. However, analyses based on decade of ordination reveal that homosexuality is becoming rarer as ordinations approach the present, most strikingly after the year 2000. A cohort-based projection model demonstrates that homosexual orientation in the priest population can be expected to be cut in half over the next 20 years. Since 2002, priests’ experiences with celibacy have become less of a struggle, on average. The full implications of these dynamics remain to be seen, but they appear to reflect the Catholic Church’s increased success in implementing its own stated institutional goals and policies.