Volume 4 (2008)

Sociologists of religion often overlook the role of demography. An exception to this rule is found in the work of Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, who link religious decline to human development and the demographic transition. However, their individual-level thesis is based on bivariate trends, with multivariate analysis limited to the aggregate level. In this article, I test their thesis at the individual level using data from the World Values Surveys across a wide range of countries. Analysis of aggregate trends shows that measures of human development that appear significant in bivariate correlations do not survive multivariate, time-series scrutiny. Moreover, I deploy multilevel analysis to explain why aggregate trends provide a misleading picture of how rising national education and income levels affect individuals’ religious beliefs. The results cast the developmentalist version of the secularization thesis into doubt. Instead, I suggest that religious belief becomes deregulated and increasingly varied in modern societies as religiosity takes on a self-conscious, rather than taken-for-granted, character. The demographic advantage that religious populations have suggests that the future of secularization, far from confirming a secular teleology, remains indeterminate.

Current theoretical debates about the sources of religious identity, the process of secularization, and the causes of religious growth reflect basic differences in what have been called the old paradigm and the new paradigm. While there is a latent assumption on both sides of the debate that a general approach can be applied to all religions, current research focuses predominantly on monotheistic religions. To expand the scope of theoretical discussion, we analyze the implications for contemporary scholarship of Buddhism, a religious tradition that has nontheistic and polytheistic orientations. In the end, we argue for the continued application of the new paradigm in the study of Buddhism because of its effectiveness at explaining trends in Buddhist religiosity as groups respond to modernity, secularization, and expanding religious markets.

Recent analyses indicate that young people from rural areas of the United States and the South have been more likely than others to enlist in the U.S. armed forces. The current study attempts to determine whether variation in the level of church adherence among the states has had an independent influence on the considerable differences in state enlistment rates for non–prior service active duty enlisted military personnel. The results indicate that church adherence was negatively related to enlistment both before and after 9/11. While the relationships of other factors to enlistment appeared to weaken after 9/11, the relationship of church adherence became stronger. Two other measures of social organization, percent divorced and percent of average annual net state domestic migration during 1990– 2000, displayed patterns of relationship to enlistment that were similar to the pattern of church adherence. Further analyses indicated that the negative effect of church adherence on enlistment rates was connected largely to the divorce rate. Additional findings indicated that a dimension of local culture (religious belief system) might partially condition the apparent social organizational effect of church adherence on enlistment, since in multivariate analyses, the results for evangelical Protestant adherence differed from those obtained for total church adherence.

If social science is to achieve valid universal theories, it is necessary to test them in as many different times and places as possible-hence the urgent need for more comparative research. To demonstrate this need, I review three recent instances wherein comparative research has revealed that (1) the proposition that religion functions to sustain the moral order is not universal, (2) most new religious movements are not the product of the discontent of the deprived but typically reflect the dissatisfactions of the privileged, and (3) the greater religiousness of women is not due to changes within Christianity but is a universal phenomenon. I then examine a set of pitfalls that often afflict quantitative comparative research that uses ecological or collective units of analysis such as nations or cities. Chief among these pitfalls are the ecological fallacy, cherry-picking of cases and variables, and the lack of comparability among cases. All three pitfalls are illustrated with recent examples.

Between 1980 and 2006, the U.S. prison population increased by 467 percent (from 319,598 to 1,492,973). The inevitable increase in the number of released prisoners returning to communities across the country (approximately 700,000 ex-prisoners per year) has created a national debate about how best to handle the prisoner reentry crisis. Religious activities can play a positive role in the lives of prisoners while they are incarcerated, and research shows that religiosity is associated with reducing negative outcomes and promoting prosocial behavior. Consequently, faith-based organizations can play an important role in helping to reduce recidivism. A multifaceted approach to prisoner reentry would require new public-private partnerships and a significant influx of volunteers, many of whom could be drawn from religious congregations. Intermediary groups are necessary to bring a comprehensive prisoner reentry effort to scale because these organizations serve as the bridge between ex-prisoners and the many social service providers and governmental agencies that are active in the areas of employment, housing, education, and counseling. Intermediaries can provide technical assistance and oversight as well as offering training to strengthen faith-based and community-based organizational capacity.

In 1973, Morton Smith of Columbia University published a manuscript consisting of three pages inscribed in an 18th century hand in the blank pages of a 17th century edition of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch that he allegedly found in a Palestinian monastery in 1958. The manuscript consisted of the opening of a letter attributed to Clement of Alexandria addressed to a certain Theodore. The letter treats a "secret gospel of Mark" that was said to be in use in initiation ceremonies in the Alexandrian church. Two quotations from the secret gospel are given: a longer one depicting the raising of a young man in a tomb and his subsequent initiation by Jesus into "the mystery of the kingdom of God" and a shorter one in which Jesus refuses to meet with three women. In a lengthy commentary on the letter and the gospel fragments, Morton Smith depicts Jesus as a homosexual magician who practices a homosexual initiation ritual that frees the initiate from the trammels of the biblical law. Over the years, a number of scholars have accepted the authenticity of the letter and the secret gospel, while none have accepted Smith‘s interpretation of them. Two books recently published now show conclusively that Morton Smith forged the letter to Theodore and the gospel fragments. There never was a "secret gospel of Mark" in ancient Alexandria or anywhere else.

This article considers the effects of religious affiliation, congregational participation, and religious service attendance on voluntary association membership. The U.S. voluntary sector owes much to the culture of mainline Protestantism, and we propose a theory that accounts for the varying affinities of the major Christian traditions with the U.S. civic logic. Recognizing this history implies that the relationship between religious practice and civic participation depends on the context of such practice. Using data from the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, we find that attendance and religious participation do not have parallel effects on voluntary membership across traditions. Instead, we find patterns that are consistent with the theory that the logic of the U.S. voluntary sector resembles the logic of mainline Protestantism.