Volume 7 (2011)

Using the comprehensive data file of the General Social Survey for the years 1972–2008, I replicate the findings of Stevenson and Wolfers (2009) of a decline in self-reported happiness among women in the United States during the past three and a half decades. I then examine the impact of church attendance on this trend and find two principal effects: a direct effect, in which some of the decline in happiness among women is attributable to the drop in church attendance over the period, and a protective effect, in which women who attended church more regularly were less subject to the various forces that produced that decline.

Current estimates of the global Muslim population cited in the academic literature range between one billion and nearly two billion. In this article, we describe the most rigorous effort to date to estimate the size of the Muslim population in each country of the world, resulting in a global estimate of 1.57 billion Muslims in 2009, or nearly one in four of the world‘s 6.8 billion inhabitants. We describe a demographic data quality index that we developed to assess the sources used in our estimate. We discuss the limitations of censuses, surveys, and other data sources, and we argue that the best strategy is to select the strongest data source for estimating the size of the Muslim population for a particular country rather than using the index to create a weighted average. We also present other innovations, including a methodology for combining separate male and female demographic and health survey datasets to arrive at country estimates for religious affiliation.

This article examines whether there are generational differences among white evangelicals in their perceptions of race-related issues in the United States. Younger white evangelicals are compared to older white evangelicals and to younger white nonevangelicals. Differences are measured in three broad areas: valuing diversity, racial solidarity, and race-related public policy. These comparisons indicate that there are clear differences in the post–Baby Boom cohorts of evangelicals on important issues of valuing diversity and of racial solidarity. At the same time, younger white evangelicals share with older evangelicals an opposition to structural approaches for addressing racial problems. Detailed analysis uncovers several factors that contribute to these similarities and differences. Among other things, the younger cohort’s stronger adherence to a contractual view of social solidarity contributes significantly to the generational shifts in attitudes.

Does religious background influence sexual orientation? Research on the etiology of sexual orientation has focused almost exclusively on biological influences; however, the evidence suggests that biological influences are not deterministic. Family socialization could also play a role. In particular, parents’ religion may have an impact, since religion has a powerful influence on attitudes about homosexuality. Using three nationally representative datasets, I examine the impact of parents’ religion on the sexual orientation of their offspring. The findings suggest that people from Jewish and secular backgrounds are more likely to report homosexual attraction, identity, and behavior than are people from other backgrounds. By contrast, individuals who were reared in conservative Protestant homes are least likely to report homosexual attraction, identity, or behavior. These findings are suggestive rather than definitive, since differences between groups are not consistent in magnitude or significance across datasets. The influence of religious background on sexual orientation generally appears to be modest, except in the case of Jewish heritage, the effect of which is particularly pronounced among women.

Although proponents of the religious economies paradigm have regularly asserted the importance of the problem of religious confidence, they have put little effort into examining it theoretically and empirically. This article rectifies this shortcoming by explaining how and why specific aspects of past religious experience should nurture religious confidence. Binary logistic regression analysis was conducted by using the 2003 and 2005 waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion to identify the determinants of teenagers' confidence in the existence of God, the existence of angels. and the existence of an afterlife. Although results indicate that past involvement in family discussions about religious or spiritual matters significantly increases the likelihood that teenagers will develop strong belief in all three of the doctrines examined, praying with family, parental encouragement to participate in a youth group, and church attendance of parents were not found to be consistent predictors. Respondents who reported having witnessed a miracle, receiving an answer to prayer, and having powerful spiritual experiences also displayed greater religious confidence. Future research on religion and religious socialization could benefit from a greater focus on, and more effective measures of, religious confidence.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq rested on the principle that the United States had the responsibility to remake foreign countries. In this article, we argue that the rationale for this invasion is a legacy of the Social Gospel movement in the late nineteenth century. Social Gospellers believed that "Christianization" of society would occur first in the United States and then spread across the globe because of the dominance of the U.S. economy, political system, military, and Protestant religion. Scholars usually cite the Social Gospel as an heir to the pacifism of liberal Christianity. We show how recent U.S. foreign policy, particularly in the George W. Bush administration, has close affinities with the Christianization program of the early Social Gospel.

The study of near-death experience (NDE) has been fraught with conceptual and measurement issues. However, a consensus is emerging that NDE is far from a unitary phenomenon and that it is best illuminated by use of various methodologies, including qualitative approaches, in specific cultural contexts. This study employed phenomenological interviews and a hermeneutical method to derive the thematic structure of meaning of NDE for thirteen serpent handlers who experienced what they thought was a fatal serpent bite while handling in a religious setting in which the ritual is sanctioned. Results suggest that at the anticipation of imminent death, beliefs that are deeply embedded in the culture of serpent handling provide comfort, transformation of feelings, and transcendence of fear in the face of death for those who survive near-death bites.

With increasing amounts of cross-country data on religion available, it is important to assess the optimal design of the variables in the datasets. This study assesses the strengths and weaknesses of existing cross-country data on religion. It then presents the Religion and State round 2 (RAS2) dataset as a potentially superior alternative to existing data collections on government religion policy. The comparison shows that the RAS2 dataset has a number of advantages over other data collections. It contains more variables covering a longer time period, and the data are based on a wider variety of sources than is the case with other data collections. The codings include scaling for the severity of a policy. RAS2 avoids methodological problems that are present in several other data collections. Finally, it is the only data collection on religion that can claim to include codings for all relevant government actions. Although previous datasets have some of these advantages, several are unique to RAS2, and the others are not present in all cross-country data collections of state religion policy that include indexes. The study also compares the RAS2 indexes, which weight all components equally, to indexes that are weighted on the basis of expert assessment and factor analysis and finds that the nonweighted indexes are statistically nearly identical to the weighted indexes.

This article presents a theory of polity replication in which religious congregants prefer institutions in other realms of society, including the state, to be structured like their church. Polities, or systems of church governance and administration, generally take one of three forms: episcopal (hierarchical/centralized), presbyterian (collegial/regional), or congregational (autonomous/decentralized). When asked to cast a vote to shape institutions in a centralizing or decentralizing manner, voters are influenced by organizational values shaped by their respective religious traditions‘ polity structures. Past social scientific scholarship has neglected to explicitly connect religious affiliation, defined by polity, with members‘ stances on institutional design. However, previous examples of polity replication in action include the founding of the United States, the perpetuation of authoritarian regimes in Latin America, and the consolidation of the European Union. In this article, I provide original data on Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist support for city-county consolidation, an example of institutional design in metropolitan governance, in Louisville, Kentucky. Logistic regression results show that, other factors being equal, episcopal Catholics were 37 percent more likely to support consolidation in the 2000 referendum than were congregational Southern Baptists. Linear regression results show that Catholics were also more approving of the Louisville Metro government three years after its creation. In addition, Catholics who attend services more frequently were more supportive of consolidation and the consolidated regime. Perhaps owing to their polity structure, the effect of attendance for Baptists was unclear.

Research has shown that public opinion about the death penalty can be largely attributed to the tone of media stories and the number of murders that happen around the time the surveys are conducted. However, not all citizens react similarly to new information such as media stories. Political awareness can help people to filter out new information that might otherwise sway their opinions. Those who lack such awareness are more easily persuaded by new information, resulting in rather unstable, easily changed opinions. We hypothesize that strongly held religious beliefs also serve as such a filter, creating stability in opinions regardless of political awareness. Using the issue of capital punishment, we examine how strongly held Catholic beliefs might affect opinions on the death penalty. We show that Catholics with a strong religious attachment are less likely to be persuaded by current events and political discussion than is the norm. Strongly religious Catholics tend to filter out such information and seemingly ground their opinions in the social doctrine of their church.

Much research has examined the relationship between religion and civic engagement, finding that more religious people are more likely to donate their time, energy, and money to community organizations. The overwhelming majority of the quantitative research on the relationship between religion and civic engagement has been done in Europe and North America. However, we know that many people living in sub-Saharan Africa volunteer their time, and because of the many economic, social, and health problems that plague the continent, the need for local volunteers is particularly acute. This article uses data from the 2000 World Values Survey and multivariate regression models to examine which dimensions of religion are associated with unpaid involvement in caregiving and political organizations in sub-Saharan Africa. Special attention is given to the role of gender for understanding who volunteers for caregiving and political organizations. The findings show that socializing with religious friends is associated with an increased likelihood of volunteering for both types of organizations and that religious importance is associated with a greater likelihood of caregiver volunteering. Conversely, religious importance and service attendance are associated with a lower likelihood of volunteering for political organizations. As expected, women are more likely to volunteer for caregiving organizations and men are more likely to volunteer for political organizations.