Journal For the Scientific Study of Religion

doi: 10.1111/jssr.12737pmid: N/A

Kurien, Prema

doi: 10.1111/jssr.12782pmid: N/A

I argue that scholarship in the social scientific study of religion and its paradigms continue to be focused on the United States and Christianity, particularly on white U.S. Christians. This means that theoretical frameworks in the field tend to be limited and “parochial,” largely ignoring non‐U.S., non‐white, and non‐Christian contexts. I call for scholars to develop a global and comparative perspective on religion and to also examine its impacts on other dimensions of social life. To show how this can be done, I outline an argument about religion as social location, drawing from my research on five religious traditions (Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, and Buddhism) in three countries (India, the United States, and Canada). I demonstrate how religious background can shape social and structural location within societies and globally, in turn, affecting the manifestations of religion and how religion is imbricated with other dimensions of social life.

Perry, Samuel L.; Braunstein, Ruth; Gorski, Philip S.; Grubbs, Joshua B.

doi: 10.1111/jssr.12760pmid: N/A

Religious right leaders often promulgate views of Christianity's historical preeminence, privilege, and persecution in the United States that are factually incorrect, suggesting credulity, ignorance, or perhaps, a form of ideologically motivated ignorance on the part of their audience. This study examines whether Christian nationalism predicts explicit misconceptions regarding religion in American political history and explores theories about the connection. Analyzing nationally representative panel data containing true/false statements about religion's place in America's founding documents, policies, and court decisions, Christian nationalism is the strongest predictor that Americans fail to affirm factually correct answers. This association is stronger among whites compared to black Americans and religiosity actually predicts selecting factually correct answers once we account for Christian nationalism. Analyses of “do not know” response patterns find more confident correct answers from Americans who reject Christian nationalism and more confident incorrect answers from Americans who embrace Christian nationalism. We theorize that, much like conservative Christians have been shown to incorrectly answer science questions that are “religiously contested,” Christian nationalism inclines Americans to affirm factually incorrect views about religion in American political history, likely through their exposure to certain disseminators of such misinformation, but also through their allegiance to a particular political‐cultural narrative they wish to privilege.

Evans, M.D.R.; Kelley, Jonathan

doi: 10.1111/jssr.12756pmid: N/A

In societies where the populace exhibits a wide range of religiosity, social conservatives (religiously devout or socially traditional) feel their beliefs and way of life threatened, even where others in their society (secular, or socially liberal) have no desire to threaten them, or to discriminate against them, or even to proselytize. Examples include devout English Pilgrims in liberal 16th century Holland and devout Muslims in liberal 21st century Western Europe. We suggest that this is because diversity in religiosity itself poses a threat to conventional personal morality (attitudes on abortion, divorce, euthanasia, suicide, prostitution). The consequences of societal diversity in religiosity (the centrality of religion to one's life) for individuals’ endorsement of conventional personal morality have been neglected in prior research. This paper shows that diversity in religiosity at the national level undermines individuals’ endorsement of conventional personal morality, net of an individual's own religiosity, net of the average levels of religiosity and socioeconomic development in the individual's society, and net of key individual‐level controls. Data are pooled from the World Values Surveys/European Values Surveys, 1981–2008, with 90 countries, 200+ surveys, and 300,000+ individual respondents. Analysis is by multilevel methods (variance components models with fixed effects and random intercepts, estimated by generalized least squares [GLS]).

Francis‐Tan, Andrew; Tian, Felicia F.

doi: 10.1111/jssr.12764pmid: N/A

Religiosity appears to be rising in China. However, this trend hides the extent of fluidity in religious beliefs and behaviors. Within‐person changes in religiosity across time are not random but patterned in systematic ways. In this article, we examine the predictors of religiosity in a longitudinal sample of Chinese adults from 2012 to 2016. Religious outcomes are correlated with sociodemographic, political, and health variables. Notably, all religious outcomes are positively associated with household income and also with the unfair treatment index, a measure of negative personal experiences with the government. Measures of health problems are positively associated with religious importance, though not with religious identification or behavior.

Smidt, Corwin E.

doi: 10.1111/jssr.12762pmid: N/A

Although it has long been recognized that treating “born‐again” and “evangelical” as equivalents is problematic, little scholarly effort has been made to assess whether the difference makes a difference. This study seeks to do so, assessing, in part, the extent to which the “born‐again or evangelical Christian” survey question captures evangelical identities and whether the question has merit for capturing evangelical respondents. By analyzing surveys in which respondents were asked separate questions related to a “born‐again” and an evangelical identity, this study addresses several issues related to such identities, including whether “born‐again” and evangelical identities are the same, and, if not, whether the difference makes a difference. In the end, significant political differences emerge between those who identify as evangelicals and those who identify as “born‐again,” suggesting that scholars and surveys would be better served to ask separate “born‐again” and evangelical identity questions than to merge the two into one.

Upenieks, Laura

doi: 10.1111/jssr.12765pmid: N/A

Religious beliefs and practices are thought to help people confront problems that push the limits of human life. Integrating the life course perspective, we assess whether the accumulation of religiosity (“spiritual capital”) between childhood and adulthood had any bearing on its ability to cushion the mental health insults of a cancer diagnosis, factoring in age‐at‐diagnosis. Using two waves of data from National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (N = 1431), results suggest that stable high religious importance between childhood and adulthood weakened the deleterious mental health consequences of a cancer diagnosis. For individuals under the age of 45, the relationship between a cancer diagnosis and psychological distress was considerably weaker for those reporting stably high or increasing religious importance between childhood and adulthood. We discuss the implications of our results for research at the intersection religion and the life course perspective.

Harris, Jacob W.; Jones, Melissa S.; Monson, J. Quin

doi: 10.1111/jssr.12769pmid: N/A

A “tough on crime” attitude has dominated criminal justice policy and practice in the United States since the 1970s. In an effort to understand this rise in punitiveness, scholars have identified racial attitudes and religion as significant predictors of punitive sentiment. However, little or no extant research has examined the potential mediating effect of racial resentment on the relationship between religion and punitive attitudes. Using data from the 2017 Kids’ Wellbeing Survey, ordinal and logistic regressions are employed to measure the relationships between religion, racial resentment, and punitive attitudes toward youth criminals. Findings indicate that the effects of religion, particularly Mainline Protestant, Evangelical, and Catholic affiliation, on punitive attitudes toward criminally involved youth is mediated by racial resentment. This suggests that racial resentment plays a significant role in understanding the relationship between religion and punitive sentiments.

Henderson, W. Matthew; Kent, Blake Victor

doi: 10.1111/jssr.12767pmid: N/A

Previous religion/spirituality (R/S) research on attachment to God and mental well‐being has relied entirely on linear models. Scholars, however, have called for more nuanced analysis of religious beliefs and dispositions relative to mental health, and several studies using a nonlinear approach have yielded fruitful results with a handful of R/S predictors. Relying on national data from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey, this study investigates potential nonlinear associations between attachment to God and psychological distress by fitting curvilinear models of avoidant attachment to God and multiple measures of general and psychological distress. For conceptual reasons, linear models of anxious attachment are also employed. Results reveal a nonlinear relationship between avoidant/secure attachment and distress and a deleterious linear relationship between anxious attachment to God and distress. This supports the overall hypothesis that anxiety or a lack of certainty about one's relationship with the divine represents a threat to psychological well‐being.

Doces, John A.; Goldberg, Jack; Wolaver, Amy

doi: 10.1111/jssr.12772pmid: N/A

We hypothesize that there are two mechanisms by which religion can affect prosocial behaviors. Being reminded about religion can induce prosocial behaviors through an external, triggering effect. The underlying beliefs can have an effect through internal mechanisms. To untangle these competing effects, a lab‐in‐the‐field experiment was conducted in West Africa in which we asked people participating in a survey if they would like to donate their participation fee to a local charity. We randomly assigned respondents a question asking about belief in heaven and hell. We also vary the donation price to test whether there are limits on the prosocial behaviors. We find that the trigger has no effect on the decision to donate, but that belief in heaven/hell has a positive, large, statistically significant effect on the likelihood of donations. Religious belief does encourage prosocial behavior but those effects dissipate as the opportunity cost of giving increases.