Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion最新文献

This study examines whether and how the association between religious homogamy (i.e., whether spouses have the same religious affiliation) and marital satisfaction varies across religious affiliations by utilizing a unique context that four large religious groups (i.e., Buddhists, Protestants, Catholics, and religious nones) coexist in South Korea. Our results show that while religious homogamy has a positive relationship with marital satisfaction among Protestants and Catholics, there is no such association among Buddhists. This study also reveals that higher levels of religious attendance intensify the positive relationship between religious homogamy and marital satisfaction only among Protestants. Moreover, religious heterogamy is positively associated with marital relationships among religious nones compared to religious homogamy. However, this pattern held only for religious nones who married Buddhists or Catholics. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on religion and marriage from cross-cultural perspectives.

Research shows most Western societies became less religious over recent decades. But we know much less about the rest of the world. Is the non-Western world also becoming less religious, as some varieties of secularization theory would lead us to expect? Using 1981-to-2020 World/European Values Survey data from 103 countries, this study describes, and uses mixed-effects models to rigorously estimate, religious trends in eight world regions and five former Soviet and Eastern Bloc (FSEB) subregions. Results indicate that religious decline occurred in Latin America, Central and Baltic Europe, and (recently) in the Mideast and North Africa. But there is little evidence of such decline elsewhere in Asia, Africa, or the FSEB—despite the broad reach of many modernizing social trends. These findings do not lend support to a strong version of secularization theory but may be consistent with some versions of the idea that modernization can make people less religious.

Religion is permitted in China, but its practice is tightly regulated by the state. This paper uses individual-level longitudinal data to investigate the association between religious regulation and religious outcomes in China. Measures of regulation are constructed from instances of state action against Christians as well as Christian perceptions of unfair treatment by the government. In summary, as regulation increases, an individual is less likely to identify with a religion and less likely to say that religion is important. For those individuals without religious identification in either wave, regulation is negatively associated with religious importance. Yet, for those individuals with identification in one or two waves, regulation is either unassociated or even positively associated with importance. These findings contribute to research on regulation of religion and religion in China. More broadly, they demonstrate the state can wield considerable power over people's private lives but also that this power has limits.

Previous research suggests an angry God image is a narrative schema predicting support for more punitive forms of criminal justice. However, this research has not explored the possibility that racialization may impact one's God image. We perform logistic regression on Wave V of the Baylor Religion Survey to examine the correlation between an angry God image and the belief that police shoot Blacks more often because Blacks are more violent than Whites (a context-specific form of cultural racism). Engaging critical insights from intersectionality theory, we also interact angry God image with both racialized identity and racialized religious tradition. Results suggest that the angry God schema is associated with this form of cultural racism for White people generally as well as White Evangelicals, yet for Black Protestants, belief in an angry God is associated with resistance against this type of cultural racism.

The work of W.E.B. Du Bois highlights the significance of Christian religion in Black American life. According to Du Bois, the Black Church serves as a site of self-formation and affirmation, and the White Church as a source of racist beliefs and justifications for inequality. In this paper, we expand Du Bois’ inquiry about the influence of religion with a study of Black Americans who belong to a predominantly White religion. For those whose religious experience is almost wholly within the “white world,” what role does religion play in their lives? We analyze a set of 52 public accounts by Black Americans discussing their experiences as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). We find that for many Black LDS, membership in the LDS Church is characterized by contrast and contradiction, yielding spiritual conviction, joy, and meaningful communion on one hand, and racism and isolation on the other. We also find that Black LDS respond to these contradictions in a variety of ways. We classify these agentic responses into five types and examine the sociological significance of the observed variation. We conclude with a discussion of implications for scholarship on race and religion.

Previous research has found that women are more likely than men to report belief in nonmaterial paranormal phenomena (e.g., psychics). There are inconsistent findings about whether men are more likely than women to report belief in material paranormal phenomena (e.g., bigfoot/sasquatch), and no prior survey research has examined gender expression (as masculine or feminine) as it relates to paranormal beliefs. This paper asks: How do gender identity and gender expression relate to reported paranormal beliefs? It answers this question using a large sample (n = 2504) of Canadians. Femininity helps explain differences between cisgender women and men on reported beliefs about foreseeing the future and telekinesis, but less so about reported belief in ghosts. Intriguingly, reported gender atypicality is associated with reported belief in all paranormal phenomena among cisgender women and among cisgender men. The results highlight the importance of measuring gender expression for beliefs that science cannot verify.

Scholarship on W. E. B. Du Bois's understanding of religion is in the midst of a renaissance. Yet, few engage Du Bois's Prayers for Dark People, written over 1909–10 at Atlanta University. As a remedy, I first provide historical context on the production and reception of Prayers. I then delve into the content of Prayers, identifying the tenets of a Du Boisian “sociological spirituality” brought to bear on the study and navigation of “race” and the “color-line.” Through four strategies, Du Bois blended sociological empiricism and theorization with appeals to spirituality in the form of moral realism, stoicism, hypostasis, and metaphysics: (1) a critical deism that conserves belief in sacred divinity; (2) pedagogical racial uplift strategies that help resolve theodicies; (3) symbolic interactionism that sanctifies the Black self, and; (4) a sociology of knowledge based on otherworldly dimensions. I conclude that Du Bois's Prayers serves as a liturgy for Black liberation. Prayers emphasizes a transgressive rhetoric that exceeds the confines of social theory through a sacralization of sociological knowledge as a prophetic anticipation of moral Black lifeworlds.

Recent debates about whether educators should teach America's racist history have sparked activism and legislation to ensure students are taught American history in such a way that promotes “patriotism,” amplifying cherished national myths, emphasizing American exceptionalism, and erasing negative historical facts. Building on insights from both social dominance theory and Christian nationalism research, we propose Christian nationalism combines legitimizing myths that whitewash America's past with authoritarian impulses and thus seeks to enforce “patriotic” content in public school classrooms. We also theorize this connection varies across racial, partisan, and ideological identities. Data from a nationally-representative survey of Americans affirm Christian nationalism is by far the leading predictor Americans believe “We should require public school teachers to teach history in a way that promotes patriotism.” This association is consistent across race (possibly due to divergent meanings of both “Christian nationalism” and “patriotism” across groups), but varies by partisanship and ideological identity for whites. Specifically, Christian nationalism brings whites who identify with the ideological and political left into complete alignment with their conservative counterparts who are already more likely to support mandatory patriotic education. Our findings provide critical context for ongoing battles over public-school curricula and education's role in perpetuating social privilege.

Are religious leaders unusually unhealthy? This question has long occupied scholars interested in the study of religious institutions, and a significant body of research has examined the causes, correlates, and effects of poor health among clergy. In this study, we aimed to: (1) outline the development of, and bias inherent to, the scholarly understanding of clergy health over the past 50 years; (2) test, using a recently collected nationally representative sample of clergy, the standing assumption that clergy are an especially unhealthy vocational group, specifically in terms of depression, obesity, and self-rated health; and (3) identify the major correlates of health among clergy using these data. Contrary to the recent tenor of scholarly research on this subject, our research revealed that clergy are not a particularly unhealthy group. We suggest potential pathways forward to ameliorate the bias inherent in the research into clergy well-being.

Poverty is among the most challenging social problems in the United States today, and beliefs about the government's role in reducing inequality and raising living standards for the poor are critical to alleviating poverty and its consequences. Du Bois recognized the complex challenges associated with poverty and was ahead of his time in pointing to ethnicity and religion as fundamental to creating change and alleviating poverty. Du Bois’ ideas continue to be relevant today, including for understanding ethnic differences among Catholics in attitudes toward poverty, which are likely changing given the growth of the Latino population. In the spirit of Du Bois’ seminal research, I compare Latino and non-Latino Catholic attitudes toward poverty and inequality using the 2021 General Social Survey. Findings document critical differences among Catholics in beliefs about poverty and inequality and highlight the interdependent role of religion, ethnicity, and demographics (e.g., age, gender, socioeconomic status [SES]) in shaping attitudes.