Relationships Among Giving, Church Attendance, and Religious Belief: The Case of the Presbyterian Church (USA)

Using data from a survey of members and elders of the Presbyterian Church (USA), we estimate relationships among religious contributions, church attendance, and theological belief. Survey respondents indicated whether they were theologically conservative or liberal, and we hypothesized that the level and the composition of giving would be affected by theological belief. We found that conservative Presbyterians gave more in total, and gave more to the local church and to non-Presbyterian religious organizations than did more liberal Presbyterians, while more liberal Presbyterians gave more to secular charities than did conservative Presbyterians.     

Religion and Paranormal Belief

This article uses a Canadian national sample to examine the relationship between conventional religious belief, church attendance, and belief in paranormal phenomena. Greater religious belief is strongly associated with greater paranormal belief. Church attendance (and other measures of religious participation) are only weakly associated with paranormal belief until conventional religious belief is statistically controlled; once this is done, greater church attendance is strongly associated with lowered paranormal belief. Together, these two religious variables explain about one-quarter of the variance in paranormal belief, making them the strongest predictors that have yet to be identified.     

Christianity,Personality and Concern about Environmental Pollution among 13‐ to 15‐year‐olds

A sample of 20,968 Year 9 and Year 10 pupils provided information about their concern regarding environmental pollution, belief in God, church attendance, prayer, and view on creationism. They also completed the short form Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The data demonstrate that (after taking into account sex, age and personality) belief in God, church attendance and personal prayer are all significant predictors of greater environmental concern. After taking these religious factors into account, however, creationist beliefs are irrelevant to environmental concern. These findings are discussed against the background of theory which criticises the Christian tradition for promoting environmental exploitation rather than environmental concern.     

The Religious, the Paranormal, and Church Attendance: A Response to Orenstein

Orenstein's (2002) JSSR article "Religion and Paranormal Belief" uses Reginald Bibby's 1995 Project Canada data to argue that religious and paranormal belief are positively correlated, but that church attendance and paranormal belief are negatively correlated. In this response, I use the same data to show that while his basic model is true, we also need to consider the interaction between church attendance and religious belief. Religious attendance conditions the effect of religious beliefs on paranormal beliefs in an important fashion. I find that religious and paranormal belief are positively correlated, but only for those who do not attend church regularly.     

Individual Religiosity,Moral Community,and Drug User Treatment

Some scholars have suggested that individual religiosity inhibits deviant behavior. Others have suggested that behavior is more responsive to the influence of religiously‐oriented moral communities than to the religiosity of individuals. Still others have suggested that non‐religious moral communities, such as sports teams or self‐help recovery groups, are just as effective as religious moral communities. The current article examines the associations between addicts' reductions in drug and alcohol use and religiosity, increase in church attendance, and increase in addiction self‐help recovery group attendance, following participation in publicly funded treatment programs. Results indicate that increase in self‐help recovery group attendance and church attendance were independently associated with reduction in alcohol use. Only increase in church attendance was significantly associated with reduction in cocaine use. Self‐assessed religious conviction was not associated with changes in drug use.     

Religiosity and psychological well-being

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between religiosity and psychological well-being in a sample of Greek Orthodox Christians. Previous research has documented that personal devotion, participation in religious activities, and religious salience are positively associated with different criteria of psychological well-being. The sample (83 men and 280 women) with an age range from 18 to 48 years, was strongly skewed with respect to sex (77% female) and education level (95% were university students or university graduates). Religiosity was operationalized as church attendance, frequency of prayer and belief salience. In addition, a single item referring to beliefs about God was used. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, and general life satisfaction were selected as dependent variables because they reflect important dimensions of psychological well-being. Preliminary analyses showed that sex was significantly related to the three religiosity variables (church attendance, frequency of prayer, belief salience), with women being more religious than men. Consistent with previous research, correlations suggested that church attendance and belief salience were associated with better life satisfaction. The results of hierarchical regression analysis showed a significant positive association between anxiety and frequency of personal prayer. Finally, personal beliefs about God did not seem to relate to any of the psychological well-being measures. The results of the present study partially support the hypothesized association between religiosity and psychological well-being.     

Belief systems and attitudes toward the death penalty and other punishments

This study focused on the relationship of belief systems as a configural construct and conservatism-liberalism to attitudes toward the death penalty and other punishments for offenses of varying severity Extrapersonalists, the most concretely functioning of the four conceptual or belief systems posited by Harvey, Hunt, and Schroder (1961), were most in favor of the death penalty They also endorsed the most severe punishment for a variety of crimes, to a particularly greater extent than did representatives of either of the two more abstractly functioning systems The belief dimensions of Openness, Evaluativeness, and Complexity, as well as the frequency of church attendance, correlated more highly and consistently with attitudes toward punishment than did either Conservatism-Liberalism or gender Both of the latter variables failed to correlate with a number of the outcome variables and related at only low levels to the others The greater predictive power of a configural conception of personality or belief systems over a unidimensional conception seems to have been demonstrated Configural concepts may additionally be generally superior to multidimensional concepts treated linearly     

Correlations of religious belief and practice with college students' tattoo-related behavior

This research builds on a large body of literature which suggests that religious belief and practice suppress deviant behavior. Survey data from 520 undergraduates (64% freshmen and sophomores; 70% female; 80% Euro-American) at a large public university in the southwest were examined for whether students' strength of religious faith, church attendance, or frequency of prayer correlated with their having a tattoo, being interested in tattoos, or being likely to get a (or another) tattoo. Analysis showed strength of religious faith had a weak, negative correlation with having a tattoo, being interested in tattoos, and being likely to get a (or another) tattoo. Church attendance also weakly correlated with a reduced interest in tattooing. Since the strength of the numerous correlations was very low and barely reached statistical significance, religious belief and behavior do not appear to be associated substantively with attitudes and behavior regarding tattoos. This suggests increasing cultural acceptance of tattooing.     

Does Church Attendance Really Increase Schooling?

This article shows that religiosity during adolescence has a significant effect on total number of years of schooling attained. It differs from previous research by focusing on church attendance rather than on denomination and by controlling more completely for the effects of omitted-variables bias. Any estimated correlation between church attendance and schooling without such controls may reflect unmeasured family, community, and individual characteristics. The size of the effect for individuals who attended church 52 weeks per year compared to individuals who do not attend at all is equivalent to over three years of parents' schooling . This finding implies that changes in church attendance, either due to exogenous changes in attitudes or as an indirect effect of government or other institutional activity, may have large spill-over effects on socioeconomic variables.     

Religious Change and Stability: Seasonality in Church Attendance from the 1940s to the 2000s

Using attendance data from a declining Episcopal church and a growing Lutheran church in a medium‐sized midwestern city, we explore the issue of seasonality in church attendance from the 1940s to the late 2000s. Our central concern is whether month‐to‐month variation in church attendance has remained the same or changed over the period of time under consideration. We find remarkable consistency in the overall month‐to‐month attendance pattern over the course of the past seven decades but less variation in attendance from month to month in more recent decades in both churches. We argue that the findings demonstrate the presence of a “committed core” of church members who attend regularly and the departure of nominal members who have swelled the ranks of the “nones” in recent decades.     

Attitude towards Christianity and New Age beliefs among undergraduate students in Slovenia: a study in implicit religion

This study examines two conflicting hypotheses regarding the association between traditional religiosity and new age belief: the “worldview hypothesis” suggesting a positive association between these two sets of beliefs; and the “functional alternative hypothesis” suggesting a negative association between these two sets of beliefs. A sample of 1209 undergraduate students attending the University of Maribor, Slovenia, completed the Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity as a measure of traditional religiosity and the Lavri? Scale of New Age Belief, alongside a measure of frequency of church attendance. The data demonstrated a positive correlation between attitude towards Christianity and new age belief, even after taking into account different levels of church attendance. These findings support the worldview hypotheses in favour of the functional alternative hypothesis.     

How to Assimilate the Elderly Into Your Parish:

This research is a scientific study of retired persons, to attempt to determine why they drop out of the church upon reaching retirement age. The hypothesis is that a person drops out of active church life because helshe feels alienated within the social system known as the church. Groups were tested in Michigan, Indiana, and Florida. Each group was tested for church attendance, religiosity, alienation and religious experience. Using alienation as the independent variable, it was determined that there was a correlation between alienation and church attendance. These two variables were found to be correlated at the 0.001 level of confidence. Upon further examination it was found that the computed T-Statistic indicated that the correlation was inverse in nature. As alienation increases, church attendance measurably decreases. Due to the fmdings of this research the hypothesis was accepted. Having determined that alienation is a primary cause of decline in church attendance among the elderly, ways in which to decrease alienation and therefore increase church attendance are presented. A primary agent in the process of reducing alienation is psycho-social bonding and ways to increase the bonding process are discussed. Bonding is that process by which a person attaches to, and makes a social connection with another person. The bond that is formed is often difficult to eradicate. Alienation could be described as a state of being bondless within a social system.     

Social Correlates of Church Attendance in Three European Catholic Countries

The sociology of religion literature recognizes secularization as an uneven process complicated by individual and country-level variables. However, considerably less attention has been given to how correlates of church attendance vary across divergent settings within a single religious denomination. Employing recent data from Belgium, Ireland, and Slovenia, we test whether the belief, ideological support for the church, and religious commitment correlates of religious behaviour are similar across these Catholic countries and whether there are any remaining country effects influencing church attendance. The results of ordered logit regression models show, on the one hand, the correlates of church attendance are basically the same across the three countries and, on the other, that country effects remain even when controlling for the key explanatory variables and other covariates. These empirical findings suggest the need to develop a more contextual-based understandings of secularization, focusing on the influence of cultural factors operative in nationally-specific settings.     

Authoritative Parenting and the Transmission of Religion in the Netherlands: A Panel Study

This study was designed to explore the effect of authoritative parenting, over and above the effect of explicitly religious parenting practices, on the juvenile and adult church attendance of offspring. Data were collected as part of a panel study in which 474 Dutch respondents were questioned in 1983 as youths and in 2007 as adults. In 2007 the respondents retrospectively answered questions about how they were raised by their parents. Analyses revealed that juvenile church attendance depends mainly on parental and more specifically on maternal church attendance, whereas adult church attendance is largely an outcome of juvenile church attendance. No effects of an authoritative parenting style, that is, a simultaneous effect of responsiveness, strict control, and the granting of psychological autonomy as the three dimensions of authoritative parenting distinguished in this study, were observed. Only the dimension of strict control turned out to be a negative determinant of adult church attendance.     

Religiosity and Adolescent Substance Use in Central Mexico: Exploring the Influence of Internal and External Religiosity on Cigarette and Alcohol Use

This study explores the multidimensional nature of religiosity on substance use among adolescents living in central Mexico. From a social capital perspective, this article investigates how external church attendance and internal religious importance interact to create differential pathways for adolescents, and how these pathways exert both risk and protective influences on Mexican youth. The data come from 506 self-identified Roman Catholic youth (ages 14–17) living in a semi-rural area in the central state of Guanajuato, Mexico, and attending alternative secondary schools. Findings indicate that adolescents who have higher church attendance coupled with higher religious importance have lower odds of using alcohol, while cigarette use is lower among adolescents who have lower church attendance and lower religious importance. Adolescents are most at risk using alcohol and cigarettes when church attendance is higher but religious importance is lower. In conclusion, incongruence between internal religious beliefs and external church attendance places Mexican youth at greater risk of alcohol and cigarette use. This study not only contributes to understandings of the impact of religiosity on substance use in Mexico, but highlights the importance of understanding religiosity as a multidimensional phenomenon which can lead to differential substance use patterns.     

The impact of religion on men's blood pressure

Most clinical studies examining the relation between religion and blood pressure status have focused on church attendance, finding lower pressures among frequent attenders. The present study examines the effect on blood pressure status of a religious meaning variable, importance of religion, both by itself and together with frequency of church attendance. The relation between blood pressure, self-perceived importance of religion, and frequency of church attendance was examined among a rural sample of 407 white men free from hypertension or cardiovascular disease. The data confirmed an interaction between the effects of both religious variables on blood pressure status, with importance of religion having an even greater association with lower pressures than church attendance. Diastolic blood pressures of persons with high church attendance and high religious importance were significantly lower than those in the low attendance, low importance group. These differences persisted after adjusting the analyses for age, socioeconomic status, smoking, and weight-height ratio (Quetelet Index). The difference in mean diastolic pressures based on response to the religious importance variable alone was statistically and clinically significant, particularly among men aged 55 and over (6 mm) and among smokers (5 mm). These findings suggest that both religious attitudes and involvement may interact favorably in their effects on cardiovascular hemodynamics.     

Neutralization and delinquency: a comparison by sex and ethnicity

A path model illustrating the relationships between church attendance, delinquent peer association, tendency to neutralize delinquency, and self-reported delinquent behavior was compared between males and females and between Mexican-American and Anglo college students (N = 694). The structure of the relationships among these variables was found to be similar across all four subsamples, although there was some variation in the strength of the relationships. In all four subsamples, the strongest paths were between neutralization and delinquent behavior, especially among Anglos and among males, and the weakest paths were between church attendance and delinquent behavior. On the other hand, church attendance was more strongly related to having fewer delinquent peers among Anglos and females. The path models explained substantial amounts of variation in delinquent behavior: 38% among Anglos, 32% among females, 31% among males, and 30% among Mexican-Americans.     

Do Villages Remain Christian Communities?

A house-to-house survey of a rural English community of around 400 people resulted in 100 completed questionnaires. Respondents were asked to rate a series of questions on a five-point scale to indicate whether they saw themselves as Christians, whether they considered themselves regular churchgoers, and other related indices of religiosity. The results show the sample to be more Christian than the national average in respect of both avowed belief and church attendance. This would seem to confirm that Christianity remains strongest in the countryside and that the community model of the church survives in rural areas. This in turn raises questions about the style of ministry most appropriate for rural parishes in England and Wales.     

Self-Selection, Church Attendance, and Local Civic Participation

Prior research has shown that church attendance affects voting participation, but has a negative or no effect on more demanding forms of political participation. I argue that this differential for nonelectoral activity partially results from biases in how scholars conceptualize and analyze church attendance variables. To properly measure the influence of church attendance on nonelectoral participation, scholarship needs to account for self-selection biases that hinder accurate analyses. Consistent with the literature, a selection model finds that once fundamentalism's motivating effect is considered, church attendance plays no role in a respondent's participation in local government meetings. The present work provides a partial explanation for why attendance has no effect on more demanding political activity. These findings demonstrate that scholarship should focus attention on prior factors that influence congregants' attendance decisions.     

Life-style and substance use among male African American urban adolescents: A cluster analytic approach

Cluster analyzed four variables: school attendance, employment, church attendance, and delinquency, to develop life-style profiles. Data from 218 African-American urban adolescents were used in the study. Five meaningful clusters were retained and subjected to criterion validity analyses using measures of spirituality, participation in a voluntary organization, self-esteem, and friend's substance use. The five clusters were then compared on cigarette, alcohol, marijuana, and hard drug use. The results suggest that a life-style that includes an adaptive compensatory behavior component may be more adaptive than a life-style that does not include compensatory behavior. For example, youths who left high school before graduation but were involved in church reported less alcohol and substance use than youths who left school and were not involved in any meaningful instrumental activity. Implications for intervention and future research on high-risk behaviors are discussed.