The death and resurrection of the American religious marketplace

This article expands upon existing academic literature examining both the decline and fragmentation of the American Christian Right. Specifically, it explores the impact of a fragmented evangelical body from a religious market perspective. It asserts that recent declines in evangelical church membership are largely due to the over-generality of its message, which in and of itself is a by-product of the broadcast age. Predictably, this over-generality has failed to cater to the diverse theological and spiritual needs of American churchgoers. However, with the rapid proliferation of Internet technologies, new religious frontiers are being explored and, as a result, many Christians are going elsewhere to tend to their spiritual needs. This process further reinforces the fragmentation of the evangelical body. This article similarly considers how with the growth of new and divergent religious movements, such as creation care and the emerging church, new religious leaders are finding their voice and preaching a message that diverges significantly from the old evangelical vanguard. While some might be tempted to view these developments in purely theological terms, the cultural fragmentation of the American evangelical community is not just a religious issue. A vibrant religious marketplace threatens the religious monopoly of the Christian Right, and by extension, the articulation of social conservatism and Republican politics. As new religious movements grow, so too do new conceptualisations and understandings of what it means to be a Christian and to hold Christian values. In facilitating the breakdown of the religious monologue of the Christian Right, the Internet is unsettling long-established political coalitions and giving rise to new political realities. To support these claims, this article relies on the combination of previous academic works, the reporting of recent religious and political developments, as well as personal interviews. The aim of this article is to provide a rich textual account of the state of evangelical Christianity as it is lived and experienced in a new media saturated environment.     

What Will the Neighbors Think? The Effect of Moral Communities on Cohabitation

In this study, we analyze the relationship between county-level religious adherence rates and county-level cohabitation rates in the year 2000. Based on the concept of moral communities, we test hypotheses that higher rates of affiliation with certain religious traditions and lower levels of religious heterogeneity will correlate with lower rates of cohabitation. The analysis consists of data from two sources: the 2000 U.S. Census and the 2000 Religious Congregations and Membership Study. In well-controlled models, spatial regression analysis indicates significant negative relationships between evangelical adherence rates and percent cohabiting. Our results also show that, although rates of adherence and heterogeneity also matter outside the South, the effects are consistently stronger in the South and among Christian denominations. This study advances research on cohabitation by conducting a county-level examination of the impact of religion and moral communities on the increasingly high levels of cohabitation that we are seeing in the United States.     

Compassionate Conservatives? Evangelicals,Economic Conservatism,and National Identity

In the United States, white evangelicals are more economically conservative than other Americans. It is commonly assumed that white evangelicals oppose redistributive social policies because of their individualistic theology. Yet Canadian evangelicals are just as supportive of redistributive social policy as other Canadians, even though they share the same tools of conservative Protestant theology. To solve this puzzle, I use multi‐sited ethnography to compare how two evangelical congregations in the United States and Canada talked about poverty and the role of government. In both countries, evangelicals made sense of their religious responsibilities to “the poor” by reference to national identity. Evangelicals used their theological tools differently in the United States and Canada because different visions of national solidarity served as cultural anchors for religious discourse about poverty. To understand the political and civic effects of religion, scholars need to consider the varied ways that religious groups imagine national community within religious practice.     

Militant protestantism: An analysis of the theology of political resistance and its impact on Northern Ireland

Ian Paisley is a controversial figure in the politics of Northern Ireland. Throughout the Troubles, and even before, he has led protests in opposition to religious and political developments in the province. He has also been associated with organisations that claimed to be ready to defend Ulster if the British Government's security policy collapsed. These organisations were prepared to use force if necessary. Paisley has been very vocal in his criticism of the British Government as well as other bodies of State. But Paisley claims to be a fundamentalist Christian and considers his comments and actions to be in conformity with his religious convictions. This article explores the theological and historical foundations of Paisley's thinking and endeavours to account for the political theology of Protestant fundamentalists like Paisley.     

Militant protestantism: An analysis of the theology of political resistance and its impact on Northern Ireland

Ian Paisley is a controversial figure in the politics of Northern Ireland. Throughout the Troubles, and even before, he has led protests in opposition to religious and political developments in the province. He has also been associated with organisations that claimed to be ready to defend Ulster if the British Government's security policy collapsed. These organisations were prepared to use force if necessary. Paisley has been very vocal in his criticism of the British Government as well as other bodies of State. But Paisley claims to be a fundamentalist Christian and considers his comments and actions to be in conformity with his religious convictions. This article explores the theological and historical foundations of Paisley's thinking and endeavours to account for the political theology of Protestant fundamentalists like Paisley.     

Attitudes toward religious diversity among American exemplars of Christian virtue

An important concern within contemporary Western societies is how religious adherents view and engage religious diversity. This study attempts to further understandings regarding religious diversity in contemporary society through the accounts of American Christian religious exemplars whose religious identification spans the conservative evangelical, liberal Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions. Ninety‐six in‐depth interviews were conducted with individuals recognized by their congregational leadership as exemplifying Christian virtues and thereby Christian commitment. Weak denominational allegiances, accompanied by salient identification with broad Christian religious traditions were found. Mainline/liberal Christians tended to identify conservative/evangelical Christians as ‘others’, while conservative/evangelical Christians identified Mormons as ‘others.’ Also, a shift in attitudes toward Catholics was found among Protestants, and attitudes toward non‐Christian religions were respectfully civil across a range of theological understanding of these religions. The implications of these findings for religious identity in contemporary society are explored with particular attention to religious diversity.     

Christian and Political Conservatism Predict Opposition to Sexual and Gender Minority Rights through Support for Christian Hegemony

Although significant strides have been made for sexual and gender minority (SGM) rights in the United States, there continues to be opposition to SGM rights from many conservative Christians and political conservatives. In this study, we investigate this opposition by examining support for Christian hegemony (i.e., the idea that Christianity should be the norm and Christians should be in power in the United States) and unawareness of Christian privilege (i.e., unearned advantages for Christians) as religiopolitical variables that help to explain the association between Christian and political conservatism and opposition to a host of SGM rights (same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption, nondiscrimination policies in jobs and housing for SGMs, and bills regarding transgender public bathroom use). Based on structural equation modeling analysis with heterosexual cisgender Christian (n = 688) and Areligious (n = 327) students, we demonstrate that support for Christian hegemony and unawareness of Christian privilege help to explain the association between Christian and political conservatism and opposition to SGM rights. These findings advance our understanding of a new type of religious-based variable focused on religious power and privilege to help understand conservative religious and political opposition to SGM rights. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research also are discussed.     

BY ITS FRUITS? MYSTICAL AND VISIONARY STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS OCCASIONED BY ENTHEOGENS

A new era has emerged in research on entheogens largely due to clinical trials conducted at Johns Hopkins University and similar studies sponsored by the Council for Spiritual Practices. In these notes and queries, I reflect on implications of these developments for psychological studies of religion and on what this research may mean for Christian churches in the United States. I conclude that the aims and methods of this research fit well within Jamesian efforts of contemporary psychology of religion to assess religious practices by their fruits for life. Furthermore, some communitarian religious concerns that religious experiences occasioned by entheogens pose risks to the integrity of religious community are shown to be largely unfounded. However, it is suggested that certain risks for religious life posed by all investigations/interventions by knowledge experts—in particular, the colonization of the religious life world and the commodification of its practices—also attend these developments for Christian churches. Additionally, risks of individual harm in the use of entheogens appear to be significant and, therefore, warrant earnest ethical study.     

Faith in welfare: the origins of the Open Home Foundation

This article analyses the origins of the Open Home Foundation (OHF), a Christian social service provider that commenced in New Zealand in 1977. It interprets the Foundation’s appeal, paying particular attention to the role of religious values and spirituality within the organisation. The article argues that OHF emerged and flourished from the late 1970s due to a confluence of personal, social, political and religious factors. Specifically, it reflected and benefited from post-war concerns about family life, renewed emphasis on policies of deinstitutionalisation, and a mobilisation of disparate conservative Christian interests. The latter factor concerning the religious context is particularly significant. On the one hand, it helps to explain the values and ethos of the organisation, and the social implications of a particular set of spiritual commitments. On the other, it complicates commonly held interpretations of conservative Christian engagement with social issues during this period.     

The Challenge of Christian Schooling in a Secular Society

This article evaluates the position of Christian schooling within a liberal democracy and the rights of Christians within a secular state. I challenge the fundamental liberal tenet of individual autonomy as the supreme goal of education and put the case that Christian schools are a vital part of a diverse, tolerant and inclusive society. Although intended as a theoretical resource, current developments in faith-based education in the United Kingdom are used to exemplify important political and philosophical arguments that will be of value to Christian educators in the United States and elsewhere.     

Korean Christian Zionism: A Sociological Study of Mission

From the perspective of the sociology of missions, this study explores the Korean Christian Zionists' mission work after 9/11. The current Pentecostal success in South Korea has spurred the nation to send more missionaries abroad than any other country except the United States. As America has been losing the trust of the world since 9/11, some evangelical fundamentalists argue that Korea should take over the initiative of world mission from the United States. The Jerusalem Jesus March in 2004 and the South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan in 2007 have served to admonish Korean churches to hastily reconsider coercing their missionaries to proselytize in dangerous areas such as Islamic lands. This study unfolds issues such as “spiritual subjectivism” and “Korea‐centrism”, illustrated by the Jesus March incident and the Afghan controversy, and suggests that the expansionism of Korean Pentecostal/evangelical missionaries taken up with the idea of “global spiritual conquest” is a manifestation of “Korean Christian Zionism”.     

Religiosity in Christian Educational Leadership

This study investigated the primary leadership orientations of Christian school leaders and their association with religiosity. To this end, this study adopted two lines of thought and research; the religiosity theory proposed by Batson, Schoenrade, and Ventis (1993) and the leadership theory proposed by Bolman and Deal (1997). Participants of this study were 206 K-12 school leaders affiliated with a Protestant church in the United States. According to the analysis, the human resource frame was the primary leadership frame of the school leaders, and the structural frame was a close second. Quest religiosity was inversely related to the four frames of structural, human resource, political, and symbolic leadership, whereas intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientations were positively related to the frames. Despite this pattern of relationship, in general, the analysis found little statistically meaningful relationship between religiosity and leadership, and this fact engenders an important question whether or not religion has any impact on Christian education, leadership, and behavior.     

An Examination of the “Greening of Christianity” Thesis Among Americans, 1993–2010

Some environmental and religious scholars, religious leaders, and media figures have claimed there has been a “greening of Christianity” in the United States since the mid‐1990s. Such a trend would be socially significant, as the integration of Christian values and environmental values may invigorate both domains. Using nationally representative data from the 1993 and 2010 General Social Surveys, we analyze how green self‐identified Christians in the U.S. general public are in their pro‐environmental attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Using structural equation modeling, we find no clear evidence of a greening of Christianity among rank‐and‐file Christians in the general public between 1993 and 2010. Indeed, the patterns of our results are quite similar to those from earlier decades, which documented that self‐identified Christians reported lower levels of environmental concern than did non‐Christians and nonreligious individuals. We did find evidence of some greening among evangelical Protestants, especially relative to mainline Protestants, between 1993 and 2010. We close by suggesting a few fruitful avenues for further research in this area via variable‐oriented, case‐oriented, and experimental studies and discussing some theoretical implications of our findings.     

Fracturing Over Creation Care? Shifting Environmental Beliefs Among Evangelicals, 1984–2010

While evangelicals have been popularly portrayed as caring primarily about social issues including abortion and homosexuality, there have been more reports in recent years of evangelical leaders, congregations, and institutions shifting focus to environmental issues. Are evangelicals shifting attention to and becoming more progressive in their views on the environment? Moreover, are evangelicals fracturing over the issue of environmentalism, as some have suggested? Using content analysis of three evangelical periodicals (Christianity Today, Sojourners, and World) from 1984 to 2010, I find not only that attention to environmental issues has increased over time, but also that the discussion has grown increasingly polarized and politicized. This change represents a potentially important break with the Republican Party and the Christian Right, as moderate evangelicals have moved to the left on environmental issues. Even among highly religious, self‐identified evangelical political elites, there is more diversity in views and political leanings than is commonly assumed. I conclude with a discussion of the implications of a lack of alignment between evangelical elites, traditional Christian Right leaders, and the Republican Party.     

Catholic health care in the United States: American pluralism and religious meanings.

This essay chronicles the development of Catholic health care in the United States during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. The author points to the religious pluralism and the respect for that pluralism as well as to the evangelical drive for conversion evident in Catholic hospitals. This essay is a phenomenological study of this commitment to pluralism and the evangelical impulse within the contexts of health care.     

Enforcing Christian Nationalism: Examining the Link Between Group Identity and Punitive Attitudes in the United States

This article examines whether the convergence of an individual's religious and national identities promotes authoritarian attitudes towards crime and deviance. Drawing on theories of social control and group conformity, as well as Christian nationalism's influence on intolerance toward out‐groups, I argue that the inability to distinguish between religious and national identities increases desire for group homogeneity and therefore increases willingness to utilize formalized measures of social control. Analysis of 2007 Baylor Religion Survey data demonstrates that adherence to Christian nationalism predicts three indicators of authoritarian views toward controlling crime and deviance: support for capital punishment, stricter punishment for federal crime, and for society to “crackdown on troublemakers.” These effects are robust to the inclusion of a comprehensive battery of 20 socioeconomic, political, and religious controls, and are consistent with previous research on Christian nationalism showing it is not religious commitment or traditionalism per se that leads to intolerant attitudes, but rather the conflation of one's religious identity with other social identities, in this case national. These findings indicate that, beyond sociopolitical and religious influences, the belief that the United States is, and should be, a “Christian nation” increases desires for group conformity and strict control for both criminals and “troublemakers.”     

‘Hope givers’? A scoping review of new media and mental health in 27 Australian Christian organisations

This article explains a range of conceptual and methodological innovations in the use of new media for the clinical practice and public communication of mental health. Building on two current contexts – the emerging research area of new media and mental health, and major reform of the mental health system in Australia – this article presents a scoping review of the online communication of Christian organisations that offer mental health care in Australia. This article compares the websites of 27 Australian Christian mental health organisations, analysing these organisations’ configurations of mainstream and religious modalities of mental health care, their discursive and visual communication strategies, as well as their use of social media platforms.     

Violence as Worship: Religious Wars in the Age of Globalization,by Hans G. Kippenberg,trans. Brian McNeil,Stanford University Press: Stanford,CA, 2011, viii + 286 pp. ISBN 978 0 8047 68726, US$70 (cloth); ISBN 978 0 8047 6873 3, US$21.95 (paperback)

The author argues in this paper that the ‘state effects’ generated by religious movements – even those operating at the margins of societies – require us to consider anew the impact of religious movements on state formation. In Sri Lanka, for instance, evangelicals are a minority. Yet their practice of proselytizing to new audiences was considered ‘unethical,’ generating opposition that was directed not only at them, but also at ruling elites for failing to stem what was seen as an intrusion of incompatible ‘Western’ ideals. Instead of considering how such Christian movements seek to ‘take over’ the functions of the ‘state’ as has been the experience in the United States and parts of Latin America, the author illustrates in this article why it makes more theoretical sense to ask how their activities impinge upon the conceptual frameworks through which the ‘state’ is imagined.     

Postcolonial philosophy of religion

The issue of leadership is one that spans many organisations. While management literature has examined this topic in depth, little comment has been made regarding the legitimacy of traditional business leadership theories, developed primarily in the United States, for use in a values-based organisation such as the organised church. The unique spiritual nature of Christian organisations is in some ways at odds with the assumptions of traditional leadership models. That said, many churches in the United States and churches outside the United States, but influenced by US institutional structures, are desperately seeking improvement in both pastoral and organisational effectiveness. This research examines traditional treatment of leadership and identifies implications of traditional and more recent theories of leadership for pastoral leaders and Christian laypeople.