Racism in the Hands of an Angry God: How Image of God Impacts Cultural Racism in Relation to Police Treatment of African Americans

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.     

Shepherds and Sheep: Parish Reconfiguration,Authority, and Activism in a Catholic Diocese

This mixed method study describes contention over parish reconfiguration in a northeast Catholic diocese, and a case study of one merged parish. Guided by social movement theories about collective action frames and political opportunities in mobilization, we outline the diocesan frame of reconfiguration and the counter frame developed by activists who organized to oppose the process. While the diocesan frame focused on a shortage of priests that officials believed demanded reconfiguration of financially burdened parishes, the lay counter frame shifted the debate to questions about the role of the laity in the contemporary Catholic Church and what they perceived as failed leadership from their bishop. Our case study of Resurrection Parish shows how the merger process and the activists’ opposition to their diocesan leaders resulted in a parish that works to ensure the involvement of the laity, and continues to publicly dissent from Catholic leaders.     

God in America: Why Theology Is Not Simply the Concern of Philosophers

As citizens of the most technologically advanced and economically developed country in the world, nearly all Americans stalwartly maintain their faith in God, much more so than residents of other postindustrial countries ( Norris and Ingelhart 2004 ). But what is the content and meaning of this belief? Perhaps belief in God has become so pervasive in contemporary American culture that it reflects little about believers' deeper religious thoughts, identities, and actions. We find the opposite to be true. Outside the confines of seminaries, competing beliefs about who God is and what God wants have a clear and important connection to everyday religious life in the United States. Subtle distinctions in American images of God powerfully predict religious diversity as measured by belief in the truth of a single religious faith, religious devotion, and attitudes about the compatibility of secular and religious spheres. More specifically, we discern that American religious conservatism, in all its forms, can be aptly characterized by the belief that God is highly engaged in the world and particularly judgmental of human behavior.     

Religion and the Acceptability of White‐Collar Crime: A Cross‐National Analysis

This article examines whether shared religious beliefs and religious social relationships (Durkheim) and belief in a personal, moral God (Stark) negatively affect attitudes toward the acceptability of white‐collar crime. In addition, using a large cross‐national sample and estimating multilevel models, we test whether effects are conditional on modernization and religious contexts characterized by belief in an impersonal or amoral God. Shared religious beliefs and the importance of God in one's life are negatively related to the acceptability of white‐collar crime. These effects, however, weaken in religious contexts characterized by belief in an impersonal or amoral God as do the effects of religious social relationships and belonging to a religious organization; modernization, on the other hand, does not have a moderating effect. In short, religious belief is associated with lower acceptance of white‐collar crime and certain types of religious contexts condition this relationship.     

Beliefs in and About God and Attitudes Toward Voluntary Euthanasia

I use data from the General Social Survey to evaluate several hypotheses regarding how beliefs in and about God predict attitudes toward voluntary euthanasia. I find that certainty in the belief in God significantly predicts negative attitudes toward voluntary euthanasia. I also find that belief in a caring God and in a God that is the primary source of moral rules significantly predicts negative attitudes toward voluntary euthanasia. I also find that respondents’ beliefs about the how close they are to God and how close they want to be with God predict negative attitudes toward voluntary euthanasia. These associations hold even after controlling for religious affiliation, religious attendance, views of the Bible, and sociodemographic factors. The findings indicate that to understand individuals’ attitudes about voluntary euthanasia, one must pay attention to their beliefs in and about God.     

Latvian Baptist Traditions in Transition

I intend not so much to write about Latvian Baptist traditions in the past as to reflect on the challenges Baptists in Latvia face as part of a society which is in the process of being integrated into Western Europe. It is important to try to avoid stereotypes: as others have pointed out the declaration that 'such and such is the Baptist tradition' may mean only that 'we have done it thus ever since I can remember' or 'this is how it was done in the Baptist circles where I used to live'. Although by no means the largest denomination in Latvia, the Baptist Church occupies a distinct place in society. Statistics show that it is growing: in 1985 there were 60 congregations with 4,852 members; in 1998 the Baptist Union included 76 churches with 6,180 members. In 1998 membership grew in 33 congregations. The Baptists are now considered to be a 'traditional religion' and together with representatives from the Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, Old Believer and Jewish religious associations they are members of the Consultative Council for Religious Affairs of the Ministry of Justice. With other denominations, in 1988 the Baptists signed an agreement with the state on military chaplaincy, and they are one of the denominations which have a legal right to teach in state schools on religion (the Baptists and Lutherans have worked out a joint curriculum for these classes).     

Faith and Agency: The Relationships Between Sense of Control,Socioeconomic Status,and Beliefs About God

An individual's sense of control varies with religiosity, but the direction of this relationship can change based on one's social status and one's image of God. Using data from the Baylor Religion Survey Wave V, our current study investigates how secure attachment to God, belief in a judgmental God, and belief in divine control are associated with sense of control. Our findings indicate that the type of religious belief explains when religion is positively or negatively related to the believers’ sense of control. And secure attachment to God and belief in divine control will compensate for social and economic deprivation. Still, belief in a judgmental God is negatively related to agency for believers across the stratification hierarchy. This indicates that a traditional fire-and-brimstone God is related to a lower sense of control, while more contemporary and individualized beliefs about God are connected to greater agency, especially for believers in need.     

Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts

We investigate the problem of how nonnatural entities are represented by examining university students’ concepts of God, both professed theological beliefs and concepts used in comprehension of narratives. In three story processing tasks, subjects often used an anthropomorphic God concept that is inconsistent with stated theological beliefs; and drastically distorted the narratives without any awareness of doing so. By heightening subjects’ awareness of their theological beliefs, we were able to manipulate the degree of anthropomorphization. This tendency to anthropomorphize may be generalizable to other agents. God (and possibly other agents) is unintentionally anthropomorphized in some contexts, perhaps as a means of representing poorly understood nonnatural entities.     

BELIEF, PRACTICE, AND RELIGION

Abstract. How to reconcile belief in God with the worldview generated by modern science is a concern for those who see such belief as the essence of religion. Some religious traditions emphasize correct behavior, including observance of ritual, more than belief. Others stress individual pursuit of inner tranquility without prescribing particular beliefs or rituals by which that is to be achieved. Theological issues relating to "the God question in an age of science" are relevant to Christians, whose religious emphasis is on right belief as necessary to personal salvation; but science does not raise such issues for religion generally.     

On the examination of the role of the episcopalian priest in the pastoral ministry

The purpose of the research was to identify empirically and measurably those dimensions considered important by laity in evaluating their priest. The 83-item questionnaire was developed from existing instruments and from an interview survey carried out on laity from a national selection of Episcopal parishes. 221 parishes responded with complete data. A factor analysis was performed on the data yielding eight useable factors: (a) Pastoral sensitivity, (b) Administrative Skills, (c) Scholarship, (d) Personal Integrity, (e) Innovation, (f) Personal Spirituality, (g) Meaningfulness of Services, and (h) Laity Involvement. The results of the research were seen as a beginning insight into what the laity perceived as important aspects of their parish priest's role, and an instrument to measure these dimensions for further research was produced.     

“Four Gods” in Maximum Security Prison: Images of God,Religiousness, and Worldviews Among Inmates

This paper extends research on images of God, which prior researchers based mostly on national survey data, to a study of offenders in prison. We first explore whether the distribution of Froese and Bader’s (America’s four gods: What we say about god–& what that says about us, Oxford University Press, New York 2010) four images of God among prison inmates is similar to that in the general population. We then examine whether an inmate’s image of God is associated with the inmate’s worldviews: beliefs and attitudes toward the law, other inmates, moral responsibility, and ultimate meaning and purpose in life. Finally, we test whether an inmate’s belief in a forgiving God and religiousness explain the association. We analyzed data from a survey of 2249 inmates at America’s largest maximum-security prison, the Louisiana State Penitentiary. We found the distribution of God-images among inmates was the same as that in national samples in terms of rank order. As hypothesized, we also found inmates with an image of an engaged God tended to report lower levels of legal cynicism and sense of illegitimacy of punishment and higher levels of collective efficacy, existential belief, and moral responsibility than those with images of a disengaged God or no God. Finally, we found an inmate’s belief in a forgiving God and religiousness to mediate partly relationships between images of God and the inmate’s worldviews.     

The Church of Faith and Freedom: African–American Baptists and Social Action

Clergy have an undeniable ability to shape the political beliefs and attitudes of their congregations and thus revealing how the framing activities of clergy affect behavior and influence mobilization is vital for political sociology. This ethnographic work delineates how, in 1972, the Second Baptist Church of Evanston's new pastor initiated a rapid change from social conservatism to become one of the most politically and socially active African–American Baptist churches in the Midwest. Second Baptist's radical change confirms the power of religious elites in shaping politics in spiritual institutions, and also demonstrates the vital impact of professional socialization on the theological and political orientations of clergy.     

Belief,trust, and relationality: a Simmelian approach for the study of faith

Religion has been conceptualised as personal belief in the transcendent. Anthropologists of religion have critiqued such a construct for decades for being based on a Christian Protestant model and one that reflected subsequently modern rationalist Western culture. This construct has increasingly been shown to fail to account for the religiosity of contemporary Christians. Drawing on the sociology of Georg Simmel and based on ethnographic research in a Christian evangelical church, the article proposes a reconceptualisation of religious belief that is experiential and relational. Evangelicals in this case study show that propositional belief plays increasingly a secondary role to belief intended as trust in God and forming a relationship with God and others. Relationships mediate personal religious experience and are shown to be essential to the conversion process, the life of faith, and Christian identity. The study thus bridges the separation between theoretical and empirical works by operationalising Simmel’s sociology.     

The end of Jesus' mission and the honor of God in the Qur'an: the search for common ground between Muslims and Christians

Jesus is important for both Muslims and Christians, and this has led some in both groups to search for common ground concerning him. Nevertheless, two important points of disagreement concern the Christian claims that Jesus is the Son of God, and that Jesus was put to death on the cross. The present article focuses on the last point, noting four key qur'anic passages (Q 3.55; 4.157–8; 5.117; and 19.33). Muslim commentators have mostly denied the historical aspect of Jesus' crucifixion, advocating some version of a substitutionist theory whereby the Jews crucified someone other than Jesus, while Jesus himself was taken alive by God into heaven. Muslim–Christian dialogue on this issue remains problematic. The present article encourages mutual exploration of a theological dimension of the end of Jesus' mission, that of the honor of God. Both Muslims and Christians affirm that God maintained his honor by thwarting the Jews' attempt to get rid of Jesus. The usual Muslim belief is that God rescued him alive to heaven before the crucifixion, while the Christian understanding is that God vindicated Jesus through the resurrection and ascension. Similar views of God's honor through his intervention regarding Jesus can contribute to positive Muslim–Christian dialogue.1 An abbreviated form of this paper was delivered at the International Symposium on Qur'an and Contemporary Issues at the University of Nairobi, 5 June 2011.      

Measuring Congregational Vitality: Phase 2 Development of an Outcome Measurement Tool

Since 2009 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has worked to develop a survey that can reliably measure qualitative aspects of congregational vitality. This study describes the development of a survey that focuses on key missional outcomes. Congregation members and pastors from 73 congregations were surveyed. Exploratory factor analysis identified important differences in the way pastors and lay people understand concepts like mission resulting in the creation of separate scales for pastors and lay people. These scales describe congregational vitality in five areas. Lay scales describe a congregation’s connections with God, each other and the world while pastor scales describe their understanding of the congregation’s inner strength and faith in action outside the congregation. For each respondent, individual scale scores were averaged to create congregational scale scores. Congregational scale scores were then compared with each congregation’s annual statistics, key informant perceptions, and other items within the survey for validation. The result was a psychometrically sound instrument that helps congregations, synods and the denomination gain a more complete understanding of vitality. Implications for further research are discussed.     

Image of God and Community Volunteering among Religious Adherents in the United States

Individual theological beliefs provide important motivations for religious people to volunteer in their communities. Compassion and loving one’s neighbor are both ideas that can motivate individuals to volunteer their time and talents. Religious believers who have conservative theological beliefs may see volunteering for their communities as a minor factor in their religious calling. Recent research on the role of social embeddedness within religious communities, however, has questioned the importance of theology as a motivation to volunteer (Putnam and Campbell, in American Grace. Simon and Schuster, New York, 2010; Lewis et al., in Soc Sci Res 42: 331–346, 2013). In this paper we test the effects of a religious adherent’s image of God’s disposition toward the world on their pattern of community volunteering. Using data from the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey and multinomial logit models, we find that having an image of God as judgmental lowers the odds that religious adherents report having volunteered for the community independent of their place of worship. Adherents who are most willing to engage the external community independent of a place of worship are those with less judgmental images of God. We also find that embeddedness is associated with volunteering for and with the place of worship in the community. Implications for theory, research and social capital formation are discussed.     

GOD AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD

There are a number of apparent parallels between belief in God and belief in the existence of an external world beyond our experiences. Both beliefs would seem to condition one's overall view of reality and one's place within it – and yet it is difficult to see how either can be defended. Neither belief is likely to receive a purely a priori defence and any empirical evidence that one cites either in favour of the existence of God or the existence of the external world would seem to blatantly beg the question against a doubter. I will explore just how far this parallel can be pushed by examining some strategies for resisting external world scepticism 1 .     

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.     

Cognitive Pathways to Belief in Karma and Belief in God

Supernatural beliefs are ubiquitous around the world, and mounting evidence indicates that these beliefs partly rely on intuitive, cross-culturally recurrent cognitive processes. Specifically, past research has focused on humans' intuitive tendency to perceive minds as part of the cognitive foundations of belief in a personified God—an agentic, morally concerned supernatural entity. However, much less is known about belief in karma—another culturally widespread but ostensibly non-agentic supernatural entity reflecting ethical causation across reincarnations. In two studies and four high-powered samples, including mostly Christian Canadians and mostly Hindu Indians (Study 1, N = 2,006) and mostly Christian Americans and Singaporean Buddhists (Study 2, N = 1,752), we provide the first systematic empirical investigation of the cognitive intuitions underlying various forms of belief in karma. We used path analyses to (a) replicate tests of the previously documented cognitive predictors of belief in God, (b) test whether this same network of variables predicts belief in karma, and (c) examine the relative contributions of cognitive and cultural variables to both sets of beliefs. We found that cognitive tendencies toward intuitive thinking, mentalizing, dualism, and teleological thinking predicted a variety of beliefs about karma—including morally laden, non-agentic, and agentic conceptualizations—above and beyond the variability explained by cultural learning about karma across cultures. These results provide further evidence for an independent role for both culture and cognition in supporting diverse types of supernatural beliefs in distinct cultural contexts.     

Beliefs About God and Mental Health Among American Adults

This study examines the association between beliefs about God and psychiatric symptoms in the context of Evolutionary Threat Assessment System Theory, using data from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey of US Adults (N = 1,426). Three beliefs about God were tested separately in ordinary least squares regression models to predict five classes of psychiatric symptoms: general anxiety, social anxiety, paranoia, obsession, and compulsion. Belief in a punitive God was positively associated with four psychiatric symptoms, while belief in a benevolent God was negatively associated with four psychiatric symptoms, controlling for demographic characteristics, religiousness, and strength of belief in God. Belief in a deistic God and one’s overall belief in God were not significantly related to any psychiatric symptoms.