Talking about Homosexuality: The Views of Mainline Protestant Clergy

Homosexuality is one of the most divisive issues within mainline Protestantism today. In this article we portray the many sides of mainline Protestantism's debates about homosexuality through the lens of statements clergy made about the issue in early 2000. In interviews with 62 mainline Protestant clergy across the United States, 40 volunteered their views on homosexuality without being prompted. We describe the frames through which clergy understand and articulate issues related to homosexuality in the midst of contentious denominational debate about the subject. The majority of clergy who discussed homosexuality focused on the issue in their churches instead of in society at large, and in their denominations rather than in their own congregations. Moreover, virtually none of the clergy interviewed took hard and fast stands on the issue of homosexuality. Most approach the issue in a pragmatic, rather than prophetic, way. Our interviews also show that pastors who choose to speak on homosexuality tend to frame the issue in terms of the diffuse notion of "homosexuality," rather than talking about gay men and lesbians as people.     

Personality and Glossolalia: A Study Among Male Evangelical Clergy

A sample of 991 male clergy affiliated with the Evangelical Alliance in the United Kingdom completed the short-form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, together with a question regarding the practice of glossolalia. The data demonstrated that glossolalia was correlated positively with extraversion, correlated negatively with neuroticism, and unrelated to psychoticism. Glossolalia was associated with stable extraversion, and contrary to some theories, completely unrelated to psychopathology.     

Health Programming for Clergy: An Overview of Protestant Programs in the United States

The health of clergy is important, and clergy may find health programming tailored to them more effective. Little is known about existing clergy health programs. We contacted Protestant denominational headquarters and searched academic databases and the Internet. We identified 56 clergy health programs and categorized them into prevention and personal enrichment; counseling; marriage and family enrichment; peer support; congregational health; congregational effectiveness; denominational enrichment; insurance/strategic pension plans; and referral-based programs. Only 13 of the programs engaged in outcomes evaluation. Using the Socioecological Framework, we found that many programs support individual-level and institutional-level changes, but few programs support congregational-level changes. Outcome evaluation strategies and a central repository for information on clergy health programs are needed.     

Narrating and Navigating Authorities: Evangelical and Mainline Protestant Interpretations of the Bible and Science

Research on the way Protestants interpret the Bible in relationship to science has tended to focus on biblical literalists; less research, however, has examined the heterogeneity of how nonliteralists interpret the Bible. Utilizing data from semi‐structured interviews with 77 evangelical and mainline Protestants who attend high‐SES congregations, we find that members of both groups draw on similar interpretation strategies in discussing the Bible and evolution. Both eschew literal interpretations of the Bible, demarcate boundaries between the Bible and science, and subsume evolution under broader theological beliefs. Mainline Protestants and evangelicals differ in the way they interpret miracles, with mainline Protestants revealing more openness to scientific and social interpretations of the Bible's miracles, while evangelicals emphasize God's authority over nature. Findings show that different strategies are evoked depending on the issue discussed, revealing implications for a deeper understanding of the way different traditions provide resources for interpreting the Bible and its relationship to scientific issues. Finally, findings contribute to a more robust knowledge of boundary work between the Bible and science as institutional and epistemic authorities.     

Theology Matters: Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy

Using surveys, this study gathered and examined demographic and religious characteristics of attendees and clergy of a group of growing mainline Protestant churches in Canada and compared them to those from declining mainline Protestant churches from the same geographical region and group of denominations. In total, 2255 attendees from 22 churches (13 declining and 9 growing) participated along with their church’s clergy (N = 29). Several notable differences between the characteristics of growing and declining churches were identified. When other factors were controlled for in multivariate analysis, the theological conservatism of both attendees and clergy emerged as important factors in predicting church growth.     

The Response of Mainline Protestant Clergy Members to the Moral Panic Regarding Harry Potter

This article builds upon and expands an earlier research project on the moral panic that surrounded the Harry Potter books and movies from 1997 through the first decade of the twenty-first century. Soulliere focused on the publications and public pronouncements of religious groups and leaders, media, and research organizations linked together by “the promotion of traditional values and a conservative ideology as well as a Judeo-Christian worldview, primacy of the family, and emphases on biblical foundations and authority” (Soulliere paragraph 14), which he refers to as the Christian Right. The current study seeks to discover the degree to which, if any, this moral panic extended beyond the Christian Right into the pulpits of mainstream Protestant denominations.     

The Political Activity of Evangelical Clergy in the Election of 2000: A Case Study of Five Denominations

This article focuses on the political participation of ministers from five evangelical Protestant denominations that differ in theology, polity, and history. Despite such differences, these clergy respond to political influences in much the same fashion. We find that the standard theories of political participation have varying success in accounting for their political involvement. Sociodemographic explanations provide little help, but psychological engagement with politics has more explanatory power. Professional role orientations are the best predictors of actual participation. And the clergy who see moral reform issues as the most important confronting the country—and who hold conservative views on such issues—are most likely to become engaged. Finally, membership in Christian Right organizations serves to elicit more activity than might occur if ministers were left to internally motivated participation. Despite the emphasis on other contextual variables in some work on clerical politics, we find that communications exposures, congregational influences, and even the support of clerical colleagues have very limited independent effects on political involvement.     

The Political Attitudes and Activities of Mainline Protestant Clergy in the Election of 2000: A Study of Six Denominations

This study examines clergy across six mainline Protestant denominations in terms of their social characteristics, their theological positions, and their political attitudes and behavior. The analysis is based on data collected through random surveys of clergy in each denomination conducted in 2001 using the same instrument. The predominant focus of the article is on the nature and level of political activities exhibited by mainline Protestant clergy in the election year of 2000. The analysis revealed that mainline Protestant clergy are indeed relatively active politically, but that, despite their commonality of belonging to the same broad religious tradition, the nature and level of such political activities varies across the six denominations. Variation in the level of political activity is related to a number of different variables. And, while multivariate analysis reduces the number of significant factors that account for such differences, the remaining significant factors are associated with each of the major theoretical approaches that have been advanced to account for differences in participation levels.     

Group Identification and Support for the Supreme Court: Evidence from Evangelical Protestants

Research on the determinants of the U.S. Supreme Court's institutional support among the public focuses on three factors at the level of the individual, including satisfaction with its performance, knowledge of the judiciary, and support for democratic values. Evidence from the group level has revealed that the relative importance of these factors can vary, despite the predictions of positivity theory that the effects of all factors should be similar across all subsets of the U.S. population. We seek to explain this inconsistency between theory and evidence through an analysis of evangelical Protestants, a politically powerful and theoretically compelling group. Drawing on group‐based studies, we develop a principled account of when group members will base their institutional support more strongly than others do on their satisfaction with the Court's recent performance, and identify defining features of the information environment of evangelical Protestants that satisfy the model's components. We report evidence from a national survey that the effects of all three major factors differ systematically for evangelical Protestants. We discuss implications of our analysis for an ongoing debate over positivity theory and for identifying other groups for whom institutional and specific support will be strongly linked.     

The Life of Leaders: An Intensive Health Program for Clergy

Clergy suffer from chronic disease rates that are higher than those of non-clergy. Health interventions for clergy are needed, and some exist, although none to date have been described in the literature. Life of Leaders is a clergy health intervention designed with particular attention to the lifestyle and beliefs of United Methodist clergy, directed by Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare Center of Excellence in Faith and Health. It consists of a two-day retreat of a comprehensive executive physical and leadership development process. Its guiding principles include a focus on personal assets, multi-disciplinary, integrated care, and an emphasis on the contexts of ministry for the poor and community leadership. Consistent with calls to intervene on clergy health across multiple ecological levels, Life of Leaders intervenes at the individual and interpersonal levels, with potential for congregational and religious denominational change. Persons wishing to improve the health of clergy may wish to implement Life of Leaders or borrow from its guiding principles.     

Emerging Tapestry: An Evangelical Lutheran Social Ethic

This article argues that an identifiable social ethic is emerging in the social teaching documents of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Reading across the body of teaching and policy it becomes evident how conscientious attention to Lutheran themes and commitments at the interface with contemporary social analysis and questions has produced a coherent ethic. That is, it is relatively comprehensive, responsibly consistent, and remarkably cogent with an identifiable moral imperative and mode of reasoning. The paper delineates the character of this responsibility ethic across the five dimensions of ethics.     

An Interpretation of Evangelical Gender Ideology: Implications for a Theology of Gender

Abstract

One of the core findings in the sociology of religion literature regarding evangelicals is the penchant for the adoption of traditional family values. Despite the availability of alternative gender ideology models, evangelicals in general espouse a male headship and female domestic understanding of gender and concomitant domestic division of labor. There has been a "softening" of male headship language as this language is translated into a servant leadership model. This essay asks the question: What is the cost or impact for evangelicals to espouse a traditional model for gender ideology?     

An Investigation of Singaporean Clergy Treatment Models for Mental Problems

While clergy are recognized by their faith communities as important sources of mental health care, questions persist as to the treatment strategies they employ and endorse. This has implication for their likelihood to encourage their members to utilize professional mental health care resources. In this study, a modified version of the treatment portion of the Opinions about Psychological Problems (OPP, Barker, Pistrang & Shapiro, 1983) is used to examine the treatment strategies endorsed by a representative sample of Singaporean clergymen. Besides attempting to show the usefulness of this modified scale, this study highlights that clergy endorse psychological models the most when these models are congruent to their theological belief system. Organic and popular Charismatic deliverance treatment models received less support. Mathew Mathews recently submitted his Ph.D. thesis entitled Clergy & Counsellors: Mental health care in Singapore. He is actively researching issues at the intersection of religion and health including the role of religion in help seeking intentions.