Is Religious Service Attendance Declining?

Weekend attendance at conventional religious services remains the most common form of social religious action in American society. Debates about secularization, discussions of congregations as sites of political skill-building and mobilization, and research on religion's contributions to stocks of social capital often rely partly on claims about trends in religious service attendance. Yet, existing evidence does not definitively establish whether attendance at religious services declined in American society from the 1950s to the present. We examine the trend in religious service attendance between 1990 and 2006. Evidence from several sources converges on the same answer: weekly attendance at religious services has been stable since 1990. However one reads the evidence about trends between World War II and 1990, the recent past has been a time of stability. This has important implications for theories of religious change.     

Religious Attendance and Social Support: Integration or Selection?

Although numerous studies have shown that religious attendance is associated with greater social support, concerns remain about selection into religious attendance and more supportive relationships. In this paper, we employ data collected from the 2011 Miami-Dade Health Survey (n?=?444) to assess the extent to which the association between religious attendance and social support is due to selection processes related to personality, health behavior, and health status. In our multinomial logistic regression of attendance, we find that the odds of weekly attendance are increased by extraversion and reduced by smoking. We also observe that religious attendance does not vary according to level of agreeableness, self-esteem, alcohol consumption, psychological distress, or physical health. In our regression of support, we find that respondents who attend religious services weekly or more tend to report more social support than respondents who never attend. This association persisted with adjustments for age, gender, race, immigrant status, interview language, education, employment status, household income, financial strain, marital status (parent and respondent), the presence of children, family difficulties, personality (agreeableness, extroversion, and self-esteem), health behavior (smoking, binge drinking, and substance use), and health status (psychological distress, activity limitations, and overall physical health). Across models, the association between weekly attendance and social support is attenuated by no more than 7%. This attenuation is due to personality (extraversion), not health behavior or health status. We conclude that the association between religious attendance and social support is primarily driven by integration processes rather than any selection processes we have considered.

     

Does Leaving Faith Mean Leaving Family? Longitudinal Associations Between Religious Identification and Parent-Child Relationships Across Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

The present study investigated the parent-child relational repercussions of converting to religion, switching, or deconverting from religion. Qualitative research indicates that these religious changes may negatively affect parent-child relationship quality, however, few quantitative studies investigate this issue. Subsequently, we utilized structural equation modeling to test if changes in religious identification during adolescence and emerging adulthood predicted worse parent-child relationship quality using three waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion (N = 2,352). We found that deconversion between Waves 1–2 significantly predicted poorer parent-child relationship quality at Wave 2 and father-child relationship quality at Wave 3. Further, deconversion between Waves 2–3 significantly predicted poorer mother-child relationship quality at Wave 3. Autoregressive cross-lagged models indicated an association between deconverson and father-child relationship quality. Deconversion had a significant indirect effect on parent-child relationship quality through decreased parental warmth and mother-child religious belief similarity. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Religious and Spiritual Values and Moral Commitment in Marriage: Untapped Resources in Couples Counseling?

The authors investigated the relationship between religious and spiritual values and moral commitment in marriage to further inform marriage and family counselors about the nature of committed relationships. Using a qualitative research design, they examined individuals' perceptions of moral commitment in their marriage and how their religious and spiritual values influence those perceptions. Narrative text was analyzed through an iterative process, involving constant comparison of emerging themes, and 6 categories materialized. Findings build on existing knowledge regarding the importance of moral commitment to marital health specifically as it relates to the counseling profession.     

Declining Religious Authority? Confidence in the Leaders of Religious Organizations, 1973–2010

One view of secularization is that it can be conceived of as declining religious authority. Although studies conducted in the 1990s suggested that confidence in the leaders of religious organizations—a promising indicator of religious authority—decreased in the 1970s and 1980s, research has not examined recent trends. The goals of this study are to (1) examine trends in confidence using data from the early 1970s through 2010 and (2) use recent advances in age-period-cohort analysis to provide a more robust empirical examination of these trends. Using data from the cumulative General Social Surveys, 1973–2010, the results suggest that, even after considering age effects, period declines in confidence have continued, but declines by birth cohort were primarily among those born in the boomer and early post-boomer generations (roughly 1945–1970) relative to those born earlier (pre-1945) or later (post-1970). Moreover, these effects appear to be due mainly to differences in religious participation, especially among more recent cohorts. In particular, there has been a rebound in confidence among members of the younger generation who attend religious services.     

What Mediates the Relationship Between Religious Service Attendance and Aspects of Well-Being?

Religious service attendance predicts increased well-being across a number of studies. It is not clear, however, whether this relationship is due to religious factors such as intrinsic religiosity or due to nonreligious factors such as social support or socially desirable responding. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between religious service attendance and well-being while simultaneously examining intrinsic religiosity, social support, and socially desirable responding as potential mediators of the relationship. A sample of 855 participants (71 % female, average age 19.5) completed questionnaires assessing religiosity, social support, socially desirable responding, and well-being. Path models were estimated using maximum likelihood estimation to analyze the data. Intrinsic religiosity was the strongest mediator of the relationship between religious service attendance and depressive and anxiety symptoms. This suggests that the mental health benefits of religious service attendance are not simply the result of increased social support or a certain response style on questionnaires; rather, it appears that the relationship is at least partly the result of people trying to live their religion in their daily lives.     

Does Duration of Deregulated Religious Markets Affect Church Attendance? Evidence from 26 Religious Markets in Europe and North America Between 1981 and 2006

This study tests the deregulation hypothesis of religious market theory in 26 European and Northern American countries by examining differences in religious involvement between and within countries. The deregulation hypothesis, which is assumed to be universally valid, predicts that religious involvement is higher in deregulated religious markets. Moreover, countries having deregulated religious markets for a longer period of time are supposed to have higher levels of involvement. Therefore, we test the duration hypothesis. This test is important, as it also has been argued that it may take time for deregulation to have an effect on religious involvement. Multilevel analysis on the stacked European and World Value Surveys of 1981, 1990, 2000, and 2006 show that deregulation fosters church attendance, but duration of deregulation does not increase church attendance. Although the deregulation hypothesis cannot be rejected, we find that modernization corrodes church attendance to a larger extent than deregulation can stimulate church attendance.     

How Competent are Adolescent Bullying Perpetrators and Victims in Mastering Normative Developmental Tasks in Early Adulthood?

A substantive body of literature suggests that those involved in bullying as perpetrators but particularly victims are at greater risk for psychological maladjustment. In comparison, relatively little is known about associations between bullying-victimization and perpetration and mastery of early adult tasks in domains including romantic relationships, education, work, financial competence, and conduct. These links were tested using data from two Dutch cohorts (RADAR-young, n = 497, 43% girls; TRAILS, n = 2230, 51% girls) who reported on victimization and perpetration at age 11 (TRAILS) and 13 (RADAR-young) and mastery of developmental tasks in early adulthood. Unadjusted regression analyses suggested for both cohorts that perpetrators were less likely to abide the law and more likely to smoke. Victims in TRAILS were less competent in the domains of education, work, and finances, and more likely to smoke in RADAR-young. Adjusting for childhood demographics and child intelligence and including psychopathology in the prediction models substantially reduced the strength of associations between bullying involvement and later outcomes in both cohorts; although association were retained between victimization and welfare dependence and perpetration and crime involvement in TRAILS. Parental support did not buffer associations in either sample and neither were gender differences detected. Overall, findings underline that negative outcomes of bullying are not only a concern for victims but also for their perpetrators although involvement in bullying is not a stable predictor of mastery of developmental tasks when childhood demographics, child intelligence, and psychopathology are taken into account.     

Do You Need to Have Them or Should You Believe You Have Them? Resources, Their Appraisal, and Well-Being in Adulthood

How young, middle-aged, and young-old adults use individual resources to cope with challenges and changes in their lives is likely to influence the ways they will approach late life. One of the most important barriers to using available resources is the subjective appraisal of the situation, of the available resources, and of the potential use of these resources. The present study based on 2,313 individuals (25–74 years) from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) examines the structural relations between available social, financial, and health resources, the subjective appraisal of these resources, and well-being in young, middle-aged, and young-old adults. The results indicate that the subjective appraisal of resources mediates the effects of available social, financial, and health resources on well-being irrespective of age groups. The discussion focuses on the importance of the appraisal of available resources as a precondition to successfully cope with stress, and points out avenues for intervention research.     

The Role of Religious Socialization and Religiosity in African American and Caribbean Black Adolescents’ Sexual Initiation

Journal of Religion and Health - This study determined the nature of the associations between religious socialization, religiosity, and adolescent sexual initiation. Data originated from the...     

Sacred Canopies or Religious Markets? The Effect of County-Level Religious Diversity on Later Changes in Religious Involvement

Secularization theories, such as Berger's Sacred Canopy argument, hold that religious diversity leads to a decline in religious participation. Religious market models (e.g., Finke and Stark) argue the opposite. Voas, Olson, and Crockett found that nearly all of the vast research exploring this important question prior to 2002 was flawed due to a previously unrecognized noncausal statistical relationship between measures of religious diversity and measures of religious participation. Since 2002, this methodological issue has largely stymied research on this important topic. We first describe how, following Voas et al.’s recommendations, longitudinal models can overcome these problems. We then apply these methods to data measuring the religious composition of all U.S. counties found in the Religious Congregations and Membership Studies from 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010. Using multilevel longitudinal regression models, we find that greater county-level religious diversity is followed by later declines in county-level religious participation rates. The negative effect size of religious diversity is large and robust to changes in the control variables and different methods of measuring religious diversity.     

Religious Wars or Healthy Competition in the NDE Movement?

In the early years of near-death research many organized religions rejected the near-death experience (NDE) as a legitimate expression of religious faith. More recently numerous religious apologists have laid claim to NDEs as verifying particular theological beliefs. I see this as a healthy competition between religions, and a competition that results from the very success of the near-death research effort. Religious apologists, however, must be reasonably objective in any juxtapositions of religious philosophy with NDE findings. I point out some problems in this regard with Michael Sabom's recent work. I also argue that Kenneth Ring's recent statements that we might not now be headed toward Omega as he once thought may be premature.     

Does Differential Cohort Socialization Matter? The “Age Invariance” Hypothesis and Political Socialization

In classical and contemporary social theory alike, the key to understanding how cultural change comes about has been thought to lie in the long-term effect of differential cohort socialization. Cultural change is thought to proceed as differently socialized cohorts replace each other in the course of time. Moreover, distinct generations have been claimed to emerge. Thisarticle addresses the impact of cohort replacement and the presence of generations, including discussions of the theoretical framework underlying these concepts and the problem of disentangling age, period, and cohort effects. Analyses of Dutch survey data substantiate that cohort membership matters. Yet the impact of cohort replacement on cultural change turns out to be limited, and little evidence is found in support of the idea that specific generations arediscernible.     

From Religious to Consumption‐Related Routine Activities? Analyzing Ireland's Economic Boom and the Decline in Church Attendance

Using Ireland, which experienced an economic boom in the mid 1990s, as a case study, the negative association between economic growth and religious practice is examined by testing two competing hypotheses. Secularization theory argues that the cultural changes that accompany economic growth lead to a decline in religious values. As religious values diminish, so does attendance at religious services. An alternative explanation is that economic growth increases individual purchasing power and therefore consumption‐related behavior. Consumption supplants religion by providing alternative intermediaries (symbols, infrastructures, and practices) for social behavior, but only marginally affects religious values. Using data from the 1988 to 2005 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), analyses show that the economic boom in Ireland was clearly associated with a decline in religious attendance, while religious values remained stable. Thus, in Ireland the consequences of economic growth deviate from the predictions of secularization theory and therefore support the consumption argument.     

Maternal Attachment and Television Viewing in Adolescents’ Sexual Socialization: Differential Associations Across Gender

The present study explores whether gender and maternal attachment moderate the relationship between television viewing and adolescents’ sexual and gender stereotypical attitudes. A quantitative survey was conducted among 1,026 Belgian adolescents in a targeted sample of nine schools (Mean age?=?16.3). Findings show that greater exposure to television among boys and lower maternal attachment among boys and girls is associated with more liberal and stereotypical sexual attitudes. While maternal attachment has a buffering effect on the relationship between television viewing and sexual attitudes among girls, maternal attachment has a risk-increasing effect among boys. Further research is needed to explore more fully the emergence of gender differences in the influence of maternal attachment and television viewing on adolescents’ sexual development.     

Reporting Race and Ethnicity in Genetics Research: Do Journal Recommendations or Resources Matter?

Appeals to scrutinize the use of race and ethnicity as variables in genetics research notwithstanding, these variables continue to be inadequately explained and inconsistently used in research publications. In previous research, we found that published genetic research fails to follow suggestions offered for addressing this problem, such as explaining the basis on which these labels are assigned to populations. This study, an analysis of genetic research articles using race or ethnicity terms, explores possible features of journals that are associated with improved reporting of race and ethnicity in genetic research. A journal’s expressed commitment to improving how race and ethnicity are used in genetic research, demonstrated by an editorial or in its instructions to authors, was the strongest predictor of following recommendations about reporting race and ethnicity. Journal impact factor had only a limited positive effect on attention to these issues, suggesting that editorial resources associated with higher impact factor journals are not sufficient to improve practices. Our findings reiterate that race and ethnicity variables are used inconsistently in genetic research, but also shed light on how journals might improve practices by highlighting the need for scientists to carefully scrutinize the use of these variables in their work.     

Religious or Minority? Examining the Realisation of International Standards in Relation to Religious Minorities in the Middle East

Abstract

The Middle East region has had a long, and periodically impressive, record of religious diversity, yet there is much concern regarding the contemporary standing of its religious minorities. Rather than assessing the chequered historical record of religious minorities in the Middle East, the purpose of this article is to provide an assessment of how international human rights standards may best be utilised to advance their rights. The contention of this article is that the human rights of religious minorities in the Middle East have primarily been considered under the lens of freedom of religion or belief. Relevant though this framework is to their concerns, it will be suggested that promoting the rights of the Middle East's religious minorities through the framework of minority rights may provide a more promising avenue for their protection. The purpose of the article is therefore to provide a reassessment of how best to negotiate the rights of religious minorities in the Middle East. The focus will be on formal legal and political obstacles to the enjoyment of their rights entitlements. Though a broader contextual analysis also assessing economic, cultural and sociological factors would be highly informative, it lies beyond the scope of this article. Despite the fact that minority rights provisions apply to members of minorities alongside all other human rights – among them freedom of religion or belief – the two lenses of minority rights and freedom of religion or belief highlight somewhat different provisions and protections. The two are certainly not mutually exclusive or in contradiction with one another, but a state that prioritises one set of legal and policy options over the other will arrive in different places.     

Opposing Trends of Religious Attendance and Religiosity in Predicting Elders’ Functional Recovery after an Acute Myocardial Infarction

This study examined the role of religion and spirituality in older adults’ functional recovery following an AMI. Participants were interviewed within 2 weeks of the AMI about their religious beliefs. Functional recovery was evaluated using the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB) at one month and seven months. We found that those who reported attending religious services more frequently had better functional recovery. In contrast, those who considered themselves more spiritual had worse functional recovery. These findings remained after controlling for age, gender, co-morbidity (Charlson Co-Morbidity Scale), depression (CES-D), social support (MOS Social Support Survey), and grip strength in Linear Mixed Models. The implications of the findings are discussed.Dr. Levy is an Associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Public health at Yale University. Her research focuses on the influence of psychosocial factors on aging health. She received the Margaret M. Baltes Early Career Award in Behavioral and Social Gerontology from the Gerontological Society of America, the Springer Award for Early Career Achievement on Adult Development and Aging from the American Psychological Association, and a Career Award from the National Institute on Aging. She was also awarded a Brookdale National Fellowship for Leadership in Aging. Kathryn Remmes Martin received her Bachelor’s Degree from the College of the Holy Cross and her Master’s Degree (MPH) in Chronic Disease Epidemiology from Yale University. She is currently a doctoral student in the Health Behavior and Health Education Department at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, School of Public Health.