Divine Relations as a Basis of Subjective Social Status During Later-Life: Direct and Moderating Effects

Early social theorists, including W.E.B Du Bois, recognized the importance of religion and its links to inequality, particularly in how religious vocabularies are attuned to frictions with inimical concrete social and political realities. We apply these ideas to research on the intersection of religious beliefs and economic deprivation, examining how beliefs in divine relations not only structure subjective social status (SSS), but also the association between financial stress and SSS. Analyses of data from the Caregiving, Aging, and Financial Experiences Study—a national study of Canadian older adults (N = 4010)—show that financial strain is associated with lower SSS, but better divine relations (higher support from a divine power and lower troubled relationships with a higher power) benefit SSS. Divine support also attenuates the association between financial strain and SSS. This research suggests a Du Bosian “double consciousness,” in which relations with a divine power serve as a basis for individual conceptualizations of social status that run counter to predominant narratives based on economic standing. We suggest directions for future research to explore the nuances of SSS within the religious context informed by a Du Boisian mode of inquiry.     

Theorizing lived religion: introduction

ABSTRACT

The introduction to this special issue describes the emergence of the lived religion approach in relation to other approaches within the study of religion and sociology of religion as a way of going beyond the emphasis on texts and institutions, on the one hand, and the focus on the fate of religion in modern times, on the other hand. It also introduces the aim of this special issue, namely ‘theorizing’ lived religion. To do this, the authors summarize how the founders of this approach have conceptualized the topic of ‘lived religion’, adjacent approaches, and the theoretical underpinnings of their work. The authors propose three directions to develop the contribution a lived religion approach might make to theorizing: 1) explicating what is meant by ‘religion’ by drawing on work that studies religion as a category; 2) explicating how concepts and theories are developed based on lived religion research, with particular emphasis on the way tensions between modernist, disenchanting epistemologies and the enchanted, supernatural worlds of practitioners may inform theory and methodological reflection; 3) anchoring the doing of research, emphasizing the full research cycle in religious studies programs so that students have a solid basis for learning how to move back and forth between carrying out original research and conceptual/theoretical work.     

Religious cultures and gender cultures: tracing gender differences across religious cultures

This special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Religion focuses on varying empirical connections and theoretical relations between ‘religion’ and ‘gender’. The introduction to this special issue suggests a theoretical approach which is sensitive to culture by drawing on a phenomenological understanding of culture that is based on knowledge and meaning production and sense making. At first sight, this may not sound convincing because ‘culture’ is a category that is most notably used in combination with religion and gender in culturalist ways. In the migration societies of contemporary Europe, religion has become a metaphor for cultural difference and symbolic boundary-making. The core element of this approach is the conceptualisation of culture as a social web consisting of symbolic forms based on signs of meaning that shape social action, orientation, and experience in the world, including the religious sphere. This entails an understanding of religion as a distinct province of meaning that is structured by processes of social symbolisation just like any other sphere of life. This approach reveals that culturalist conceptions of both religion and gender have specific social meanings as meaningful signs in the symbolic order of secular modernity.     

Exploring the meso-levels of religious mappings: European religion in regional, urban, and local contexts

This is an introductory essay to a special issue on Local and Regional Perspectives on Religion in Western Europe. The introduction seeks to contextualize this special issue in the study of religion in Europe. Based on the articles of the special issue, the article introduces two meso-levels of investigation: regional and local studies, bridging the gap between the national level (the hitherto preferred level of aggregation) and the study of single groups.     

Examining awareness of privilege among midwestern college students: An analysis of race/ethnicity,gender, and religion

Dominant group members often are not aware of the privileges they benefit from due to their dominant group membership. Yet individuals are members of multiple groups and may simultaneously occupy multiple categories of dominance and marginality, raising the question of how different group memberships work in concert to facilitate or inhibit awareness of multiple forms of privilege. Examining awareness of privilege is important as awareness may be linked to action to dismantle systems of privilege that maintain oppression and inequality. Grounded in intersectional scholarship, in this study we examined how occupying intersecting categories of race/ethnicity, gender, and religion corresponded to an awareness of White, male, and Christian privilege. In a sample of 2321 Midwestern college students, we demonstrated that students from marginalized groups broadly reported greater awareness of all forms of privilege than students from dominant groups, and the difference between marginalized and dominant groups was most pronounced when the specific group category (e.g., gender) aligned with the type of privilege (e.g., male privilege). We also tested interactions among race/ethnicity, gender, and religion, only finding an interaction between race/ethnicity and religion for awareness of White and male privilege. These findings helped to clarify that multiple group memberships tended to contribute to awareness as multiple main effects rather than as multiplicative. Finally, we examined mean differences among the eight intersected groups to explore similarities and differences among groups in awareness of all types of privilege. Taken together, these findings quantitatively demonstrate the ways in which group memberships work together to contribute to awareness of multiple forms of privilege. We discuss study limitations and implications for community psychology research and practice.     

Religious Conflict and the Chain of Command in the American and French Militaries

Analyzing characteristics of the organizational environment, the organization, and its actors recommended by the framework guiding this symposium on the cross‐cultural study of religion in public institutions, we identify common elements of military organization that shape local and national policies surrounding religion cross‐nationally. Comparison of cases from U.S. and French militaries—a secularist group at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and Muslim soldiers in France—demonstrates this framework's utility by directing attention to when, how, and by what logics constitutional protections are afforded to religious (and nonreligious) minorities. This analysis also reveals two additional arenas of investigation important to the study of religion in public institutions. Because religion today is often at the center of disputes over citizens’ conflicting rights, conflicts over religion in the military, and in other public institutions, demand special attention. In addition, our cases call attention to the importance of organizational structures and authority. Military settings make this point obvious, since the chain of command plays a fundamental and powerful role in the operation of militaries cross‐nationally—including in activities and policies surrounding religion and religious groups.     

Presidential Address: Religion and Power—A Return to the Roots of Social Scientific Scholarship

Early social scientists, including Karl Marx, Max Weber, and W. E. B. DuBois, recognized the importance of religion for power systems. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, there has been a decline in scholars examining how religion matters for power. This address proposes that scholars bring religion back to the center of understanding the production, deconstruction, and distribution of power as religion is critical to the flows of power in the social world. I propose that furthering an agenda that interrogates the role of religion for power means we emphasize that (i) religion is an institution; (ii) religious ideas motivate action; (iii) our epistemology sources theories of power rather than those that invalidate the centrality of religion in societies; and (iv) ground‐breaking theoretical and empirical contributions to the social scientific study of religion and power demand that we broaden and diversify the standpoints from which this knowledge is produced.     

The Influence of Close Ties on Depression: Does Network Religiosity Matter?

Despite a growing body of the literature on how features of social networks influence well-being, we know little of how the religiosity of social networks matter. This study addresses three types of religious social network ties and their association with mental health: same (non)-religious ties, religious discussion ties, and ties offering prayers on an individual's behalf. Using ego-centric network data from the 2006 Portraits of American Life Study (N = 2,223), multivariate regression results suggest that a greater number of ties that discuss religion and pray for the respondent are detrimental to the mental health of those of a low religious salience. Taken together, this study demonstrates that religious dimensions of social networks exact an important influence on mental health and highlights the importance of identifying specific features of religion among core network ties.     

Race,Religion, and Global Solidarities: W. E. B. Du Bois and “The Black Church” as a Contested Category

W.E.B. Du Bois was thoroughly ambivalent about the political significance of American Black churches regarding their role in challenging racial inequality. He saw them as integral to Black social life, but also as failing to live up to their potential as drivers of liberation. And, while he focused primarily on Black churches within the United States, Du Bois was also committed to Black liberation on a global level. This suggests great potential for applying DuBois’ analyses of Black religion to the question of transnational religious and racial solidarities and the global political salience of “the Black Church” as a category. In this context, this article explores the significance of DuBois’ work for analyzing the category of “the Black Church.” It does so through a comparative case study of African American Christian engagement with the issue of Israel and Palestine, with four case studies ranging from African American Christian Zionists to Palestinian solidarity activists. Across these cases, the analysis highlights the ways that the history, identity, and mission of “the Black Church” are invoked in the context of Palestine and Israel. It argues that “the Black Church” is best understood as a contested category of collective religious and racial identity.     

SSSR Presidential Address Public Religions and the Postsecular: Critical Reflections

The term “postsecular” is proliferating in the writings of scholars working in the humanities and social sciences. This article assesses the variety of meanings attributed to the term, groups them in six clusters of ideas, and raises questions about the tensions that exist between some of its different meanings. Taking the central idea that religions enjoy relatively high visibility in the public sphere of postsecular societies, the article then considers how well this applies to the case of Britain. It argues that the visibility of religion in Britain's public sphere—far from being postsecular in any of the current meanings of the term—is actually associated with the state's “interpellation” of selected religions as partners in the delivery of public policies for managing diversity, combating inequality, and promoting social enterprise.     

Distancing from a stigmatized social identity: State of the art and future research agenda on self-group distancing

Despite equal rights, minority groups such as ethnic minorities, LGBTQ + people, and people with mental or physical disabilities face discrimination on a day-to-day basis in subtle and hard-to-recognize forms. As discrimination slips beneath the surface, it becomes difficult to fight the stigma using collective social identity coping mechanisms. Instead, individual mobility responses such as distancing the self from the stigmatized identity (“self-group distancing”) become more viable as a way to improve one's individual standing. In this overview of the state of the art, we take a social identity lens to reflect on the current empirical knowledge base on self-group distancing as a coping mechanism and provide a framework on what self-group distancing is; when, where and why self-group distancing likely occurs; and what its consequences are at the individual and the collective level. The contributions in this special issue provide novel insights into how these processes unfold, and serve as a basis to set a future research agenda, for example on what can be done to prevent self-group distancing (i.e., interventions). Together, the insights highlight that while self-group distancing may seem effective to (strategically and temporarily) alleviate discomfort or to improve one's own position, on a broader collective level and over time self-group distancing tends to keep the current unequal social hierarchy in place.     

In the Name of Culture and Religion: The Political Function of Blasphemy in Islamic States

ABSTRACT

This article argues that blasphemy laws and a cultural relativist approach to human rights have a political function in authoritarian states. Islamic states use a strong cultural relativist approach to justify their dismal human rights record. The main aim of this approach, however, is survival. The article shows how Islamic countries use religion for their own political survival purposes and how blasphemy laws are often used to silence critique of political, social and religious orders that infringe on basic human rights. From this perspective, blasphemy laws are tools of oppression, not a symbol of cultural and religious difference. By highlighting how blasphemy laws and a cultural relativist approach to religion have been used as tools of oppression by authoritarian regimes, the article underscores the importance of freedom of expression for any functioning democracy.     

Religious and/or Spiritual Social Justice Advocacy: Guidance From the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies

The Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC; Ratts, Singh, Nassar-McMillan, Butler, & McCullough, 2015) provide recommendations for social justice advocacy through a socioecological lens. The authors conceptualize and apply the MSJCC to inform counselor engagement in social justice advocacy for an often-neglected area of diversity: religion and/or spirituality. Practice and ethical examples, considerations, and recommendations related to religion and/or spirituality in MSJCC-compatible social justice advocacy are provided.     

Editorial synthesis for 2 in 2023 a collaboration between IARR's two journals: Recognizing the need for greater inclusivity in relationship science

The idea for this special issue came from the current Editors of the Journal for Social and Personal Relationships and Personal Relationships, who wanted to forge a collaboration between the International Association for Relationship Research's two journals. The timing of such collaboration came at a time when issues surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion were being brought to light in science, broadly defined. Stemming from such discussions, for this special issue, we asked 10 sets of authors to apply an intersectional lens—grounded in Crenshaw's (1989, 1991) definition of intersectionality and drawing from questions posed by Cole (2009)—in their systematic review of literature from the past 20 years (1992–2022) and to answer these three questions: (1) from whose vantage point is the research being conducted, (2) what types of questions are valued, and (3) who is included in the research vs. who is being left out/whose voices are missing. Reviews for the special issue include these topics: (a) affectionate communication, health, and relationships, (b) romantic relationship maintenance behaviors, (c) relationship maintenance among military couples, (d) relational sacrifices, (e) LGBTQ-inclusive research, (f) stress, support, and coping for romantic couples, (g) daily stress and romantic relationship quality, (h) infidelity, (i) relationship dissolution, and (j) the longitudinal study of romantic close relationships. Across the reviews, authors noted many of the same patterns; most studies included samples from the United States, wherein participants identified as White, heterosexual, and/or female; however, military samples were dominated by men. The methods employed were largely quantitative, cross-sectional, and/or with data coming from surveys. Observations during the review process included the role of positionality as well as greater knowledge gained about the critical framework of intersectionality, specifically acknowledging that elements of diversity in sampling methods are not an application of intersectionality; rather, intersectionality places central focus on (a) how multiply marginalized social identities have been historically oppressed and (b) how systems of power, oppression, and privilege construct, reproduce, and sustain those multiply marginalized social identities. Recommendations for future relationship science are presented, specifically in how our fields can benefit from learning from the lens of intersectionality.     

Errando Discimus: Has Post‐Yugoslav Political and Social Science Neglected Religion?

This article explores the issue of neglecting religion in the post‐Yugoslav political and social science literature (1990–2018). Therefore, it offers a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the leading political and social science journals from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. The research question that this article will tackle is: Has post‐Yugoslav political and social science neglected religion? The hypothesis of this article is that, although there was an obvious need for in‐depth studies of the relationship between religion and politics in the post‐Yugoslav region, leading political and social science journals published from Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina have neglected religion. In order to test our hypothesis, we employ content analysis by examining the archives of the leading journals published in the above stated states and basic statistics in order to highlight the percentage and extent of published articles dealing with religion compared to the total volume of articles published.     

Countervailing Forces: Religiosity and Paranormal Belief in Italy

Due to the unique cultural niche inhabited by “paranormal” beliefs and experiences, social scientists have struggled to understand the relationship between religion and the paranormal. Complicating matters is the fact that extant research has primarily focused upon North America, leaving open the possible relationship between these two spheres of the supernatural in less religiously pluralistic contexts. Using data from a random, national survey of Italian citizens, we examine the nature of the relationship between religiosity and paranormal beliefs in a largely Catholic context. We find a curvilinear relationship between religiosity and paranormal beliefs among Italians, with those at the lowest and highest levels of religious participation holding lower average levels of “paranormal” belief than those with moderate religious participation. This pattern reflects how two influential social institutions, religion and science, simultaneously define the paranormal as outside of acceptable realms of inquiry and belief.     

ESSAYS IN HONOR OF CHRISTOPHER SOUTHGATE: INTRODUCTION

This article is an introduction to the special issue of Zygon in honor of Christopher Southgate. Over the years he has made many significant contributions to the field of science and religion, and contributors have gathered to celebrate him on his sixty‐fifth birthday. This introduction includes some biographical background and an outline of the issue's contents.     

E.O. Wilson's Conquest of Earth

The publication of Edward O. Wilson's recent book, The Social Conquest of Earth, launches a new missile in the purported warfare between science and religion. The launching-pad is Wilson's embracing of group selection over kin selection to explain the evolutionary success of cooperation and even altruism in complex social groups. Rather than the selfish gene, groups of genetically diverse individuals who cooperate with one another drive evolution toward increased social organization, toward eusociality. Within the field of sociobiology, this is interesting. But Wilson does not stop here. He proceeds to engage in combat with all competing points of view, especially religious points of view. By relegating religion to a primitive stage of evolution and elevating science to an advanced stage, he provides justification for science to eliminate all its enemies and to establish hegemony in the worldview war. This article provides a critical analysis of Wilson's scientific method, especially his attempt to replace creation myths with his own scientized myths of origin. It concludes that Wilson need not do battle, because he could find among theologians allies in his understanding of human nature and his concern to make the world a better moral place.     

Lower class people suffered more (but perceived fewer risk disadvantages) during the COVID-19 pandemic

Does COVID-19 affect people of all classes equally? In the current research, we focus on the social issue of risk inequality during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a nationwide survey conducted in China (N = 1,137), we predicted and found that compared to higher-class individuals, lower-class participants reported a stronger decline in self-rated health as well as economic well-being due to the COVID-19 outbreak. At the same time, we examined participants' beliefs regarding the distribution of risks. The results demonstrated that although lower-class individuals were facing higher risks, they expressed lesser belief in such a risk inequality than their higher-class counterparts. This tendency was partly mediated by their stronger endorsement of system-justifying beliefs. The findings provide novel evidence of the misperception of risk inequality among the disadvantaged in the context of COVID-19. Implications for science and policy are discussed.