Continuing the Conversation on Canada: Changing Patterns of Religious Service Attendance

David Eagle's article on changing patterns of religious service attendance appeared in the March 2011 issue of Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. He presented a comprehensive analysis of three data sets that allow social scientists to estimate the rate of religious service attendance in Canada: Project Canada Survey (PCS), the General Social Survey (GSS), and the Canadian Survey of Giving, Volunteering, and Participating (GSGVP). Reginald Bibby initiated the PCS in 1975, 10 years before Statistics Canada began conducting the GSS in 1985, and 22 years before the GSGVP began in 1997. He comments on the Eagle article, cautions scholars to be mindful of important methodological differences across samples, and offers his own analysis of trends in religious service attendance.     

Pornography,Religion, and the Happiness Gap: Does Pornography Impact the Actively Religious Differently?

Club good models developed by economists suggest that the club provides a benefit to members by fostering the provision of semi-public goods. In the case of religion, churches create enforcement mechanisms to reduce free riding. Consequently, the psychic costs of deviant activity should be higher for individuals who belong to religious groups with strong social norms. Data from the General Social Survey are used to examine whether the cost of using pornography is greater for the more religiously involved. We measure the cost of using pornography as the happiness gap or the gap between the average happiness reported by individuals who do and individuals who do not report using pornography. The happiness gap is larger for individuals who regularly attend church and who belong to religious groups with strong attitudes against pornography.     

Religion and Medicalization: The Case of ADHD

As a medicalized condition, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) sparks considerable public controversy. Previous research has highlighted the importance of examining the factors that influence attitudes toward ADHD. This article examines an understudied factor, religion, and its relationship with ADHD attitudes. Using data from the 2002 General Social Survey National Stigma Study‐Children, this research finds that compared to the rest of the population, evangelical Christians are less likely to view ADHD as a real disease and to believe children with ADHD should be treated with medication. Results also demonstrate that evangelicals are more likely to think doctors are overmedicating children with common behavior problems and to think medication prevents families from working out problems themselves. On the other hand, church attendance is unrelated to beliefs about ADHD treatment but is positively associated with thinking ADHD is a real disease. These findings add new insights to the existing literature on religion and medicalization.     

Religiosity,happiness, health,and psychopathology in a probability sample of Muslim adolescents

The aim of the present study was to explore the religiosity associations with the self-rating scales of happiness, mental health, physical health, anxiety, and depression. A sample (N?=?6,339) of Muslim Kuwaiti adolescents was recruited. Their ages ranged from 15 to 18. They responded to four self-rating scales to assess religiosity, happiness, mental health, and physical health, as well as the Kuwait University Anxiety Scale, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale. Boys had higher mean scores on happiness, mental health, and physical health than did girls, whereas girls had higher mean scores on religiosity, anxiety, and depression. All the correlations were significant in both sexes. They were positive between each of the self-rating scales of religiosity, happiness, mental health, and physical health, and negative between these four rating scales and both anxiety and depression. A high-loaded and bipolar factor was disclosed and labelled “Religiosity and well-being vs. psychopathology.” In the stepwise regression, the main predictor of religiosity was happiness in both sexes.     

The role of vulnerable environments in support for homegrown terrorism: Fieldwork using the 3N model

The 3N model of radicalization proposes that violent radicalization is the result of the contribution of needs, networks, and narratives. Although research has mainly been supportive of this perspective, a substantial amount of ground remains uncovered regarding the network component of the model. Within this framework, we examine why individuals living in certain social environments tend to harbor more positive attitudes toward homegrown terrorism than others. Building on prior research, we hypothesized that individuals living in social environments known to be vulnerable (vs. less vulnerable) are more likely to experience a sense of significance loss (i.e., lack of social integration, perceived conflicts between religious groups), find solace in religious social networks (i.e., mosques), and thus adhere to radical narratives (i.e., legitimization of terrorism). A study with 365 young Muslims from different cities in Spain (Almería, Barcelona, Ceuta, and Melilla)supported these predictions. Theoretical and practical implications for the study of violent extremism are discussed.     

Weekly churchgoing amongst Roman Catholics in Britain: long-term trends and contemporary analysis

Declining communal religious practice in the form of regular churchgoing is a key area in the measurement and study of religious change and secularisation. The general trends in attendance in Britain have been well-researched. However, there has been less consideration of change and continuity in religious practice within different religious traditions. This article provides a detailed assessment of the trends in weekly churchgoing amongst Roman Catholics and then examines the socio-demographic factors associated with regular churchgoing. In long-term perspective, there has been a clear decline in weekly churchgoing amongst Catholics, corroborated by data across several recurrent social surveys. In terms of contemporary churchgoing, weekly attenders are more likely to be older, have higher socio-economic status and have children in the household. But, contrary to the well-established association between women and religiosity, there were no significant differences in weekly attendance between men and women, nor on the basis of ethnic background.     

Changing Patterns of Attendance at Religious Services in Canada, 1986–2008

According to the General Social Survey, the combined rate of weekly and monthly attendance at religious services in Canada has declined by about 20 points from 1986 to 2008. Approximately half of this decline stems from the increase in the proportion of people reporting no religion, who, for the most part, do not attend religious services. The other portion of this decline is attributable to eroding attendance rates among Catholics, particularly older Catholics, and Protestants in Québec. Attendance rates for Protestants outside of Québec show signs of increase. The reported increase in weekly attendance in Canada by the Project Canada surveys and cited by Bibby as a possible indicator of a religious renaissance is revealed as an artifact in the data due to an oversample of Protestants. I find another weighting problem in the Canadian Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating that leads to underestimates of aggregate religious attendance rates.     

Changing patterns of religious affiliation,church attendance and marriage across five areas of Europe since the early 1980s: trends and associations

This study draws on three waves of the European Values Survey (conducted between 1981 and 1984, between 1989 and 1993, and between 1999 and 2004) across five countries for which full data are available (Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Spain, and Sweden) in order to address five research questions. Question one examined changes in religious affiliation. Across all five countries, the proportions of the non‐affiliated increased. Question two examined changes in church attendance. Across all five countries, the proportions of the non‐attenders increased. Question three examined changes in marital status. Across all five countries the proportions of the population checking the category ‘married’ declined, although in Spain the decline was marginal. Question four examined the association between religious affiliation and being married. The religious affiliated were more likely to be married than the non‐affiliated. Question five examined the association between church attendance and being married. Weekly attenders were more likely to be married than the non‐attenders. Overall these data support the close association between religion and marriage across five European countries (where there are very different religious climates) and support the hypothesis that changing religious values and changing family values go hand‐in‐hand.     

The Longevity Effects of Religious and Nonreligious Participation: A Meta‐Analysis and Meta‐Regression

Scholars have long argued that the reduced mortality risk associated with frequent participation in religious services derives from two sources: social participation and religious belief efficacy. In contrast, the reduced mortality risk associated with participation in nonreligious groups is thought to derive solely from the social participation component. This study tests the religious efficacy hypothesis by comparing the effects of religious participation with nonreligious participation using meta‐analyses of 312 mortality risk estimates from 74 publications (providing data on more than 300,000 persons). We found no significant difference between the mean hazard ratio (HR) for low religious participation (HR, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.24–1.41) and the mean HR for low nonreligious participation (HR, 1.25; 95% CI, 1.17–1.33). These findings suggest that the positive health effects of religious participation may largely be attributed to the social participation component, rather than to the religious component of the act.