Religiosity and Secular and Ascetic Deviance

According to the antiascetic hypothesis, religiosity should be strongly related to behaviors that violate ascetic standards (getting drunk and using marijuana), but only weakly related to behaviors that violate social standards (violence and stealing). Using the second wave of the National Study of Youth and Religion, I tested the antiascetic hypothesis using a question about the most important basis for deciding what is morally right or wrong. Contrary to the antiascetic hypothesis, individuals who believe that God's law is the most important for deciding what is morally right or wrong, compared to those who believe that society is the most important, are not less likely to get drunk or use marijuana. Furthermore, for getting drunk and marijuana use, differences in behavior are not the result of different ethical standards (ascetic or social), but rather differences in the willingness to uphold those standards (is it OK to break moral rules).     

Analysis of Religious Bias among Christian Students in Science

Christians are notably underrepresented in science in part due to long-standing public perceptions of science-religion incompatibility and antireligious bias in science. This research explores whether undergraduates at a Christian university perceive and impose anti-Christian cultural stigma in science. Survey results from 126 biology students revealed that though students generally perceived the culture of science to be anti-Christian, they perceived Christians to have equal opportunities for scientific achievement. Results from a quasi-experimental audit study, in which students evaluated one of two profiles for mock prospective Ph.D. applicants (Christian or undisclosed faith) showed that students did not project anti-Christian stereotypes in terms of competence, hireability, or likeability, but showed some evidence of pro-Christian favorability. Together, this study suggests that the affirmational community of a Christian University may alleviate some negative impacts of anti-Christian stereotypes in academic biology, even as students perceive discrimination against Christians in science and atheists as more scientifically competent.     

National Context,Parental Socialization,and the Varying Relationship Between Religious Belief and Practice

Parents are crucial agents of religious socialization, but the broader social environment is also influential. A key question is whether parents are more or less influential when their religious beliefs and practices are not shared by people around them. Current thinking on the issue has largely been shaped by Kelley and De Graaf, who argued that parental religious socialization matters most in secular countries. We maintain that that conclusion is mistaken: levels of parental and national religiosity are both important, but their effects are largely independent of each other. Kelley and De Graaf's findings rely on the assumption that religious belief and practice are different expressions of the same underlying phenomenon (religiosity) and vary in the same way across time and space. These measures are not equivalent, however. In relatively religious societies, belief in God is widespread even among those who do not attend services, whereas in societies where religious involvement is low, nonchurchgoers tend to be nonbelievers.     

Surgeons and the Spirit: A Study on the Relationship of Religiosity to Clinical Practice

This study aimed to identify the religious practices and beliefs of surgeons and the relationship between surgeons locus of control and religiosity. Thirty-five surgeons completed a survey that included items from the Duke University Religion Index, the Salesian Center Intrinsic Religiosity Scale for Clinicians, and Rotters Locus of Control Scale. Over 68% of sampled surgeons affirmed that their religious beliefs play a part in their practice, 47% attend religious services at least weekly, and 44% pray daily. There was no correlation between locus of control and religiosity. These results challenge the myth of the egocentric, agnostic surgeon.     

Parental Divorce,Parental Religious Characteristics,and Religious Outcomes in Adulthood

Parental divorce has been linked to religious outcomes in adulthood. Previous research, however, has not adequately accounted for parental religious characteristics, which may render the association spurious and/or moderate the relationship. Many studies also do not consider subsequent family context, namely, whether one's custodial parent remarries. Using pooled data from three waves of the General Social Survey, we examine the nature of the relationships among parental divorce, subsequent family structure, and religiosity in adulthood. Growing up in a single‐parent family—but not a stepparent family—is positively associated with religious disaffiliation and religious switching and negatively associated with regular religious service attendance. Accounting for parental religious characteristics, however, explains sizable proportions of these relationships. In fact, after accounting for parental religious affiliation and service attendance, growing up with a single parent does not have a significant effect on religious service attendance. Parental religiosity also moderates the relationship between growing up with a single parent and religious service attendance: being raised in a single‐parent home does have a negative effect on religious service attendance among adults who had two religiously involved parents. There is modest evidence of this moderating relationship for other religious outcomes. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

“Practical Divine Influence”: Socioeconomic Status and Belief in the Prosperity Gospel

The “prosperity gospel” is an understudied feature of the religious landscape of the United States. Little is known about the social patterning of prosperity gospel beliefs. We focus on two core dimensions of socioeconomic status (SES)—education and income—as potential influences. Our analyses of data from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's 2006 Survey of Pentecostals produce three findings. First, education and income have negative and mostly independent associations with prosperity gospel beliefs. Second, SES‐based patterns remain after accounting for other attributes of the religious role. Third, while most education‐based differences are contingent upon the attributes of the religious role, these contingencies are not replicated for income‐based differences. These observations reinforce the long‐standing claim that SES plays a pivotal—and complex—role in the social patterning of religious beliefs.     

Deafness and Religiosity in Adolescence: An Occasional Study in the Greek School

This article attempts to understand the religiosity of 25 deaf and hard-of-hearing adolescents and students who attend a public special school for the deaf in Athens. The absence of a formal religious education orientated to the needs of a deaf community, combined with the presence of formal religion in Greek society devoted to hearing believers, makes the opinions of deaf students particularly important. Also, the social perceptions of their relationships with other people, both deaf and hearing, seems to indicate to a point the development of their religiosity.     

Understanding the relationships between age,gender, and life satisfaction: the mediating role of stress and religiosity

Although hundreds of investigations have examined the relationship between age and life satisfaction, a recent review of these studies reveals that relatively little is known about the nature of this relationship, especially between genders and across cultures, and the mechanisms that link age to life satisfaction. Using a large-scale study in Malaysia, the present research explores the mediating effects of stress and religiosity that might be responsible for the empirical findings reported in previous studies. Contrary to previous findings based on US studies, this study finds that women are more satisfied with their lives than men in the early and later stages of life. Chronic stress and religiosity were found to partially mediate the relationship between age and life satisfaction, suggesting that these may be mechanisms that explain the findings of previous studies.     

‘A nation of vicars and merchants’: religiosity and Dutch MEPs

Religion is a major driving force in the Dutch political system and as European integration has progressed, it is often argued that these national practices affect how national representatives act in the European Parliament (EP). Our aim in this study is to determine to what extent the religious divide impacts upon the work of Dutch MEPs in the European political arena. On the basis of the RelEP survey and interviews, we argue that religious or secular views are very salient to Dutch MEPs, but that their impact is largely indirect. Moreover, we find that Dutch MEPs actively use the EP and its committee system in an attempt to redefine the relationship between church and state in the Netherlands. And finally, we argue that the European arena offers new opportunities for mobilisation among those promoting secularist interests.     

Buddhist shrines: bringing sacred context and shared memory into the home

Previous research has recognized shrines in homes as sites of shared cultural memory with the function of contextualising religious narratives and bringing the sacred into the home. For Buddhists, shrines occupy a grey area between the cultural and the religious and have not been widely considered as indicators of religiosity. A quantitative study of 417 British teenagers self-identifying as Buddhists found that the 70% who had a home shrine were less likely to visit a Buddhist temple, but more likely to exhibit daily personal religious practice and to bow to parents. The attitude profile of those with shrines showed that these teenagers were generally happier at school, more collectivist, polarised regarding their identities, and strict about intoxicants. Heightened affective religiosity was linked with having a home shrine, particularly for female, late-teen, and heritage Buddhists. The article argues that, for these groups of Buddhists, a shrine represents a locus for shared memory, especially accessible to those of Sensing Psychological Types, but, for males, early teens, and converts, there is more a sense of shrines giving context to their Buddhist narratives.