Archive for the ‘Current Research’ Category

CURRENT RESEARCH

While voting patterns among religious believers have held steady in recent elections, there was less support for President-elect Donald Trump among Protestants compared to 2020. RW was going to press as the election results came out, and we will undoubtedly report more on the election and the upcoming Trump presidency in the next issue. In […]

CURRENT RESEARCH

■   While there is less opposition to the prospect of an atheist president, especially as the stigma of atheism has decreased in recent years, partisanship and religiosity may still keep voters from electing even patriotic candidates if they don’t profess a faith, a new study finds. In an article in the Journal for the […]

CURRENT RESEARCH

■  A study of campus ministries in the U.S. finds that today’s college students are less likely to be seeking spiritual experiences and teachings in joining these ministries than looking for “a home away from home” that provides a source of social support. The five-year study, directed by John Schmalzbauer at the University of Missouri, […]

CURRENT RESEARCH

■  Recent church planting efforts tend to be near each other and are concentrated in Northeastern and West Coast areas as well as Florida and Texas, a new analysis finds. In his newsletter Graphs about Religion (July 25), Ryan Burge discusses the results of his study of two leading church planting networks, Acts 29 and […]

CURRENT RESEARCH

■  American women have recently been showing high rates of disaffiliation from religion, although they are still more likely to stay in their childhood religion compared to men. In his newsletter Graphs About Religion (June 27), Ryan Burge reports that the gender gap on religion remains. “In recent decades, evangelical retention was about four points […]

CURRENT RESEARCH

■  A new analysis of survey data suggests that the growth of the non-affiliated or “nones” may be slowing down. In his newsletter Graphs about Religion (May 20), Ryan Burge reports finding a fairly consistent slowdown in the percentage of Americans who claim no religion, based on data from Pew, the General Social Survey (GSS), […]

CURRENT RESEARCH

Churchgoing African Americans’ longtime allegiance to the Democratic party is showing some cracks, according to an analysis by Ryan Burge in his newsletter Graphs about Religion (April 15). “Religiously active Black Protestants have never really been that comfortable with where the Democratic party is headed on certain cultural issues (like abortion), and this may actually […]

CURRENT RESEARCH

High school students’ religious attendance and the importance they assign to religion in their lives have undergone significant declines over the last 27 years. In his newsletter Graphs about Religion (March 7), Ryan Burge analyzes datasets from the annual survey of high school students, “Monitoring the Future,” from 1995 and 2022, focusing on high school […]

CURRENT RESEARCH

One of the first cross-national studies on abortion and religion finds that the religious or secular character of nations’ cultures has more influence on abortion attitudes than religious affiliation. The study, conducted by sociologist Amy Adamczyk of the City University of New York, was presented at a seminar at New York’s Columbia University in mid-February, […]

CURRENT RESEARCH

More than 90 percent of American adults support religious pluralism, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty found in its latest Religious Freedom Index. In its fifth edition of the annual index, Becket polled respondents on six dimensions of religious freedom, including religious pluralism, religion and policy, religious sharing, religion and society, church and state, and […]