In a new study, researchers find that Republicans who view God as actively involved in the world tend to support more generous welfare policies, in opposition to their party’s platform. The study, conducted by Paul Froese and Robert Thomson and published in the journal Sociological Forum (online January 30), is based on an analysis of […]
A new study, Going, Going, Gone: The Dynamics of Disaffiliation in Young Catholics, looks at a sample of former Catholics, aged 15 to 25, to shed light on the movement of young people exiting the church in recent years. The National Catholic Reporter (January 22) notes findings from the survey, which was conducted by St. […]
The downturn in religious affiliation in the U.S. has been interpreted as a sign of secularization and how America may be becoming more like European countries, but a recent article argues that it may be more the case that one segment of Americans is becoming more intensely religious than the rest of the population. Sociologists […]
The Amish community is showing a unique continuity in fertility behaviors across the generations, according to a new study by Cory Anderson (Truman State University), Joseph Donnermeyer (Ohio State University), and Samson Wasao. The preliminary study, which was presented at the recent meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, is based on […]
For all the talk about the growth of “nones,” a core of active young Christians has remained constant in American society, although such young believers are more ethnically diverse than in the past, according to research by Timothy Clydesdale. In a survey of 1880 young adults, the researchers found active twenty-something Christians represented about 30 […]
A recent study by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) reports a significant decline in whites claiming an evangelical identity—and also shows how difficult it is to measure such identity. The PRRI survey, based on 101,000 interviews, finds that there has been a six-point drop in those claiming a white evangelical identity since 2006 (down […]
The new Baylor Religion Survey finds the emergence of “Trumpism,” a form of Christian influenced nationalism and a widespread fear of religious “others.” The survey, which is the fifth wave of the study and was conducted among 1,501 respondents earlier this year, found that beliefs about God were related to their support of the presidency […]
The election of Donald Trump may be a political after-effect of the steep decline of mainline Protestantism in American culture, writes Lyman Stone in the web magazine Vox (July 14). Stone, a population economist, looks at average change at county-level Republican share of the vote per member of each denomination from 2012–2016. In other words, […]
Even though it has been considered a conservative religious rallying cry, a Public Religion Research Institute survey finds that 61 percent of Americans oppose allowing businesses to deny services to gays and lesbians. The issue became headline news when the Supreme Court considered taking the case of a Colorado baker who refuses on religious grounds […]
Are the number of atheists drastically undercounted in the U.S.? That is the claim of social psychologists Will Gervais and Maxine Najle, who conducted an experiment on the role of stigma in identifying as an atheist and found that the national percentage could be as high as 26 percent. The magazine Vox (May 17) reports […]
