Consistency Among Humanitarian and Helping Attitudes

Abstract

In a series of articles, Benton Johnson has investigated the effects of ascetic Protestantism on political party preference. His findings indicate that among laymen exposed to teachings, religious involvement would vary directly with Republican party preference. However, among laymen exposed to teachings, religious involvement would vary inversely with Republican identification. This present study shows that church involvement and political party identification are not significantly related. A refinement of Johnson's liberal-fundamentalist dichotomy and his church interaction index again resulted in non-significant findings. Finally, a weighted least-squares procedure was employed yielding a set of linear estimation equations that again showed no significant effect. Results such as these should make the social scientist wary of the dangers associated with the measurement of religion and the contem- porary relevance of Weber's Protestant ethic. Under the Weberian banner Benton Johnson (1962) argues that religious factors have an independent effect in political party preference for those members of denominations referred to by Weber as ascetic Protestants. A further implication is that the Republican party has been a major beneficiary of this tradition al- though not at a uniform rate. Johnson qualifies his statement because he observes a division within ascetic Protestantism somewhat analogous to the two-party faction in the American political system. A bifurcation of the ascetic Protestant tradition resulted in a liberal and fundamentalist wing. Johnson places denom- inations stemming from the Calvinist, Pietist, and Revivalist tradition in the camp, whereas those not sharing these traditions, notably Episcopalians and Lutherans, were classified as liberal. Weber outlined the intrinsic similarity be- tween the religious temper of ascetic Protestant groups and the emerging needs of capitalism. Reduced to its bare essence, the Calvinist idea of predestination which encouraged the individ- ual to be diligent, frugal and dedicated in the religious sphere, produced a person totally compatible with the interests of rationalized business enterprise.' Accordingly, then, one * Research supported in part by the Graduate School, University of Wisconsin, Madison. The author is indebted to Gene F. Summers for his invaluable assistance during the course of this study. 1 It is not every aspect of capitalism that Weber seeks to link with Calvinism, but rather a certain capitalist temper. This spirit of capitalism con- dones affluence and profit when they stem from this spirit, a spirit that includes a sense of vocaThis content downloaded from 157.55.39.103 on Mon, 25 Apr 2016 06:37:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms