How Religious Affiliation and Race/Ethnicity Shape Presidential Policy Approval

Reviewed by: Jews and the American Religious Landscape by Uzi Rebhun Michelle Shain Uzi Rebhun. Jews and the American Religious Landscape. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. 236 pp. For four years, the Pew Research Center’s 2013 Survey of US Jews has dominated lay and academic discourse about the state of American Jewry. While there is much to learn from this large, representative study of US Jews, there is also much left unanswered—in particular, what aspects of the American Jewish experience are uniquely Jewish, and how American Jews’ responses to the social realities of contemporary America might be different from those of other religious or ethnic groups. Uzi Rebhun, whose existing body of work emphasizes American Jews in comparative context, addresses these questions in Jews and the American Religious Landscape. This new study is based on a different Pew Research Center survey, the 2007 US Religious Landscape Survey, which included a representative sample of over 35,000 Americans of different religions and a substantial number of Jews. Rebhun uses this dataset to take a broad look at the social, religious, and political characteristics of American Jews, as compared to other religious groups in American society. The study’s findings related to American Jews’ relative socioeconomic status (high), religious identification (low), and political orientation (liberal) are largely consistent with previous research. It is unsurprising, but nevertheless striking, to see that American Jews ranked higher than all other major religious groups in terms of educational attainment and income, and lower than all other major religious groups in terms of religious identification (Mormons ranked the highest, followed by black Protestants and evangelical Protestants). Unfortunately, as Rebhun himself points out, the nature of the 2007 US Religious Landscape Survey was such that its measures of religious identification had to apply across religious groups: for example, religious service attendance and belief in God. Measures related to issues of particularistic concern to Jews, including the State of Israel, [End Page 256] the Holocaust, and responsibility to the global Jewish community, were not included. Because the study relies on measures of Jewish commitment that are explicitly religious, it yields an interesting but incomplete picture of American Jews’ Jewish commitments. Religion per say is far less salient to many American Jews than Jewish culture, history, and peoplehood. In Rebhun’s analysis of religious switching in the 2007 US Religious Landscape Survey, fully 15 percent of adults with a Jewish upbringing considered themselves religiously unaffiliated. Rebhun notes that these “ethnic Jews” (also called “Jews of no religion”) make up an even larger proportion of American Jews in more recent surveys; in the Pew Research Center’s 2013 Survey of US Jews, they were 22 percent of all American Jews. Furthermore, in both the 2007 US Religious Landscape Survey and 2013 Survey of US Jews, the proportion of Jews whose Jewish identity is ethnic as opposed to religious was highest among those younger than thirty. Rebhun is careful to note that ethnic Jews are not estranged from the Jewish community and that some join synagogues and exhibit other traditional Jewish behaviors. He also notes that Jews are not dissimilar from mainline Protestants in their overall levels of religious identification. Yet, the data do not allow him to examine the ethnic modes of Jewish identification that may be more prominent for many Jews. Especially in light of the steady expansion of the number of ethnic Jews within American Jewry, there is a pressing need for more research on modes of Jewish identification outside the traditional religious context. Similarly, Rebhun’s analysis of political orientation underscores the need for more research on the evolving political attitudes and behaviors of American Jews. The book’s observations about politics turn on voter preference in the 2004 US presidential elections, when incumbent Republican president George W. Bush defeated Democrat John Kerry. One wonders how the determinants of voter preference have changed more than a dozen years later, after repeated clashes between the Obama administration and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over West Bank settlements, the peace process, and the Iran nuclear deal, not to mention the election of Donald Trump as the forty-fifth president of the United States. More recent data is...

Very few studies have examined the effects of both religious affiliation and religiosity on mortality at the same time, and studies employing multiple dimensions of religiosity other than religious attendance are rare. Using the newly created General Social Survey-National Death Index data, our report contributes to the religion and mortality literature by examining religious affiliation and religiosity at the same time. Compared to Mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and other religious groups have lower risk of death, but Black Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, and even those with no religious affiliation are not different from Mainline Protestants. While our study is consistent with previous findings that religious attendance leads to a reduction in mortality, we did not find other religious measures, such as strength of religious affiliation, frequency of praying, belief in an afterlife, and belief in God to be associated with mortality. We also find interaction effects between religious affiliation and attendance. The lowest mortality of Jews and other religious groups is more apparent for those with lower religious attendance. Thus, our result may emphasize the need for other research to focus on the effects of religious group and religious attendance on mortality at the same time.

ObjectiveReligion has been shown to affect the U.S. public opinion about foreign policy. Recent studies emphasize attitudes about issues pertaining to the Middle East. They also tend to focus on the perspectives of evangelical Protestants, so we know comparatively little about how being mainline Protestant, Black Protestant, Catholic, or religiously unaffiliated might affect one's foreign policy preferences.MethodsUsing data drawn from the 2009 America's Place in the World General Public Survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, we analyze religion's impact on public attitudes about foreign affairs, comparing evangelical Protestants with four other religious groups.ResultsWe find that the main driver of religion's impact on foreign policy attitudes is nominal religious affiliation (“belonging”), not the frequency of worship attendance (“behaving”). Religiously unaffiliated Americans and Catholics—and to a lesser extent, mainline and Black Protestants—perceive the world as less threatening than do evangelicals. They also prefer multilateral, cooperative solutions to international problems.ConclusionAmericans vary significantly in their international threat perception and support for militant or cooperative internationalism based on their religious affiliation. In addition, evangelical Protestants’ preference for hawkish, unilateral foreign policy extends beyond the context of the Middle East.

This article analyzes the impact of religion on reported levels of subjective well‐being (general happiness) among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adults. Although previous studies find religious affiliation to be a significant predictor of subjective well‐being among the general population in the United States, limited quantitative research investigates general happiness among sexual and gender minorities. This study augments the existing literature by using a national survey of LGBT adults conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2013. The results show that religious affiliation is a significant predictor of LGBT individuals’ happiness. LGBT individuals who identify as Catholic, agnostic or atheist, or with no particular religious affiliation report lower levels of happiness compared to mainline Protestants. Surprisingly, no significant differences are found between mainline Protestants (whose church doctrine often accepts same‐sex relations) and evangelical Protestants (whose church doctrine often condemns same‐sex relations). In addition, income is the only control variable that affects general happiness. Our analysis reveals interesting differences in the determinants of subjective well‐being between the LGBT and general population.

Purpose Past research indicates that blacks are less trusting of physicians than are whites; yet, researchers have not examined within group differences in physician trust by religious denomination – an effort that is complicated by the high correlated nature of race and religion. To better understand black-white differences in physician trust, this chapter examines heterogeneity in trust levels among blacks associated with religious designations that distinguish Black Protestants from other ethnoreligious groups. Methodology/approach Using data from the 2002 and 2006 General Social Surveys, this study adopts an intersectional (i.e., race x religion) typology of religious denomination to understand the black-white gap in physician trust. Weighted multivariate linear regression is employed. Findings Black-white differences in physician trust are identified only when religious affiliation is considered but not when religious affiliation is omitted. Blacks who are affiliated with Black Protestant churches are more trusting than other religious groups, including Evangelical Protestants, Mainline Protestants, and blacks who are affiliated with other faiths. Originality/value This chapter indicates that there is more heterogeneity in trust levels among blacks than between blacks and whites. Moreover, the findings suggest that religion can play an important role in bridging the trust gap between blacks and the medical sciences.

Purpose – In this chapter, we advance research on the socioeconomic ranking of religious groups by using both income and wealth to document the rankings of the six major religious groups in the United States – Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, black Protestants, and the religiously unaffiliated – during 2001–2007, a period marked by both catastrophic economic losses and widespread economic gain. Design/Methodology/Approach – Drawing from the Panel Study on Income Dynamics (PSID), we provide descriptive statistics to explore the socioeconomic differences among the six major religious groups. In addition, we note their ownership rates and changes in wealth and income during 2001–2007. Findings – Overall, these findings point to enduring stratification in the U.S. religious landscape. Based on median net worth, leading into the Great Recession, the six major religious groups ranked in the following order: Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, the unaffiliated, and black Protestants. At the same time, these findings point to the upward mobility of white Catholics, who increased their income and made the greatest increase in net worth between 2001 and 2007. These data also suggest a decline in the socioeconomic status of the religiously unaffiliated as compared to previous studies. Research implications – These findings illustrate the degree to which certain religious groups have access to wealth and other resources, and have implications for how the years leading into the Great Recession may have influenced households’ vulnerability to financial shocks. Originality/Value – We use both income and wealth to examine whether different religious groups experienced any changes in income and wealth leading into the 2008 economic downturn.

Purpose – This chapter explores the relationship between religious affiliation and wealth ownership focusing on generational differences. Methodology – I use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Health and Retirement Study to create descriptive statistics and regression analyses of the association between religious affiliation in childhood and adulthood for people of two cohorts. Findings – This chapter shows that there are important patterns by religious affiliation in total net worth, real assets, and asset allocation across generations. My findings are consistent with past work on religion and wealth ownership showing that Jews, mainline Protestants, and white Catholics tend to have higher total wealth than other groups. In addition, I find that black Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, and conservative Protestants tend to have relatively low wealth, consistent with research on religion, race/ethnicity, and wealth. My findings also show that these patterns are relatively robust across generations. Research implications – The findings are relevant to research on inequality, wealth accumulation and saving, life course processes, and the effect of religion on stratification outcomes. Originality/Value – This research shows how religious affiliation and wealth are related across generations.

Disclosing one’s sexual minority identity or “coming out of the closet” is a key milestone in sexual minority identity development. While scholars have explored how race, gender, class, and other social classifications shape coming out patterns among lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) individuals, we know far less about the effect of religious contexts. To address this shortcoming, we extend existing theoretical insights to better understand how faith and religiosity shape coming out patterns among sexual minorities both independently and collectively. Specifically, we examine how religious affiliation and religious attendance (a measure of religiosity) affect when LGB individuals privately realize and publicly disclose their sexual minority identity. Using data from the Pew Research Center’s 2013 Survey of LGBT Adults, we conduct a series of ordinary least squares regressions on a representative sample of LGB adults ( n = 1,136). We find religious contexts—both religious affiliation and attendance—have no independent effect on when a person realizes or publicly discloses their sexual minority identity for the first time. However, evangelical Protestants that frequently attend religious services publicly disclose their sexual minority identity at older ages. These results highlight the social cost of publicly disclosing an LGB identity, especially within conservative religious spaces.

Reviewed by: Latino Protestants in America: Growing and Diverse by Mark T. Mulder, Aída I. Ramos, Gerardo Martí Lloyd Barba (bio) Latino Protestants in America: Growing and Diverse By Mark T. Mulder, Aída I. Ramos, and Gerardo Martí. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017. 218 pp. ISBN: 1442256540. The cover story of the April 15, 2013, issue of Time magazine catalyzed a national conversation on religion in the United States, heralding “The Latino Reformation.” A recent rise of Latino Protestant churches across the United States has been largely overlooked by the American public and has received only limited attention by scholars of religion and even less by those in Latino studies. Latino Protestants in America: Growing and Diverse seeks to bridge that gap of (mis)understanding between specialists in various disciplines and lay readers. Sociologists Mark T. Mulder, Aída I. Ramos, and Gerardo Martí offer the first comprehensive overview of this changing religious American landscape, maintaining that the current seismic demographic shifts are important not only with respect to Latina/o populations but also for the larger social, political, and lived experiences of religious communities in the United States. The study synthesizes the latest scholarship (mostly sociological), surveys of religious life (e.g., Chicago Latino Congregation Study, Hispanic Churches in American Public Life Survey, and more than two dozen studies by the Pew Research Center), as well as in-depth ethnographies conducted by the Latino Protestant Congregations (LPC), a project comprising a team of sociologists across the country under the leadership of Martí and Mulder. The authors begin by citing key demographic changes (already well known to scholars in Latino studies): Latinos account for the largest racial minority in the country (17%) and are increasingly geographically more dispersed, now residing in the Deep South, Midwest, and the Great Lakes area (23). How do these shifts betoken and contribute to a rapidly growing Protestant Latino presence? In 2014, some 22% of Latinos identified as Protestant, and based on current and expected trends, the authors expect this to swell to 50% by 2030, changing the face of politics and economics as well as the social standing of Latinas/os (2). Moreover, they cite studies that Latino Protestants are more religiously active than Catholics or White and Black Protestants (134). Beyond Time magazine’s national and perhaps startling statistics, how does this impact Latino studies? The authors contend that “Latino Protestant churches function as important institutional contexts in which Latino identity can be reified, reduced, or negotiated” and that congregations are “microcosms of a larger, aggregate process of racialization in which Latino racial/ethnic identity is being ironed out” (73). Because of attention to Catholicism in Latino culture, the authors leverage Catholicism as a touchstone for analytical comparison to show the ways in which Latino identities are negotiated across various religious, regional, and institutional contexts. This book also offers significant insight into Latino Protestant congregations in the Midwest. The authors demonstrate how Latino Protestants can differ in terms of history, immigration, identity negotiation, worship and liturgy, and political and social engagement. Chapter 1 casts off popular conceptions of Latino church services as “passionate” or a “fiesta” with a “Latino flavor” (4–6). As they note later, such characterizations provide no analytical value and in fact reinforce ethno-racial essentialisms (139–40). The chapter also addresses a fundamental tension throughout the book about being Latino and “not Catholic” (1–22). Protestant identity means more than being “not Catholic”; in fact, the “double marginalization” of Latino Protestants in the United States (religiously within ethnicity and ethnically within the country) prompts seeking new ways of reconciling ethnicity and race (105). The authors’ overview of Latinos’ waning affiliation with Catholicism in Latin American countries is complemented by their explanations for the factors attracting US Latinos to Protestantism. Scholars of Latino studies would take interest in the identity issues they explore that follow conversion: not only are English-dominant Latinos more likely to convert; converts tend to foreground their religious identity over [End Page 123] their ethnic identity (12). Readers unfamiliar with the contours of Latino Protestantism will appreciate the lay of the land that the...

When exposed to their congregations' negative views of homosexuality, Christian men who have sex with men frequently struggle to reconcile their religious and sexual identities, possibly contributing to negative emotional states and behaviors associated with HIV/STI infection. To examine the influence of religiousity on internalized homonegativity and outness among Christian men who have sex with men, we used survey data from 1165 men who answered questions about their religious beliefs and sexual behavior. We stratified participants based on religious affiliation groupings: Catholic, Mainline Protestant and Evangelical Protestant. After using confirmatory factor analysis to verify that the selected measures of religiosity were equivalent between groups, we used structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between religiosity, internalized homonegativity and outness. Among Catholics and Mainline Protestants, religiosity was not associated with internalized homonegativy or outness. However, among Evangelical Protestants – a group more likely to ascribe to religious fundamentalism – increased religiosity was associated with increased internalized homonegativity, which contributed to decreased outness. Our findings suggest that mental health providers and sexuality educators should be more concerned about the influence of religiosity on internalized homonegativity and outness when clients have a history of affiliation with Evangelical Protestant faiths more so than Catholic or Mainline Protestant faiths.

Although older adults tend to be among the most religiously-involved groups of people, and are more likely to be affiliated with a religious group in comparison with their younger counterparts, very little is known about the extent to which older adults change their affiliations from one group to another, or what factors are associated with likelihood of changing religion during this part of the life span. This study uses longitudinal data covering a period of between 3 and 12 years from a survey of religion and health in older adults to describe changes in reported religious group affiliation and to examine the demographic and religious factors that predict these changes. The extent of change observed depended on how religious affiliation was coded. 69 % of older adults changed some element of their response regarding religious affiliation during the course of the study, but once responses were classified more broadly by religious tradition, the proportion changing was 27 %. There were also significant changes between Protestant denominations, and between specific organizations within Protestant denominations. Catholics and members of historically Black Protestant groups were less likely to change affiliations than Mainline Protestants or Conservative Protestants. Greater frequency of religious service attendance was related to lower likelihood of changing religious affiliation. Results indicate that religious affiliation change continues to occur in a significant proportion of individuals during the span of older adulthood, and that many of those who change tend to do so repeatedly.

ObjectivesDespite the obvious relevance of religious themes and symbols in U.S. foreign policy since September 11, 2001, scholars know little about whether or how religious affiliation and behavior affect foreign policy attitudes. In this study, we endeavor to fill this gap in the literature.MethodsWe analyze the relationship between religious affiliation and public opinion about several dimensions of U.S. foreign policy in the Greater Middle East under President Barack Obama using pooled data from three surveys conducted in 2009 by the Pew Research Center.ResultsOur analysis indicates that the “faith factor” is a powerful force driving American attitudes about Obama's foreign policy. Specifically, seculars, mainline Protestants, and Catholics variously stand out as more moderate and more supportive of Obama when compared to evangelical Protestants.ConclusionsOur findings demonstrate that even when other determinants of foreign policy public opinion are controlled, religious affiliation has a powerful and independent impact on a wide array of foreign policy attitudes. Religion's impact on foreign policy attitudes thus is limited neither to the period immediately following September 11 nor to the administration of George W. Bush.

Aspects of the patient-physician relationship, such as trust, influence a variety of health behaviors, including adherence to treatment regimens and the use of preventive health services. While several demographic and socioeconomic factors have been found to predict levels of trust in physicians, little is known about the influence of religious beliefs and behaviors. The relationship between religion and medical trust was investigated within a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States (n = 1,274). More specifically, multivariate models were used to analyze the associations between religious affiliation, attendance, and strength of affiliation and three types of trust: personal trust in one's physician, general confidence in physicians, and trust in the health care system. Findings reveal that religiously active individuals have higher levels of trust in physicians. For example, individuals who attend religious services frequently (42% of the sample) are significantly more likely to trust their own physician (p < .05) and have higher levels of confidence in physicians in general (p < .01), compared to individuals who never attend. In addition, levels of trust vary by religious denomination with Mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews reporting more trust than Evangelical Protestants. For example, Mainline Protestants have more personal trust in their physicians (p < .01), general confidence in physicians (p <.05), and trust in the health care system (p < .05), compared to Evangelical Protestants. This study is the first to examine religious differences in medical trust. The findings add to the current knowledge on factors associated with trust in health care providers and may help to explain religious differences in the use of preventive services and other health behaviors.

A comprehensive demographic study by Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project estimates that there are 5.8 billion religiously affiliated adults and children around the globe, representing 84 of the 2010 world population of 6.9 billion who live in more than 230 countries and territories. At the same time, the new study by the Pew Research Center also finds that roughly one-in-six people around the globe have no religious affiliation. This chapter describes the methods used to create these estimates. Pew Research Center analysts standardized religion categories in all available censuses and surveys for each country. Censuses and nationally representative surveys can provide valid and reliable measures of religious landscapes when they are conducted following the best practices of social science research. In the chapter, researchers sought to ensure that primary sources were representative of the entire country. Keywords: census data; Pew Research Center; religious landscapes; social science research; survey data

Despite clear links between religious commitment, sexual behavior, and fertility, relatively little is known about religion's role in contraceptive practices, especially vasectomy uptake. Vasectomy is an understudied but important method of contraception that is safe and effective and shifts contraceptive labor from women to men. Existing studies of religion and vasectomy assess the impact of religion on women's reliance on their partner's vasectomy without directly measuring men's religious characteristics, are dated, and typically do not distinguish Protestant groups from one another. In this study, we analyze data from 25- to 44-year-old married men in the 2011-2019 National Survey of Family Growth (N = 4120) to assess differences in vasectomy uptake by religious affiliation and frequency of religious service attendance. The percentage of married men who are vasectomized varies substantially across religious affiliations, ranging from 3.5% among Hispanic Catholics to 18.5% among non-Hispanic Catholics. The differences among religious groups are mostly explained by income, race, ethnicity, age, and parity. However, even after controlling for these and other background factors, Hispanic Catholic men have a lower probability of being vasectomized than evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, non-Hispanic Catholics, and religiously unaffiliated men, suggesting their religious subculture has distinct norms around vasectomy. Religious service attendance is not associated with vasectomy uptake. Moreover, within-affiliation differences by religious service attendance are not statistically significant. Our findings suggest that vasectomy differences across religious affiliations track closely with race, ethnic, and class differences, but Hispanic Catholics are religiously distinct.