Protestant Attitudes Research Articles

Sympathy for the ‘devil’? Voting for populists in the 2006 and 2010 Dutch general elections

What motivations do voters have to vote for populist parties? How do their motivations differ from those of voters for mainstream parties? Analyzing new empirical material – the Dutch elections of 2006 and 2010 – we demonstrate that policy preferences, protest attitudes and evaluations of party leaders are important reasons to vote for populist parties. Yet only protest attitudes distinguish voters for populist parties from voters for mainstream parties; evaluations of party leaders turn out to be equally important for both. We theorize how protest attitudes and party leader evaluations overlap and employ an exploratory simulation technique to test this. We find that populist parties differ strongly from each other with regard to the specific patchwork of motivations of their voters.

Protesting and Justifying: A Latent Class Model for Contingent Valuation with Attitudinal Data

This article develops a latent class model for estimating willingness-to-pay (WTP) for public goods using simultaneously contingent valuation (CV) and attitudinal data to identify individuals with similar characteristics, such as WTP and protest attitudes. We find evidence that the answer to the CV question influences the responses to the attitudinal questions. In our case, this influence reflects rational behavior (budget constraint issues) and justification biases related to protest reasons, such as lack of trust in institutions or fairness issues with respect to the distribution of the burden of preservation. The results from our empirical application confirm the importance of accounting for those biases.

Protest Attitudes and Stated Preferences: Evidence on Scale Usage Heterogeneity

We contribute to the stated preference literature by addressing scale usage heterogeneity regarding how individuals answer attitudinal questions capturing lack of trust in institutions and fairness issues. Using a latent class model, we conduct a contingent valuation study to elicit the willingness-to-pay to preserve a recreational site. We find evidence that respondents within the same class, that is, with similar preferences and attitudes, interpret the Likert scale differently when answering the attitudinal questions. We identify different patterns of scale usage heterogeneity within and across classes and associate them with individual characteristics. Our approach contributes to better a understanding of individual behavior in the presence of protest attitudes.

"The Eye of Man Hath Not Heard": Shakespeare, Synaesthesia, and Post-Reformation Phenomenology

Phenomenology and TheaterWhy does Shakespeare's Bottom paraphrase Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians (2:9) when he awakens from his dream: of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was? (4.1.207- 10). ' Why does he mangle this gospel verse synaesthetically, crossing hearing and vision, tasting and touching? This essay examines the theologically inflected sensorium of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream by taking ancient theories of syn-aesthesia, or sensing- with, as models for theatrical phenomenology.At the broadest level, Bottom's reference to Paul helps to reconfigure the question of how Reformation dispositions towards the body and the senses informed the experience of theatergoing in early modern England. Current accounts of the historical phenomenology of post-Reformation theater often begin with the basic premise that Protestants devalued sensory experience and bodily praxis. The embodied dimensions of both ritual and theater seem to belong to the incarnational Catholic practices that Protestants sought to disenchant - the adoration of statues of the Virgin and the saints, or the belief that Christ's body and blood were physically present in the consecrated Host. Along these lines, one scholar has suggested that because it is was an embodied phenomenon, theater had an irreducibly Catholic aspect in post-Reformation England.2 Relying on similar assumptions about the body, scholars interested in outlining a Protestant phenomenology of theater often tend to emphasize the inward or the cognitive, pitting the eye of faith against the of the body.3 In both cases, the Reformation becomes a kind of engine of modernity, which demystified the material world in general, not just Catholic rituals and devotional objects.4 And there is much evidence to ground this side of the story, especially as far as the long-term effects of the Reformation might be concerned. Yet to take this position as typical of early Protestantism is to skip an important step in a long and uneven process of English and Continental secularization that could be said to culminate in (not to begin with) the predominance of cognitivist views of religion, in which religious truths were privatized as immaterial, while the spheres of the body and of common sense were relegated to the profane space outside of the church.5Far from giving up the body as either irredeemably Catholic or clearly profane, early modern Protestants such as John Calvin and John Foxe often turned to the body as a divine creation in the world even as they repudiated idols of the human mind and hand. Calvin, for instance, reviews the body's divine origins, its ties to Christ's human body, and its full participation in resurrection when he argues for the body's positive role in the Protestant sacraments. Warning simultaneously of the dangers of idolatrous acts of worship, he dismisses the notion that the bodily component of worship is irrelevant: lordes supper, is it receaved in the minde only, and not also in the handes and mouth? Hath god engraven in oure bodyes the armes and badges of his sonne, that we afterward shuld pollute our selves?6 As with doctrinal disputes over divine grace as the sole engine of salvation, a strict distinction between divine and human agency can be understood to structure Protestant attitudes towards the body: living beings (and nature more broadly) offered reformers dynamic exemplars of divine creations on earth, which they were fond of contrasting with products of human artifice.The Lollard Conclusions, reprinted in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, offer a particularly pithy version of a claim that runs though many iconoclastic writings of this period, up through Calvin and the English reformers: For God did not saye, let us make a block or stone unto our likenes and image, but let us make man. …

Instytucja prezydenta w systemie politycznym Federacji Rosyjskiej

This article presents the course that passed the political system of USSR going from the old soviet structure to the modern form of the state. Total economic and political crisis forced the last General Secretary of the Communist Party Mikhail Gorbatchev to seek the new political institutions and were helpful in the process of maintaining socialist character of the state and social relations and, simultaneously, to carry out the changes of the political system which became necessary. These efforts were a failure because of strong resistance, on the one hand, communist nomenklatura and the other hand, the new democratic movement in the Russian Federation conducted by Boris Yeltsin and independent movements in Soviet Republics. After the trial to stop the process of reforming of the state undertaken by communist leaders of USSR during coupé d'etat in August 1991 the initiative passed to the democratic forces in Russia. The fall of the USSR and foundation of the CIS as the platform of the reintegration of Post-Soviet area started the new stage of the political conflict in the Russian Federation. The objective needs occurred in the process of reforming of the economic structures, growing of the protest attitudes, necessity to relief the mood of the local authorities in order to attain their support for the course of modernization, pushed President Yeltsin to concentrate enormous power. The old Soviet Constitution was more comfortable for such political conditions than modern solutions based on the power's division in three branches - Parliament, Government and independent jurisdiction. Contradictions of the Post-Soviet period brought to the deep conflict between President Yeltsin and Supreme Soviet in October 1993. The defeat of the conservative forces in this confrontation meant the end of Soviet system in Russia, however political system that was created on such ground had authoritarian features, which was used all Yeltsin's presidential decade bringing, as a result, the system very far to the principles of the democracy.

Church, State, and the Holy Land: British Protestant Approaches to Imperial Policy in Palestine, 1917–1948

British Protestants had long held to the notion of a legitimate Protestant interest in the Christian ‘Holy Land’, a concept that helped bolster Britain's political claim to Palestine in the aftermath of the First World War. Evangelical Protestant visions of the return of the Jews to their biblical homeland encouraged imperial support for Zionism and helped define the unique conditions of British mandate rule. But once the British actually assumed power over Palestine, British Protestants began to find themselves seriously at odds over their moral and political obligations in the new possession their interests had helped to shape. This article explores three broad Protestant attitudes towards the question of Britain's policy towards Palestine during the mandate period, demonstrating the ways in which Lambeth Palace, Protestant metropolitan mission institutions, and Protestant church workers in Palestine itself developed radically different conceptions of their religious and political responsibilities in what they regarded as their ‘Holy Land’.

Protesting or Justifying? A Latent Class Model for Contingent Valuation with Attitudinal Data

This article develops a latent class model for estimating willingness-to-pay for public goods using simultaneously contingent valuation (CV) and attitudinal data capturing protest attitudes related to the lack of trust in public institutions providing those goods. A measure of the social cost associated with protest responses and the consequent loss in potential contributions for providing the public good is proposed. The presence of potential justification biases is further considered, that is, the possibility that for psychological reasons the response to the CV question affects the answers to the attitudinal questions. The results from our empirical application suggest that psychological factors should not be ignored in CV estimation for policy purposes, allowing for a correct identification of protest responses.

Towards inclusion: Protestants and the Irish language

In Northern Ireland the Irish language has the power to enrage and enthral. For some, Irish is the expression of a cherished culture, but its close association with nationalism and republicanism means that Protestants and unionists rarely see it in a positive light. History reveals that this was not always the case. For centuries, Protestants engaged with Irish on their own terms, sometimes for academic reasons but often because it was their everyday language and an integral part of their lives. Towards Inclusion considers these fascinating historical perspectives, as well as covering the role of the Irish language in Northern Ireland's more recent past. But the main body of the book is based on Malcolm's extensive and detailed research into the attitudes of young Protestants towards the Irish language, carried out through questionnaires and focus groups. Some of the students had attended a Gael-Linn language enrichment course, but the rest had little or no exposure to Irish. The results of this research are both striking and surprising, and will provoke fresh debate on the role of the Irish language in Northern Ireland today. In the twenty-first century can Irish become the intellectual property of all, regardless of political stance or religion?

Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon: Northern Christians and Market Capitalism, 1815–1860 , and: Buying into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia (review)

Reviewed by: Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon: Northern Christians and Market Capitalism, 1815–1860, and: Buying into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia Bret E. Carroll (bio) Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon: Northern Christians and Market Capitalism, 1815–1860. By Stewart Davenport. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Pp. x, 269. Cloth, $45.00.) Buying into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia. By Ann Smart Martin. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Pp. xvi, 260. Cloth, $55.00.) Figuring prominently in recent scholarship, the "market revolution" and "consumer revolution" have operated as overarching models for historians seeking to make sense of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American life. These closely interwoven concepts have assumed paradigmatic status, or at least something approaching it, by addressing broad swaths of human experience and promising to bridge longstanding gaps separating [End Page 525] political, economic, and social history from one another as well as from the cultural and religious history that assumed new vitality in the 1990s. But scholars have also raised legitimate questions about the definition of these terms, and their timing, sources, social and geographic reach, and explanatory power. Stewart Davenport's Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon and Ann Smart Martin's Buying into the World of Goods stake out new, though widely differing, directions in studies of American consumerism and the market, providing us an opportunity to take stock of these models' current state and future prospects. Davenport approaches these models from the perspective of traditional intellectual history, exploring "issues of self and society in modernity" (12) and asking "what did Christians in America think about capitalism when capitalism was first something to be thought about?" (1). He identifies three categories of response, each grounded in a different ethical philosophy and represented by a different group of antebellum figures. The first group, a cluster of academics he calls "clerical economists," embraced the optimistic political economy of Adam Smith, seeing in its mechanisms the God of natural theology and in its unhindered operations the promise of American prosperity and social order. They elided the potential ethical pitfalls—made patent in the pessimistic assessments of David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus—by emphasizing the scientific authority of political economy, applying utilitarian standards of human happiness at the national and international levels, excluding the United States from grim Ricardian and Malthusian principles, avoiding questions of individual morality by arguing that Smithian precepts grounded love of neighbor in self-interest, and defining desire and its gratification as natural and therefore good. This approach, Davenport contends, was motivated less by the alignment of the clerical economists with the interests of the merchant elite against radical Jacksonians than by their need to defend republican morality and God's relevance against the amoral and secular implications of modern political economy. The second group, the "contrarians," grounded their ethics in deontology and took the opposite tack; they disputed political economy's claims to scientific status, contended that capitalism encourages selfishness and sinful indulgence of impulses, and critiqued on moral grounds the poverty and exploitation that capitalism generated. "Pastoral moralists," operating from the perspective of virtue ethics, took a middle route, viewing market capitalism positively but attempting to set boundaries between legitimate self-interest and sinful [End Page 526] selfishness, between legitimate gratification and sinful excess. Davenport stakes out his own moral turf, crediting the contrarians and pastoral moralists with giving the moral drawbacks of market capitalism "the care and seriousness they deserved" (84), while charging the clerical economists with "leaving significant ethical questions unanswered" (85) and taking a "naïvely optimistic and shortsighted" (96) approach to problems of poverty and inequality. By identifying a range of responses to the market revolution, Davenport attempts to move beyond Charles Sellers's more monolithic postulate of a broad shift in Protestant attitudes from anti- to pro-market (The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846 [New York, 1991]). In this, he follows such scholars as Daniel Walker Howe and Richard Carwardine, who questioned Sellers on that point in the edited collections The Market Revolution in America: Social, Political, and Religious Expressions, 1800–1880 (Charlottesville, VA, 1996) and God and Mammon: Protestants, Money, and the Market (New York, 2001...

Status Quo Effect in Choice Experiments: Empirical Evidence on Attitudes and Choice Task Complexity

Many studies on individual decision making have shown that a disproportionate number of respondents choose the status quo (SQ) alternative. But it is still unclear what motivates individuals to disproportionately select the SQ alternative. Using data from two choice experiments about forest biodiversity, we find evidence that a protest attitude, an attitude toward the good, and perceived choice task complexity influence the choice of the SQ. However, only the attitude toward the good in question and the protest attitude show significant effects across all econometric specifications.

Revisiting a Moral Panic: Ascetic Protestantism, Attitudes to Alcohol and the Implementation of the Licensing Act 2003

This paper examines the popular reaction to the implementation of licensing reforms in England and Wales in 2005. It characterises these events as an episode of moral panic and seeks an ideological explanation for this alarmist response. Utilising historical perspectives, the paper draws particular attention to the formative importance of the Nineteenth Century in terms of constructing contemporary public attitudes towards alcohol. This paper draws on existing sociology and social history to highlight an international and chronological pattern which suggests a connection between Victorian temperance movements and ascetic brands of Protestantism. Through a consideration of Max Weber, E.P. Thompson and a variety of primary sources, an interpretive explanation for this pattern is provided. Legal evidence, showing the growth of alcohol regulation and the partial enforcement of temperance codes of behaviour, is then used to illustrate the survival and secularisation of temperance views from the Nineteenth Century onwards. An interpretive analysis of public discourse surrounding licensing reform in 2005 provides empirical support for this argument. Attitudes to alcohol exhibited during this episode were found to bear qualitative similarities to Calvinist-inspired temperance beliefs. The paper argues that ascetic Protestant attitudes to alcohol have achieved a wide currency and now occupy a hegemonic position within secular British society. The public reaction to the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003 is thus reinterpreted as a moral panic largely constructed by ascetic Protestant beliefs.

Das Glaubensverhör der Jüdin Rahel im Juni 1554 durch Nikolaus von Amsdorf als „Modus et forma judaei convertendi“

ABSTRACT The article provides the editio princeps of a protocol of a conversion examination held in 1554 by the orthodox Lutheran and Naumburg exile bishop Nicolaus of Amsdorf and Johann Weiß in Eisenach when a Jewish damsel named Rahel had solicited baptism. The protocol is discussed in terms of the historical situation of Thuringian Jews in the mid-sixteenth century and some crucial notions of Protestant attitudes toward Jewish converts as depicted by the examination

Sexual Orientation, Mental Health, Gender, and Spirituality: Prejudicial Attitudes and Social Influence in Faith Communities

This study examined how the attitudes of conservative American Protestants attending Midwestern churches might vary as a function of religious beliefs, gender, and exposure to scenarios of people from stigmatized groups who were asking for spiritual care. Results of the 2 (scenario gender) x 2 (scenario sexual orientation) x 2 (scenario mental health issue) x 2 (participant gender) MANOVA revealed significance for sexual orientation bias (Λ = .79, F (2, 88) = 11.94, p < .001, η2 = .21) and participant gender bias (Λ = .91, F (2, 88) = 4.13, p = .02, η2 = .09. Follow-up ANOVA's revealed different effects depending on whether participants reported personal or perceived group attitudes. We discuss the results in terms of social comparison theory and projection.

"What shall we say to this liberal age?": Catholic-Protestant Controversy in the Early National Capital

“What shall we say to this liberal age?”: Catholic-Protestant Controversy in the Early National Capital Michael S. Carter T his article focuses on a group of previously unexamined texts that appeared in three of Philadelphia’s national newspapers over the span of several months in 1792 when the city was the federal capital. These took the form of an extended discourse about the history and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and what those implied about the full assimilation of American Catholics into the new nation. Here I explore the way certain late eighteenth-century Protestant attitudes toward Catholicism were manifested in print, examine Catholic responses to them, and argue that during the early Federalist period a change occurred in the nature of public discussions of the status of Catholicism within the new republic. The significance of this shift hinged on an implicit tension in late eighteenth-century America’s understanding of “liberalism”—an idea that has yet to be adequately explored. This essay will also examine how Roman Catholics positioned themselves in the developing milieu of Early National print culture, and will look at the devices and argumentative techniques they used to shape public perceptions of their beliefs and practices. What was the specific nature of anti-Catholic criticism? Who among members of the Catholic community stepped forward to defend the faith against doctrinal and political attacks during this period, and what does this say about the emerging socio-political structure of the Church in America? The First Post-Constitutional Debate About Catholic Citizenship? Ray A. Billington’s classic work on antebellum American anti-Catholicism, The Protestant Crusade: 1800-1860, though now over sixty years old, remains among the most consistently cited works on the subject. Billington is one of the few historians of anti-Catholicism in America who has argued, convincingly, that Nativism was not completely submerged by the moderate wave of toleration introduced by Revolutionary-era state constitutions. Rather, it was sustained by a 79 “small but persistent propaganda which lasted through the postrevolutionary period.”1 Billington’s study begins with the year 1800, omitting the Federalist period altogether . He states that in 1793 America witnessed its first public controversy between Catholic and Protestant champions—by a Catholic priest and Protestant minister, whose exchanges took the form of a series of lengthy articles in the Boston Gazette. However, Billington is incorrect on two important details. The date of the controversy he describes is in reality earlier than he dates it: in 1791, not 1793, which places it even closer to the passage of the first amendment to the Constitution, when debates over the place of religion in the civic sphere were much less settled.2 Also, while this 1791 controversy was the first protracted public debate over the place of Catholicism in the new republic, it was between clergymen, who were the conventional exponents of religious debate in eighteenth-century America. Billington, writing that this debate occurred in 1793, also missed what is the most unusual public debate over Catholicism in the Early Republic, and one that has never received scholarly attention . It is all the more illuminating because it was initially answered not by a clergyman , but by a Catholic layman—the thirty-one year old Irish-born printer Mathew Carey (1760-1839).3 This hitherto unexamined controversy, the subject of this article, reveals that toleration for Catholicism was not put to rest, as often believed, through the first amendment guarantee of religious freedom at the federal level. The 1792 controversy examined here, which Mathew Carey himself later that year published anonymously as an octavo pamphlet entitled The Calumnies of Verus; Or, Catholics Vindicated, From certain old Slanders lately revived, appeared originally in three of Philadelphia’s newspapers. These were Andrew Brown’s Federal Gazette, Philip Freneau’s National Gazette, and William Dunlap’s American Daily Advertiser.4 This public controversy has never been examined, and the letters, col80 U.S. Catholic Historian 1. Ray A. Billington, The Protestant Crusade: 1800-1860 (New York: MacMillan, 1938), 32. 2. Controversy Between The Reverend John Thayer, Catholic Missionary, of Boston, and The Reverend George Leslie, Pastor of a Church, In Washington, New-Hampshire (Georgetown, 1791). The controversy...

The elusive link between conservative Protestantism and conservative economics

Research on the political attitudes of conservative Protestants has yielded inconsistent results. We know that conservative Protestants (CPs) tend to be more socially conservative than members of other religious groups and have tended to vote Republican in recent years, but we are less certain of their attitudes toward the size and role of government in matters unrelated to religion. Despite theoretical expectations and qualitative research supporting a link between conservative Protestantism and conservative attitudes about the size and role of government, quantitative work has failed to find a consistent relationship. The present study interprets conservative Protestant issue preferences in the context of research on non-attitudes, arguing that we should not expect ideological constraint among the less educated segment of the population. However, among better educated members of the population, we should expect to find ideologically consistent attitudes. Results from the General Social Survey suggest that better-educated evangelical Protestants are consistently more economically conservative than other Protestants. Among Protestants with lower levels of education, there is no consistent relationship between conservative Protestantism and economic policy preferences. Since the better educated are disproportionately politically active, politicians may be especially likely to pay attention to their interests. This may help to explain why the Republican coalition between social and economic conservatives has endured for several decades and shows no signs of abating.

The Protestant work ethic, religious beliefs, and homonegative attitudes

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) on negative attitudes towards gay men and lesbian women (homonegativity). The influence of religious beliefs and the notion of homosexuality as a choice were also examined in combination with PWE in regards to homonegativity. Previous research suggested that those who subscribe to the PWE have more negative attitudes towards societal out-groups (e.g., African–Americans). Thus, it was hypothesized that those with high PWE scores would display more homonegative attitudes. A significant correlation between PWE and homonegativity supported this hypothesis. Multiple regression analyses revealed that PWE interacted with religious beliefs, and religious beliefs interacted marginally with the idea of homosexuality as a choice. Those with high religious beliefs and who strongly believed that homosexuality was a choice were more likely to have negative attitudes towards homosexuals. The implications of these findings are discussed, with particular respect to reducing homonegative attitudes.

Protestant attitudes to violence: the early Dutch Republic

This article examines the attitudes of Protestant moralists and Reformed synods toward interpersonal violence in the Dutch Republic from the 1580s to the early eighteenth century. Protestants saw violence as an integral part of a sinful life style and argued that every quarrel which might lead to homicide fell under the sixth commandment. While disciplining the - sometimes violent - first generation of members and ministers, the Reformed Church condemned the traditional procedure of reconciliation after a homicide, despite their preference for reconciliation in almost every other conflict. With this, the Church contributed to the full criminalization of homicide. The moralists also condemned dueling and the honor code which underlay this custom. By the middle of the seventeenth century, when criminal trials for homicide had become the norm, the synods concentrated their efforts on combating the duel.

Intergroup Contact, Forgiveness, and Experience of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland

Two studies used random sample surveys to test the “contact hypothesis” on intergroup attitudes of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. In Study 1, archival data from two different surveys in 1989 (N= 310 Catholics, 422 Protestants) and 1991 (N= 319 Catholics, 478 Protestants) showed that contact was positively related to attitudes toward denominational mixing. Study 2 (N= 391 Catholics, 647 Protestants) explored predictors of intergroup forgiveness, and also showed that intergroup contact was positively related to outgroup attitudes, perspective‐taking, and trust (even among those who had a worse experience of sectarian conflict). These studies indicate that research in peace psychology can provide a deeper understanding of the conflict in Northern Ireland and, in due course, contribute to its resolution.

CATHOLICS IN THE REA, 1903–1953

This article describes the involvement of Roman Catholics in the Religious Education Association during the first 50 years of its existence. It examines attitudes of Protestants toward Catholics expressed in journal articles, convention speeches, and archival material. It presents the contributions of Roman Catholics at conventions and in journal articles during this period. The article contends that Roman Catholics deepened involvement in the REA went a long way to making the association a multifaith organization. The history also documents changes in Roman Catholic viewpoints and emphases over the period of these 50 years from an exclusive concern with schooling to a broader view of the educational mission of the church and from education in an authoritarian and dogmatic spirit to one slightly more open to outside influences and cautiously willing to cooperate with other religious groups.

Conservative Protestantism and Attitudes toward Homosexuality: Does Political Orientation Mediate this Relationship?

Although several studies show that conservative Protestants are generally opposed to homosexuality, explanations for this association are not well established. Using data from the 1998 General Social Survey, we test whether political orientation mediates the relationship between conservative Protestantism and attitudes toward homosexuality. Results indicate that conservative Protestants are more politically conservative than non-affiliates. We also find that conservative Protestants are less accepting of homosexuality than non-affiliates, although a significant portion of this association is explained by political orientation. Once political orientation is controlled, the attitudes of conservative Protestants are no different from non-affiliates, and politically conservative respondents are less accepting of homosexuality than their more liberal counterparts. In the end, we conclude that political orientation is a mechanism that partially explains the association between conservative Protestantism and attitudes toward homosexuality.