Religious Homogeneity Research Articles

Some Reflections on Theology and Popular Piety: A Fruitful or Fraught Relationship?

It hardly needs reminding but scholarship over the past twenty years or so has moved quickly to close what was once perceived to be a chasm between so-called ‘popular’ belief and its ‘elite’ counterpart. Indeed in recent years historians can be said to have come to a consensus at least on the porous nature of what were once viewed as quite distinct categories. As early as 1978[2] Peter Burke argued that while the ‘great’ culture of elites remained largely foreign territory to the majority of the population, both the ‘little’ and the ‘great’ cultures could be accessed by the higher orders, allowing the nobleman to be pious in a ‘popular’ sort of way and, indeed, opening up new avenues that permitted traffic to cross categories at least in one direction. Later work by scholars such as Martin Ingram would speak of a ‘cultural consensus’ uniting all levels and, perhaps most notably, in 1992 Eamon Duffy argued for a degree of religious homogeneity across the social divide by coining the term ‘traditional religion’.[3] In the years since Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars, many scholars, while critiquing his approach, have, nevertheless chosen to join the increasingly long wagon train of academics who like to congratulate themselves on not being associated with their less ‘enlightened’ predecessors who only viewed the world in black and white – popular or elite religion, non-official or official religion, unlearned or learned religion, heretical or orthodox religion, superstition or sound doctrine. However, while everyone seems now to be an expert on what was wrong with the old system, few are confident about what should replace it. If there are to be categories such as ‘popular piety’ at all, the challenge now seems to be how they should be defined.

Subtle and Overt Forms of Islamophobia: Microaggressions toward Muslim Americans

Previous research suggests that microaggressions, or subtle and covert manifestations of bias, are commonplace in the life experience of people of color, women, and sexual minorities. However, there is a dearth of research focusing on microaggressions toward people from religious minority groups. Using a qualitative approach and directed content analysis with Muslim American participants (N=10), six themes emerged: 1) Endorsing Religious Stereotypes of Muslims as Terrorists, 2) Pathology of the Muslim Religion, 3) Assumption of Religious Homogeneity, 4) Exoticization, 5) Islamophobic and Mocking Language, and 6) Alien in Own Land. Implications for Muslim mental health are discussed.

Riots against the Non-Muslims of Turkey: 6/7 September 1955 in the context of demographic engineering

A proper analysis of the Events of 6/7 September requires taking into account the ethnic and religious homogenization practices of the Kemalist elite, the exceptional of democratic and financial circumstances of the 1950s and the Cyprus conflict. Furthermore, the events should be seen in connection to the concept of demographic engineering, defined as any deliberate state program or policy originating from religious/ethnic discrimination or initiated for political reasons which aim to increase the political and economic power of one ethnic group over others by manipulating population through various methods. Under the circumstances, could the events of 1955 be defined as a such case of demographic engineering? In order to answer to this question, this paper analyses the political circumstances in Turkey in the 1950s as a continuation of the 1930s and 1940s, and evaluates the “Events of 6/7 September” in 1955 in the context of the nationalization and homogenization of the economic sphere. It then focuses on the following judicial process, and finally on the planning of the riots, emphasizing the roles of different actors in organising the riots.

A Friend in Creed: Does the Religious Composition of Geographic Areas Affect the Religious Composition of a Person's Close Friends?

Numerous theories of religion rest on the assumption that the religious composition of local populations influences the religious identities of a person's close friends, but there have been few empirical tests of this assumption. Using a combination of data on the religious identity of close friends (from the 1988 and 1998 General Social Survey) and information on the religious composition of counties (from the U.S. Religious Congregations and Membership Study) we find that despite tendencies toward religious homogeneity, the religious composition of the surrounding population has an effect on the proportion of a respondent’s same-religion friends and on the proportion of friends belonging to specific other religious groups. Local population characteristics are unrelated to the proportion of respondents’ friends known in congregational settings. Results have implications for a broad range of sociological theories of religion as well as research examining the impact of same-congregation and same-religion friends (e.g., health and well-being).

Enforcement of nineteenth century banking contracts using a marriage rule

► The paper studies the self-enforcement mechanisms used by the Chettiar banking caste. ► Provides a new historical instance of self-enforced order in a large banking system. ► Represents an application of rational choice theory to caste as a social institution. ► The functioning of caste appears as vital to trade and prosperity in this case. The enforcement of financial and banking contracts is commonly thought to lie within the domain of government law provision. This paper analyzes a case of self-enforcing financial contracts within a banking system in nineteenth century South India. The Chettiars, a merchant-banking caste, relied on religious homogeneity as well as an endogamous marriage rule, whereby members only married others from within the community, to enforce banking contracts within their system. Widely acknowledged to have been an important source of credit locally and throughout South East Asia, this paper describes and analyzes the enforcement mechanisms at work, in the absence of government involvement. Apart from presenting a new case of self-enforced financial contracts, this paper also represents a novel approach to interpreting the social institution of caste, as seen through the rational choice framework.

The price of freedom denied: religious persecution and conflict in the twenty-first century

The Price of Freedom Denied shows that, contrary to popular opinion, ensuring religious freedom for all reduces violent religious persecution and conflict. Others have suggested that restrictions on religion are necessary to maintain order or preserve a peaceful religious homogeneity. Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke show that restricting religious freedoms is associated with higher levels of violent persecution. Relying on a new source of coded data for nearly 200 countries and case studies of six countries, the book offers a global profile of religious freedom and religious persecution. Grim and Finke report that persecution is evident in all regions and is standard fare for many. They also find that religious freedoms are routinely denied and that government and the society at large serve to restrict these freedoms. They conclude that the price of freedom denied is high indeed.

Pentecostalism’s Growth in Religiously Restricted Environments

The Independent or Neocharismatic Third Wave of the Christian Pentecostal movement is a uniquely growing edge of Christianity compared with traditional Pentecostal denominations and Charismatic Renewalist movements within mainline Christian faiths. While all three branches of the Pentecostal movement tend to have grown more in countries with higher levels of religious freedom, the unique aspect of the Neocharismatic movement is that it shows some possibility to grow in countries where religious freedom is restricted, based on a review and structural equation analysis of data for 143 countries with populations of two million or more. However, the data also suggest that Neocharismatics have more difficulty becoming established in religiously homogeneous societies. In other words, Neocharismatics can grow in religiously restrictive environments as long as a single religion does not already monopolize the religious marketplace. This explains why, for example, Neocharismatics are growing in China among the majority Han population, within which there is tremendous religious diversity, but similar growth is not seen in Muslim-majority countries. To begin, however, I provide a descriptive global overview of the three components (Pentecostal, Charismatic and Neocharismatic) of the Renewalist movement and some of their important characteristics before empirically exploring predictors of the presence of each. In addition to religious regulation and homogeneity, I also explore whether the Renewalist movement’s general emphasis on signs and wonders might allow it to adapt to and be adopted in places where other local religions emphasize the miraculous. Also, since the Renewalist movement often aims to speak to the needy—offering them hope for tomorrow and power for today—I examine how its presence in the 143 countries studied is associated with such things as low human development and high income inequality. Readers should note that the analysis primarily draws on national-level data, and therefore speaks to the general context in countries rather than to the motivations of particular individuals associated with the Renewalist movement.

Divergent Patterns in the Ethnic Transformation of Societies

The uneven timing of the demographic transition in different countries of the world will lead to divergence between countries in ethnic and religious homogeneity. Developed‐country populations that began their fertility transitions relatively early are becoming increasingly diverse with respect to the ethnic origin and religion of their inhabitants, primarily as a result of high recent levels of immigration. Many demographic patterns of the developed world, such as low death and birth rates, are becoming universal. It might be expected that less developed countries will also turn from emigration to experiencing immigration, as their populations age and their economies develop. This essay suggests, however, that future ethnic diversity arising from immigration may be less marked in many of those developing countries than in the West, especially among latecomers to the fertility transition. Five reasons are advanced as impediments to the globalization of ethnic heterogeneity arising from immigration: demographic, economic, political, and factors related to resource constraints, and climate change. The essay considers what social, economic, and political consequences might arise if high levels of ethnic diversity, and possibly ethnic replacement, remained an idiosyncratic peculiarity of today's developed countries, which would therefore diverge in important ways from the rest of the world as the twenty‐first century unfolds.

The “power of silence”

This article looks at various models of women's agency in Poland in the context of religion. Based on fieldwork among members of two feminized religious milieus—a new religious movement the Brahma Kumaris and an informal Catholic fundamentalist group—this article discusses the role of silence in ritual and everyday life as a form of agency. From the perspective of feminist discourse, particularly Western liberal feminism, silence is often interpreted as a lack of power. Drawing on informants' experiences, under Polish gender regimes, particularly as they relate to the organization of public and private spheres, silence is shown to be a fundamental component of agency. The analysis of silence displays the complexity of religious issues in Poland and serves as a critique of assumptions about religious homogeneity and the pervasiveness of religious authority in Poland.

The Partition of India: Demographic Consequences

Large scale migrations, especially involuntary ones, can have a substantial impact on the demographics of both sending and receiving communities. We estimate the impact of the 1947 Indian subcontinent partition, one of the largest and most rapid population exchanges in human history. Comparing neighboring districts better isolates the effect of the migratory flows from secular changes. We find large effects on a districts' educational, occupational, and gender composition within four years. Due to higher education levels amongst migrants, districts with greater inflows saw their literacy rates increase by 16% more while outflows reduced literacy rates by as much as 20%. With less land vacated by those who left Indian Punjab, Indian districts with large inflows saw a decline of 70% in the growth of agricultural occupations. Affected districts also experienced large changes in gender composition with a relatively large drop in percentage men in Indian districts that experienced large outflows, and in Pakistani districts with large inflows. While the partition, driven along religious lines, increased religious homogenization within communities, our results suggest that this was accompanied by increased educational and occupational differences within religious groups. We hypothesize that these compositional effects, in addition to an aggregate population impact, are likely features of involuntary migrations and, as in the case of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, can have important long-term consequences.

Do Moral Communities Play A Role In Criminal Sentencing? Evidence from Pennsylvania

Religion and social control have been a sociological concern since Durkheim and Weber, and the relationship between religion and punishment has long been the subject of speculation. However, surprisingly little empirical research exists on the role of religion or religious context in criminal justice, and almost no research on the role of religious context on actual sentencing practices. We conceptualize the potential relationships between religious context and sentencing severity by drawing from the focal concerns and court community perspectives in the sentencing literature and from the moral communities theory developed by Rodney Stark. We suspect that Christian moral communities might shape notions of perceived blameworthiness for court community actors. Such moral communities might also affect notions of community protection—affecting perceptions of dangerousness, or perhaps rehabilitation, and might influence practical constraints/consequences (e.g., local political ramifications of harsh or lenient sentences). We examine these questions with a set of hierarchical models using sentencing data from Pennsylvania county courts and data on the religious composition of Pennsylvania counties from the Associated Religion Data Archives. We find that county Christian religious homogeneity increases the likelihood of incarceration. In addition, Christian homogeneity, as well as the prevalence of civically engaged denominations in a county condition the effects of important legally relevant determinants of incarceration. Furthermore, we find evidence that Christian homogeneity activates the effect of local Republican electoral dominance on incarceration. We argue that Christian homogeneity affects sentencing practices primarily through local political processes that shape the election of judges and prosecutors.

The demographic impact of Partition in the Punjab in 1947

We use data from the 1931, 1941, and 1951 censuses of India and the 1951 census of Pakistan to examine the demographic consequences of Partition in the Punjab in 1947. Had growth rates for the period 1931–41 for the Punjab as a whole continued to 1951, the population of the Punjab would have been 2.9 million larger than that recorded in 1951. Population losses from migration and mortality above age 20 were approximately 2.7 million greater between 1941 and 1951 than would have been predicted by loss rates between 1931 and 1941. We estimate a net Partition-related population movement out of the combined Punjab of about 400,000. We conclude from several lines of analysis that Partition-related population losses in the Punjab, either from deaths or unrecorded migration, were in the range 2.3–3.2 million. Partition was also marked by a dramatic religious homogenization at the district level.

Globalization and national identity: Monitoring Greek culture today

Among the ESS countries Greece occupies a particular place as it is characterized by a marked orientation towards conservative values, which are weaved around the concept of national and religious homogeneity. This article, firstly, substantiates this particularity through the use of quantitative tools. Then, it focuses on the apparent contradiction between an increasingly open and democratic society on one hand, and the retreat to the primordial elements of national identity, on the other. Trying to interpret this issue, the article examines some of the actual social, political and cultural processes. With regard to the later, the article proposes the idea of a cultural conservatism, which is rooted in the core of the Greek national identity as a by-product of the historical process of its formation during the long XIX century. This core cultural conservatism is materializing from time to time depending on the historical context. Today, this context is provided by the dialectic between globalization and the national identity, as well as the disjunction between State and Nation that this dialectic produces.

The Secularization of Spanish Society: Change in Religious Practice

This paper offers an empirical analysis of one of the fundamental dimensions of religious change in Spain in recent years: religious practice. The specification of the secularization thesis foresees, in the case of societies with widespread religious homogeneity and with a high level of interdependence between Church and State, and in particular for Catholic societies such as Spain, a relevant drop in the levels of religious affiliation and practice as social, economic, cultural, and political modernization processes advance. Empirical evidence and analysis are provided in order to show the weight of different variables on religious change and the robustness of the secularization process of Spaniards' religiosity.

The Impact of Religious Homogeneity on the Rate of Divorce in the United States

This study extends the understanding of the relationship between religious homogeneity, that is, the extent to which formal religious groups are concentrated at the county level, and the rate of persons currently divorced in those counties. Linking the research question to Durkheimian precepts of religion as an integrative force in social life, the essential question is, “At the county level, does the rate of currently divorced vary inversely with more concentrated affiliation with formal religious organizations?” We investigate this relationship using data from the 1990 U.S. Census and from the Glenmary Research Center that encompasses 621 counties in the U.S., that is, a 20 percent random sample of counties from each state. As hypothesized, the divorced rate is inversely related to religious homogeneity, even after controlling for a series of factors that have been shown to be correlated with divorce in other studies.

MORAL COMMUNITIES AND ADOLESCENT DELINQUENCY

This study bridges the sociological subdisciplines of religion and criminology and examines whether religious characteristics of groups and social contexts might profitably augment social disorganization theory, providing a morally and socially organizing force in a community. Building on the “moral communities” thesis of Rodney Stark (1996), I test whether religion, when understood as a group property, is linked significantly with lower delinquency among individuals in schools and counties where select religious characteristics are high. Moreover, I also examine whether—as Stark suggests—the efficacy of individual religious traits is heightened in social environments where religiousness is more pronounced. Employing multilevel regression models, I test several hypotheses using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. While individual religious effects remain strongest, conservative Protestant homogeneity in both countries and schools corresponds with lower theft and minor delinquency counts. Additionaly, such religious homogeneity interacts with individual-level measures of conservative Protestantism, further reducing incidence (especially of theft). I explore the mechanisms by which communities' religious characteristics likely influence individual behavior and conclude that religion is a neglected yet potentially important cultural aspect of social organization in communities.

Moral Communities and Adolescent Delinquency: Religious Contexts and Community Social Control

This study bridges the sociological subdisciplines of religion and criminology and examines whether religious characteristics of groups and social contexts might profitably augment social disorganization theory, providing a morally and socially organizing force in a community. Building on the “moral communities” thesis of Rodney Stark (1996), I test whether religion, when understood as a group property, is linked significantly with lower delinquency among individuals in schools and counties where select religious characteristics are high. Moreover, I also examine whether—as Stark suggests—the efficacy of individual religious traits is heightened in social environments where religiousness is more pronounced. Employing multilevel regression models, I test several hypotheses using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. While individual religious effects remain strongest, conservative Protestant homogeneity in both countries and schools corresponds with lower theft and minor delinquency counts. Additionaly, such religious homogeneity interacts with individual-level measures of conservative Protestantism, further reducing incidence (especially of theft). I explore the mechanisms by which communities' religious characteristics likely influence individual behavior and conclude that religion is a neglected yet potentially important cultural aspect of social organization in communities.

Our Lady of Guadeloupe Visits the Confederate Memorial

Truisms are sometimes true. And if anything has seemed self-evident to interpreters of South, it's religious homogeneity of Bible Belt. With exception of Mormon cultural area in Utah and adjoining states, no U.S. region seems less diverse. Fervent revivalism, civil war, and minimal immigration allowed a southern evangelical Protestant establishment--mostly Baptist and Methodist--to form by nineteenth century. Free of challenges from immigrants, that evangelical alliance has shaped religious landscape. Some observers have trumpeted South as last stronghold of faithful Christian witness; others, like Baltimore-born iconoclast H. L. Mencken, have dismissed it as the bunghole of United States, a cesspool of Baptists, a miasma of Methodism, snake-charmers, phony real-estate operators, and syphilitic evangelists. However assessments diverge--and they still do--almost all interpreters have agreed on one point: South looks more homogenous than rest of nation. (1) There is much truth to still standard interpretation: South seems more uniformly Protestant and more institutionally pious. Surveys indicate that southerners join churches and attend services more than Americans do in other regions. Even unchurched in South admit to a lingering piety: in one 1978 poll nearly three-fourths believed that Jesus was son of God and rose from dead, and another survey a decade later found that almost two-thirds of unaffiliated believed in life after death. Recent surveys reveal same pattern of attendance, membership, and belief. For example, spring 2000 Southern Focus Poll found that nearly a quarter of southerners (23 percent) attend services more than once a week, as compared to about 15 percent of nonsoutherners, and significantly more southerners than nonsoutherners (40 percent compared to 29 percent) say that religion is extremely important in their byes. According to fall 1999 Southern Focus Poll, more southerners than nonsoutherners claim Bible is their authority for daily life (31 percent compared with 19 percent), and more than six out of ten say they prefer biblical creation account to Darwinian evolutionary theory to explain universe's origins. And some geographers and sociologists have argued that this regional pattern of piety shows few signs of changing. (2) The South is not just more pious, either; it is also still predominantly Protestant. The 2000 Southern Focus Poll found that 65 percent of southerners claim Protestant affiliation, while rest of nation was only 43 percent Protestant. Two sociologists who have conducted most comprehensive telephone survey of last decade came to similar conclusions. Barry A. Kosmin and Seymour P. Lachman have found that Baptists, both black and white, are concentrated south of Mason-Dixon Line. They are largest religious group in fourteen states, nearly all of which are in South, and Baptists comprise more than half residents of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Furthermore, Kosmin and Lachman suggest, a relatively stable southern Protestantism, evangelical and Pentecostal, persisted into 1990s. (3) Truisms, however, need nuancing. We need to qualify claims about continuing evangelical Protestant dominance in several ways. First of all, diversity has a long history in South. Among earliest settlers, West African religious practices mixed with Christian piety to produce new creole spiritual forms, and even Christian faiths Europeans transplanted bore varied fruits. Roman Catholics built first permanent settlement in South (and in North America) at St. Augustine in 1565. They have a long history in Texas and Louisiana, and Catholics built churches in small towns and larger cities. Jews also found a place in some southern cities--Charleston, Wilmington, Savannah, and Miami Beach, for instance. …

Intermarriage patterns and social cohesion among first, second and later generation Australians

Studies of ethnic intermarriage in Australia have found that group size, residential segregation, and religious homogeneity, as well as social distance from the dominant (Anglo) cultural group, are important factors determining the likelihood of ethnic intermarriage. However, studies to date have predominantly focused on the first generation, and have less to say about interethnic marriages among members of the second and later generations. This paper analyses marriage patterns across immigrant generations, focusing on specific European ancestries: German, Dutch, Greek, Italian, Polish and Hungarian, contrasted with members of the dominant group. The results reveal strong effects of ancestry, immigrant generation, cross-generational preferences, and intergroup exchanges, as well as a few disjunctions reflecting discontinuities in the history of settlement among different immigrant groups. The results also show that social distance is important in determining the likelihood of intermarriage, as well as the cohesiveness of ethnic groups across generations.

Radical Religion in Finland?

ABSTRACT: This article examines the various new religious movements which are currently active in Finland. The somewhat ironic title of the article refers to the remarkable homogeneity of the Finnish religious field. In Finland, more than 80 percent of Finns profess membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. Yet underneath the surface of Finnish religious homogeneity, there exists a vibrant current of mysticism, a willingness to borrow and adapt foreign religious ideas, and currents of both fundamentalism and millennialism. “Radical Religion in Finland?” seeks to provide the necessary historical context to introduce the small but vibrant world of alternative spirituality in contemporary Finland.