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The foundation of religious measurement in surveys presumes that individual religious affiliation ("What is your present religion, if any?") accurately describes the religious community in which respondents are involved. But what if it doesn't? In a recent survey of 4,000 Americans, we asked whether their current congregation matches their religious identity and about a fifth of Americans indicated that it does not. We document the degree of this inconsistency, its correlates, and its implications, focusing primarily on the politics that congregants are exposed to from clergy and the attitudes they hold about salient political matters. The identity‐inconsistent attenders often vary significantly from identity‐consistent attenders, which serves to introduce considerable measurement error in the use of a religious tradition measure to depict American religion. The results suggest that salient disagreement induces a sizable population to migrate to a congregation outside their religious identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After five decades of research, there is still little consensus about the relation of religious variables to environmental attitudes. Even putting aside variations in sampling and measurement, we still have doubts about where modest consensus exists—the role of religious beliefs. Religious beliefs, such as mastery over nature, are more unstable than previously considered. Moreover, more importantly, these studies have generally failed to consider the role of secular beliefs about environmental problems and the interaction they may have with religion. Using data from a 2012 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey, we find religious variables have effects conditional on secular beliefs. Moreover, we draw upon an embedded experiment that shows instability in religious dominionism—the dominant religious effect in previous work. The results suggest previous reports of religious effects are not wrong, but overstated, and eliding secular beliefs is a serious sin of omission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A persistent concern for democratic theorists is the degree to which religious authority trumps democratic authority. This is often assessed using generic measures of religiosity or religious beliefs ill-suited to the task. Moreover, while religion is linked to dogmatism and authoritarianism, this begs the question how much influence religion has independent of psychological dispositions. We attempt to add to these debates with a new measure of religious authority. We draw on data gathered from three samples—a sample of Christian clergy from 2014, a national sample of 1,000 Americans from Spring 2016, and a national sample of 1,010 Protestants from 2019. We examine the distribution of the religious authority measure and then compare its effects of the measure in the context of authoritarian child-rearing values, deliberative values, and democratic norms. The results indicate religious authority values represent a distinct measurement of how people connect to religion in politically salient ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abundance of research examines Americans' attitudes toward abortion legality and morality with particular attention to polarization around this issue and the influence of social movements, religious organizations, the media, and political leaders. There is a relative dearth, however, of research focusing on attitudes toward the public funding of abortion services. Using three national, random samples of American adults, we address this gap in the literature. We find that the oft‐cited "bipartisan consensus" around opposition to public funding of abortion is a myth. In fact, there is more bipartisan consensus around abortion legality than abortion funding, across religious traditions. As national debates about abortion funding intensify, these findings underscore the importance of future surveys consistently measuring Americans' attitudes toward public funding of abortion, above and beyond abortion legality or morality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sweep of the coronavirus pandemic across the world and the United States offers an almost unparalleled opportunity to study how social systems cope with the threat and opportunities for collective action. In this paper, we draw on survey data collected as the United States flailed in response and before a general consensus among executive officeholders developed in the following weeks. In particular, we assess how holding prosperity gospel views strongly shaped perceptions of the virus and reactions to state responses to the virus. Research on the prosperity gospel is slowly expanding and this paper helps to highlight some missing dimensions. At a time when concerted action for the social good could be uniting the country, prosperity gospel beliefs systematically undermine that possibility by augmenting threat, raising outgroup barriers, and decreasing social trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article analyzes the use of religious language on Twitter by members of the U.S. Congress (MOCs). Politicians use various media platforms to communicate about their political agendas and their personal lives. In the United States, religious language is often part of the messaging from politicians to their constituents. This is done carefully and often strategically and across media platforms. With members of Congress increasingly using Twitter to connect with constituents on a regular basis, we want to explain who uses religious language on Twitter, when, and how. Using 1.5 million tweets scraped from members of Congress in April of 2018, we find that MOCs from both major political parties make use of a "religious code" on Twitter in order to send messages about their own identities as well as to activate the religious identities of their constituents. However, Republicans use the code more extensively and with Judeo-Christian-specific terms. Additionally, we discuss gender effects for the ways MOCs use "religious code" on Twitter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: What factors shape public support for service refusals carried out in the name of the free exercise of religion? Existing analyses treat the businesses refusing to serve LGBT citizens as fungible. We hypothesize that the religious context does not matter and that reactions are consistent with the role of socialized disgust. Methods: We engage the same experimental design in two 2019 samples, one of 800 Colorado adult residents and one of 1,010 Protestants. The 1 × 2 × 2 design enables a contrast between a control, conditions that vary the business between a florist and photographer, and conditions that vary the religious nature of the event. Results: The results suggest that the religious nature of the context is immaterial and that reactions generally conform with the role of disgust, especially for those socialized to feel it—high attending evangelicals. Conclusion: We affirm the importance of the context of service delivery for religious freedom attitudes and discuss the role of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]