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Most studies of religious service attendance and emotional well‐being are only capable of evaluating "trait" aspects of religious attendance, or long‐term patterns and habits that form an attendance routine. Methodological limitations make it difficult to capture the immediate (i.e., "state") effects of attending a specific religious worship service. Using the SoulPulse Study, a 2‐week microlongitudinal study consisting of two daily cell phone surveys, we move beyond this limitation by examining trait attendance, state attendance, and the interaction of the two on 10 emotional/affective outcome variables. We find that both state attendance and trait attendance are associated with well‐being, though state attendance performs more consistently across the 10 positive and negative emotion items. Leveraging Iannaccone's concept of "religious capital," we present evidence in state × trait interaction models that only those who have high trait levels of attendance are able to capture the emotional benefit of state attendance. This study informs the broader literature on religious attendance and well‐being by providing evidence that religious attendance can be considered a "practice" that must first be internalized as a set of familiar routines prior to being activated for personal well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Antiblackness is a form of pain, abuse, and suffering against the spirit of young Black children, necessitating a spiritual solution. • The Black Church, as an institution, has been at the forefront of foregrounding the charge for equality, equity, and social justice in the Black community. • The Black Church is a site for the development of religio-spiritual capital for young Black children. • The amalgamation of religious and spiritual capital refers to the religious beliefs, knowledge, practices, traditions, networks, relationships, rituals, values, and cultural resources of the Black Church. • Religio-spiritual capital endows young Black children with spiritual knowledges, gifts, capabilities to not only cope with but challenge the anti-Black racism in their young lives. The effects of persistent antiblackness are not without consequence for young Black children. It slowly kills, steals, and destroys the humanity, joy, and spirit of Black children in a phenomenon known as spirit murder. As a consequence, spirit murder is a spiritual problem requiring a spiritual solution. In order for Black children to be whole and well, they need life affirmation and spirit enrichment. As such, we call attention to the religious wealth and spiritual assets developed in the Black Church with the recognition that it has long leveraged faith as a means to combat the ills of anti-Black racism. We theorize religio-spiritual as an amalgamation of religious and spiritual capital and refers to the power that endows young Black children with spiritual knowledges, gifts, capabilities, and skills to not only cope with but challenge the anti-Black racism in their young lives. Limited studies have been conducted on the spiritual assets of the Black community, particularly as they translate to young Black children, necessitating a resurgence in attending to these competencies to further practices, programs, and policies that leverage this distinctive form of capital in service of the larger purpose of struggling toward social and racial justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological, social, cultural, emotional, and organizational perspectives consistently highlight human capital's importance in the literature. We argue that the collective view of different capitals with self-notion is essential for establishing impression, image, and self-esteem. According to the review findings, religious capital could predict context-specific psychological, cultural, social, emotional, and organizational capital. This acknowledgment can assist academics in better understanding how religion, social psychology, and other capitals co-create value in human capital development. This study includes several possible future paths and notes remarkable qualities that can enhance human capital value development research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract By investigating the role of religiosity in shaping Human Well-being, this study bridges the gap through quantitative study on the importance of religious capital to enhance people’s level of well-being. This research emphasized the relation of social exclusion and religious capital to wellbeing, whereas previous studies generally used individual and economic factors as the basis. Due to large sample size of 757 people, this quantitative research using Divine Economic Survey 2013 data looks at how religious capital affects people's subjective well-being. To minimize the diversity of subjective well-being, prayers, and religious activities, constructing them continuous and escaping the problem of multicollinearity and emphasizing the key underlying factors that most effectively capture the variance in these variables, therefore we have adopted principal component analysis. The ordinary least squares approach is then used to regress the variables and evaluate the links between subjective wellbeing and rituals, religious practices, gender health, general education. household size, and marital status of individuals. The finding reveals that religious rituals, gender, age, general education, health, and log of income are statistically significant and have a positive influence on subjective well-being, but Household Members and Marital Status are statistically significant and negatively affect the subjective well-being of human-being. The study is beneficial for government agencies that would make the policies and programs to augment people’s income, educational prospects and health facilities and services.

By investigating the role of religiosity in shaping Human Well-being, this study bridges the gap through quantitative study on the importance of religious capital to enhance people's level of well-being. This research emphasized the relation of social exclusion and religious capital to wellbeing, whereas previous studies generally used individual and economic factors as the basis. Due to large sample size of 757 people, this quantitative research using Divine Economic Survey 2013 data looks at how religious capital affects people's subjective well-being. To minimize the diversity of subjective well-being, prayers, and religious activities, constructing them continuous and escaping the problem of multicollinearity and emphasizing the key underlying factors that most effectively capture the variance in these variables, therefore we have adopted principal component analysis. The ordinary least squares approach is then used to regress the variables and evaluate the links between subjective wellbeing and rituals, religious practices, gender health, general education. household size, and marital status of individuals. The finding reveals that religious rituals, gender, age, general education, health, and log of income are statistically significant and have a positive influence on subjective well-being, but Household Members and Marital Status are statistically significant and negatively affect the subjective well-being of human-being. The study is beneficial for government agencies that would make the policies and programs to augment people's income, educational prospects and health facilities and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019, the Misuse of Dugs Act, the main legislative instrument in combatting drug offences in Singapore, underwent a landmark amendment where it strove to strike a balance between subjecting persistent drug offenders to long‐term imprisonment and enhancing the reintegration potential of those offenders whom the state considered as 'pure abusers' without a penal charge. While this risk‐differentiated approach could be seen as progressive and moving away from the harsh response that has had traditionally characterised the Singapore state's treatment of persistent drug abusers, this article contends that extending the maximum period of drug supervision from two to 5 years, which the amendments called for, of even pure abusers upon their completion of the detention order, hinder efforts at desistance. This article focuses specifically on the contradictions of the urine testing regime post‐release and seeks to contextualise its counter effects on the various dimensions of desistance among recovering drug abusers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to address the question of contributing factors to educational inequality in the perceived effectiveness of religious education, drawing on Bourdieu's theory of capital. A multiple linear regression model was calculated to examine the influence of 'religious capital', comprising religious affiliation, childhood experiences with religion, and church religiosity. The results highlight the significant impact of religious capital on the perceived effectiveness of religious education. Notably, the findings gain relevance given the context that not only students affiliated with a specific religion attend religious education, but also the number of non-religiously socialized children and those with no religious affiliation is steadily increasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies on Chinese religions in Southeast Asia focus on their relationship with Chinese communities, but little attention has been paid to their social interactions outside these communities. At the same time, most studies on Thai religion have concentrated on the issue of syncretism and especially the dominance of Theravada Buddhism. Rather than focusing on either Chinese ethnicity or Theravada Buddhism-dominated syncretism, this article adopts a competitive view of religion to comprehend the relationship between religious practitioners in Thailand. It draws on the example of Yiguan Dao, a religious group that originated in China. The article argues that although the group is not formally recognised as a 'religion' (sasana) by the Thai state, it is subject to little government regulation. Instead, it faces attacks and criticism from its Buddhist critics, who call it a 'cult' (latthi). Like Bourdieu's prophet who challenges the priest, Yiguan Dao has claimed its teachings are the 'truth' (thamma). The group has asserted its legitimacy and superiority by transferring other forms of symbolic capital to its own religious capital and revising its hierarchical position in Thailand's Buddhist-dominated religious field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of research on religious consumption assumes stable, singular and exclusive preferences, an individual is an adherent to one religion at a time and conversion is a radical break in identity. In examining a context where individuals can simultaneously practice multiple religions despite seemingly theologically incompatible beliefs, we introduce the concept of religious transit, allowing for a more processual understanding of religious identity. To do so, we draw on theories of religious capital, foregrounding the flexibility of this resource in enabling multifarious religious consumption. This is made possible by the religious leaders themselves; in highlighting shared rituals and discourses, they downplay any cognitive incongruences to allow for easy, market-mediated accessibility. By conceptualising four types of religious consumption, we theorise the dynamics of consumer mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study builds on prior research by examining the moderating relationships between different types of capital on physical functioning, emotional functioning, and depressive symptoms using a 2.5‐year longitudinal design with a national sample of African–American adults. Results indicated a significant T1 social capital × T1 religious capital interaction such that among low T1 religious capital participants, those with high T1 social capital had lower T2 physical functioning than those with lower T1 social capital. There was also a marginally significant T1 social capital × T1 spiritual capital interaction suggesting that among low T1 spiritual capital participants, those with higher T1 social capital reported a decline in depressive symptoms compared to those with lower T1 social capital. Future research and implications for intervention and policy development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to help fill the gap in midrange theory for the religion-health connection, this paper reviews relevant literature on religious capital as well as social capital, a concept with which religious capital is sometimes incorrectly conflated. It identifies elements and mechanisms for each type of capital, including both quality and quantity, and describes evidence for their relationship with health. Expanding, unifying, and integrating these theoretical elements can help better understand the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between religion and health, with concomitant policy implications such as faith-based interventions as well as spur additional research on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even if religiosity has long been introduced as the major cause for backwardness by anti-religion philosophers, the divine religion has been an important source of value for individuals and society, encouraging them to shape economic and sociocultural outcomes. In this manner, religiosity and religious capital (RC) are the stimuli for society-wide development. Against this background, religion can have positive implications for enriching individual and social economy. Assigning tasks, providing guidance on productivity and more effort, living a purposeful life, establishing effective socio-economic institutions and assessing functional behaviours in organisational settings are accordingly among the ways in which RC induces economic behaviours. On the other hand, job engagement (JE) has been one of the relatively common concepts within the novel approaches to human resource management. Considering employment and the promotion of standard Islamic culture, how religion and JE are associated is thus of utmost importance. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the effect of RC on JE among 2500 Malaysian Muslim nurses working in Kuala Lumpur and Penang hospitals during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2021, as the statistical population selected via random sampling. A standardised questionnaire was also administered as the data collection tool, whose validity and reliability were confirmed. The SPSS and LISREL software packages were further utilised to analyse the data. The study results revealed that RC had a significant positive effect on nurses’ JE in the course of COVID-19 (p = 0.83, t = 11.94). Contribution: The research findings suggest that reinforcing RC in Islamic societies, such as Malaysia, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, affects nurses’ sense of hope, faith and beliefs regarding their capabilities to achieve career success.

This study investigated the ways that principal leadership practice is shaped by religion and spirituality, both in terms of how beliefs inform their work and in relation to how religion and spirituality are manifest in school and community. Data were collected over a 6-month period from public school principals working in mixed Catholic-Muslim communities in the Philippines. The authors developed a conceptual framework that integrated research on principals with multidisciplinary work on spiritual capital and religious capital. Findings suggested that religion and spirituality are very important to principals as individuals and that spirituality and religion form two closely related (but distinct) symbolic systems in which principals must participate to effectively lead in school and community. The study also raised interesting methodological issues related to translation and to cultural relevance for the Australian-based researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some Islamic groups, especially the traditional Indonesian circles, have a negative view of English. English is considered the language of infidel invaders and the language of hell. This paper aims to describe the development of society in implementing Islamic religious education while eliminating the negative impression of the use of English in Islamic societies to be an important language to be learned as a language of global communication. The research method uses the sociological phenomenological method. The results showed that the Amanah village had six social capital namely human capital, social capital, natural capital, physical capital, and financial capital and religious capital. The development strategy undertaken is to maximize religious capital by establishing religious institutions and carrying out religious activities by being given English language lessons. There are two centers of activity, namely the Baitussalam mosque and the AleC (Amanah Learning Center). Other capital that plays a significant role is social capital that is inclusive and accommodating towards migrants. Abstrak Sebagian masyarat Islam terutama kalangan tradisional Indonesia berpandangan negative terhadap bahasa Inggris. Bahsa inggris dianggap sebagai bahasa para penjajah yang kafir dan bahasa neraka. Tulisan ini bertujuan untuk menggambarkan pembangunan masyarakat dalam melaksanakan pendidikan Agama Islam sekaligus menghilangkan kesan negative penggunaan bahasa Inggris di masyarakat Islam menjadi bahasa penting untuk dipelajari sebagai bahasa komunikasi global. Metode penelitian menggunakan metode fenomenologis sosiologis. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kampung Amanah memiliki enam modal sosial yaitu human capital, social capital, natural capital, physical capital dan financial capital serta religious capital. Strategi pembangunan yang dilakukan yaitu dengan memaksimalkan modal relgius dengan mendirikan institusi agama dan menjalankan kegiatan-kegiatan agama dengan diberi sisipan pelajaran bahasa Inggris. Pusat kegiatan ada dua yaitu masjid baitussalam dan AleC (Amanah Learning Center). Modal lain yang sangat berperan adalah modal sosial masyarakat yang bersikap inklusif dan akomodatif terhadap para pendatang.

Intergenerational inequalities in economic security, health and political participation are frequently associated with inequalities in access to social capital. Millennials (those born after 1982) are often regarded as the least civically active generation, suggesting that they have less access to social capital, compared to other generations. Numerous studies have linked the decline of religion with falling social capital, as younger generations are deprived of a valuable source of social interaction; others, however, have claimed the link between the two is spurious because Millennials have developed different ways of interacting with social institutions and each other. Despite various studies exploring links between forms of religious and social capital, the role of religious decline in contributing to the intergenerational inequalities of today remains unclear. This study examines how religious capital is related to social capital for Baby Boomers and Millennials in the UK. Our analysis shows that while lower levels of religious capital are contributing to lower levels of social capital among Millennials, religious activity is also a more effective source of social capital for Millennials than their elders. We discuss possible interpretations of our data, including exploring whether greater religious engagement among Millennials may protect against intergenerational inequality and conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the important defined factors affecting the religious behaviors is religious capital for which some indicators have been created. Position generator and resource generator are two cases of such indicators. According to reviews, the effect of this factor on the religious-based behaviors is positive. However, the explanatory variables of various indicators - in addition to reliability and validity - can also be a benchmark for their excellence. Based on the conducted studies, the costs for God’s sake is a function of the religious capital. The present study experimentally estimated the effect of religious capital on the costs for God’s sake in both separate and comparative forms to analyze the two techniques of position generator and resource generator. The statistical population was the households in the city of Zahedan. The statistical sample was 500 households in 2015. The data was collected in 2016 through interviews and questionnaires. The analysis was performed using econometrics in Eviews software. The findings showed that the religious capital had a positive effect on the costs for God’s sake in these households. However, the explanatory variable of position generator was higher. This means that the imported variable of this indicator created a higher meaningfulness for the model. Furthermore, the variable coefficients of the position generator indicators were still significant in the separation of up and down position religious capital, and the variable coefficients of the resource generator indicators were not significant at 10% confidence level.

In diesem Beitrag geht es vor dem Hintergrund verschiedener Neokapitaltheorien um Bestimmungsmöglichkeiten eines spirituellen bzw. religiösen Kapitals und die solchen Kapitalformen zugrunde liegenden Begriffe von Religion und Spiritualität. Ein eigener Ansatz wird in die Diskussion gebracht, der eine Ausdifferenzierung in spiritualisierendes und spirituelles, exoterisches religiöses und esoterisches religiöses Kapital vorschlägt. Die vorgeschlagenen Begriffe werden anhand aktueller Entwicklungen in der afrobrasilianischen Candomblé-Religion erörtert. In the framework of various neo-capital theories, this paper goes into the debate about how to determine spiritual or religious capital, and the concepts of religion and spirituality on which such capital forms would be based. It proposes an original approach which involves a distinction between spiritualizing and spiritual, exoteric religious and esoteric religious capital. These terms are further explained by applying them to current developments in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Soter: Journal of Religious Science / Religijos Mokslo Žurnalas is the property of Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Theology-Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Economic behaviors are among the main issues in economy, especially Islamic economy. In this context, one of the weaknesses of the Islamic economics is the scarcity of experimental study on Muslims' behaviors. This paper has done an experimental study to estimate the effect of religious social capital on Qartholhasan payment behavior at the micro level using resource generator tool along with income, age and property. The data were collected through survey and questionnaires and analyzed by econometric method. The survey population was the households in the city of Zahedan and the sampling consisted of 504 heads of households in the community. The results show that religious capital, property, income, bank deposits and received interest have a significant effect on Qardholhasan payment. Also, the household size and education have meaningful effect on that. Innovations of this paper are the empirically testing at micro-level of the Islamic doctrine, entering the religious capital based on recognized scientific tools in the survey, along with other variables that influence economic behavior.

AbstractCultural turn in contemporary society has undoubtedly turned culture into a major arena for the production and representation of social gaps and inequalities. The interplay of inequalities in access to the capitals and urban life has rarely been a topic for systematic empirical studies in Iran. Relying on a large scale representative survey recently conducted in Tehran, this paper aims to reveal the unequal distribution of cultural capital in Tehran and also to reveal the mechanisms the residents employ both to produce and to display cultural capital. The findings while clarifying the prospects of inequalities in different dimensions of urban cultural capital, highlight the ways cultural capital both affects and is affected by urban [physical] spaces and urban life. This conclusion while uncovering some of the inadequacies related to current cultural capital literature, offers new concepts and spheres by which social inequalities can be conceived in the context of Iranian society.

Recent years have witnessed the burgeoning growth of international schools in Qatar, where Islamic Studies is a statutory subject for all schools. This paper aims to investigate how Islamic Studies teachers navigate an internationalized setting where there is dissonance between local and global educational priorities. International schools aim to forge global citizens who perceive their identity in terms of global rather than religious belonging. To examine how Islamic Studies teachers view their work in such a setting, a qualitative study was conducted in an international school based in Qatar. The study employs Bourdieu’s concepts of religious capital and field to explore how the Islamic teachers’ pedagogical skills and knowledge are valued in a non-Islamic teaching setting. The study concludes that the international schooling field allowed Islamic Studies teachers to transform their religiosity into social capital, but they failed to convert their Islamic knowledge into cultural capital. However, Islamic Studies teachers positively view their work in internationalized milieu. They think that the international schooling field can help them to accumulate different forms of capital that are prized in Qatar.

Copyright of Scientific Papers of Silesian University of Technology. Organization & Management / Zeszyty Naukowe Politechniki Slaskiej. Seria Organizacji i Zarzadzanie is the property of Silesian Technical University, Organisation & Management Faculty and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The goal of the article is to describe the contribution of ecclesial or Church communities to the development of community work and the ways people get involved in community activities, seeing ecclesial communities as form of religious capital in society for regenerating the society and individuals. In the richness of community activities of Christian Church that are socially or caritatively-oriented, it is possible to find resources, with which the Christian Church can reach the people in need and fulfil its mission. Thus, the context of the article is the practical concept of Caritative Social Work being practiced in practical domains of modern social protection system. One of the factors, chosen for studying in this article, will be religious capital with its inner constituting conditions in order there could take place their activation in community environment. The task here is to explore specific social and religious factors and principles of action that would provide more full understanding about the effectiveness of functioning of local religious communities and their influence on community development. The article will end by case study analysis of two Christian ecclesial communities and deriving working principles, finding out which elements and principles of ecclesial community can constitute the effective community of social rehabilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using pooled data from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG 2006-2010), we examine the effects of denominational affiliation, worship service attendance, and religious salience on remarriage timing. Survival analyses indicate that both men and women affiliated with conservative Protestant faith traditions are significantly more likely than their unaffiliated and Catholic counterparts to remarry at an accelerated pace following divorce. Results further show that, net of religious affiliation and socio-demographic characteristics, worship service attendance accelerates remarriage timing, whereas the effects of religious salience are weaker or unobserved. These results are largely consistent with prior research on denominational variations in the timing of first marriage and underscore the robust influence of religion on the institution of marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the relationship between religious capital and depressive symptoms and the moderating role of the Big Five personality constructs in a national sample of African American adults. Data were collected from a national probability sample of 803 African American men and women using a telephone survey including measures of the Big Five personality traits, religious capital, and depressive symptomology. Most interestingly, there was evidence for Personality × Religious Capital interactions on depressive symptomology. Higher religious capital was related to lower depressive symptomology among persons with low conscientiousness or low openness to experience. However, religious capital was less related to depressive symptoms among those with high conscientiousness or high openness. This study reinforces the importance of examining the moderating effects of personality and perceived religious capital in understanding mental health outcomes. This information can be of use to practitioners in designing culturally appropriate interventions, including the use of capital from faith-based organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important institutions and the special gift of divine religions including Islam is charity institution. Charity may overcome many social problems like poverty and disarray of the income and expenditure. This research is intended to investigate the factors influencing charity and the charity function behavior according to the teachings of Islam and to estimate empirically charity function in Iran. Regarding theoretical and empirical studies on religious expenditure and Islamic taxes; and considering Islamic rules and statistical limitations, the selected explanatory variables are income, wealth, age of householder and religious capital. The charity function is estimated using a panel data consisting of provincial data during the years 2000-2007. The estimation of an exponential charity function shows that charity is an increasing function of provincial per capita income, wealth and religious capital. Using direct data on charity and entering religious capital and wealth as effective factors on charity are of innovations of the paper which differentiates current research from the other studies.

Development is concerned with the transformation of people to foster their health, wholeness and growth. The link between health and development points to religion as potential social capital for development. There is an ongoing debate about the role of pastoral care as a religious resource in global healthcare contexts. This is unfortunately not the case in Africa, as pastoral care has not received sufficient attention for its role in healthcare and development in development discourses. The limited research on pastoral care in healthcare contexts in Africa has implications for African healthcare systems, pastoral care and the delivery of an effective, holistic and quality healthcare service. Taking as its point of departure a thesis about the potential of religion as a social capital resource for development, the article argues for pastoral care as a viable religious resource for healthcare and development. Osmer’s theological task of good practice is employed as an interdisciplinary engagement in dialogue with selective perspectives in the disciplines of development and health and social sciences for appropriate analysis.

Religious life is studied by way suggested by the rational choice theory and the religious capital theory. The basic contentions of the theory on the nature of religious life having to do with an exchange upon a religious market, by firms offering compensators and rewards, and consumers, is considered. In the empirical analysis, it was validated that the independent (religious capital) and dependent (religious rewards of two types) were empirically separate constructs. Cross-sectional analysis of survey data indicated a very strong association between religious capital and institutional and ritual experience rewards within religious life, at a cross-cultural analysis, including Bosnian Muslims, Serbian Orthodox, Slovenian Catholics and US Protestants. The association was confirmed as robust at regression inspection with religious socialization. This extends further support for the empirical validity these novel theories of religious life and extensions of economic analysis into religious life.

In this paper, first, social (and spiritual & religious) capitals arediscussed and explain their concepts; introduce components and thetype of relationship exists between them. Then, the effect of social(and spiritual & religious) capitals on economic growth anddevelopment is determined and demonstrate the most importantmechanisms of this effectiveness. At last, this paper includes the mostconclusive mechanisms as: reducing inequality and alleviatingpoverty, increasing the effectiveness of market, encouragingeconomic growth, reducing costs, increasing efficiency of othercapitals, creating economic institutions and organizations andimproving their operations, expanding financial markets andencouraging investments, increasing full employment, conductingmore transactions, fostering innovations and improving technology.

Training requirements for ordained clergy vary widely between US denominations, but the most common qualifications include the Master of Divinity (MDiv), a 3-year professional degree typically earned in residence full-time at a seminary or school of theology following completion of an undergraduate degree. However, past research has found that denominations with more limited formal training requirements for clergy tend to grow more rapidly and that professionalized clergy may actually contribute to denominational decline. I test this with Cox regression, comparing job lengths of Lutheran (ELCA) pastors with MDiv degrees and those who completed an alternative training program (TEEM) where older students complete less extensive coursework while simultaneously serving a ministry context. TEEM candidates often continue serving in this context upon being ordained. The key finding is a persistent advantage for TEEM program graduates net of demographic controls, regardless of how age and experience are factored in. The advantage is not the result of ongoing embeddedness in a single context, suggesting it may result from a combination of differences in the structure of formal education and the simultaneous contextual application. Both life experience (age) prior to being ordained and experience in ordained ministry also provide some advantage, but the effects are largely limited to MDiv graduates in their first few years of ministry. The results provide further evidence for the promise of alternative ministry preparation programs, and help elaborate previous theories of clergy religious capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its ubiquity, the term ‘spiritual capital’ continues to lack a sufficient level of empirical scrutiny to merit categorical independence from its religious variant. To remedy this gap, this article presents an ethnographic study of a meditation group called the Dhyana Centre, situated at the heart of London, and offers a bottom-up account of the ways in which spiritual capital is recognized, exchanged, and adopted in the absence of institutional mechanisms of legitimacy. Building on Bradford Verter’s conceptualisation of spiritual capital as originally derived from Bourdieu’s theory of practice, this study argues that the distinct configuration between knowledgeable and practical mastery in the dynamics of spiritual capital exchange marks amodus operandiwhich is not fully accounted for by conventional notions of religious capital. This study of spiritual capital thus allows for the translation of a notoriously slippery phenomenon into a much more tangible object of study without having to resort to essentialist readings of spirituality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]