TY - JOUR
AU - Glass,, Jennifer
AB - Abstract The sociology of contemporary religious behavior is vital to understanding a whole range of other social and political issues. The current deep division in contemporary American political and social life tracks the deep ideological divide between white conservative Christians and others (both white and nonwhite) so closely that it is almost impossible to intellectually suggest there is no relationship between the two. Contemporary sociology has assumed that American institutions (if not individuals) have become so secular that they are shielded from religious practices, in favor of organizing logics that are scientific, technical, and organizational in nature. What most sociologists missed were the roots of contemporary backlash against technocratic regimes in the white suburbs and small towns of America where conservative religious affiliations became aligned with a profoundly nativist, anti-intellectual populism. HOW DID WE GET HERE? I believe the sociology of contemporary religious behavior is vital to understanding a whole range of other contemporary social and political issues. I am going to lay out my central thesis and then try to convince the reader that it’s true: the central cleavage in contemporary American political and social life, that has given us a deeply divided nation and a razor-thin margin of victory for Donald Trump in 2016, tracks the deep divide between white conservative Christians and others (both white and nonwhite) so closely that it is almost impossible to intellectually suggest there is no relationship between the two. For that reason alone, American sociologists should be flocking to include religious affiliations and ideologies in their paradigms of social, economic, and political behavior and institutions. But they have not. Yet, it goes without any serious debate that religious divisions in the Muslim world have become the basis for sectarian conflicts that have convulsed the region for decades and permeated every aspect of social life. Why the strong belief among academics in American Exceptionalism, yet again? And what have been the consequences of failing to point our analytic lens at changes in American religion for our understanding of public opinion and public policy? Traditionally, religion was always seen by social theorists as undergirding and reproducing a specific social order with its attendant inequalities, and the earliest social theorists understood the power of spiritual ideologies to produce compliance with and, on occasion, rebellion against institutional practices. From the caste system in India to the feudal relationships of the medieval Christian church, political and spiritual leaders have often melded into one central authority system bolstering conformity to existing institutional logics that usually kept certain people impoverished and unheard. Whether this merging of religious and political practices was viewed as central to moral order (Durkheim) or corrupting and justifying unequal class relations (Marx), early social theorists understood the centrality of religion and ideological beliefs stemming from religious affiliation in social life. As a social “glue” that allowed diverse individuals to see common purpose and affiliation, religion both defined a set of social values to be realized through social life and norms to be followed to achieve those values. The downside, however, of any bonding ideology is the in-group mentality it creates and the prejudice it incites against other value systems and behaviors, producing conflict both internally and externally with other social groups. We have lost that understanding in contemporary sociology, assuming instead that American institutions (if not individuals) have become so secular that they are shielded from religious practices, and that the central logics dominating contemporary social life are scientific, technical, and organizational in nature (Clark and Grandchamp 2011; Gorski and Altinordu 2008). Sociologists are not uncritical of this new rationalist ideological regime; indeed, our sections on Poverty and Inequality, OOW, Race, Class & Gender, Crime, Law & Deviance, and many others are a veritable paradise of papers on the inequality-generating processes that technical and organizational logics produce in advanced industrial societies. Yet in a fundamentally epistemic way, the policy recommendations offered by social scientists to this “technocratic dilemma” have been similarly technically and rationally constructed using evidence-based logic. Rather than challenging the primacy of technical and organizational logics in our daily lives, social reformers merely seek to tame technologies and rationally constructed bureaucracy so that their inequality-producing tendencies are muted or redirected (Allen 2017; Daniels 2013, 2015). Does the push for 24-hour connectivity increase work hours, the gender pay gap, and reduce time for family and community? Develop a public paid leave system and methods for assessing productivity that use accomplishments rather than face time at the office! The obvious benefits of information (data science) over ignorance in boosting human productivity and directing resources to individuals and organizations goes unchallenged. Let me give some recent examples: sociologists often obsess about what or how data should be collected or used [Should there be a citizenship question on the U.S. Census? Should police be collecting information on every patrol stop to determine police deployment and surveillance of citizens?] but we never question whether data in general should be collected and used in decision making. We want to “tweak the algorithm” when a system produces results we don’t like, but we remain committed to the idea that the scientific analysis of data will produce policies and practices that enhance human survival and flourishing. I am certainly as guilty of this as anyone else in the discipline. I recognize my own worship at the altar of science as I deflect the views of global warming deniers, pro-life ideologues, and anti-immigrant racists. I do believe in, appropriately collected and analyzed, data. I do believe that data can direct human behavior more effectively than our naïve cognitive biases can. I want to live in a society where major decisions are guided by data and informed by values that honor individual human dignity as well as our collective human fate. But I sit in a social location where I can easily determine what data is solid and what is not, what methods of analysis work and which produce more noise than signal, which voices to trust, and when to more critically assess the source of information. Most people do not possess the same cognitive and social resources that university professors have. This yields our current predicament—many people in the United States are flummoxed and impatient with the endlessly changing array of information available to them, packaged in ways that seem legitimate but without the tools to more closely examine what they are told. What they experience are the negative consequences of policy decisions that seem remote and sometimes unjustified. The scientific logic behind policies is often opaque, while the concrete outcome at an individual level seems real and apparent. This tendency is exacerbated in our highly individualized culture, where collective outcomes and collective duty are deemphasized relative to individual fulfillment. What most sociologists en masse have missed were the roots of contemporary backlash against our technocratic regime in the white suburbs and small towns of America where individual outcomes were generally less favorable, and that the populist backlash against technocratic rule would be profoundly religious, nativist, and anti-intellectual in orientation. What has been forcefully imposed on us in this last election is a belated recognition that fundamentalist religions offer an alternative logic for decision making and social organization that meets the needs of individuals who either distrust rational-legal authority or find themselves left behind in an economic system that is now global, cosmopolitan, and scientific in nature. Moreover, this process is not now nor has it ever been restricted to the United States—the most famous yogi in India is now closely aligned with the Hindu nationalist JDP party and Prime Minister Modi (Worth 2018). And of course, the Middle East and Africa are filled with the sequelae of fundamentalist Muslim revolts in Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nigeria, etc. And who could have imagined fundamentalist Buddhist monks in Thailand and Myanmar instigating violence again religious minorities over the past several decades? (Sharma and Arora 2014). I mean to focus mostly on the United States in this article, though international experiences of religious fundamentalism certainly are ripe for further comparative analysis. What is most curious, for example, is that none of these fundamentalist revival movements recognize themselves in each other. To the contrary, most think of themselves as protecting their religious culture against the threat of other religious fundamentalisms. One has to look no further than white American evangelicals to see the constant invocation of Muslim extremism as the root of their nativism and anti-immigration sentiment (sentiments that are clearly not part of the “Jesus message”). Despite their shared patriarchal norms and obsession with female sexual purity, ideological nationalism, and distrust of secular culture, these fundamentalist social movements are at heart like wolf packs that fight to the death over territory despite their close genetic kinship. They seek the same goals—a protectionist economy to ensure their own people come first materially, and enough international isolation to contain cultural preferences and practices, especially among insurgent groups. HOW DID A RELIGIOUS REVIVAL BECOME NATIVIST, AND ANTI-INTELLECTUAL IN ORIENTATION? Why a War against Science? Why Now? It seems clear that white conservative Christians are not uniformly opposed to science and the scientific method, and that even those with concerns about the scientific community are not uniformly opposed to ALL types of science (Ecklund and Scheitle 2018), though as a discipline we like to pretend that the variation is more important than the mean. But it is just as clear that on a variety of fundamental issues, such as miraculous events and the role of God and humans in the physical world, white conservative Christians are deeply opposed to the position of scientists, and imagine more diversity of opinion among scientists than actually exists on touchstone issues, such as climate change, evolution, stem cell research, efficacy and safety of contraception, and abortion (Funk and Alper 2015). Skepticism of man-made global warming is high among evangelical pastors, especially younger ones, according to a recent poll from LifeWay Research (Steffan 2013). The statistics shown in Figures 1 and 2 coming from the Pew Research Center control for political party affiliation and education, so these results certainly underestimate the extent of disagreement between white conservative Christians and others on scientific issues.1 But even these overcontrolled equations show significant impact of conservative affiliation on beliefs about evolution and fossil fuels. A similar skepticism about scientific results can be found regarding research on contraception and abortion (Sullivan 2006; Woodsong et al. 2004). The controversy surrounding the Hobby Lobby decision allowing employers to avoid contraceptive coverage under the ACA showed how distrustful some in the evangelical Christian community were of the medical science showing the four objectionable methods of birth control did not operate primarily by preventing implantation of an already fertilized egg (Gunter 2014). The fetishization of the fertilized egg as avowedly human and the distinction between fertilization and implantation that were the crux of the Hobby Lobby case show the extent to which some in the conservative Christian community had been mobilized to see contraception as part of a scientifically suspect plot to force “anti-Christian” practices into health care via the Affordable Care Act (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2751, 2782 [2014]). FIGURE 1. View largeDownload slide Differences among Religious Groups Occur Especially on Evolution, Energy Issues. Notes: Survey of U.S. adults (August 15–25, 2014). Views on power plant emission limits from November 2014 Survey. Views on prioritizing alternative energy sources from December 2014. Significance and relative size of factors are based on results of logistic regression analyses. Views on safety of childhood vaccines in the February 2015 survey did not include measures on religion. FIGURE 1. View largeDownload slide Differences among Religious Groups Occur Especially on Evolution, Energy Issues. Notes: Survey of U.S. adults (August 15–25, 2014). Views on power plant emission limits from November 2014 Survey. Views on prioritizing alternative energy sources from December 2014. Significance and relative size of factors are based on results of logistic regression analyses. Views on safety of childhood vaccines in the February 2015 survey did not include measures on religion. FIGURE 2. View largeDownload slide Wide Differences among Religious Group in Views on Evolution. FIGURE 2. View largeDownload slide Wide Differences among Religious Group in Views on Evolution. While there have always been tensions between Christian dogma (especially those espousing Biblical literalism) and science, these were mostly muted in the postwar era until the rise of the religious Right in 1980s, when creationism or (later) intelligent design began popping up in Christian curricula and became a controversy in science teaching in public schools (Berkman and Plutzer 2010). The modern incarnation of conservative Protestantism in particular supported a revival of creationism and a disavowal of contemporary scientific discoveries that might detract from belief in Biblical inerrancy. This denigration of scientific consensus (along with the promotion of any scientist willing to disagree with conventional thinking on evolution, climate change, etc.) conveniently allowed evangelical leaders to create a narrative in which certain forms of science and scientists could be seen as hostile to Christians and their sincerely held religious beliefs. As Christian Smith has noted (1998), drawing a firm line between conservative Christians’ interests and more secular interests helps produce an “embattled but thriving” identity that provides the social glue keeping this group cohesive and politically active. Consider the following quote from Erick Erickson, editor of the conservative website The Resurgent, in June of 2017, “[Evangelicals] are deeply skeptical of scientists because they believe scientists are anti-Christian. They see it as another political movement out to get them, one that hates big families.” The fear that human dignity will take a back seat to scientific and technological progress is especially likely among those who are poorly prepared to take advantage of the material gains of scientific literacy. Conservative Christians are least likely to want their children to become scientists, and are less likely to be scientists themselves than those from other faith traditions (Longest and Uecker 2018; Masci 2009). While most white conservative Christians use and appreciate scientific and technical discoveries, and are supportive of most biomedical research, they nevertheless view divine intervention in the affairs of the material world as both possible and probable, potentially muting the need for human knowledge or action. I found three grounds for objecting to the conduct of contemporary science—its methods deny supernatural interpretation of events, its outcomes are uncertain and subject to subsequent revision, and its logical conclusions assume no Godly interference in natural processes (denying God’s omnipotence). These three grounds are repeatedly invoked to dismiss the work of scientists that does not conveniently fit Biblical narratives about the role of God and humanity in the cosmos. As Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), a graduate of evangelical Wheaton College, said at a town hall in Coldwater, Michigan, “As a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it.” To conclude, while not all topics of scientific or technical discovery are problematic for religious conservatives, the ones that are problematic are (1) foundational for science education (evolution and earth’s history which touch on biology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, and meteorology) and/or (2) part of tremendously important social problems that threaten human health or prosperity if not dealt with expeditiously (climate change and investments in alternative energy, fertility control, and species and ecosystem protection). Minimizing this religious division by claiming it’s not universal among adherents, not universal among topics in science, or not informed by religious dogma as much as partisan affiliation does nothing but paper over the severity of the problem given the confluence of conservative religion and conservative politics. Rev. Mitch Hescox, president of the Evangelical Environmental Network expressed it to the Washington Post in 2017 this way, “Evangelicals tend to believe climate change is a liberal issue. Many think it’s about the government, Al Gore, and taking away our freedoms.” Why the Backlash against Our Nation of Immigrants? I begin by reviewing some recent poll numbers on religious identification and beliefs about immigration in the United States. These few graphs show clearly that the negative attitudes toward asylum seekers, immigrants (legal or not), and refugees are concentrated among white conservative Christians. And these differences from other religious affiliations are huge by any standard. In a January (2018) Washington Post-ABC poll, 75% of white evangelical Christians rated “the federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants” as positive, compared with 46% of U.S. adults overall, and only 25% of nonwhite Christians. In a recent Pew Research Center poll (Hartig 2018), white evangelical Protestants said that the United States did not have a responsibility to accept refugees by more than two-to-one (68% to 25%). The polling data also show that this negativity stems from two interrelated sources—the belief that today’s immigrants are degrading American culture and that today’s immigrants are more likely to come from non-Western and non-Christian nations that don’t share our values (Whitehead et al. 2018). Combined with the specific distaste for Islam and fear of violent extremists, the result is a fierce nationalism that requires strong borders and enforcement of strict immigration laws (Leon McDaniel et al. 2011). For example, two-thirds of white evangelicals believe Islam is not part of mainstream American society, while 72% of white evangelicals—compared with 44% of Americans overall—see a natural conflict between Islam and democracy (Lipka 2017; Figures 3 and 4). FIGURE 3. View largeDownload slide The Cultural Impact of Immigrants by Religious Affliation. FIGURE 3. View largeDownload slide The Cultural Impact of Immigrants by Religious Affliation. FIGURE 4. View largeDownload slide Race, Age, Education Differences on U.S. Responsibility to Accept Refugees. FIGURE 4. View largeDownload slide Race, Age, Education Differences on U.S. Responsibility to Accept Refugees. But how did a community that valued care for others, evangelism to the unbelieving, and mission work for the poor and dispossessed come to support a xenophobic outlook on immigrants and refugees seeking entry into the United States? The conflation of nation with religion among many white evangelicals when applied to immigration and refugee policy mirrors the boundaries drawn between white conservative Christians and secular cultural forces they perceive as threatening traditional American values (Whitehead et al. 2018). As long as newcomers are seen as similar to those already viewed as hostile to their religious beliefs and material interests, their presence in the United States will be unwelcome no matter their material situation or needs. For these believers, charity begins at home and foreign neighbors are cherished as long as they stay home and don’t come uninvited into the United States. Combined into a tightly reinforced schema, the confluence of fundamentalist religion, nativism, and anti-intellectualism provided a winning constituency for a newly radicalized Republican Party with an emerging Tea Party ideology (Skocpol and Williamson 2016). Without this confluence, which required the active construction of a nativist and anti-intellectual ideological framework among white conservative Christians, it is unlikely that the deep cleavage in American political life apparent from the 2016 election could have been created and sustained (Edgell 2017). This confluence of attitudes, however, is irrelevant if attitudes are distinct from behavior—political behavior, organizational behavior, educational behavior, and family behavior. However, it is here that we see among the strongest evidence of emerging yet understudied cleavages in behavior between white conservative Christians and other Americans. Distinctively conservative patterns of early transition to adulthood, less rigorous educational participation and attainment, restricted occupational mobility, and strong partisan political affiliation and voting behavior have become apparent over the past several decades. It is to this that I now turn. HOW DOES RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION AND BELIEF AFFECT FAMILY, ORGANIZATIONAL, AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR (THE INSTITUTIONAL WORLDS WE INHABIT ON A REGULAR BASIS)? Family Behavior and Educational Participation Here, I briefly review the research evidence showing clear and distinctive patterns of “red state” family formation (Cahn and Carbone 2010) driven primarily by white conservative Christians’ early transitions to adulthood (Fitzgerald and Glass 2008, 2012). The religious injunctions against sexual expression before marriage and abhorrence of abortion and abortifacient birth control methods lead to significantly more early marriages, including some shotgun marriages (Pearce 2010), among white conservative Christians followed quickly by several births. These religiously motivated youth curtail their education to facilitate early family formation, and the results are often less successful work and family lives. In an economic regime where workers are rewarded by gaining large amounts of human and social capital before entering the labor force, where long hours and work devotion yield the highest earnings, and where caregiving responsibilities are stigmatized and lack accommodations, young conservative Christians find themselves with many financial obligations and fewer economic and social resources with which to meet them (Keister 2008). Combined with their relative lack of relationship experience and more traditional sexual divisions of labor, this pattern yields more divorce and family instability than those secular youth who wait to marry and form families in their 30s and beyond (Glass and Levchak 2014). Moreover, these patterns persist even after overcontrolling for parental education, income, occupation, and region (themselves a reflection of earlier family formation in the parental generation of conservative Christians).2 Patterns of schooling that disadvantage white conservative Christian youth also set them apart from other groups. While homeschooling has grown in popularity for a variety of reasons, the bulk of homeschoolers cite religious motivations for avoiding public school, and the results in terms of preparation for postsecondary education vary considerably (Lubienski et al. 2013; Martin-Chang et al. 2011; Murphy 2014). White conservative Christians are also more likely to send their children to unaccredited religious schools, and to encourage their children to attend religious colleges and universities if they pursue higher education. While youth from religiously conservative households are as likely to work in allied health professions as other youth, they are less likely to major in STEM subjects or work in STEM fields postgraduation (Longest and Uecker 2018; McMorris 2016). Both in terms of quantity and quality, the educational attainment of white conservative Christians is lower than that of similarly situated others, with the exception of those raised with no religious affiliation. Because many conservative Christian theologies (the “prosperity gospel” being an exception) deemphasize material wealth and emphasize service to God and community, it is not surprising that many of the material disadvantages of a religiously faithful life are seen as irrelevant or even praiseworthy (Keister 2003). Thus, the potential educational disadvantages of homeschooling or religious schooling are outweighed by the control parents can exert over the moral and spiritual direction of their children’s lives, which is considered the more important responsibility of parents. Yet these are not merely material disadvantages; they are social disadvantages as well in a society increasingly organized around technical and capitalist logics. Organizational Behavior and Occupational Mobility I will only touch on what we now know about how religion affects complex organizational behavior (Chan-Serafin et al. 2013). Rather than assuming individuals drop their social identities at the door, we now know they bring their religious convictions and predispositions to work with them. But organizational behavior is frequently constrained by organizational logics. So we start from the premise that the religious and moral commitments of organizations help structure their organizational logics (what actions are and are not tolerable among employees, clients, and contractors), which in turn influence the expression of religious belief among employees and clients. So I will begin with examples of the types of organizational logics among religious and secular organizations that affect rules and procedures, then move to the individual actions of religious conservatives within secular organizations. Outside of denominational structures themselves, the most extensive influence of religion on organizational practice can be found in religious nonprofit organizations, such as hospitals, schools, and adoption/foster care agencies. Catholic hospital systems have been gaining market share through mergers and acquisitions, especially in rural areas in the United States (Hafner 2018), creating widespread concern that certain procedures banned by Catholic doctrine on sexuality and reproduction (such as tubal ligations) will now be difficult to obtain in large geographic areas. Religiously affiliated organizations such as adoption and foster care agencies have also been seeking exemptions from federal and state anti-discrimination laws in both employment and client services to avoid servicing the LGBT community (Rosenberg-Douglas 2018). Similar waivers have been requested for ACA coverage of contraception for employees in religious organizations. But the Supreme Court has also recently allowed capitalist for-profit organizations closely held by conservative Christian owners to also exempt themselves from certain provisions of federal law under the mantle of religious accommodation. The Hobby Lobby case decided in 2012 limiting the contraceptive mandate in the ACA was the most recent in a long line of cases successfully adjudicated in which Christian businesses asked for exemptions from anti-discrimination laws based on sincerely held religious beliefs about gay and lesbian people, contraception and abortion, or even the seductive potential of very attractive women (Associated Press 2013; Hu 2012). More recently, a Christian business owner has been sued for wrongful termination after requiring that all employees attend Bible Study daily on company time (Albany Democrat-Herald 2018), setting the stage for another test of religious accommodation. Secular for-profit organizations have also had to respond to demands from religious groups or clients for changes in their business practices to accommodate either employee or client religious beliefs. Threats of consumer boycotts based on business advertising in which multiracial or LGBT families are featured, or demands for the withdrawal of business’ advertising support for media or entertainment companies producing content offensive to conservative Christians, are examples of the types of pressure placed on secular businesses to conform to religious sensibilities. These efforts have achieved a range of modest successes, but sometimes businesses push back. The secular business communities’ response to so-called “bathroom bills,” local or state ordinances requiring transgendered people to use the bathroom of their birth designation in public facilities, has been uniformly negative and reflects skittishness about alienating both younger potential employees and customers who are more favorably disposed toward the LGBT community (McGaughy 2017). I turn now to the behavior of religious conservatives as employees within secular organizations, both private and public sector. In secular for-profit organizations, this has mostly taken the form of requests for religious accommodation in work duties, which must be “reasonably accommodated” based on settled case law (Birnbach, 2009; Nejaime and Siegel 2014). This means leaves for religious observation or waivers from certain dress codes must be accommodated, but recently attempts have been made to extend this protection to the conduct of work itself through “religious conscience” clauses in employment. Particularly in health care settings, these clauses allow pharmacists to deny contraceptives or abortifacient drugs to women with a legitimate prescription at a Walmart or CVS, allow doctors to deny treatment during miscarriage at private hospitals, allow private clinics to deny infertility treatment to LGBT clients, and so on based on the provider’s religious beliefs, without regard to the harm done to these clients (Duvall 2005; Wilson 2012). These clauses also mean that individual employees can refuse to provide services to particular classes of clients but allow them for others, such as a baker who does not want to bake a cake for a gay couple, or a social worker who does not want to provide abortion referrals for poor women. The most controversial cases of religious accommodation in employment, however, have been found in public sector workplaces charged with implementing government policy. Here, successes have been more limited—county clerks who do not want to provide gay people with marriage licenses have generally not had their claims for religious accommodation upheld. But pharmacists and doctors in public hospitals and health care settings have obtained some protection through legislation designed to permit discrimination in their conduct as long as other health care providers are able to step in and provide the necessary (generally reproductive health) services. Whether this movement will expand given the priority in the current administration to expand religious liberty in public employment and publicly funded organizations is uncertain. I have said little about conservative Christian overrepresentation in the U.S. military, but well-publicized cases of white conservative Christian “overreach” in the military academies has already attracted complaints from Jewish and Muslim cadets (Goodstein 2005). We have little information about the extent to which these religious accommodations in employment are changing the array of consumer services available in our health care system, for example, or how often employees request accommodations in health care and other settings. We know even less about trends over time in when and how organizations respond to these requests from employees or clients. As the social cleavage in American society becomes more pronounced, how do organizations respond to fractured markets and demands for religious accommodation in employment and services? Political Participation and Voting An existing literature on religious coalitions and voting behavior, mostly within political science, informs our understanding of the current political divide in the United States. Sociologists generally look at political participation through the lens of social movements and rule-making in the public sphere, and here religious actors have been mostly neglected. This helps explain how they missed the growing alignment between less educated white voters, conservative Christian voters, rural and suburban voters, and nativist voters. But religiously conservative individuals and organized conservative Christians groups have been gradually increasing their demands for religion in the public square over the past several decades (Di Mauro and Joffe 2007; Flippen 2011). These incursions have been most successful in schools and judicial courts with their rule-making function. Not surprisingly given this emphasis, school boards, textbook approval boards, and judicial appointments and elections have been a focus for conservative Christian political activism (Sikkink 2009). The “culture wars” provide an overarching framework for the focus on these particular institutions as opposed to say, the IRS, Federal Reserve, EEOC, or SEC, all charged with making capitalist corporations and private businesses behave ethically and fairly. The avowed goal of the Religious Right of 1990s and beyond was to bring back a conservative version of Christianity into the everyday cultural world experienced by Americans, through public displays of prayer at school and government events, through religious iconography on public property, and through religious speech and reasoning in schools, courtrooms, health care settings, and public accommodations. The allocation and division of material assets in the economy, the distribution of fines and penalties through the criminal justice system, the treatment of immigrants and refugees, and protection of the environment and nonhuman species were simply not central concerns. While there is mounting evidence that religiously affiliated groups are now entering these debates from a theological perspective, white conservative Christians are not at the forefront of these debates, and often work in opposition to other Christian groups when they do (Bean 2014; McCarthy et al 2016; Nita 2016; Tarakeshwar et al 2001; Todd et al. 2014). We need more analysis of why this is the case, and why certain theological precepts of Christianity are highlighted in conservative discourse while others about charity, justice, and economic fairness languish (Edgell 2017). This concern for matters of process (keeping God in all deliberations and decisions) over outcomes (a more just and peaceful society) also helps explain the emphasis in white conservative Christian activism for greater protection of religious expression in private for-profit firms and government employment. The firmly held belief that Christians are being persecuted for their beliefs because our culture is pushing God out of social institutions creates a bunker mentality of imagined oppression that animates the drive for protectionist legislation. All these goals made the Republican Party a welcoming haven for white religious conservatives and help explain the growing alignment underway between the Republican Party and organized conservative Christian activist groups. Arguably, that alignment has made white conservative Christian activism much more successful than any direct action campaigns undertaken in the past through boycotts or messaging campaigns. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS I hope I have amassed enough evidence by this point to convince the reader of my central argument—that the strongest cleavage in American political and social life increasingly aligns with the distinctive cultural cleavage between white conservative Christians and other religious alignments (including people without affiliation). In our scholarly work, I believe there has been too much emphasis on the organizational practices of religions rather than how religions affect other organizations’ practices! And there has been too little investigation of how individual religious beliefs and practices affect interactions and outcomes within organizations, including educational, legal, political, and occupational. For example, while organizational researchers often look at founding characteristics of organizations as having enduring impacts, and note strong differences between nonprofits and commercial enterprises, we see little attention paid to the religious background of organizational founders or the impact of executives’ religious beliefs on corporate practices. In my own work on pregnancy accommodation, for example, one young executive assistant reported her CEO boss’ insistence she bring the baby to work until she stopped breastfeeding, because his Orthodox faith would not allow him to separate a baby from her mother. Of course, the opposite can occur—as in the ultraconservative Christians who fire workers for nonwork-related irreverent behavior or who refuse to perform their job duties if they interfere with their religious beliefs. Secondly, I believe as a discipline there has been too much focus on difference and diversity within conservative religious communities rather than between religious conservatives and all other affiliations (including the “nones”). I understand the scholarly impulse to be precise and demolish stereotypes about aggregate groups that see themselves as marginalized. And treatises have been written on how best to analytically slice and categorize conservative Protestants, evangelicals, conservative Catholics and Jews, all in order to gain relatively small improvements in modeling outcomes. Yet this focus on diversity has diminished attention to the ways in which political coalitions and identities are formed and maintained, and the strength of the mean differences between white conservative Christians. and others in the United States. What is so amazing about the contemporary Trump coalition is the uniformity of opinion it has engendered among white Christian conservatives of many faith traditions on a variety of issues not usually seem as religious in nature. In general, our discipline pays too little attention to the role of religion in shaping larger political and economic conflicts—about immigration and national security; about the purpose and form of welfare state policies and programs; about global warming, energy policy, and environmental protection; about abortion, birth control, and LGBT civil rights; about sexual coercion and violence; about racism and policing; about growing inequality and the concentration of wealth, etc. Almost all of these major social conflicts anchor white conservative Christians (and sometimes conservative Jews and Muslims) on one side of the debate and technocratic data scientists and policy wonks on the other. Moreover, religious organizations and proto-organizations often message about these issues in ways that place their adherents squarely in these debates through email campaigns, lobbying efforts, and social media platforms that expand their reach. Finally, we need to pay more attention to the impacts of moderate and liberal faith-based groups in the public sphere, as they decline in size but refocus their mission as agents of social provision. Remarkable recent research notes the impact of nonprofit community reinvestment programs in lowering urban crime and teen pregnancy throughout the United States, for example (Sharkey et al. 2017). More scholarly attention to generational and racial cleavages among Christian conservatives is also warranted, along with attention to the role of rising educational attainment and STEM emphases on scientific literacy in the white conservative Christian community. These are the challenges of the future as the populist alignment between conservative religion, nativism, and anti-intellectualism frays over time with inevitable demographic, educational, and occupational shifts. Source: Survey of U.S. adults conducted April 25–May 1, 2018. FUNDING This research was supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Award #5R24 HD042849) to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This article has been presented for the Furfey Lecture at the annual meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, Philadelphia, August 2018. All views expressed are solely those of the author. REFERENCES Albany Democrat-Herald . 2018 . “ Lawsuit: Worker Fired for Refusing to Attend Bible Study .” August 31. https://democratherald.com/news/local/lawsuit-worker-fired-for-refusing-to-attend-bible-study/article_174810eb-37de-5bc6-86f2-0b982b364e98.html Allen , Jonathan P . 2017 . Technology and Inequality . Cham : Palgrave Macmillan . Associated Press . 2013 . “ Iowa: Court Reaffirms Dentist’s Firing of Woman He Found Too Attractive .” New York Times , July 12. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/13/us/iowa-court-reaffirms-dentists-firing-of-woman-he-found-too-attractive.html Bean , Lydia . 2014 . “ Compassionate Conservatives? Evangelicals, Economic Conservatism, and National Identity .” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 53 : 164 – 86 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Berkman , Michael , and Eric Plutzer . 2010 . Evolution, Creationism, and the Battle to Control America’s Classrooms . New York : Cambridge University Press . Birnbach , Rachel M . 2009 . “ Love Thy Neighbor: Should Religious Accommodations That Negatively Affect Coworkers’ Shift Preferences Constitute an Undue Hardship on the Employer under Title VII .” Fordham Law Review 78 : 1331 . BURWELL, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL. v. HOBBY LOBBY STORES, INC., ET AL . 2014 . https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/ 13-354_olp1.pdf Cahn , Naomi , and June Carbone . 2010 . Red Families V. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture . New York : Oxford University Press . Chan-Serafin , Suzanne , Arthur P. Brief , and Jennifer George . 2013 . “ How Does Religion Matter and Why? Religion and The Organizational Sciences .” Organization Science 24 : 1585 – 600 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Clark , Roger , and Devin Grandchamp . 2011 . “ Recent Trends and Anomalies in American Secularization .” International Review of Modern Sociology 37 : 91 – 110 . Daniels , Jessie . 2013 . “ Race and Racism in Internet Studies: A Review and Critique .” New Media & Society 15 : 695 – 719 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS ———. 2015 . “ ‘My Brain Database Doesn’t See Skin Color’ Color-Blind Racism in the Technology Industry and in Theorizing the Web .” American Behavioral Scientist 59 : 1377 – 93 . Crossref Search ADS Di Mauro , Diane , and Carole Joffe . 2007 . “ The Religious Right and the Reshaping of Sexual Policy: An Examination of Reproductive Rights and Sexuality Education .” Sexuality Research & Social Policy 4 : 67 – 92 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Duvall , Melissa . 2005 . “ Pharmacy Conscience Clause Statutes: Constitutional Religious Accommodations or Unconstitutional Substantial Burdens on Women .” American University Law Review 55 : 1485 . Ecklund , Elaine Howard , and Christopher P. Scheitle . 2018 . Religion Vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think . New York : Oxford University Press . Edgell , Penny . 2017 . “ An Agenda for Research on American Religion in Light of the 2016 Election .” Sociology of Religion 78 : 1 – 8 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Fitzgerald , Scott T. , and Jennifer Glass . 2008 . “ Can Early Family Formation Explain the Lower Educational Attainment of US Conservative Protestants ?” Sociological Spectrum 28 : 556 – 77 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS ———. 2012 . “ Conservative Religion, Early Transitions to Adulthood and the Intergenerational Transmission of Class .” In John McCarthy and Lisa Keister (Eds.), Research in the Sociology of Work , vol. 23 , 49 – 73 . Flippen , J. Brooks . 2011 . Jimmy Carter, the Politics of Family, and the Rise of the Religious Right . Athens, GA : University of Georgia Press . Funk , Cary , and Becka A. Alper . 2015 . “Religion and Science.” Washington, DC : Pew Research Center . Glass , Jennifer , and Jerry Jacobs . 2005 . “ Childhood Religious Conservatism and Adult Attainment Among Black and White Women .” Social Forces 83 : 555 – 79 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Glass , Jennifer , and Philip Levchak . 2014 . “ Red States, Blue States, and Divorce: Understanding the Impact of Conservative Protestantism on Regional Variation in Divorce Rates .” American Journal of Sociology 119 : 1002 – 46 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Goodstein , Laurie . 2005 . “ Airforce Academy Staff Found Promoting Religion .” New York Times , June 23. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/politics/air-force-academy-staff-found-promoting-religion.html Gorski , Philip S. , and Ateş Altinordu . 2008 . “ After Secularization ?” Annual Review of Sociology 34 : 55 – 85 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Gunter , Jen . 2014 . “ The Medical Facts about Birth Control and Hobby Lobby—From an OB/GYN .” New Republic , July 6. Hafner , Katie . 2018 . “ As Catholic Hospitals Expand, So Do Limits on Some Procedures .” New York Times , August 10. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/health/catholic-hospitals-procedures.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news Hartig , Hannah . 2018 . Republicans Turn More Negative Toward Refugees as Number Admitted to U.S. Plummets . Washington, DC : Pew Research Center . Hu , Elise . 2012 . “ Chick-Fil-A Gay Flap A ‘Wakeup Call’ For Companies .” NPR , July 27. https://www.npr.org/2012/07/27/157417229/chick-fil-a-gay-flap-a-wakeup-call-for-companies Keister , Lisa A . 2003 . “ Religion and Wealth: The Role of Religious Affiliation and Participation in Early Adult Asset Accumulation .” Social Forces 82 : 175 – 207 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS ———. 2008 . “ Conservative Protestants and Wealth: How Religion Perpetuates Asset Poverty .” American Journal of Sociology 113 : 1237 – 71 . Crossref Search ADS Leon McDaniel , Eric , Irfan Nooruddin , and Allyson Faith Shortle . 2011 . “ Divine Boundaries: How Religion Shapes Citizens’ Attitudes Toward Immigrants .” American Politics Research 39 : 205 – 33 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Lipka , Michael . 2017 . Muslims and Islam: Key Findings in the U.S. and Around the World . Washington, DC : Pew Research Center . Longest , Kyle C. , and Jeremy E. Uecker . 2018 . “ Beliefs About Evolution and Educational Attainment .” Sociological Forum . doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12450 Lubienski , Christopher , Tiffany Puckett , and T. Jameson Brewer . 2013 . “ Does Homeschooling “Work”? A Critique of the Empirical Claims and Agenda of Advocacy Organizations .” Peabody Journal of Education 88 : 378 – 92 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Martin-Chang , Sandra , Odette N. Gould , and Reanne E. Meuse . 2011 . “ The Impact of Schooling on Academic Achievement: Evidence from Homeschooled and Traditionally Schooled Students .” Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science / Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement 43 : 195 – 202 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Masci , David . 2009 . Religion and Science in the United States: Scientists and Belief . Washington, DC : Pew Research Center . McCarthy , Angela Farizo , Nicholas T. Davis , James C. Garand , and Laura R. Olson . 2016 . “ Religion and Attitudes Toward Redistributive Policies Among Americans .” Political Research Quarterly 6 : 121 – 33 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS McGaughy , Lauren . 2017 . “The Texas bathroom bill is dead – for now.” Dallas Morning News . August 15. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-legislature/2017/08/15/transgender- texans-cautiously-optimistic-bathroom-bill-declared-dead-now McMorris , Jennifer E . 2016 . “The Role of Religion and Gender in Shaping STEM Education and Workforce Participation.” PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin . Murphy , Joseph . 2014 . “ The Social and Educational Outcomes of Homeschooling .” Sociological Spectrum 34 : 244 – 72 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS NeJaime , Douglas , and Reva B. Siegel . 2014 . “ Conscience Wars: Complicity-Based Conscience Claims in Religion and Politics .” Yale Law Journal 124 : 2516 . Nita , Maria . 2016 . Praying and Campaigning with Environmental Christians . New York : Palgrave Macmillan . Pearce , Lisa D . 2010 . “ Religion and the Timing of First Births in the United States .” In Religion, Families, and Health: Population-Based Research in the United States , edited by Christopher G Ellison and Robert A Hummer . New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press , 19 – 39 . Rosenberg-Douglas , Katherine . 2018 . “ Measure Allowing Adoption Agencies to Discriminate Against Same-Sex Couples Prompts Outcry from Illinois Lawmakers .” Chicago Tribune , July 16. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-amendment-congress-adoption-gay-20180716-story.html Sharkey , Patrick , Gerard Torrats-Espinosa , and Delaram Takyar . 2017 . “ Community and the Crime Decline: The Causal Effect of Local Nonprofits on Violent Crime .” American Sociological Review 82 : 1214 – 40 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Sharma , Anuradha , and Vishal Arora . 2014 . “ Nirvanaless: Asian Buddhism’s Growing Fundamentalist Streak .” Washington Post , May 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/nirvanaless-asian-buddhisms-growing-fundamentalist-streak/2014/05/01/9af7413c-d161-11e3-a714-be7e7f142085_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6438c253744b Sikkink , David . 2009 . “ Conservative Protestants, Schooling, and Democracy .” In Evangelicals and Democracy in America, Volume 1: Religion and Society , edited by Steven Brint and Jean Reith Schroedel , 276 – 303 . New York : Russell Sage Foundation . Skocpol , Theda , and Vanessa Williamson . 2016 . The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism . New York : Oxford University Press . Smith , Christian , Michael Emerson , Sally Gallagher , Paul Kennedy , and David Sikkink . 1998 . American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving . Chicago : University of Chicago Press . Steffan , Melissa . 2013 . “ Most Pastors Don’t Believe in Global Warming .” Christianity Today , April 17. Sullivan , Dennis M . 2006 . “ The Oral Contraceptive as Abortifacient: An Analysis of the Evidence .” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith . 58 : 189 . Tarakeshwar , Nalini , Aaron B. Swank , Kenneth I. Pargament , and Annette Mahoney . 2001 . “ The Sanctification of Nature and Theological Conservatism: A Study of Opposing Religious Correlates of Environmentalism .” Review of Religious Research 42 : 387 – 404 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Todd , Nathan R. , Elizabeth A. McConnell , and Rachael L. Suffrin . 2014 . “ The Role of Attitudes Toward White Privilege and Religious Beliefs in Predicting Social Justice Interest and Commitment .” American Journal of Community Psychology 53 : 109 – 21 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS PubMed Whitehead , Andrew L. , Samuel L. Perry , and Joseph O. Baker . 2018 . “ Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election .” Sociology of Religion 79 : 147 – 71 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS Wilson , Robin Fretwell . 2012 . “ The Calculus of Accommodation: Contraception, Abortion, Same-Sex Marriage, and Other Clashes Between Religion and the State .” Boston College Law Review 53 : 1417 . Woodsong , Cynthia , Michele Shedlin and Helen Koo . 2004 . “ The ‘Natural’ Body, God and Contraceptive Use in the Southeastern United States .” Culture, Health & Sexuality 6 : 61 – 78 . Google Scholar Crossref Search ADS PubMed Worth , Robert F . 2018 . “ The Billionaire Yogi Behind Modi’s Rise .” New York Times Magazine , July 26. Footnotes 1 These are underestimates because of the strong current relationship between religious and political affiliation among white conservative Christians. As Katharine Hayhoe, atmospheric scientist at Texas Tech University said in June of 2017, “Somehow evangelicalism got politicized to the point where, [for] many people who call themselves evangelicals, their theological statement is written by their political party first.” 2 But curiously, these patterns of early family formation do not hold for black evangelical Protestants, although evidence of their truncated educational attainment compared to nonevangelical Christian peers exists (Glass and Jacobs 2005). © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Why Aren’t We Paying Attention? Religion and Politics in Everyday Life
JO - Sociology of Religion
DO - 10.1093/socrel/sry041
DA - 2019-01-09
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/why-aren-t-we-paying-attention-religion-and-politics-in-everyday-life-3FEemLjou3
SP - 9
VL - 80
IS - 1
DP - DeepDyve
ER -