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Abstract: Religious groups often rely on a registration process to receive the legal status needed to operate openly. Yet, the registration process has become a recent source of controversy. This research uses case studies, trend data from three global collections, and fixed effects models using 19 waves of data to test for the consequences of introducing registration requirements within a nation. The case studies help us to understand the controversies and to identify how registration requirements have been used to increase restrictions on religions in the past, while the trend data document the increasing use of these requirements for discriminating against religions. Finally, the fixed effects models find that introducing registration requirements within a nation was followed by increased religious restrictions, especially for minority religions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promises of religious freedoms have become the standard in national constitutions. Yet, despite these assurances, religious freedoms are routinely denied. Combining new data collections with expanded theoretical explanations, this research explores how dimensions of governance and measures of the religious economy contribute to government restrictions on religion. Consistent with recent work on the judicialization of politics, we find that the absence of an independent judiciary is an important predictor of government restrictions on religious freedoms, whereas free elections and government effectiveness are insignificant in our full models. Consistent with the religious economy theory, we find that social restrictions and government favoritism toward a religion(s) are persistent predictors of the government's restrictions. Although the proportion of the population Muslim holds a strong bivariate association with government restrictions (r = .57), the relationship is reduced to insignificance in our full models. We briefly discuss the implications of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing survey measures of religion is deceptively difficult. As religion in America becomes more diverse and research projects become more global, finding a shared vocabulary that taps into concepts of interest and selecting response categories that capture the full range of choices becomes ever more challenging. This research project introduces new tools and techniques for exploring and evaluating past survey measures of religion, including a new software tool that draws on the ARDA's massive collection of survey measures. We offer two examples to demonstrate how these resources can serve to evaluate past survey measures of religion and improve future measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that religious groups sustain organizational vitality by preserving core teachings and promoting adaptive innovations. The core teachings guard the sacred beliefs and practices held as timeless, and the innovations adapt these teachings to new cultures and contexts—with the most successful innovations building on the core. Using organizational theory and previous research, I explain how core teachings sustain vitality and I uncover the organizational mechanisms stimulating and blocking innovations. Historical examples are used to illustrate how denominations struggle to preserve the continuity of distinctive core teachings and promote adaptive innovations. Finally, I discuss the implications this thesis holds for the study of American religion, both past and present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evangelical renewal movements (ERMs) are proliferating in the old Protestant mainline and they show few signs of splitting from their parent denominations. Ironically, the very theological pluralism that ERMs seek to eliminate has provided an opportunity for their entry and a barrier for their expulsion. This essay offers an introduction to the evangelical movements arising in the mainline and reports the initial findings from a survey of United Methodist clergy's involvement in ERMs. As expected, United Methodist clergy are predominantly older, white males leading small congregations. Surprisingly, however, fully 29 percent of the clergy do not have a seminary degree and more than half of those with seminary degrees did not attend United Methodist-affiliated schools--with 22 percent attending an evangelical seminary. The clergy involved in ERMs are younger, more likely to have attended evangelical seminaries (or no seminary at all), and hold more exclusive Christian beliefs. The survey also found that the once isolated evangelical clergy of the United Methodist Church are now embedded in evangelical associations and hold friendships with other evangelical clergy. The implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates over seminary education have been at the heart of some of the most heated denominational battles and schisms, often focusing on doctrines being taught at the seminaries. This research moves beyond the debates over specific teachings and explains how seminaries cultivate distinctive social capital (e.g., resources secured through social networks) and religious capital (e.g., mastery of and attachment to a specific religious culture). Using historical and contemporary examples, we illustrate how seminaries provide clergy with social and religious capital that is distinctive from that of the laity. Finally, using Brunette-Hill's 1994 survey of Milwaukee clergy and the Educational Testing Service's 1996 survey of exiting seminarians, we test two propositions on seminary training and religious capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the 1990 Smith v. Employment Division of Oregon ruling on the limits of religious freedom, many protested that the Supreme Court had opened the door for majoritarian oppression of minority rights. Using data collected on 2,109 court cases on religion from 1981-1996 we document recent trends in court decisions on religion and address questions posed by supply-side theory, legal scholars, and the sociology of law. We find that religious sects and cults were more likely to be involved in court cases and more likely to receive unfavorable rulings. Multivariate models confirm these finding and support the charges of legal scholars that the Smith decision has decreased the rate of rulings favoring religious groups. Finally, we find that the Smith decision had both a period effect and a case precedent effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most enduring theoretical model for explaining the rise and fall of religious movements has been some form of the church-sect theory. Yet this model offers little explanation for the continued vitality of the Roman Catholic Church. We argue that a key to this success is the Church's ability to retain sect-like revival movements within its boundaries. We demonstrate that religious order, like Protestant sects stimulate organizational growth, develop innovations for adapting the church to a new culture or era, and provide institutional support for a high tension faith. Unlike Protestant sects, however; they do so within the institutional church. This source of internal reform and revival bees to explain the long term vitality the Roman Catholic Church and its ability to operate effectively as a religious monopoly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the social context of religious participation in the United States from 1850 to 1980. In order facilitate comparisons over the 130-year time span with approximately uniform measures, the author conducted a study that relied on census data and used states as the units of analysis. He used census reports on the proportion of men in the total population of the states. In order to measure religious participation the author computed the rate of church adherence in each of the time periods. The final estimates were based on religious statistics collected as a part of the regular 1850 census. It carefully recorded the number of churches, the value of church property and the seating capacity of each church in the nation. The results demonstrated the power effects of the social context. In 1890, 1926, and 1980 the percentage of males in the population proved to be a powerful predictor of religious participation. The mobility of the population also resulted in lower rates of church adherence.

The article demonstrates how evangelical sects dominated religion in the United States from 1776-1850. It is argued that the fortunes of these so-called "mainline" Protestant bodies began to decline rapidly in the late 18th and 19th centuries. But the reasons for the decline of Protestantism during the mentioned period are unnoticed. The article gives statistical information on the percentage of all religious adherents like Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, etc. during 1776-1850. One of the most striking differences between the clergy of the upstart sects and those of the colonial mainline, and the easiest to document, was education. It was no secret that the great majority of Baptist and Methodist ministers had little education. It was noted that meteoric rise of the Methodists was short-lived. By the turn of the century they had been passed by the Baptists, and in contemporary discussions of why conservative churches grow as liberals decline, the Methodists are classified with the latter. From 1850 onwards the Roman Catholics adopted Methodist and Baptist methods as they adjusted to the American free market.

Quantitative studies of 19th Century American religion have long been frustrated by a lack of data on religious affiliation In this essay we use census data on churches to reconstruct detailed membership estimates for 1850, 1860, and 1870 by means of weighted least squares equations. We then assess the validity of our membership estimates by comparing them to surviving statistics for several denominations and by demonstrating the sensitivity of our rates to historical nuances. The results are reassuring. This means that scholars now will have adequate data to chart the growth of the denominations and the general increase in church membership in the 19th Century -- not only for the nation, but broken down by regions and states.
Our primary purpose in this essay was to present and validate our method for reconstructing church membership statistics from the 1850-1870 census reports. We think the close agreement between our estimates and the surviving statistics for several denominations is a strong argument for trusting our results. But, perhaps even stronger support is lent them by the sensitive way in which temporal, regional and denominational patterns in the data reflect known historical patterns and forces. In any event, we are confident that these data win permit more careful assessments of American religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the effects of government actions that alter religious supply. Adam Smith's critique of established religion; Reposed benefices of the socialized church of Sweden; American religion since 1776 in freeing the market; Effects of religious competition in Japan; Televangelism and the Federal Communications Commission; Reconsideration of America's `consciousness reformation'; Conclusions.

Many observers have been perplexed by the sudden membership drop in Catholic religious orders following Vatican II reforms. They are faced with the paradox that increasing individual liberties and decreasing communal demands have been associated with membership declines. Using a recent survey of religious orders, I find strong support for the thesis that when religious orders limit nongroup activities (by supporting the traditional demands of membership) they are more successful in recruiting new members. But the thesis does not suggest that support for traditional demands stifles innovation or change, I use the activities of recently formed religious orders to illustrate how religious movements make innovative returns to tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of 13 published empirical tests of the proposition that religious pluralism results in higher rates of religious participation, only a study based in the 1851 religious census of England and Wales reported contrary results (Bruce 1992). We therefore subjected these fascinating data to a fuller and more adequate analysis, both statistical and historical. Our results do not replicate those reported by Bruce and are, instead, generally consistent with those of other studies. However, Bruce's paper did prompt us to add a qualifying proposition to our theory of religious mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses various contemporary evidence concerning religious thought and involvement. Correlation with good mental health; Response to perceived costs and benefits; Persistence in the face of advanced education and scientific training; Self-reported values of evangelicals versus others; Religiosity by population subgroup; Religiosity as a function of career and education.