Suchergebnisse

Interactions with people who are different become more common and significant as the world becomes more closely connected, both physically and culturally. One of the ways in which such cultural collisions are most deeply felt is over matters of religion. The author explores the importance of religious traditions in sculpting the attitudes religious people hold toward the validity of alternative faiths. By employing the statistical techniques of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), the current analysis is able to combine prior explanations of individual-level behavior with the contextual effects of the religious congregation, such as strictness, racial homogeneity, and membership size. This is accomplished with the 2001 United States Congregational Life Survey. Results indicate that all religions have distinct ways of influencing the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and pluralistic attitudes, but that more particular features of the congregation are only sporadically significant.

English Religious pluralism has long been a trait of American society but never to the extent seen in the past 40 years. Data from the 2000 Religion and Politics Survey are analyzed to test what social factors are most likely to cause acceptance and rejection of other religious traditions. Factor analyses of eight questions regarding attitudes toward other religions define two distinct measures of pluralistic worldviews. While exposure to foreign religious ideas is an important part of an inclusive worldview, denomination and religious activity are stronger predictors of exclusivity. Further findings show the importance of these views in influencing religious, political and social actions. French Le pluralisme religieux a longtemps été une caractéristique de la société américaine mais jamais au point atteint durant les 40 dernières années. Les données de l'enquěte ''Religion and Politics Survey'' de 2000 sont analysées pour tester les facteurs sociaux les plus susceptibles de susciter l'acceptation et le rejet d'autres traditions religieuses. Les analyses factorielles de huit questions concernant les attitudes envers d'autres religions définissent deux mesures distinctes de visions du monde pluralistes. Alors que l'exposition aux idées religieuses étrangères constitue une partie importante d'une vision du monde inclusive, la confession et l'activité religieuse sont des prédicteurs forts de l'exclusivité. Des résultats plus approfondis montrent l'importance de ces visions en terme d'influence sur les actions religieuses, politiques et sociales.

AbstractReliable data on Protestant and Catholic membership in 18 Latin American nations show that Protestants have recruited a larger percentage of the population in many nations than previously estimated. Analysis of these data shows that, as predicted by the theory of religious economies, the Catholic Church has been invigorated by the Protestant challenge: Catholic mass attendance has risen to unprecedented levels, and is highest in nations where Protestants have made the greatest gains.

While the availability of Internet data on religious organizations has increased exponentially the use of such resources remains limited. The authors make use of a new research method involving weblink analysis to study nondenominational churches which are difficult to examine using conventional research techniques. One reason for this is the perception that independent churches lack the coherency of denominational populations, which creates methodological and theoretical challenges. The authors explore this assumption by examining the social and symbolic networks of a sample of independent congregations. Using the outgoing links from congregational websites, the authors find that there is more overlap than one might expect. This simultaneously enhances our understanding of this particular religious group as well as demonstrating the usefulness of such a research methodology.