Religious Identity‐Inconsistent Attending: Its Correlates and Political Implications

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

[1]  Paul A. Djupe,et al.  Congregation Shopping During the Pandemic: A Research Note , 2022, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

[2]  Paul A. Djupe,et al.  The Religious Communication Approach and Political Behavior , 2022, Political Psychology.

[3]  W. Bainbridge,et al.  The Restructuring of American Religion , 2021 .

[4]  Paul A. Djupe,et al.  Falling Through the Cracks: Dealing with the Problem of the Unclassifieds in RELTRAD , 2021, Review of Religious Research.

[5]  Philip Schwadel,et al.  Choose the Method for Aggregating Religious Identities that Is Most Appropriate for Your Research , 2018, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

[6]  Gregory A. Smith,et al.  Comparing the RELTRAD and Born‐Again/Evangelical Self‐Identification Approaches to Measuring American Protestantism , 2018, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

[7]  M. Margolis.  From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity , 2018 .

[8]  Paul A. Djupe,et al.  Are the Politics of the Christian Right Linked to State Rates of the Nonreligious? The Importance of Salient Controversy , 2018 .

[9]  Jason E. Shelton,et al.  Black Reltrad: Measuring Religious Diversity and Commonality Among African Americans , 2017 .

[10]  N. Ammerman.  Lived religion as an emerging field: an assessment of its contours and frontiers , 2016 .

[11]  A. Audette,et al.  Filling Pews and Voting Booths , 2016 .

[12]  M. Hout,et al.  Explaining why more americans have no religious preference: Political backlash and generational succession, 1987-2012 , 2014 .

[13]  Philip Schwadel,et al.  Pentecostal Affiliation , 2013 .

[14]  Amy B. Becker.  Determinants of Public Support for Same-Sex Marriage: Generational Cohorts, Social Contact, and Shifting Attitudes , 2012 .

[15]  Nicholas Vargas.  Retrospective Accounts of Religious Disaffiliation in the United States: Stressors, Skepticism, and Political Factors , 2012 .

[16]  A. R. Lewis,et al.  Belonging Without Belonging: Utilizing Evangelical Self-Identification to Analyze Political Attitudes and Preferences , 2010 .

[17]  J. Guth,et al.  The Oxford handbook of religion and American politics , 2009 .

[18]  Robert J. Wuthnow.  After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion , 2007 .

[19]  Philip Schwadel,et al.  Individual, congregational, and denominational effects on church members' civic participation , 2005 .

[20]  Tom W. Smith,et al.  The Vanishing Protestant Majority , 2005 .

[21]  Matthew T. Loveland.  Religious Switching: Preference Development, Maintenance, and Change , 2003 .

[22]  M. Hout,et al.  Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Politics and Generations , 2002, American Sociological Review.

[23]  D. Sherkat.  Tracking the Restructuring of American Religion: Religious Affiliation and Patterns of Religious Mobility, 1973-1998 , 2001 .

[24]  Mark Regnerus,et al.  The Measure of American Religion: Toward Improving the State of the Art , 2000 .

[25]  C. Ellison,et al.  RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND CURRENT CONTROVERSIES IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION , 1999 .

[26]  R. Bibby.  GOING, GOING, GONE: THE IMPACT OF GEOGRAPHICAL MOBILITY ON RELIGIOUS INVOLVEMENT* , 1997 .

[27]  John Wilson,et al.  Religious Switching for Marriage Reasons , 1995 .

[28]  P. Marler,et al.  All in the Family: Religious Mobility in America , 1993 .

[29]  T. Jelen.  Political Christianity: A Contextual Analysis , 1992 .

[30]  Erich Segal.  Acts of Faith , 1992 .

[31]  Tom W. Smith.  Classifying Protestant Denominations , 1990 .

[32]  D. E. Owen,et al.  Churches as Political Communities , 1988, American Political Science Review.

[33]  M. Hout,et al.  The Center Doesn't Hold: Church Attendance in the United States, 1940-1984 , 1987 .

[34]  R. Mccormick.  Ethno-Cultural Interpretations of Nineteenth-Century American Voting Behavior , 1974 .

[35]  J. Jackson,et al.  Faith without Works Is Dead , 2021 .

[36]  Paul A. Djupe,et al.  Reconsidering the Role of Politics in Leaving Religion: The Importance of Affiliation , 2018 .

[37]  W. C. Roof.  The Ambiguities of “Religious Preference” in Survey Research–A Methodological Note , 1980 .

[38]  D. G. Taylor,et al.  Determining Religious Affiliation Through Survey Research A Methodological Note , 1976 .