{"title":"A Couple's Religious Affiliation Status and Charitable Giving: A Closer Look","authors":"Young-Joo Lee, David P. King","doi":"10.1111/jssr.70040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70040","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study examines how religious dynamics in a household are connected to its giving patterns. Specifically, we test how a married or cohabitating heterosexual couple's religious affiliation status relates to the likelihood of donation by tracking the shifts using a three-tiered classification: (1) general giving, (2) giving to religious and secular organizations, (3) giving to religious congregations, religiously identified nonprofit organizations (RINOs), and nonreligiously identified nonprofit organizations (NRINOs). The analysis reveals distinct relationships between the five configurations of religious affiliation of a couple and the likelihood of donation, implying the role that religion continues to play in practices of giving. In particular, differentiating nonprofits based on their religious identity offers new insights into how interfaith couples make their donation decisions. The findings also suggest that when only one partner is religiously affiliated, the woman's affiliation, rather than the man's, is the primary driver of non-congregational giving.</p>","PeriodicalId":51390,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion","volume":"65 2","pages":"360-373"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jssr.70040","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148268806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Reputational Configuration and Dynamics of Christian Churches in Switzerland","authors":"Rebekka Rieser, Mark Eisenegger, Jörg Schneider","doi":"10.1111/jssr.70025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70025","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study examines how the reputation of Christian churches is configured, and which sociodemographic variables and experiences (personal or mediated) relate to it. It provides in-depth insights into how the Swiss population evaluates Roman Catholic, Reformed Protestant, and Evangelical churches on the basis of various theories, such as organizational reputation, media, and social identity theories, embedded in a religious sociological context. Data from representative online surveys conducted in 2022 and 2023 show that perceived identity and attractiveness are the most critical factors for a general organizational reputation in a religious context. The results show that online and offline news media significantly influence the reputation formation of the Roman Catholic Church. However, social media has a less significant influence on churches in general. They also show that Protestants and Catholics rate each other better than Evangelicals, and religiosity is the most decisive factor in rating churches favorably.</p>","PeriodicalId":51390,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion","volume":"65 2","pages":"217-228"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jssr.70025","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148269246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What Counts as Discrimination Against Whom? Understanding Perceived Discrimination Against Christians","authors":"Michele F. Margolis","doi":"10.1111/jssr.70023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70023","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>White evangelical Christians consistently report feeling among the most discriminated against groups in the United States. Taking this surprising empirical finding as a point of departure, this article investigates why white evangelicals perceive such high levels of discrimination. Drawing on data from a large-scale survey experiment, the study finds that white evangelicals are especially attuned to slights directed at a fellow Christian but are significantly less likely to view the same behavior as discriminatory when it targets a member of a religious out-group. Moreover, this pattern is unique to white evangelicals: White non-evangelicals and non-white evangelicals are equally likely to perceive discrimination, regardless of the religious identity of the target. These results underscore the power of group identity in shaping perceptions and suggest that white evangelicals tend to interpret social experiences through religion-tinted glasses.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":51390,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion","volume":"65 2","pages":"203-216"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148269245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Crowding Out the Market: State Religious Policy and Social Capital Among Religious Adherents","authors":"Brendan Szendrő","doi":"10.1111/jssr.70026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70026","url":null,"abstract":"<p>How do governments’ policies toward religion impact the relationship between citizens and civil society? A large body of literature examines the effect of social capital on democratic governance. Studies of State Religious Policy, or SRP, however, have shown complex and potentially contradictory effects on different types of social capital. Focusing on participation as a particular aspect of social capital, I argue that both supportive and restrictive policies toward religion reduce religious adherents’ incentives to participate in both religious institutions and civil society as a whole. I test this theory using a multilevel analysis of Christian-majority democracies. I find that both supportive and restrictive policies reduce the effect of religious adherence on service attendance, membership in religious institutions, and participation in civil society organizations. Restrictive policies consistently show stronger effects than supportive ones. Robustness tests indicate that these findings hold in any sample of democratic countries but are weaker or nonexistent when nondemocratic countries are included.</p>","PeriodicalId":51390,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion","volume":"65 2","pages":"259-269"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jssr.70026","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148268978","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“This Is Not a Space for Politics”: Intergenerational Disagreements About the Meanings of Church Space","authors":"Soulit Chacko, Rhys H. Williams","doi":"10.1111/jssr.70021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70021","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This article examines the meanings and values attached to an immigrant church by exploring the contents of intergenerational conflict within Christian Indian American families in the United States. Using ethnographic research from two Indian Christian churches in the United States, we find that a source of intergenerational conflict concerns varying expectations of “proper behaviors” within the ethnic church. In examining these expectations, we find “divergent social and cultural understandings” of the ethnic church as a sacred site between the first and second generations. These different understandings mirror the diverging roles of religion for different generations. We uncover the different generational expressions of sacred space as both “physical” (tied to the church building) and “cultural” (expectations of appropriate behavior within that location). We argue that although immigrant intergenerational conflicts are shaped by opposing connections between “religion” and “ethnic culture,” they are also informed by conflicting understanding of “place,” which encompasses geographical, social, and religious dimensions.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":51390,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion","volume":"65 2","pages":"163-174"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148269263","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Black Church, Gay Church: Identity Prioritization and Church Preference Among Black Sexual Minorities","authors":"Mo Woods, Luther Young Jr.","doi":"10.1111/jssr.70032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70032","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Sexual orientation and gender identity remain hotly debated topics in US Christianity. A growing body of research explores the relationship between LGBTQ people and the Church. However, prior studies have not adequately examined how minoritized identities inform where people prefer to worship. This article draws on in-depth interviews to examine how Black LGBTQ individuals discuss their congregational preferences and how their social identities shape those preferences. Findings reveal that Black sexual minorities view their racial identity as most central and tend to prioritize their racial and religious identities when choosing a congregation. The uniqueness of Black Christian worship spaces, antipathy for affirming churches that profusely center sexuality, and viewing affirming churches as less legitimate prompt Black LGBTQ people to favor Black churches over affirming ones. The results foreground the role of identity in religious participation and call for additional critical scholarship on the complex relationship between race and religion.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":51390,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion","volume":"65 2","pages":"323-333"},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148268799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Faith in Transition: The Complex Interplay of Parent and Peer Influences on Catholic Value Internalization Among College Students","authors":"Joy Ott, Jennifer Vonk, Deirdre Yeater","doi":"10.1111/jssr.70006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70006","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Declines in religiosity are often observed during the college years, perhaps due to decreases in parental oversight and increases in peer influence. We explored the role of parent, peer, and school (Catholic or secular) experiences on religiosity (beliefs and behavior) among 270 Catholic students as mediated through introjected and identified internalization. Internalization is a process whereby individuals acquire and assimilate values, ranging from relatively superficial adoption (i.e., introjection) to profound integration of values (i.e., identification). Parent experiences predicted internalization and religious beliefs; these associations were moderated by peer experiences and school. Parent experience was significantly associated with belief only for students at a secular university with low levels of peer experience. Importantly, whereas parent experiences predicted both types of internalization, only identified internalization predicted current religious beliefs and behaviors, which suggests that identification leads to stronger correspondence between early religious experiences with parents and later religious beliefs and behaviors.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":51390,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion","volume":"65 1","pages":"3-16"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147569824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Veil in the Abrahamic Faiths: A Cross-National Analysis","authors":"Mansoor Moaddel","doi":"10.1111/jssr.70013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70013","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Explanations for veiling among Muslim women fall into two main clusters of ethnographic studies. The first, from the 1990s, sees veiling as an accommodation strategy through which women navigate tensions between autonomy and patriarchy or subvert such norms to cultivate piety—though the evidence still reflects fundamentalism's influence. The second, emerging after the 2011 Arab Spring, focuses on women doffing the veil. Viewed together, the two reflect the spirit of their times: veiling aligned with the rise of fundamentalism, unveiling with its decline. Using a clash-of-values framework, this paper analyzes data from 10 Middle Eastern countries and among adherents of the Abrahamic faiths. Findings show veiling preference skews more conservative in fundamentalist contexts, while liberal ones support more relaxed dress codes. Sartorial conservatism weakens with greater female employment and social media access, but strengthens in countries with more men and younger populations. At the individual level, conservative veiling correlates with stronger fundamentalist orientation, religiosity, and support for gender segregation, but weakens among those committed to liberal values or with higher socioeconomic status. Since clothing projects power, future research should examine how the nature of political power mediates religion–clothing dynamics.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":51390,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion","volume":"65 1","pages":"80-94"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147563635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Partisan and Racial Sorting of Christian Nationalism, 1996–2022: Backlash and Counter Backlash on the (White) Secular Left and Religious Right","authors":"Jesse Smith","doi":"10.1111/jssr.70015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70015","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Christian nationalism scholarship and discourse has surged in the years since Trump's 2016 election victory, even as, by most measures, adherence to Christian nationalist beliefs has declined. Applying scholarship on political backlash, I propose that this apparent discrepancy may be explained both by ideological trends antithetical to public religion among Democrats and politicization of religious identity among Republicans, leading to partisan divergence. Given evidence of the racialization of the culture wars, I expect these trends to be most pronounced among whites. I test these prospects by examining the partisan sorting of Christian nationalism from 1996 to 2022. I find evidence of a minor increase among Republicans and sharp declines among Democrats from 2014 onward, concentrated among whites. Based on these findings, I argue that increased attention to Christian nationalism reflects shifts in the content of symbolic conflicts among white partisans rather than any meaningful change in population-level prevalence or influence.</p>","PeriodicalId":51390,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion","volume":"65 1","pages":"111-122"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jssr.70015","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147569614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Daniel M. Nguyễn, Michael C. Lotspeich-Yadao, Nathan R. Todd
{"title":"Geographic Distribution of LGBT Affirming Christian Churches and Same-Sex Households by US County","authors":"Daniel M. Nguyễn, Michael C. Lotspeich-Yadao, Nathan R. Todd","doi":"10.1111/jssr.70017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.70017","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this study, we examine where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) affirming Christian churches are geographically located across the United States. Notably, many LGBT people practice religion and proximity to affirming churches may provide access to religious capital which supports well-being. We use the religious economies model to inform hypotheses which we examine using visualization. We first present maps of affirming churches and same-sex households across US Counties. We then present a bivariate map through combined colors which shows how affirming churches and same-sex households coexist spatially. We found affirming churches were geographically patterned: more were present in the Northeast, Western, and Northern states in the Midwest. There was an <i>undersupply</i> of affirming churches in the South and some states in the West and an <i>oversupply</i> in some Midwestern and Western states. Thus, where LGBT people live may shape access to affirming churches.</p>","PeriodicalId":51390,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion","volume":"65 1","pages":"136-144"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jssr.70017","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147570156","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}