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Is Evil Good for Religion? The Link between Supernatural Evil and Religious Commitment

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Review of Religious Research

Abstract

“The devil made me do it” is a familiar cliché often used to justify a bad decision. However, are beliefs in a devil or other evil supernatural beings actually beneficial for religion? Building upon Stark and Bainbridge (1987) and elements of the supernatural punishment hypothesis, this study proposes and tests the hypothesis that a positive relationship exists between the belief in supernatural evil and religious commitment. Data from 2007 Baylor Religion Survey reveal a strong positive correlation between the belief in supernatural evil and four measures of religious commitment: church attendance, religious perception, tithing, and faith sharing. This study not only contributes to a long discussion of religious commitment, but it also has implications for the growing literature on god images and the supernatural punishment hypothesis.

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Notes

  1. All Regression models were also run with un-weighted numbers, and the results remained consistent with the weighted data.

  2. This model was also run with an ordered logit, and while the results remained consistent with the binary logistic regression, this model violated the proportional odds assumption. There was also not enough variation between those who selected “not at all religious” and the rest of the sample to run a multinomial regression as doing so resulted in several blank cases.

  3. All models were also run with a system of dummy variables measuring biblical literalism, and the results remained consistent with the models used in the study. These models are available upon request.

  4. Due to the numbers of religious variables included in these models, multicollinearity diagnostics were run on all models. In the OLS model, all VIF scores were less than 2.5. The correlation between predictors in all models was less than 0.5. Full multicollinearity diagnostics are also available upon request.

  5. In order to calculate standardized coefficients for logistic regressions the following equation is used: β = (b)(s x )/(π/√3). For a further discussion on the use of this equation see Allison (2001) and Menard (2011).

  6. In ancillary models not included, I ran interactions with the Belief in Supernatural Evil and the various religious traditions in order to see if this belief is more salient with some traditions more than it is with others. No significant interactions were present in the models predicting self-perceived religiosity, tithing or faith sharing. However, significant interactions were found in the congregational attendance model. In this model the correlation between belief in supernatural evil and attendance was strongest with Evangelical Protestants and non-significant for the Nones and Jews.

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Acknowledgments

The Baylor Religion Survey is supported by the John T. Templeton Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Baylor University, One Bear Place #97326, Waco, 76798-7326, TX, USA

    Brandon C. Martinez

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  1. Brandon C. Martinez
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Correspondence to Brandon C. Martinez.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 6.

Table 6 Descriptive Statistics for All Variables
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Martinez, B.C. Is Evil Good for Religion? The Link between Supernatural Evil and Religious Commitment. Rev Relig Res 55, 319–338 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-012-0094-x

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