Abstract
Many observers suggest that white evangelical Protestant churches serve to mobilize their members into politics, while others argue that they encourage withdrawal from political life. This paper reconciles these two claims. I hypothesize that the time members of evangelical Protestant denominations spend in service to their church comes at the expense of participation in the wider community, contrary to the way mainline Protestant and Catholic churches foster civic activity among their members. However, I further hypothesize that the tight social networks formed through this intensive church activity can at times facilitate rapid and intense political mobilization. Data from the Citizen Participation Study supports the first hypothesis, while applying King's method of ecological inference to two elections in Alabama supports the second.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Achen, Christopher, and Phillips Shively W. (1995). Cross-Level Inference. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Benoit, Kenneth, and Gary King (2001). EzI: An (Easy) Program for Ecological Inference. Available at gking.harvard.edu (accessed 3-27-04).
Brady, Henry E., Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Sidney Verba (1999). Prospecting for participants: rational expectations and the recruitment of political activists. American Political Science Review 93: 153–168.
Cassel, Carol A. (1999). Voluntary associations, churches, and social participation theories of turnout. Social Science Quarterly 80: 504–517.
Cho, Wandy K., Tam, and Brian J. Gaines (2004). The limits of ecological inference: the case of split-ticket voting. American Journal of Political Science 48: 152–171.
Dionne, E. J. (1991). Why Americans Hate Politics. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Finke, Roger, and Rodney Stark (1992). The Churching of America 1776-1990: Winners and Losers In Our Religious Economy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Firestone, David (1999). Religious leaders prevail as Alabama shuns lottery. New York Times, October 13, A1.
Garrison, Greg (1999). Lottery vote shows power of church. Birmingham News, October 14.
Glenmary Research Center. (2002). Religious Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000 [CD-ROM]. Nashville, TN: Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies.
Guth, James L., and John C. Green (1996). Politics in a new key: religiosity and participation among political activists. In John C. Green, James L. Guth, Corwin E. Smidt and Lyman A. Kellstedt (eds.), Religion and the Culture Wars: Dispatches From the Front, pp. 117–145. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Guth, James L., John C., Green, Corwin E., Smidt, Lyman A., Kellstedt, and Margaret M. Poloma (1997). The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Hammond, Phillip E., and Wade Clark Roof (1988). The Four-State Church Involvement Study, 1988 [Computer file]. American Religion Data Archive [distributor].
Harris, Fredrick C. (1999). Something Within: Religion in African-American Political Activism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Herrmann, Richard K., Philip E., Tetlock, and Penny S. Visser (1999). Mass public decisions on going to war: a cognitive-interactionist framework. American Political Science Review 93: 553–574.
Herron, Michael C., and Kenneth W. Shotts (2004). Logical inconsistency in EI-based second-stage regressions. American Journal of Political Science 48: 172–183.
Hougland, James G., and James A. Christensen (1983). Religion and politics: the relationship of religious participation to political efficacy and involvement. Sociology and Social Research 67: 405–420.
Iannaccone, Laurence R. (1992). Sacrifice and stigma: reducing free-riding in cults, communes, and other collectivities. Journal of Political Economy 100: 271–291.
Iannaccone, Laurence R. (1994). Why strict churches are strong. American Journal of Sociology 99: 1180–1211.
Iannaccone, Laurence R. (1995). Risk, rationality, and religious portfolios. Economic Inquiry 33: 285–295.
Jones-Correa, Michael A., and David L. Leal (2001). Political participation: does religion matter? Political Research Quarterly 54: 751–770.
Kelley, Dean M. (1977). Why Conservative Churches are Growing: A Study in the Sociology of Religion. San Francisco: Harper and Row.
Kellstedt, Lyman A., and John C. Green (1993). Knowing God's many people: denominational preference and political behavior. In David C. Leege and Lyman A. Kellstedt (eds.), Rediscovering the Religious Factor in American Politics, pp. 53–71. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Kellstedt, Lyman A., John C., Green, James L., Guth, and Corwin E. Smidt (1996). Grasping the essentials: the social embodiment of religion and political behavior. In John C. Green, James L. Guth, Corwin E. Smidt and Lyman A. Kellstedt (eds.), Religion and the Culture Wars: Dispatches From the Front, pp. 174–192. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
King, Gary (1997). A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem: Reconstructing Individual Behavior from Aggregate Data. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kohut, Andrew, John C., Green, Scott Keeter, and Robert C. Toth (2000). The Diminishing Divide: Religion's Changing Role in American Politics. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Layman, Geoffrey (2001). The Great Divide: Religious and Cultural Conflict in American Party Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Macaluso, Theodore F., and John Wanat (1979). Voting turnout and religiosity. Polity 12: 158–169.
Martinson, Oscar B., and E.A. Wilkening (1987). Religious participation and involvement in local politics throughout the life cycle. Sociological Focus 20(4): 309–318.
Meier, Kenneth J. (1994). The Politics of Sin. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Miller, Warren E., and J. Merrill Shanks. (1996). The New American Voter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Peterson, Steven A. (1992). Church participation and political participation: the spillover effect. American Politics Quarterly 20: 123–139.
Putnam, Robert D. (1993). Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Putnam, Robert D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Robinson, William S. (1950). Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals. American Sociological Review 15: 351–357.
Rosenstone, Steven J., and John Mark Hansen (1993). Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan.
Saunders, Jessica (1999). Lottery opponents begin 24-hour prayer vigil. Decatur Daily News, October 11.
Sharp, Elaine B., ed. (1999). Culture Wars and Local Politics. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
Smith, Christian (1998). American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Stanley, Harold W., and Christian Grose (2000). Alabama 1998: luck runs out for GOP and Christian right as Democrats gamble on the lottery. In John C. Green, Mark J. Rozell and Clyde Wilcox (eds.), Prayers in the Precincts: The Christian Right in the 1998 Elections. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Steensland, Brian, Jerry Z., Park, Mark D., Regnerus, Lynn D., Robinson, W., Bradford Wilcox, and Robert D. Woodberry (2000). The measure of American religion: toward improving the state of the art. Social Forces 79: 291–318.
Strate, John M., Charles J., Parrish, Charles D., Elder, and Coit Ford (1989). Life span civic development and voting participation. American Political Science Review 83: 443–464.
Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry E., Brady, and Norma Nie (1995). American Citizen Participation Study, 1990 [Computer file]. University of Chicago, National Opinion Research Center [producer]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]. ICPSR # 6635.
Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady (1995). Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wald, Kenneth D. (2003). Religion and Politics in the United States. 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Wald, Kenneth D., Dennis E., Owen, and Jr. Samuel S. Hill (1990). Political cohesion in churches. Journal of Politics 52(1): 197–215.
Wilcox, Clyde. (1996). Onward Christian Soldiers? The Religious Right in American Politics. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Wuthnow, Robert. (1999). Mobilizing civic engagement: the changing impact of religious involvement. In Civic Engagement in American Democracy, edited by T. Skocpol and M. Fiorina. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press/Russell Sage Foundation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Campbell, D.E. Acts of Faith: Churches and Political Engagement. Political Behavior 26, 155–180 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:POBE.0000035961.78836.5f
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:POBE.0000035961.78836.5f