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Scared into Church? Conceptions of God, Exclusivity, and Religious Practice in the United States

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Religion, Spirituality and Everyday Practice

Abstract

This chapter looks at the relationship between concepts of God and how active persons are in churches today. They posit that more exclusivist concepts of God will engender greater participation in church/religious life with respect to both private and public life. That is, people who see God as potentially excluding persons from eternal rewards who do not meet specific standards in this life will also cause these people to observe religious teachings in practices in both public and private circumstances.

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Notes

  1. 1.

     A question on the Baylor Religion Survey (2005) asked respondents to indicate which of several statements comes closest to their personal beliefs about God. Responses were as follows: “I don’t believe in anything beyond the physical world” (4.1%); “I believe in a higher power or cosmic force” (13.8%); “I sometimes believe in God” (1.6%); “I believe in God with some doubts” (10.2%); and “I believe in God with no doubts” (67.3%).

  2. 2.

     Previous research has found that survey respondents tend to over-report positive or normative behaviors and underreport undesirable behaviors (cf. Bradburn 1983; Presser and Traugott 1992). This is clearly evident in religion measures such as church attendance (cf. Hadaway et al. 1993; Hout and Greeley 1998; Woodberry 1998). There is little evidence however, that reported attendance varies systematically. In other words, men and women both tend to over-report their attendance as do people of varying ages and so on. To the extent that there is constant error in our measures they do not impact results in our statistical models (Finke et al. 2009).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chapman University, Orange, California, USA

    Christopher D. Bader

  2. Baylor University, Waco, Texas, USA

    Ashley Palmer

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  1. Christopher D. Bader
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  2. Ashley Palmer
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Dipartimento di Sociologica, Università degli Studi di Padova, Via Cesarotti 10, Padova, 35123, Italy

    Giuseppe Giordan

  2. Augustana College, Rock Island, 61201, Illinois, USA

    William H. Swatos, Jr.

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Bader, C.D., Palmer, A. (2011). Scared into Church? Conceptions of God, Exclusivity, and Religious Practice in the United States. In: Giordan, G., Swatos, Jr., W. (eds) Religion, Spirituality and Everyday Practice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1819-7_8

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