Full Description
Though many scholars and commentators have predicted the death of religion, the world is more religious today than ever before. And yet, despite the persistence of religion, it remains a woefully understudied phenomenon. With Objective Religion, Baylor University Press and Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion have combined forces to gather select articles from the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion that not only highlight the journal's wide-ranging and diverse scope, but also advance the field through a careful arrangement of topics with ongoing relevance, all treated with scientific objectivity and the respect warranted by matters of faith. This multivolume project seeks to advance our understanding of religion and spirituality in general as well as particular religious beliefs and practices. The volume thereby serves as a catalyst for future studies of religion from diverse disciplines and fields of inquiry including sociology, psychology, political science, demography, economics, philosophy, ethics, history, medicine, population health, epidemiology, and theology. The articles in this volume, Freedom, Politics, Secularization, use rigorous methodologies to scrutinize profoundly important topics that are so often misunderstood. In this way Objective Religion helps us rethink the conventional beliefs and stereotypes that occupy so much of popular discourse on religion.
Contents
Foreword - Philip Jenkins
Introduction
Part One: Religious Freedom
1. International Religion Indexes: Government Regulation, Government Favoritism, and Social Regulation of Religion
Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke
2. Strict but Not (Gender) Conservative: Refining the Strict Church Thesis in Light of Brazilian Pentecostalism
Kevin Neuhouser
3. New Data and Measures on Societal Discrimination and Religious Minorities
Jonathan Fox, Roger Finke, and Dane R. Mataicf
4. Deregulation and Demographic Change: A Key to Understanding Whether Religious Plurality Leads to Strife
Brian J. Grim, Vegard Skirbekk, and Jesus Crespo Cuaresma
5. Consumer Expenditures and the Faith Factor
Vince E. Showers, Linda S. Showers, James E. Cox, Jr., Jeri M. Beggs, and Hulda G. Black
6. Is Religious Freedom Good for Business?: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis
Brian J. Grim, Greg Clark, and Robert Edward Snyder
Part Two: Religion and Politics
7. Catholic Young Adults' Attitudes Toward the Church's Pro-Life Teachings: A Bellwether for the Church's Political Strategy?
Tia Noelle Pratt
8. Same-Sex Sexuality, Marriage, and the Seminary Professor: Catholic, Evangelical, and Mainline Protestant
Robert J. Priest
9. Christian Theology and Attitudes Toward Political and Religious Ideological Groups
George Yancey, Marie A. Eisenstein, and Ryan P. Burge
10. Are Religion and Environmentalism Complements or Substitutes?: A Club-Based Approach
Feler Bose and Timothy M. Komarek
11. Divided by Age?: Generational Shifts in White Evangelical Christians' Attitudes Toward Racial Diversity
Darin M. Mather
Part Three: Religion, Technology, and Secularization
12. Religious Apps for Smartphones and Tablets: Transforming Religious Authority and the Nature of Religion
Cortney Hughes Rinker, Jesse Roof, Emily Harvey, Elyse Bailey, and Hannah Embler
13. Introducing Jesus's Social Network: Support, Conflict, and Compassion
Jennifer M. McClure
14. Fear of Love Online: The Effect of Religious Salience on the Early Adoption of Online Dating (2000-2005)
Benjamin Thomas Gurrentz
15. Human Development and the Demography of Secularization in Global Perspective
Eric Kaufmann
16. Are Religious "Nones" Really Not Religious?
Jeff Levin, Matt Bradshaw, and Byron R. Johnson
About the Contributors
