Does religious pluralism decrease religious participation or increase it? Secularization theorists claim the former, while religious economies proponents claim the latter, and each side has used estimated pluralism-participation correlations to support its argument. Using a formal game theoretic model, this article shows how religious market forces and regulations generate plausible pluralism-p...

Similarity of religious beliefs and practices among friends, or network-religion autocorrelation, is a common aspect of many social networks. Network-religion autocorrelation is important because it strengthens plausibility structures (Berger 1967), or the combination of beliefs and strong social ties to others who share those beliefs. Plausibility structures support sacred umbrellas (Smith 199...

As a theologian working in Western Europe, religious plurality is unavoidable for me. It seems that our context can no longer be identified in terms of secularization. Competing worldviews and complementing religious stories dictate the religious landscape (and increasingly so, due to migration and global communication). The religions present in my country, however, are not monolithic and stabl...

As we estimate here, 68% of human beings--4.6 billion people--would say that religion is important in their daily lives. Past studies have found that the religious, on average, have higher subjective well-being (SWB). Yet, people are rapidly leaving organized religion in economically developed nations where religious freedom is high. Why would people leave religion if it enhances their happines...

Previous studies of the marital fertility transition in Europe have found religious differentials. Using data collected from the population registers of The Hague, our aim in this study is to search for answers to the following questions: whether religious differentials result from socio-economic characteristics; to what extent religious ideology explains the behaviour of religious groups; whic...

It is generally accepted that religion typically acts as a protective factor against suicidal behavior. However, there remains some debate over the various mechanisms that underlie this relationship and how these mechanisms may function across different religious traditions. The purpose of this illustrative review is to expand on previous themes in the literature that have focused primarily on ...

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a new theoretically based measure that would assess the full range of religious coping methods, including potentially helpful and harmful religious expressions. The RCOPE was tested on a large sample of college students who were coping with a significant negative life event. Factor analysis of the RCOPE in the college sample yielded factors ...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To investigate spiritual transformation among patients with cancer. DESIGN Longitudinal. SETTING A university medical center in the midwestern United States. SAMPLE 47 adult cancer survivors. METHODS Patients were asked about spirituality, religious and spiritual importance, religious coping, and spiritual gain and decline at baseline as well as nine months post-treat...

Using data on adults ages 55 and over from the second wave of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH-2), this study models the main and interactive effects of religious involvement and race/ethnicity on four items of attitudes towards intergenerational assistance. Results indicate that African Americans and Hispanics tend to express stronger support for intergenerational assistanc...