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28 February 2012

Data on "Christianities"

Here is a little analysis to accompany my previous post on pluralizing Christianity using 2010 GSS data.

Essentially, we would expect that a measure of being "Christian" would have less explanatory power and more internal variation than a more nuanced measure of Christian diversity. I compare a dummy variable for "Christian" collapsed from the religious preference question (RELIG: Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Christian, and inter-/nondenominational = 1) to dummy variables for religious tradition (RELTRAD: Evangelical Protestant, Mainline Protestant, Black Protestant, Catholic, Jew, other faith, and nonaffiliated). As I noted in the previous post, we would expect differences in these conceptions of belonging on beliefs and behaviors.

First, I address a belief by regressing* attitudes on same-sex sexual relations on the measures of religion (N = 1072). Knowing whether one is a Christian or not explains 11% of the variance of same-sex attitudes (R-squared = 0.1091). Knowing, on the other hand, to which of the seven religious traditions one belongs explains 17% of the variance of same-sex attitudes (R-squared = 0.1711). You can see in the table below that using a basic measure for Christian masks the dispersion of opinions within each of the Christian traditions. Evangelical Protestants (σ = 1.127), for example, tend to be much more consistent in their beliefs about homosexuality than Catholics (σ = 1.403).


Next, I address a behavior by regressing* frequency of religious service attendance on the measures of religion (N = 1778). Knowing whether one is a Christian or not explains 22% of the variance in attendance (R-squared = 0.2212). Knowing, on the other hand, to which of the seven religious traditions one belongs explains 25% of the variance in attendance (R-squared = 0.2490). You can see again in the table below that using a basic measure for Christian masks the dispersion of attendance within each of the Christian traditions. Evangelical Protestants (σ = 2.464), for example, tend to be much more consistent in their attendance than Black Protestants (σ = 2.778).



Overall, I think this gives reasonable support for my claim that there are Christianities. We need to stop using the term "Christian" as if it refers to a monolithic group.

* - Yes, I know that using linear regression with ordinal variables is very problematic. This is admittedly a rudimentary analysis.

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