The Rise of the Nones across the United States, 1973 to 2018: State-Level Trends of Religious Affiliation and Participation in the General Social Survey

Wiertz, Dingeman; Lim, Chaeyoon

doi:10.15195/v8.a21

Tag Archives | Secularization

The Rise of the Nones across the United States, 1973 to 2018: State-Level Trends of Religious Affiliation and Participation in the General Social Survey

By Parker Webservices on December 2, 2021 in Articles

Dingeman Wiertz, Chaeyoon Lim

Sociological Science December 2, 2021
10.15195/v8.a21

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Although there has been a fast rise in the share of Americans reporting no religion, it is unclear whether this trend has affected different parts of the country equally. Against this backdrop, we apply dynamic multilevel regression and poststratification (Dynamic MRP) to General Social Survey data over the period 1973 to 2018 to estimate state-level religious trends. We validate our estimates against external benchmarks, finding that they perform well in terms of predictive accuracy. Substantively, we find steeper increases in the share of religious nones in states that had more nones to begin with. Moreover, whereas state-level increases in the share of religious nones are strongly linked to declines in occasional church attendance and moderate religious identification, the associations with trends in regular attendance and strong identification are much weaker. States have thus not only diverged in their share of religious nones but also experienced different degrees of religious polarization.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Dingeman Wiertz: UCL Social Research Institute, University College London
E-mail: d.wiertz@ucl.ac.uk

Chaeyoon Lim: Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin–Madison
E-mail: chaeyoon.lim@wisc.edu

Acknowledgments: The authors would like to express their gratitude to Mauricio Javier Rodriguez, Roberto Cerina, and Thees Spreckelsen for valuable advice and support. Dingeman Wiertz acknowledges support from the British Academy through a postdoctoral fellowship (grant number PF2180064).

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Citation: Wiertz, Dingeman, andb Chaeyoon Lim. 2021. “The Rise of the Nones across the United States, 1973 to 2018: State-Level Trends of Religious Affiliation and Participation in the General Social Survey.” Sociological Science 8: 429-454.
Received: June 30, 2021
Accepted: July 17, 2021
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Richard Breen
DOI: 10.15195/v8.a21

The Continuing Persistence of Intense Religion in the United States: Rejoinder

By Parker Webservices on November 15, 2018 in Articles

Landon Schnabel, Sean Bock

Sociological Science, November 15, 2018
10.15195/v5.a30

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In their comment on our article about the persistence of intense religion in the United States, David Voas and Mark Chaves (2018) claimed that “the intensely religious segment of the American population is shrinking.” In this response, we show that intense religion has persisted from the 1970s to the present, with a temporary uptick during the exceptional Reagan years. Voas and Chaves concluded otherwise because their analytical strategy was not sufficiently sensitive to nonlinear patterns. In addition to demonstrating the continuing persistence of intense religion, we also discuss criteria for measuring intense religion over time and the importance of avoiding unfounded assumptions in age–period–cohort analysis. We conclude that aspects of the classic secularization thesis championed by Voas, Chaves, and others are not supported by the data, and we suggest that scholars should look for better ways of thinking about religious change.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Landon Schnabel: Department of Sociology, Indiana University Bloomington
E-mail: lpschnab@indiana.edu

Sean Bock: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
E-mail: seanbock@g.harvard.edu

Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to Jason Beckfield, Bart Bonikowski, Mike Hout, Brian Powell, Chris Winship, and the editor for exceptional feedback on this response. Direct correspondence to Landon Schnabel, Department of Sociology, Indiana University Bloomington, 702 Ballantine Hall, 1020 E. Kirkwood Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405.

Citation: Schnabel, Landon, and Sean Bock. 2018. “The Continuing Persistence of Intense Religion in the United States.” Sociological Science 5: 711-721.
Received: October 25, 2018
Accepted: October 29, 2018
Editors: Jesper Sørensen
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a30

Even Intense Religiosity Is Declining in the United States: Comment

The Persistent and Exceptional Intensity of American Religion: A Response to Recent Research

Even Intense Religiosity Is Declining in the United States: Comment

By Parker Webservices on November 15, 2018 in Articles

David Voas, Mark Chaves

Sociological Science, November 15, 2018
10.15195/v5.a29

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In their 2017 article, “The Persistent and Exceptional Intensity of American Religion: A Response to Recent Research,” Schnabel and Bock claimed that “intense religion . . . is persistent and, in fact, only moderate religion is on the decline in the United States.” In this article, we show that even the intensely religious segment of the American population is indeed shrinking. Schnabel and Bock mistakenly concluded otherwise because their analytical strategy was not sufficiently sensitive to detect very slow change (leading them to miss signs of declining intense religion on the indicators they examined), they examined a limited set of indicators (missing still more signs of declining intense religion), and they paid insufficient attention to cohort differences. Overall, their empirical conclusion that “only moderate religion is on the decline in the United States” is simply false. And their interpretive conclusion that “intense religion in the United States is persistent and exceptional in ways that do not fit the secularization thesis” should be rejected.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

David Voas: Department of Social Science, University College London
E-mail: d.voas@ucl.ac.uk

Mark Chaves: Department of Sociology, Duke University
E-mail: mac58@soc.duke.edu

Acknowledgements: David Voas received funding from the U.K. Economic and Social Research Council via the Research Centre on Micro-Social Change. The authors thank Tom Smith for helping to detail the changes that occurred in the General Social Survey between 2002 and 2004 and Simon Brauer for suggesting the use of a scale measure of intense religiosity.

Citation: Voas, David, and Mark Chaves. 2018. “Even Intense Religiosity Is Declining in the United States.” Sociological Science 5: 694-710.
Received: August 3, 2018
Accepted: September 30, 2018
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
DOI: 10.15195/v5.a29

The Continuing Persistence of Intense Religion in the United States: Rejoinder

The Persistent and Exceptional Intensity of American Religion: A Response to Recent Research

By Parker Webservices on November 27, 2017 in Articles

Landon Schnabel, Sean Bock

Sociological Science, November 27, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a28

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Recent research argues that the United States is secularizing, that this religious change is consistent with the secularization thesis, and that American religion is not exceptional. But we show that rather than religion fading into irrelevance as the secularization thesis would suggest, intense religion—strong affiliation, very frequent practice, literalism, and evangelicalism—is persistent and, in fact, only moderate religion is on the decline in the United States. We also show that in comparable countries, intense religion is on the decline or already at very low levels. Therefore, the intensity of American religion is actually becoming more exceptional over time. We conclude that intense religion in the United States is persistent and exceptional in ways that do not fit the secularization thesis.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Landon Schnabel: Department of Sociology, Indiana University Bloomington
Email: lpschnab@indiana.edu

Sean Bock: Department of Sociology, Harvard University
Email: seanbock@g.harvard.edu

Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to Brian Powell and Clem Brooks for exceptional feedback. Direct correspondence to Landon Schnabel, Department of Sociology, Indiana University Bloomington, 744 Ballantine Hall, 1020 E. Kirkwood Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405.

Comment Rejoinder

Citation: Schnabel, Landon, and Sean Bock. 2017. “The Persistent and Exceptional Intensity of American Religion: A Response to Recent Research.” Sociological Science 4: 686-700.
Received: October 19, 2017
Accepted: October 31, 2017
Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Olav Sorenson
DOI: 10.15195/v4.a28

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Tag Archives | Secularization

Sociological Science December 2, 2021 10.15195/v8.a21

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Sociological Science, November 15, 2018 10.15195/v5.a30

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Sociological Science, November 15, 2018 10.15195/v5.a29

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Sociological Science, November 27, 2017 DOI 10.15195/v4.a28

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Sociological Science December 2, 2021
10.15195/v8.a21

Sociological Science, November 15, 2018
10.15195/v5.a30

Sociological Science, November 15, 2018
10.15195/v5.a29

Sociological Science, November 27, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a28