Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Impact Of Church Activities And Socialization On African-American Religious Commitment, Peter Wielhouwer

Peter W. Wielhouwer

Objective. This article examines religious commitment (church involvement, private devotionalism, and religious salience) among African Americans as a function of being served by a religious congregation, perception of the historical role of the church in relation to the group, and religious and racial socialization. Methods. Drawing on traditional Christian expectations of the church, hypotheses are tested using the 1979–1980 National Survey of Black Americans. Three alternative models are tested that explicitly compare the effects of church activities with conventional socialization and demographic models of religious commitment. Results. The results show that the church's fulfillment of its normative roles of discipleship …