Sociology of Religion Commons^™

Listening To Millennials: An Exploration Of The Relationship Between Millennials And The Church, Charles R. Thompson

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This mixed methods exploratory research project investigated the relationship between the millennial generation and the Christian church. Through interviews of seven millennial couples connected to my congregation, six millennials not connected to the church, and conversations churched millennials had with peers, I was able to learn what the variables were that impacted their involvement or lack of involvement with the church. A survey of the congregation was also conducted to compare spiritual practices of millennials with other generations in the church. The results indicated the importance of a strong Christian upbringing and meeting millennials where they are at spiritually.

Contextual Leadership Within Chin Immigrant Churches In The United States, Bawi Bik Thawng

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This research explores the leadership practices of Chin immigrant congregations in the United States, focusing on how they can develop a more effective leadership practice in dealing with the new context of the new land. It attempts to answer the question: What kind of leadership practice will help Chin immigrant leaders apply adaptive leadership theory for implementing contextual oriented leadership theory for the church? The initial motivation for this research arose out of the researcher’s interest in the perception of Chin immigrant congregations on the issue of leadership. A qualitative case study research method was employed in this research.

The …

Decolonizing Interfaith Interaction: Common Humanity And Colonial Legacies, Teresa A. Crist

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Among various formations of interfaith interaction in the United States, practitioners strive to build relationships across religious difference through appeals to commonality. Problematically, relying on commonality to unite religiously diverse groups can ignore the colonial history behind what is considered common across humanity, and may serve to make interfaith interaction ineffective. The interfaith project is itself connected to the colonial legacy of Western epistemology, which tacitly normalizes Protestant Christian norms and conceptions of “Religion” and human subjectivity. This dissertation explores whether interfaith interaction, while trying to relieve the religious oppression caused by the normalization of Christianity, may in fact support …

Understanding The Role Of Religion In Shaping Cross-National And Domestic Attitudes And Interest In Abortion, Homosexuality, And Pornography Using Traditional And Google Search Data, Amy Adamczyk, Yu-Hsuan Liu, Jacqueline Scott

Publications and Research

Over the last 20 years, internet usage has increased substantially, providing an inexpensive source of data that may be less prone to bias and could provide a greater number of meso and macro units. However, validating big data and their usefulness has been challenging. This study uses established sources to validate Google Trends’ search interest in the “Bible” across US Designated Market Areas and “Ramadan” across nations, establishing a potential new source of religion data. We then use these measures to show that people from religiously conservative US areas and countries are more likely to disapprove of homosexuality, abortion and …

Bringing Judaism Downtown: A Smart Growth Policy For Orthodox Jews, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Until the late 20th century, the most rigorously traditional Jews, haredi Jews (often referred to as “ultra-Orthodox”) tended to congregate in New York City. But as New York became more expensive and haredi population grew due to high birth rates, some haredi Jews (known collectively as “haredim”) moved to small towns and outer suburbs in search of cheaper land, sometimes creating towns dominated by haredim such as Kiryas Joel, New York and Lakewood, New Jersey. As haredi populations have continued to grow, their households now seek undeveloped land outside these enclaves. But as haredim move deeper into the countryside, zoning …

Gender Ideology, Gender Consciousness, And Identity Among Conservative Baptist Women: An Intersectional Perspective, Marina I. Rivera Ramos

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In this qualitative study, I interviewed 13 women from two separate conservative Baptist congregations in Central Florida, one English-speaking and the other Hispanic. The purpose of this research was to explore the ways in which conservative Baptist women develop their identity as women, the gender ideologies they espouse, their experiences in ministry, and the possibility that they can achieve gender consciousness without aligning with feminist principles. In addition, my research employs an intersectional perspective to demonstrate differences in the experiences of white women and women of color in the church. This study consisted of semi-structured interviews with women from both …

Shifting Religious Influences On Attitudes Towards Same-Sex Behavior And Civil Liberties: A Multilevel Across-Time Analysis, Laura M. Moore, Amy Adamczyk, J. Michael Ryan, Seth Ovadia

Publications and Research

Americans’ acceptance of same-sex sexual relations and their willingness to restrict the civil liberties of sexual minorities vary substantially across both time and place even as overall trends have been towards more liberalizing stances. Yet few quantitative studies have explored both the individual and contextual religious factors shaping Americans’ views and none have applied such an analysis to examining attitudes over time. Using hierarchical ordered logistic modeling and time-year interactions with 1973–2016 General Social Survey data, we examine whether the religious characteristics of residents and the contexts in which they reside moderated Americans’ liberalizing attitudes over time. We find that …

What Can And Must Be Done 
 To Save The Health Of Adventist Pastors, Petr Cincala, René Drumm

Human Subject Research Archive

Report on qualitative study (Focus Groups) about health of pastors (January 2021)

“Child Witches”: Sexual Exploitation And Abuse Of Homeless Girls In South-Southern Nigeria, Chima Agazue

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Sexual exploitation and abuse of girls is one of the endemic social problems in Nigeria. Although this problem has attracted much research attention in recent times, some newly emerged factors contributing to the problem have been mostly ignored. This study explored how the abandonment of children following their stigmatization as witches contributes to sexual exploitation and abuse of the girls in the Akwa Ibom and Cross River states of Nigeria. The study was based on the qualitative research paradigm. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews of three senior staff members of the Child’s Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN)—a children’s charity …

Impact Of 9/11-Induced Adverse Experiences On The Mental Health Of Latino Americans And The Role Of Religious Service Attendance, Soyoung Kwon, Yongsok Kim, Jiyoung Moon Dr.

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Much research has documented the mental health consequences of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; however, little is known about how the 9/11 attacks affect the mental health of Latino Americans. This study uses a nationally representative sample of Latino Americans (N = 2,346) from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS) to examine the relationships between 9/11-induced negative life experiences and mental disorders. The former includes losing a job, reducing family income, feeling less safe and secure, discrimination, loss of optimism, and inability to cope with things. For the latter, mental disorders may exhibit as psychological distress, …

Addressing A Blind Spot: Altruistic Fear And Religious Bias Motivated Victimization, Emily N. Hawkins

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Fear of victimization is different than actual victimization but has real consequences for individuals’ behaviors and attitudes. Research on fear of victimization in the United States has typically emphasized individuals’ own fears of experiencing violent, sexual, and property crimes. Yet, some studies suggest that fear of crime for other people whose safety one values – significant others, friends, and children – or altruistic fear is more common and often more intense than one’s personal fear of victimization. While some literature exists on the prevalence of altruistic fear in American households, little is known about altruistic fears specifically rooted in the …

Religion, Conscience, And The Law: Reasons, Bases, And Limits For Exemptions, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Kent Greenawalt discusses the permissibility, scope, and rationale for law to provide exemptions to protect religious and nonreligious conscience in the United States. It may be difficult for the law to determine which sentiments amount to conscience given differences in individuals’ perception and the strength of their convictions. Even the notion of a religious conscience is complex. Religious citizens’ conclusions about matters of interest to religion may proceed from both religion and reason, or only from reason. It is not clear what should count as religious, given differences between denominations and their ideas over time. There are a host of …

Super-Diversity Inside And Outside Of Congregations In Elmhurst, Queens, Richard Cimino, Hans Tokke

Publications and Research

This chapter looks at the role congregations play in a “superdiverse” neighborhood, characterized by recent immigration and strong ethic and religious pluralism. We are particularly interested in how diversity shapes a neighborhood’s religious ecology and how congregations and other groups relate to their neighborhood; how do they respond to this diversity in their ministries to their own congregants and to those outside their walls, and how do they interact with other faith communities? Further, to what degree do individuals follow the ideal of pluralism as they live their lives within their own enclave? We find that bonding rather than bridging …

Impact Of The Covid-19 On Religious Practices Of Muslim Students In Higher Education, Amir Duric

Muslim Student Life

Implications of religious practices in Islam go far beyond religiosity, and this paper analyzed the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and religious practices of Muslim students in higher education. The analyzed data is from the survey of the Muslim Student Life at Syracuse University and the Center for Islam in Contemporary World at Shenandoah University. The survey was conducted through a non-random convenience sampling from March 30th through April 10th of 2020 and had 498 responders. For this study, I analyzed 272 who provided their demographic information. The paper hypothesized and confirmed an overall increase in the engagement with the …

Cuban Immigrants’ Experience With Acculturation And How They Cope In The United States, Lourdes Araujo

Dissertations

Objective: This research examines how Cuban immigrants experience cope and adapt to the United States. Cuban immigration is associated with specific stressors related to the immigration experience and the necessary process of acculturation and assimilation. These major stressors can result in mental health concerns among Cuban immigrants; however, no studies have examined how acculturation may influence Cuban immigrants’ coping skills and resultant mental health concerns. This unique study is the first to examine the coping skills Cuban immigrants use during acculturation and the effects of these skills on Cuban immigrants’ mental health. Methods: Seventeen participants completed a semistructured interview and …

Behind The 2020 Delhi Riots: History Of Hindu-Muslim Conflict In India, Piper Sereno

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

Though a major aspect of Hinduism is ahimsa, or non-violence, and Islam also admonishes violence, there is often religious conflict in any area that has people of more than one religion. There is an underlying tension between Muslims and Hindus that goes further than just differences in beliefs.

Religion's Role In Immigration In A Multiculturalist Context, Jack Willerton

Content presented at the Roesch Social Sciences Symposium

Modern society is more diverse than ever before. This is especially the case in the United States and Europe, where there is a blend of different cultures, ethnicities and religions. One of the toughest issues facing both of these regions is immigration. Immigration, legal and illegal, had led to a host of responses from many different groups of people from different backgrounds. In particular, religiously affiliated groups have had differing responses to the issue of immigration, especially in the United States.

This project is an investigation on how these religious groups view the issue of immigration. On top of my …

A Whiteheadian Innervation Of The Soma: A New Vision For The Peripheral Nervous System, David Milliern

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This essay draws attention to two problems in neuroscience’s set of assumptions. These self-defeating assumptions include: 1) the assumption that what the nervous system, especially the brain, does is synthesize experience, while also assuming philosophical realism, and 2) the problem of biological signal transduction. In the latter, neuroscientists and philosophers of biology have left unaddressed the issue that the signal differences between the inside and outside of the organismic boundary are of distinct ontological types; and yet no concern has been expressed regarding how it is possible that an organism’s inner states could reflect the experiential content flowing from outside …

Centaur Mind: A Glimpse Into An Integrative Structure Of Consciousness, Azin Izadifar

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Jean Gebser’s theory of consciousness suggests that we are experiencing a new era in the history of consciousness. Human consciousness moves like a pendulum. The current Integral Structure of Consciousness is not unprecedented, yet we are experiencing it in a multi-layered, deeper, and vaster way. Centaurs are imaginal creatures that first appeared within the Mythical Structure of Consciousness, making a bridge between the unity of the Magical and the duality of Mental structures. In this paper, I view the centaurs through the lenses of mythology and archetypal depth psychology and discuss the critical role of this mythic figure in the …

The Journey Back To Wholeness That Already Is, Jenna Dishy Wes

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Sunrise’s father had had lost his own, rather impactfully at the tender age of seven, just as he was transitioning into what Piaget called the Concrete Operations Period. “With this change, he (began) to behave in many ways much like an adult and, indeed, in terms of lines for the self and moral reasoning, many adults never grow past this stage” (Combs, 2009). And so would be the case for Sunrise’s father. Having never been given the tools or guidance to heal from such trauma, he resorted to substances that subdued what it was he could not face. Sunrise …