Inquiry, Not Science, as the Source of Secularization in Higher Education

The traditional claim in the literature on religion and science is that exposure to science leads to secularity because the claims about the natural world in the two systems are incompatible. More recently, research has narrowed this claim and shown that conflict over knowledge in the USA is primarily limited to one religion—conservative Protestantism—and only to a few fact claims. In this paper, I test this claim using longitudinal data from matched surveys taken in students’ first and fourth year of university. I find no evidence that the science is more secularizing than nonscience. I then turn to a distinction in university majors long used by sociologists of education—between majors focused on inquiry versus those focused on applying knowledge—and find that majors focused on inquiry are more likely to secularize than those focused on application. I interpret this to mean that learning to inquire secularizes.

Producing the Christian Right: Conservative Evangelicalism, Representation, and the Recent Religious Past

This essay explores how conservative evangelical Protestants have been represented by both sociologists and journalists of American religion through the narrative of the “rise of the Christian Right” beginning in the late 1970s. By exploring both popular and academic analyses of conservative Protestantism as understood through terms such as “the Christian Right” and “the Electronic Church”, one is able to identify a set of intellectual assumptions that characterize the study of American evangelicalism and politics in the recent past. In particular, this essay suggests that studies of conservative evangelicalism as understood through “the rise of the Christian Right” tend to reveal as much about their interpreters as they do their respective evangelical subjects. The essay first identifies what these barriers and limitations are by exploring the social scientific literature on conservative evangelicalism at the time. It then foregrounds news reports and academic studies of “the Christian Right” in order to connect journalistic and academic inquiries of the conservative Protestant to the emergence of the evangelical. It then suggests a number of historical and methodological avenues for future research on American evangelicalism and politics that foreground self-reflexivity, interdisciplinarity, and the close reading of conservative texts.

Queer Rumors: Protestant Ministers, Unnatural Deeds, and Church Censure in the Twentieth-Century United States

ABSTRACTOver the course of the twentieth century, dozens of conservative Protestant ministers were accused of sexual deviance—including instances of same-sex acts and attractions. Protestant churches, in turn, experimented with employing various tactics to undermine and challenge such accusations. From silencing and secrecy to public censure and disassociation, denominational bodies labored to undermine evidence of queerness among their ministers. This essay surveys a one-hundred-year history of religious groups’ and institutions’ attempts at dealing with the uncomfortable but persistent allegations of not-quite-straightness among their leaders. This story accounts for how conservative Protestantism has been able to maintain its claims to a particular kind of sexual morality even as religious leaders themselves have repeatedly jeopardized this project.

Culture

Cultural differences also have contributed to the Texas-California partisan divide. Texas culture is a fusion of southern and western elements. Its southern-style conservative Protestantism and traditional mores combine with a western libertarianism and a strong quasi-nationalism. By comparison, California was long divided along north/south cultural lines, with Northern California more cosmopolitan and culturally liberal and Southern California more culturally conservative. By the end of the twentieth century, however, California’s progressive cultural elements gained dominance. The two states’ broad cultural characteristics translate to political culture. Texas has a more conservative political culture, consisting of elements that political scientist Daniel Elazar has called “traditionalistic” and “individualistic,” while California has a more diverse political culture, increasingly dominated by more liberal, “moralistic” elements.

Deconversion, Sport, and Rehabilitative Hope

This article, based on qualitative interviews and ethnographic research, explores three types of on-the-ground rehabilitative hope supplied by sport for many post-evangelicals within the upper Bible Belt region traversing through the process of deconversion. First, sport is an often-cited space that is identified as broadening social networks, leading to initial questioning of inherited religiosity. Second, sport offers a level of amelioration of relational fissures caused by religious shifts away from evangelicalism. Last, this research indicates that post-evangelicals highly value spaces for discussions of social justice, and athletic activism offers symbolic solidarity. Thus, sport and deconversion can be intertwined for Southern post-evangelicals. In the end, I argue that the triangulation of deconversion, hope, and sport within a Southern context creates a way of understanding the changing Southern ethos and pathos demarcated by a shifting away from a conservative Protestantism historically dominant in the region.

Introduction

The book’s introduction begins by describing the growing use and acceptance of pornography in the United States in order to frame the dilemma confronting conservative Protestants. Conservative Protestants’ connections to modern media and technology leave them vulnerable to the allure of pornography. Today, Christian leaders lament that many young Christian men (and increasingly women) are being ravaged by porn use, with devastating consequences for their spiritual lives, service to the church, and families. The introduction also explains how the book advances research on pornography’s effects by focusing on how culture links sexual practices like porn use with human identity and relationships. Conservative Protestantism provides a prime example of a subculture with a relatively coherent and salient approach to pornography use that can be contrasted with what is becoming a more coherent, secular approach. The introduction defines several subcultural distinctives of conservative Protestantism that shape their experiences of pornography in unique ways.

Fifty Shades of Gray Area—On Masturbation

Chapter 2 explains the paradox of conservative Protestants’ interpretations of pornography use and masturbation. Though pornography and masturbation are functionally related, conservative Protestants seem to draw a distinction between the two. Conservative Protestants typically condemn pornography unequivocally and in the strongest possible terms, and yet they often take a rather ambivalent view toward solo masturbation, especially if it is done without the aid of pornography. This chapter shows that because conservative Protestants are committed to “biblicism” and “pietistic idealism,” they are more likely to focus on pornography use as the greater sin because it can more clearly be connected to explicit biblical proscriptions against lust and sins of the heart, while masturbation is not explicitly addressed in the Bible and does not necessarily involve the heart. Also, the rise of psychology within conservative Protestantism over the past few decades has served to heighten concern about pornography addiction, while debunking myths connecting masturbation with mental health issues.

So Help Me God (or Whatever Works)

Chapter 6 describes how conservative Protestants approach the challenge of trying to stop using pornography. It begins with the observation that different groups within conservative Protestantism advocate for different approaches to quitting pornography use. Some advocate more practical approaches based on contemporary psychology. Others advocate a more “biblical” and “idealistic” approach, believing that true transformation must take place in the heart first. Drawing heavily on content from sexual-purity manuals along with interviews with pastors and lay conservative Protestants, this chapter shows that conservative Protestant pastors seem to give rather mixed counsel when it comes to their parishioners regarding quitting pornography. Also, lay conservative Protestants seem to employ a pragmatic approach to quitting pornography use, and are often most successful when they combine close relationships of accountability with proactive steps to eliminate access to pornography.