I also wonder if there might be a comfort element here for the less well educated. If the more educated are the most likely to be attending, then are also most likely designing the programing. Might not be comfortable for the those who are not at their level of education.
I honestly think it is a schedule issue. So many people who work in restaurants or stores or other service businesses have little control of their schedule. Thet iften can't count on having the same day off each week. It makes it difficult to take part in regular activities. Combine that with the sports expectations for children and wanting to rest after a hard week, it is not surprising people who may want to get involved don't. I really wish the Catholic Church would make more of an effort to reach out to retail workers. I know of one church that scheduled an 8:15 pm Sunday mass for medical workers who do 12 hour shifts, which is increasingly common.
This really points to a further analysis of the "Seldom" respondents. I know that there has been research (using cellular data) about people over-reporting how often they go to church. This would also assume that they are accurately reporting how important religious is to them, so maybe the two doubtful items philosophically cancel each other out.
Fully support locking down the comments for your posts. This kind of data really has people rolling out the conclusions mat and making causal judgments from correlational data.
This confirms my theory that those of us in ministry need to 'bring church to people.'
We need to prioritize how we are sharing the faith outside of traditional church, because there are a lot of people for whom relationship with God is important - but going to church is not!
Great analysis here! Have tried to do cluster analysis with data like this—a good way to let the data suggest to you cool intersections like you got to in your drill down here. With survey data, it can be interesting to treat response categories as multinomial and pre-process/quantize the data with correspondence analysis, then clustering on the low (10?) dimensional locations of the response categories on the principle axes.
As always, the comments are almost as illuminating as the analysis. = )
a.) Al's observation is one key - combine this finding with the educational distribution across denominations.
b.) The educational polarization at the top is absolutely no surprise. I see the same distribution across my own friends.
c.) If the data exists it would be interesting to learn why people don't attend with some level of consistency. I suspect that among the less-educated it's a combination of less-flexible work schedules and the implications of Al's point: clergy talking over their heads.
d.) David's question is pivotal. At risk of inciting a theological dustup, my conclusion is that "membership" is implied in the New Testament but nowhere described as it's practiced today. At some point organizations made belief about attendance, a connection that obscures as much as it reveals. (As to donations, I think LDS are the exception.)
Finally, Fr. Cathie's. point is far more biblically supported than d. above. "Invite your friends to church" is a very poor substitute for actually being the church.
I have a question about church membership. What does it take to be a member of a church? I understand how it works with synagogues --members are people who pay dues or who have worked out an arrangement to pay less than the full dues. Non members are welcome to attend services and other functions but for the big services you typically need to be a member or purchase a ticket available to non members. Synagogues typically do not collect money at shabbos services
It varies incredibly widely from one Protestant denomination to another.
In a lot of "low church" traditions like Baptists and non-denominationals, the answer is: not much. You come forward during the invitation, you say the sinner's prayer, and that's about it.
Other traditions want you to go through a longer process that requires some classes to learn about the church and its history and doctrine.
But the donation part is really not an important aspect of membership. You are encouraged to give, obviously. But it's certainly not a requirement to be a member.
Thanks for your answer. I have another question if you have time to respond it would be most appreciated but if not thats ok.
I am putting together a talk on Lincoln's 2nd inaugural address which is mostly based on Richard Carradines, Righteous Strife: How warring religious nationalists forged Lincoln’s Union. He talks about the theological underpinnings of the civil war. One of the things that struck me is that Northern religious leaders who opposed slavery emphasized God the father and the need to live in accord with God's plan while Southern counterparts emphasized Jesus, faith, and the corruption of humanity which will only be addressed in the 2nd coming. They also denounced Northern church leaders as intolerant Puritans who want to stick their nose into others private lives and often mentioned Cromwell by name.
Since I am not Christian and was not raised in this tradition I worry that I am missing something. Any thoughts you have about this would be most appreciated. It does strike me that lots of American Christians have lost interest in theological questions over which wars were once fought and perhaps this accounts for the rise of community churches which seem to emphasize a feeling of connection with the divine over belief. Though I certainly could be wrong about that.
Our Rabbis probably figured this out decades ago, though with an important twist. On Saturday mornings most sanctuaries have a pittance of the paid membership in attendance. My town has one of each stripe: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform. My Orthodox has 25 weekly attenders of a membership of 140 people, but on the recent Holy Days, the 80 or so who came were largely all familiar faces from Saturday morning, even if not weekly. The congregations with less observant constituency, all larger than mine, will get 40 worshipers on Saturday but 500 on the Holy Days. They are non-attenders, much like gym memberships. Pretty much everyone works in a profession that requires a college degree or beyond. So highly educated people don't feel obligated to come to synagogue.
The question of importance of the religion has different elements, not as easily answered in the multiple choice GSS options. The secular among us may play golf, sleep late, see patients, or take a day trip on Saturday. The formality of Shabbos is not important to them. But those same people who rarely worship fund our advocacy and social safety net agencies with generosity. What is important and how you express it has a lot of variations.
We lack the control group of those without college degrees, once plentiful as European immigrants and their first generation, who put their own kids into professions, so the Jewish view might skew from the gist of Ryan's data.
The most important requirement for getting a graduate degree is turning up. The second-most important is thinking a lot. So, highly educated people who keep their religion (through thinking about it, or by treating it something for which thought is not apporpriate) are going to turn up. Those who reject it won't go for half-baked intellectual compromises like "somewhat important" I suspect the same is true of "spiritual but not religious".
These charts raise an interesting question. Many people it seems rarely go to church but still find religion important for themselves. How do they live their religious beliefs? If they, in some form or another, have an active religious life, what keeps them away from church ?
This seems fairly straightforward. It makes intuitive sense that people who are highly educated are more likely to align their beliefs with their behavior. They aligned their value for eucation with their execution of advanced degrees. They are, in other words, successful people who act on their convictions. Therefore they are also the people who, if they believe religion is important, act on it by regularly attending church.
One of the best predictors of long term success is the gap between what you think you should do and what you actually do. This just further proces the point.
I also wonder if there might be a comfort element here for the less well educated. If the more educated are the most likely to be attending, then are also most likely designing the programing. Might not be comfortable for the those who are not at their level of education.
That's an interesting idea. Maybe it varies based on high church vs low church traditions.
High church leaders tend to be more educated, less so in Baptist/Pentecostal spaces. Maybe something to poke around on.
I honestly think it is a schedule issue. So many people who work in restaurants or stores or other service businesses have little control of their schedule. Thet iften can't count on having the same day off each week. It makes it difficult to take part in regular activities. Combine that with the sports expectations for children and wanting to rest after a hard week, it is not surprising people who may want to get involved don't. I really wish the Catholic Church would make more of an effort to reach out to retail workers. I know of one church that scheduled an 8:15 pm Sunday mass for medical workers who do 12 hour shifts, which is increasingly common.
This really points to a further analysis of the "Seldom" respondents. I know that there has been research (using cellular data) about people over-reporting how often they go to church. This would also assume that they are accurately reporting how important religious is to them, so maybe the two doubtful items philosophically cancel each other out.
Fully support locking down the comments for your posts. This kind of data really has people rolling out the conclusions mat and making causal judgments from correlational data.
I have a post in the queue about people who report attending multiple times per week. They are actually a distinct group from the "once a week" crowd.
I think that the seldom category is an interesting signal. "I go more than never."
Maybe I can explore that idea some more.
oh, thank you for this!!
This confirms my theory that those of us in ministry need to 'bring church to people.'
We need to prioritize how we are sharing the faith outside of traditional church, because there are a lot of people for whom relationship with God is important - but going to church is not!
Great analysis here! Have tried to do cluster analysis with data like this—a good way to let the data suggest to you cool intersections like you got to in your drill down here. With survey data, it can be interesting to treat response categories as multinomial and pre-process/quantize the data with correspondence analysis, then clustering on the low (10?) dimensional locations of the response categories on the principle axes.
I did clustering for The Great Dechurching and for The Nones Project. Maybe I should try more of that out. It's fun to pull together.
Go for it!!! It could be useful for illuminating patterns in the spiritual versus religious/attending data space.
As always, the comments are almost as illuminating as the analysis. = )
a.) Al's observation is one key - combine this finding with the educational distribution across denominations.
b.) The educational polarization at the top is absolutely no surprise. I see the same distribution across my own friends.
c.) If the data exists it would be interesting to learn why people don't attend with some level of consistency. I suspect that among the less-educated it's a combination of less-flexible work schedules and the implications of Al's point: clergy talking over their heads.
d.) David's question is pivotal. At risk of inciting a theological dustup, my conclusion is that "membership" is implied in the New Testament but nowhere described as it's practiced today. At some point organizations made belief about attendance, a connection that obscures as much as it reveals. (As to donations, I think LDS are the exception.)
Finally, Fr. Cathie's. point is far more biblically supported than d. above. "Invite your friends to church" is a very poor substitute for actually being the church.
I have a question about church membership. What does it take to be a member of a church? I understand how it works with synagogues --members are people who pay dues or who have worked out an arrangement to pay less than the full dues. Non members are welcome to attend services and other functions but for the big services you typically need to be a member or purchase a ticket available to non members. Synagogues typically do not collect money at shabbos services
It's a great question that has a terrible answer:
It varies incredibly widely from one Protestant denomination to another.
In a lot of "low church" traditions like Baptists and non-denominationals, the answer is: not much. You come forward during the invitation, you say the sinner's prayer, and that's about it.
Other traditions want you to go through a longer process that requires some classes to learn about the church and its history and doctrine.
But the donation part is really not an important aspect of membership. You are encouraged to give, obviously. But it's certainly not a requirement to be a member.
Thanks for your answer. I have another question if you have time to respond it would be most appreciated but if not thats ok.
I am putting together a talk on Lincoln's 2nd inaugural address which is mostly based on Richard Carradines, Righteous Strife: How warring religious nationalists forged Lincoln’s Union. He talks about the theological underpinnings of the civil war. One of the things that struck me is that Northern religious leaders who opposed slavery emphasized God the father and the need to live in accord with God's plan while Southern counterparts emphasized Jesus, faith, and the corruption of humanity which will only be addressed in the 2nd coming. They also denounced Northern church leaders as intolerant Puritans who want to stick their nose into others private lives and often mentioned Cromwell by name.
Since I am not Christian and was not raised in this tradition I worry that I am missing something. Any thoughts you have about this would be most appreciated. It does strike me that lots of American Christians have lost interest in theological questions over which wars were once fought and perhaps this accounts for the rise of community churches which seem to emphasize a feeling of connection with the divine over belief. Though I certainly could be wrong about that.
Our Rabbis probably figured this out decades ago, though with an important twist. On Saturday mornings most sanctuaries have a pittance of the paid membership in attendance. My town has one of each stripe: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform. My Orthodox has 25 weekly attenders of a membership of 140 people, but on the recent Holy Days, the 80 or so who came were largely all familiar faces from Saturday morning, even if not weekly. The congregations with less observant constituency, all larger than mine, will get 40 worshipers on Saturday but 500 on the Holy Days. They are non-attenders, much like gym memberships. Pretty much everyone works in a profession that requires a college degree or beyond. So highly educated people don't feel obligated to come to synagogue.
The question of importance of the religion has different elements, not as easily answered in the multiple choice GSS options. The secular among us may play golf, sleep late, see patients, or take a day trip on Saturday. The formality of Shabbos is not important to them. But those same people who rarely worship fund our advocacy and social safety net agencies with generosity. What is important and how you express it has a lot of variations.
We lack the control group of those without college degrees, once plentiful as European immigrants and their first generation, who put their own kids into professions, so the Jewish view might skew from the gist of Ryan's data.
The most important requirement for getting a graduate degree is turning up. The second-most important is thinking a lot. So, highly educated people who keep their religion (through thinking about it, or by treating it something for which thought is not apporpriate) are going to turn up. Those who reject it won't go for half-baked intellectual compromises like "somewhat important" I suspect the same is true of "spiritual but not religious".
These charts raise an interesting question. Many people it seems rarely go to church but still find religion important for themselves. How do they live their religious beliefs? If they, in some form or another, have an active religious life, what keeps them away from church ?
This seems fairly straightforward. It makes intuitive sense that people who are highly educated are more likely to align their beliefs with their behavior. They aligned their value for eucation with their execution of advanced degrees. They are, in other words, successful people who act on their convictions. Therefore they are also the people who, if they believe religion is important, act on it by regularly attending church.
One of the best predictors of long term success is the gap between what you think you should do and what you actually do. This just further proces the point.
Geez, my typing is really undermining my points!
"education" and "proves"!