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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 the Hispanic and the predominantly white congregations over the course of a month. According to my findings, strict complementarianism, the belief that men and women have entirely separate but complementary roles, was only observed among a small number of women. The majority demonstrated egalitarian tendencies with a combination of complementarian and evangelical pragmatist ideology. The latter was especially observable in spiritual practices and decision-making in marriage. For most of the women, their ideations of gender, marital, and parental expectations were not reflected in their actual practices. In terms of intersectionality and the experiences of women of color, the majority of women from the Hispanic congregation and white women from the English-speaking congregation determined that racial conflict did not take place within their church. On the other hand, Black women within the predominantly white congregation and two women who belonged to ethnic minorities within the Hispanic church did report friction, lack of community support, and discriminatory behavior towards them. These were not aspects of white women's experiences in ministry. This study is significant because, in addition to highlighting the gender ideologies upheld by conservative Baptist women, it also describes the ways in which they negotiate the scriptures to perform womanhood and expounds on the idea that conservative women can also find gender consciousness despite rejecting feminism. However, solidarity and inclusion were not found by women of all races and ethnicities. This research views these experiences and ideas of womanhood through an intersectional lens. As a result, it explains how race, ethnicity, and nationality can also frame ideas of womanhood and affect gender consciousness among women in conservative Baptist congregations where one race or ethnic group predominates.

Using a grounded theory approach, this study examines the reasons why Millennials from conservative Christian backgrounds stop attending church. The purpose is to understand why attendance attrition is at an all time high for those in the Millennial generation, ages 18 to 29. Data from 18 semi-structured interviews with former attendees demonstrate that this phenomenon is not due to a simplistic list of reasons but is actually a result of a complex development involving varying interrelated processes. The primary processes at work are cognitive and spiritual disconnection and disengagement for personal wellbeing

Researchers have examined aggregate associations between religious contexts and suicide rates among religious denominations. Most early research examined this relationship among white Christians; more current research has examined black Christians. Though this research tradition was established by Emile Durkheim long ago, religious context’s relationship with suicide rates remains understudied among U.S. Latinos. Few studies examine suicide among this group; those that do compare U.S.-born and foreign-born Latinos (see Barranco 2016; Barranco and Harris 2019). Nevertheless, these studies overlook how the religious context—suicide rate relationship differs between U.S. Latino men and women. This study fills this gap by applying two competing theses to explain aggregate differences in suicide rates among Latino men and women. Results show that religious context differently impacts Latino men’s and women’s suicide rates, religious homogeneity is consistently associated with lower suicide rates for all Latinos, and Latinas benefit more from religious contexts than Latino men.

This dissertation, a study of Christian rock music and musicians in Southern Ontario, Canada, examines issues related to religion, music and youth culture. In doing so it explores similarities and differences between subcultures and new social movements particularly in relation to issues around practices, identity and authenticity. The dissertation begins with examinations of the literature on subcultures and social movements, followed by brief looks at the literature on fields, habitus, legitimacy, individual and collective authenticity and identity, issues of authenticity within popular music and Christian rock music literatures. Following this it looks at the research methods used, detailing the interviews with Christian rock musicians and participant observation conducted from 2008-2010. The substantive chapters of the study look at practices and the uses of space, Christian rock identities over time and finally the question of whether Christian rock should be categorized as a subculture or a new social movement. The first of these chapters examines how spaces, particularly performance spaces are used within Christian rock, how these connect to worship, entertainment and art, and how these attempt to manifest themselves as transgressive. The second substantive chapter looks at how Christian rock musicians enact their individual and collective Christian rock identity in recruitment, participation and exiting of Christian rock. In doing so, it looks at how identities and the goals associated with those identities connect to Howard and Streck’s Christian rock typologies of separational, integrational and transformational (Howard & Streck, 1999). The third substantive chapter examines whether Christian rock should be considered a subculture or a new social movement by looking at how it deals with recruitment, mobilization, insiders and outsiders, structure, leadership, strategies, goals, uses of space and material cultures. In doing so the dissertation argues that Christian rock is composed of many different identities and approaches. It then explores the specific identities and approaches of Worshipcore and Worship Rock. This is followed by a conclusion and brief post-script detailing speculation around the changes that have occurred since the research was conducted. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation looks at Christian rock in Southern Ontario, drawing on interviews with over 30 Ontario based Christian rock musicians, as well as participant observation of close to a dozen Christian rock performances conducted from 2008 to 2010. The dissertation focuses on issues related to how Christian rock is practiced (with particular focus on performance), how Christian rock influences identity over time and how Christian rock reflects aspects of both subcultures and new social movements. The research adds to understandings of Christian rock, and the use of identity and practice in religion, music and youth culture. It also explores similarities and differences between subcultures and new social movements particularly in relation to issues around practices and identity.

This research analyzes the Word of Faith Fellowship (WOF), a female-led Evangelical church that social scientists have not yet studied. My thesis explores how a female leader operates within a patriarchal space and why WOF owns a Holocaust Museum. I conducted content analysis of the church and museum websites, Google reviews, and visited the museum in person. My research highlights the limitations of current taxonomies of religion in sociology. I address this oversight, argue for the re-introduction of “cult” as an analytical term, and propose a rubric for cult identification. I suggest that WOF is a sectarian cult with similar features to other female-led cults. I also find that the group expresses philosemitism through the museum and the tragedy of the Holocaust to pursue church legitimacy. I thus expand on current understandings of philosemitism and posit the concept of tragedy appropriation to describe narrative theft at the group level.

This thesis deals with the determinants and mechanisms of individual secularisation processes in a cross-national perspective. In this ‘collected volume’ of six stand-alone articles, I examine religious beliefs and behaviours as well as attitudes towards religion and politics, whereby the validity of the main theories of religious change (classical secularisation theory, existential security hypothesis, supply-side explanations, historical/cultural approaches and conflict theories) are put to an empirical test. The main conclusion is that the fundamental mechanisms suggested by secularisation theories are valid and that we can identify main determinants of religiosity worldwide. However, only a combination of existing approaches is capable of explaining a broad range of the phenomena observed. Chapter 1 (co-authored with Nan Dirk de Graaf and Peter Schmidt) deals with the fundamental mechanisms that facilitate the socialisation of religious beliefs. Under conditions of high inequality, religion acts as a source of social capital that benefits the religious socialisation of individuals outside of the family context. If levels of inequality fall, this ‘social value of religion’ is diminished and religious socialisation depends more strongly on parental efforts, thereby gradually leading to intergenerational secularisation. In Chapter 2 (co-authored with Anja Neundorf) we show that the state in Eastern Europe played a crucial role in de-establishing as well as re-establishing religious plausibility structures, which explains lower levels of religious belief in Cold War cohorts as well as the religious revival after the end of the Cold War. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the topic of religion and politics and the mechanisms behind the support for the 9/11 attacks in the Muslim world. Levels of existential security and income inequality have a strong impact on the preferences for religious politicians in a cross-sectional as well as in a longitudinal perspective. Moreover, religiosity and altruistic behaviour run the risk of being converted into pro-terrorist support under conditions of high levels of inequality and low development levels. The final two chapters show that –in a world-wide comparison development levels, inequality and the Socialist history of countries explain 75% of the variation in religiosity between countries. Furthermore, future developments in religious change will also be subject to changes in fertility. The main drivers of secularisation processes can be identified, but for the majority of the world population these conditions are not met at present, nor will they be met in the near future.

Boij, A. 2002: Jorden är mörk och svart. Vad som rör pastorer i Svenska Missionsförbundet när de ska predika om samhället. (The world is black and dark. What concerns pastors in the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden when they preach about society). Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Psychologia et Sociologia Religionum 16. 239 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 91-554-5488-7. The dissertation reflects a study of what pastors in the Mission Covenant Church in Sweden say in their sermons about society and social responsibility and represents an attempt at finding factors such as gender, education, age, values, and faith behind what has been said in the sermons. The results show that in general pastors have a negative picture of society irrespective of which of its aspects they are addressing. The pastors’ view of Christian responsibility for society is that it is primarily something for the individual to take, not for the congregation. Above all, Christian responsibility for society is about individual Christians' taking responsibility for her fellow human beings. For theoretical clarification the findings are discussed within the framework of the concept of secularisation, following Casanova (1994) sub-divided into differentiation, decline of religion and privatisation. In the study differentiation is identified when pastors do not relate theological reflection to their description and analysis of society. Thus they do not provide an integrated system of meaning for everyday life. As for privatisation, even when pastors are mainly speaking about public events, they are unable to place those events in a religiously interpreted context. According to the pastors social problems are to be met with private and individual solutions through Christians' actions to the benefit of their fellow men. The MCC is a part of what in Swedish can be called a popular movement, a kind of "social movement" or "voluntary organisation." The analysis shows that its pastors in their sermons do not embrace some of the central parts of the ideology that generally pertain to popular movements, namely concern with reforming society.

<p>Boij, A. 2002: Jorden är mörk och svart. Vad som rör pastorer i Svenska Missionsförbundet när de ska predika om samhället. (The world is black and dark. What concerns pastors in the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden when they preach about society). Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. <i>Psychologia et Sociologia Religionum</i> 16. 239 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 91-554-5488-7.</p><p>The dissertation reflects a study of what pastors in the Mission Covenant Church in Sweden say in their sermons about society and social responsibility and represents an attempt at finding factors such as gender, education, age, values, and faith behind what has been said in the sermons.</p><p>The results show that in general pastors have a negative picture of society irrespective of which of its aspects they are addressing. The pastors’ view of Christian responsibility for society is that it is primarily something for the individual to take, not for the congregation. Above all, Christian responsibility for society is about individual Christians' taking responsibility for her fellow human beings.</p><p>For theoretical clarification the findings are discussed within the framework of the concept of secularisation, following Casanova (1994) sub-divided into differentiation, decline of religion and privatisation. In the study differentiation is identified when pastors do not relate theological reflection to their description and analysis of society. Thus they do not provide an integrated system of meaning for everyday life. As for privatisation, even when pastors are mainly speaking about public events, they are unable to place those events in a religiously interpreted context. According to the pastors social problems are to be met with private and individual solutions through Christians' actions to the benefit of their fellow men. </p><p>The MCC is a part of what in Swedish can be called <i>a popular movement</i>, a kind of "social movement" or "voluntary organisation." The analysis shows that its pastors in their sermons do not embrace some of the central parts of the ideology that generally pertain to <i>popular movements</i>, namely concern with reforming society. </p>

The purpose of the thesis is firstly to assess the Church of Sweden in the light of current quality theories and systematic improvement methods, and secondly to develop methods and models for quality improvement work (using a systematic approach) within the Church of Sweden focusing on parish funeral activities. The thesis takes as its starting point the specific conditions of the church environment and a general, Christian and humansitic value orientation. Another starting point is the concept of processes and relations, and of a caring approach among parish co-workers. Improvements in processes and relationships were related (without financial analysis) to the cost of a lack of quality.The descriptive term quality improvement work includes both quality improvement and the areas of leadership, collaboration and organization. The empirical study was carried out in Täby Parish during the years 1997-2002 as a case study with an interactive approach. The staff and management of the parish were interviewed, as were 14 members of immediate family. A dialogue with undertakers was also maintained. It was a cyclical process with analysis/evaluation followed by strategic planning and action, and with critical reflection as a constant element. The researcher's role was shaped into a psychodynamic, learning approach. A number of factors were identified that form (1) a common basis (valid for all staff members) and (2) a specific parish quality improvement work in the area of funerals. It is when problems are tackled and suggestions for improvement are implemented, that quality improves, the church envitonment benefits, and the costs associated with a lack of quality are addressed. With the title of this thesis, Care and Human Dignity, the view is summarized that the Human Being is complex, and that dignity belongs to the Human Being's creative and lighter sides, that are expressed through care for others.