300 Jeff Manza and Nathan Wright
and (d) local/contextual aspects of congregational memberships. The first and most
basic of these cleavages is between voters who attend religious services and consider
religion important in their lives, from those who are not engaged in religion. The most
straightforward measure of engagement is attendance at religious services. Church at-
tendance may be important for political preferences for several reasons: (a) it provides
reinforcement of religious beliefs and ethical precepts; (b) it may reinforce group iden-
tities, especially in ethnically- or linguistically rooted churches; and (c) it connects
religious beliefs to the larger world, including politics. This “religiosity” cleavage has
been shown to be especially powerful in many countries in Western Europe (Heath
et al. 1993), but it has long been understood as significant in the United States as well
(e.g., Wright 2001).
The second, and most commonplace, way in which the religious cleavage shows
is to examine differences between denominational families, at least in those countries
where at least two or more denominations claim the allegiance of substantial propor-
tions of the population. In North America and Western Europe, these divisions are
often cast as Protestant versus Catholic, although in some countries divisions among
Protestants or with other major religious denominations (notably Jews) may also hold
some significance.
A third religious cleavage concerns the impact of religious beliefs held by indi-
viduals, as opposed to denominational memberships or identities. Probably the most
salient division here is between religious traditionalists, who believe in the literal truth
of the Bible, and religious modernizers, who adopt a context-bound interpretation of
the teachings of the Bible (Hunter 1983; Smith 1998; but cf. Wright 2001). Traditional-
ists – once politically engaged – may seek to apply narrowly defined biblical concepts to
solve social problems, while modernizers adopt more flexible, context-bound interpre-
tations of the Bible. Divisions based on the content of religious beliefs, including those
within religious denominations, have frequently been said to be rising in importance
relative to traditional lines of denominational influence.
Finally, a number of analysts have examined the “contextual effects” of local reli-
gious communities or individual churches. Individual church leaders provide sources
of information and opinions to lay members that may sometimes be at odds with na-
tional denominational positions. Local congregations sometimes engage in political
projects that draw in members into various forms of political action and experience
(e.g., Wuthnow and Evans 2001). Churches can frequently be settings in which friend-
ship networks form, especially in conservative churches, leading to distinct subcultures
(Smith 1998). Such networks provide a basis for political discussion and reinforcement
of individual beliefs. For all of these reasons, local congregations may have distinct
impacts on political behavior (Wald, Owen, and Hill 1988; Gilbert 1993).
The Dynamics of Secularization
At the center of many scholarly debates about religious influences on political behavior
has been the question of secularization. Although a number of distinct social processes
are often subsumed under the secularization label, the basic assumptions underlying
the model of secularization are that one of three processes has occurred (or is occurring)
over time: (a) a decline in the importance of religion in the lives of individuals; (b) a
decline in the social and political influence of religious organizations; or (c) a decline