Religious Experience and
Religious Identity
Religions don’t vary only by denomination; we
vary in our level of religious affiliation and in the
intensity of our beliefs. Rates vary from country
to country; and, within the United States, differ-
ent groups express different levels of religiosity.
For example, age matters: The older are more
religious than the young. And where you live
matters: The rural are more religious than the
suburban, and the suburban are more religious
than the urban (the major exception to this is
urban Blacks, who have high rates of religiosity,
as we will discuss below). And sex matters:
Although they have long been excluded from
leadership positions in several major religions,
women remain more religious than men. Women
attend religious services more frequently and
report higher levels of religiosity (intense religious
feelings) than do men. But why would women be
more likely to adhere to a spiritual discipline that
portrays them as second-class citizens?
Many researchers point to more psycholog-
ical explanations: Women are socialized to be
kinder and gentler, qualities often associated
with religion; or the fact that women are prima-
rily involved in childrearing, which also extracts those values from women. But soci-
ological research suggests that women’s structural location, specifically their absence
from the labor force, better explains higher levels of religiosity. Men who
are not in the labor force exhibit equally high levels of religiosity, and
women’s levels decline significantly when they enter the paid labor force
(deVaus and McAllister, 1987).
Most Western religions not only prohibit women from leadership but
also condemn homosexuality as contrary to divine law. Though actual
references to homosexuality in the Bible are few, those who condemn
homosexuality point to a passage in Leviticus (18:22) that reads, “And
with a man you shall not lie with as a man lies with a woman; it is an
abomination.” Despite this, several religious denominations have begun
to include gay men and lesbians, including some Protestant denomina-
tions, conservative and reform Judaism, and most non-Western religions.
The consecration of an openly gay priest as an Episcopal bishop in 2005
has split the American Episcopal Church from other national synods and
threatens to tear the church in two.
Both denominational affiliation and rates of religiosity also vary by
race and ethnicity as well (Figure 15.3). In the United States, more than
92 percent of Blacks and Hispanics practice some religious denomination,
while only about 88 percent of Whites do. Of those, more than 67 per-
cent of Hispanics are Catholic, while only 22.4 percent of Whites and a
mere 4.25 percent of Blacks are. Almost 83 percent of Blacks are Protes-
tant, as compared with 57 percent of Whites and 19.6 percent of Hispan-
ics (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2007).
RELIGION IN THE UNITED STATES 503©The New Yorker Collection 2004 William Haefeli from cartoonbank.com. All Rights
Reserved. Reprinted by permission.The historical association of religiosity and
femininity has troubled theologians at
various times as they sought ways to bring
men back into religious institutions. At the
turn of the twentieth century, an entire
evangelical movement, called Muscular
Christianity, proclaimed Jesus as a he-man,
a sort of religious Rambo, not the kind,
sweet, angelic image of many mainstream
churches. Jesus was no “dough-faced lick-
spittle proposition,” quipped Billy Sunday, a
professional baseball player turned evange-
list preacher and leader of the Muscular
Christians, “but the greatest scrapper that
ever lived” (cited in Kimmel, 1996, p. 171).
Today, PromiseKeepers use similar images of
Jesus as a real man in their efforts to bring
men back into the fold.Didyouknow