The general focus of this chapter is to examine how many Christians are doing activities that go against Christian principles. Certainly there are a lot of different activities that I could examine, but I will focus on issues of marriage, sex, crime, substance abuse, and everyday dishonesty.
Marriage Status
Christianity advocates that long-term sexual partnerships occur in the context of marriage, and once people are married, they should stay married. This is not to imply that divorce is always wrong—one can easily imagine situations where a pastor might counsel divorce, such as with an abusive spouse. However, all else being equal, staying married is preferred.
The General Social Survey asks questions about cohabitation (living with a romantic partner outside of marriage) and divorce rates. Christians, Jews, and members of other religions all have relatively low rates of cohabitation, around 4%. In contrast, twice as many of the religiously unaffiliated, over 8%, are living together. Among Christians, Mainline Protestants and Evangelicals have the lowest cohabitation rates.
As for divorce, the survey reports how many respondents (who had ever been married) had been divorced or were currently separated from their spouse. Contrary to popular belief, Christians and members of other religions have lower divorce rates, about 42%, than do the religiously unaffiliated, about 50%. Among Christians, however, there was substantial variation. Catholics are the least likely to have divorced, at 35%, followed by Mainline Protestants (41%), Evangelicals (46%), and Black Protestants (54%).
But if we want to know whether or not the evangelical church’s teachings affect the actions of its members, perhaps an even more important question is whether cohabitation and divorce rates go down as church attendance goes up. As it turns out, they do, and the change is substantial. As shown in Figure 6.1, of the Evangelicals who rarely if ever attend church, 7% were cohabitating, compared to 5% of the monthly attendees and only 2% of the weekly attendees. Likewise, with divorce, 60% of the never-attendees had been divorced or were separated compared to only 38% of the weekly attendees.
These statistics are surprising, not because they are counterintuitive but because we’ve been told for so long that when it comes to marriage, Evangelical Christians are no different than non-Christians. Why is this myth so popular? Let me tell you a story about people’s reactions to statistics about Christianity. I periodically read Digg.com, which is a user-driven news Web site. Readers nominate news stories and then vote for those that interest them the most. All stories start out the same, but those that get more votes, or “diggs,” are featured more prominently on the Web site, and more people read them. In May 2007, I read a just-posted story entitled “Atheist divorce rate is lower than Christian” based on a study by George Barna. Since I had what I thought were more accurate data, similar to those presented above, I posted a second story with a parallel—but reversed—title: “Christian divorce rates are lower than atheist.” I kept the format and length of the story about the same.
Figure 6.1: Are You Currently Living with a Romantic Partner? Have You Ever Been Divorced or Are You Currently Separated? (Evangelical Respondents)
As a result, that morning there were two stories on Digg. com about Christians and divorce rates. Which received the most reader interest? It wasn’t even close. The story portraying Christians negatively, i.e., with higher divorce rates, received over 3,500 “diggs,” making it one of the top stories of the thousand or so submitted that week. The story portraying Christians positively, i.e., with lower Christian divorce rates, received less than a dozen “diggs.”[2]
This illustrates a larger point. Negative statistics about Christianity receive more attention than positive ones, and consequently are more likely to become conventional wisdom. There are various possible explanations for this, as discussed in chapter 1. But in general, Christians acting like Christians just isn’t as interesting as “Christians gone wild.” As a result, bad news about Christians spreads faster and farther than good news.
Getting back to divorce statistics, even though Christians, especially those who regularly attend church, are doing relatively well in this area, there is some bad news. Cohabitation and divorce rates in recent decades have increased substantially for all groups, including Evangelicals. Since the 1970s, cohabitation rates among Evangelicals have increased from below 1% to almost 4%. Similarly, the percentage of divorced or separated Evangelicals almost doubled from the 1970s to the 2000s (25 to 46%).[3]
Domestic Violence
There are many other aspects of marriage that we can examine, but I want to focus briefly on a particularly disturbing problem—domestic violence. The analysis presented here comes from a unique data set—the National Survey of Families and Households. This study interviewed several thousand respondents as well as their romantic partners. The data were collected in the late 1980s, which makes them older than I would prefer, but their uniqueness makes them worth examining. Rather than reanalyzing the data myself, I am reprinting findings from a study by sociologist Christopher Ellison and colleagues.[4]
The National Survey of Families and Households asked married and cohabitating respondents whether they had hit, shoved, or thrown something at their partner in the previous year. In analyzing these data, Ellison and his colleagues classified Protestants as either “conservative,” “moderate,” or “liberal” based on their denominational affiliation. About 3.5 to 5% of Protestant and Catholic respondents reported committing domestic violence. This was less than the 6 to 8% of the religiously unaffiliated, but the differences between these groups weren’t meaningful (i.e., statistically significant).
The big difference, however, came with church attendance. As shown in Figure 6.2, among Christian respondents almost 6% of the men who rarely attended church reported hitting, shoving, or throwing something at their partner in the previous year, compared to only 2% of the weekly attending men. Women displayed a similar pattern. Almost 8% of the never-attendees had hit, shoved, or thrown something at their partners, as compared to just over 3% for weekly attendees.
Here is where the uniqueness of the National Families and Households Study comes into play. Because it collects data from romantic partners, it allows us to compare self-reports of domestic abuse with partner-reports, and they mostly agreed. For example, men who frequently attended church reported committing less domestic violence, and their partners agreed with them. Likewise, women frequent-attendees reported committing less violence, and their partners agreed. In other words, partner reports produce the same pattern of findings as self reports presented in Figure 6.2, so we can feel more confident in the report’s accuracy.
Figure 6.2: Have You Hit, Shoved, or Thrown Things at Your Partner in the Past Year (by Religious Attendance)
This finding addresses a nagging methodological issue when studying Christians’ misdeeds. If Christians report fewer misdeeds than others, are they actually behaving differently or are they simply more reluctant to admit their wrongdoings?[5] These domestic violence findings offer evidence that Christians—as well as others—are telling the truth, because the partner reports parallel the respondent reports. If they were lying, we’d expect their own reports to differ from those of their partners.
Sexual Behavior
Let’s turn to an even more interesting topic—sex. When it comes to religion, the media, in particular, loves stories about sex and sexual misconduct. In looking at the sexual behavior of Christians, I’ll start with extramarital sex. At this point, allow me to interject that there is a crucial distinction between extramarital sex and extra marital sex. One is committing adultery, the other represents a better-thanaverage week, and they have very different consequences.
The General Social Survey asks respondents if, when married, they have ever had sex with someone other than their husband or wife. As shown in Figure 6.3, 16% of Evangelicals reported that they had committed adultery at some time in their life. (It’s worth noting that the way the question is worded, we don’t know if the adultery
happened before or after their initial involvement in evangelical Christianity). Mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews all reported similarly low levels of 14 to 16%. Black Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated reported the highest rates of extramarital sex, at about 25%. If we focus on the line labeled “Christians (all)” we see that, taken as a whole, Christians are committing adultery about one-third less than the unaffiliated. It appears that the commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is, thankfully, still having an effect on the church.
Figure 6.3 also presents two other measures of sexual misconduct—promiscuity and viewing X-rated movies. The measure of promiscuity asks if respondents have had two or more sexual partners in the previous year.[6] Evangelicals and Mainline Protestants had the lowest percentage of respondents reporting promiscuity, 8 to 9%, compared to 12% of Catholics, 17% of Jews, and 21% of Black Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated. With pornography, the question asks respondents if they have seen an X-rated movie in the previous year, and we see a similar pattern as that found with the adultery and promiscuity questions. At the low end, about 18% of the Evangelical and Mainline Protestant respondents reported having seen an X-rated movie, and at the high end 30% of Black Protestants and 35% of the religiously unaffiliated had. Again, if we look at “Christians (all),” we see a substantial difference between those who profess Christianity and the unaffiliated.
Figure 6.3: Have You Ever Committed Adultery? Have You Had Two or More Sexual Partners in the Past Year? Have You Watched an X-Rated Movie in the Past Year?
Just as we discovered with divorce rates, church attendance correlates well with sexual misconduct. As shown in Figure 6.4, Evangelicals who regularly attend church display far less sexual misconduct than those who attend less often. Twenty-two percent of Evangelicals who never attend church have committed adultery as compared to 13% of those who attend weekly. When it comes to promiscuity, 10% of Evangelicals who rarely attend church reported having had multiple partners, compared to 6% of weekly attendees. With pornography, 28% of those who rarely attended church had seen X-rated movies, compared to only 10% of those who attend weekly. Again, as was mentioned in the previous chapter, the best Christians tend to be those who go to church regularly.
Sex Among Our Youth
We pay a lot of attention to the sexual misbehavior of young people, and the prevailing belief is that our children are sexually active. To examine this question, I have analyzed data from the first wave of the National Study of Youth and Religion, collected in 2003, which gathered data from adolescents ages thirteen to seventeen. According to this study, a little over 20% of conservative Protestant youth have had sexual intercourse and slightly more have had oral sex. This is lower than the religiously unaffiliated youth, of whom 30% had intercourse and 31% oral sex.
Figure 6.4: Have You Ever Committed Adultery? Have You Had Two or More Sexual Partners in the Past Year? (Evangelical Respondents)
Sociologist Mark Regnerus, in his book Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers, describes what he refers to as a new middle-class morality about sex. This morality, especially prominent among Mainline Protestants and Jews (historically among the wealthiest religious groups), views vaginal sex as dangerous because of its potential for unwanted pregnancy, sexuallytransmitted disease, and other problems that might diminish one’s life choices. Those who live by this morality trade high-risk intercourse for other lower-risk forms of sex including oral sex, mutual masturbation, and pornography.[7]
In this social context, how can Christianity effectively promote sexual virtue? Regnerus points to the importance of teenagers being in a network of like-minded friends, family members, and authority figures. This network can teach religious values, and it also offers a place where these values can be reinforced.[8] Evidence for the effectiveness of this approach can be seen in the data. According to the National Study of Youth and Religion, there is a strong correlation between church attendance and sexual behavior. Both intercourse and oral sex decrease significantly with weekly church attendance.
Sex and Church Leadership
The analyses above look at the average Christian, but what really makes news is sexual misconduct by clergy. Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, and various Catholic priests have all received extensive media coverage for their sexual misdeeds. Recently The Washington Post published an article about sexual advances from clergy members to their congregants.[9] It was based on data from the General Social Survey in which female respondents who attended religious services at least once a month were asked: “Since you turned eighteen, have you ever found yourself the object of sexual advances or propositions from a minister, priest, rabbi, or other clergyperson or religious leader who was not your spouse or significant other?” Based on the number of women who said yes, the article described sexual advances by clergy as a “problem so pervasive that it almost certainly involves a wide range of denominations, religious traditions, and leaders.” It told the story of a worst-case scenario in which a pastor coerced a woman into sex in the context of giving her spiritual guidance, leading her to depression and an understandable distrust of the church.
Now, based on this description of the problem, you may be wondering just how many women have received this type of sexual attention from a clergy member. The answer is 3%. One in 33 churchgoing women reported that a religious leader had made a sexual advance to them. A friend who sent me this article asked a really good question: Is 3% a lot? It is certainly too much, since from a moral perspective even one case would be too much. But is it a lot? What standards can we use to interpret this number?
The General Social Survey suggests an answer, for it also asks the same respondents if they have ever been the object of sexual advances or propositions from their work supervisors. Obviously work supervisors are not a direct comparison to religious leaders. Not all women work, and those who do probably interact with their supervisors more than their pastors. Pastors and supervisors have different forms of authority, and their sexual misconduct can have very different consequences for the victim. Nonetheless, work supervisors probably constitute the closest comparison group to religious clergy. Whereas only 1 in 33 of the respondents reported clergy members making advances, a full 1 in 4 reported work supervisors doing so. These data suggest that women are much more likely to receive inappropriate sexual attention from authorities in the workplace than in a religious setting. Granted, the standards for clergy should be higher than those for work supervisors. But it is good to know that clergy appear to be doing much, much better in this regard than their secular counterparts.
Abortion
Before leaving the topic of sex, let’s take a quick look at perhaps the most controversial of sex-related issues: abortion. Americans vary widely in their attitudes about the morality and legality of abortion, but rather than engage these issues, let’s simply look at how many women of different religious faiths have had an abortion and whether that number decreases with church attendance. For this analysis I examine data from the National Survey of Family Growth, which interviewed thousands of women about all manner of reproductive issues. Catholic women were the least likely to have an abortion, with about 1 in 5 of them having done so. About 1 in 4 Protestant women have had abortions, and about 1 in 3 religiously unaffiliated women and members of other religions have had an abortion. Among both Protestants and Catholics, abortion rates dropped considerably with increased church attendance. About 1 in 3 Protestant women who rarely attended church had abortions compared to about half that rate, 1 in 6, of the weekly attendees. Likewise, among Catholic women, abortion rates drop from about 1 in 4 to about 1 in 8.
Crime
Turning our attention to crime, sociologists of religion have put forth various theories as to why religious affiliation should reduce criminal behavior. One popular explanation, offered by sociologists Travis Hirschi and Rodney Stark, points to the promises of supernatural punishments, in addition to those received here on E
arth, as a deterrent.[10] In other words, when Christians commit crime, we face two judges.
To examine crime, I use data from the third wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. This data set was collected in 2002, and it surveyed over 15,000 young adults ages eighteen to twenty-five nationwide. The survey asks respondents a variety of questions about their experiences with crime and the criminal justice system, and I analyze four of them. The first question asks respondents if they have “ever been arrested or taken into custody by the police.” The next three ask if, in the past twelve months, respondents have deliberately damaged someone else’s property, stolen something worth more than $50, or hurt someone in a fight badly enough that they needed medical attention.
There is a similar pattern across each measure. Overall, Protestants were the least criminal of the respondents. For example, 9% of the Protestants had been arrested, which was less than the 11% of Catholics, 13% of other religions, and 15% of the religiously unaffiliated. The Protestant respondents were also the least likely to have damaged property or stolen goods. Along with Catholics, they were less likely than the religiously unaffiliated to have been in a fight that resulted in hurting someone.
Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...and Other Lies You've Been Told Page 10
