Causal Mechanism Analysis of Religious Activity and Political Participation

Religion has played a central role in political participation for centuries. However, while many Americans of the past were religious, in recent years there has been a sharp decline in religious activity. In late 2022, the Pew Research Center published an article analyzing the fall of religious affiliation in the past three decades. They show that from 1972 to 2022, the percentage of Americans self-identifying as Christians dropped from 90% to 63% while the percentage of Americans self-identifying as religiously unaffiliated rose from 5% to 29% over the same period (NW, Washington, and Inquiries n.d. 2022). The recent trends of religious affiliation falling in America brings to light an important question: how does religious activity affect political participation? The question can be explained by the following two hypotheses. First, higher religious activity among individuals causes more passionate feelings about political ideologies. Second, more passionate feelings about political ideologies leads to higher levels of political participation. Therefore, the greater the religious activity of an individual, the greater their level of political participation will be.

To better understand the concepts discussed in this paper, a brief summary of definitions will be given. Religious activity is defined as the degree to which an individual actively participates in their religious community. Political ideology is defined as a set of ideals or principles that explain how society or government should function. Finally, political participation is defined as the broad range of activities individuals undertake such as voting, peacefully protesting, running for public office, and donating to certain political campaigns to express their opinions of how they should be governed.

The more religiously active an individual is, the more passionately they will feel about their political ideologies. As both political ideologies and religious beliefs have much to do with how the world ought to be based on conceptual values, the stronger an individual feels about their religious beliefs as a framework for a good society, the more likely they will be to passionately want to implement that framework for society through political means. An excellent example of this is the pro-life ideologies among evangelical Christians. These individuals are taught in church services and in their religious doctrine that life is a gift from God and must be respected. This means that when they hear of people aborting their children, they become very passionate about ending what they see as a blatantly disrespectful act against God’s gift of life. The principal of the sanctity of life shapes how evangelical Christians view both the spiritual gifts from God and also the secular responsibility a society has to care for its rising generation, which leads to a passion to implement into their secular society what they feel is ordained by God to be the right way to live.

The more passionately an individual feels about a political ideology, the more likely they are to participate in the democratic system. Democracies provide citizens with a way to shape society. It is thus logical that the more a citizen wants society to be formed a certain way, the more they will be willing to participate in democratic systems. Using the Civil Rights Movement as an example of this hypothesis, during the 1960s, “the black church…gave the movement an ideological framework through which passive attitudes were transformed into a collective consciousness supportive of collective action.” (Gadzekpo 1997) This “collective consciousness” was the passion for political ideologies that drove the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement to “collective action” such as marching, conducting sit-ins, boycotting buses, and giving speeches to influence lawmakers. This example clearly shows how passion for political ideologies drives political participation in democratic institutions. Thus, just as an artist who is passionate about their work will spend hours on the most minute detail to see the results they want, so too will citizens passionate about their political ideologies go to great lengths through the democratic system to see their society become what they hope for.

Critics of this theory would suggest that many individuals who are not religious are still active in their political participation. While I agree with this statement, I would also point out that church attendance has a greater effect on passions in communities, which has a greater effect in mobilizing larger portions of people than individual sentiments do for individuals who do not attend church. This community effect can be seen in a Cambridge University study from 2015. In the study, a 5% decline in church attendance led to a 1% decline in voter turnout over the course of a year, showing that church attendance has, “a significant causal effect on voter turnout” in a community, even if a few straggling individuals in the community may not be included in this mobilization (Gerber, Gruber, Hungerman 2015).

In conclusion, while other factors may lead to enhanced political participation, generally the greater the religious activity of an individual, the greater the political participation of said individual. As outlined above this can be explained by the following causal logic. First, greater religious activity leads to more passionate feelings about specific political ideologies. Second, more passionate feelings about specific political ideologies will lead to more active political participation.

References

Gadzekpo, Leonard. 1997. “The Black Church, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Future.” Journal of Religious Thought 53/54, no. 2/1: 95–112.

Gerber, Alan S., Jonathan Gruber, and Daniel M. Hungerman. 2016. “Does Church Attendance Cause People to Vote? Using Blue Laws’ Repeal to Estimate the Effect of Religiosity on Voter Turnout.” British Journal of Political Science 46, no. 3 (July): 481–500. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123414000416.

Lockerbie, Brad. 2013. “Race and Religion: Voting Behavior and Political Attitudes.” Social Science Quarterly 94, no. 4: 1145–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12062.

NW, 1615 L. St, Suite 800 Washington, and DC 20036 USA202-419-4300 | Main202-857-8562 | Fax202-419-4372 | Media Inquiries. n.d. “The Rise of Religious ‘Nones’ Looks Similar in Data from Pew Research Center and the General Social Survey.” Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project (blog). Accessed February 17, 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/pf_2022-09-13_religious-projections_01-01/.