Institutional Confidence in the United States: Attitudes of Secular Americans

Handbook of Leaving Religion

“…This is a necessary step in order to suggest a causal relationship between two variables. For example, Kasselstrand et al (2017) use multivariate analysis of data from the World Values Survey to show that, compared to those who are religious, atheists and the nonreligious Americans are significantly less likely to have confidence in social and political institutions, even after controlling for general trust, religious service attendance, age, marital status, education, gender, race, income, and political views.…”

Belief in God, Confidence in the Church and Secularization in Scandinavia

“…Urstad (2017) showed that having friends with different worldviews is also a significant predictor of disaffiliation in Norway. Another group of authors theorized secularization in terms of the decline of religious authority and confidence in religious institutions within societies (Hoffmann, 1998, Nicolet and Tresch, 2009, Hoffmann, 2013, Kasselstrand et al, 2017. Disappointment with the established religious institutions may lead to people's distancing from them (Lüchau andAndersen, 2012, Keysar, 2014).…”

“…For example, strongly mediatized reports of priests' child abuse, bishops with affairs, and other cleric wrongdoings undermine confidence in the church and lead to distancing from institutional religion (Field, 2014, Keysar, 2014, Bottan and Perez-Truglia, 2015, Turpin et al, 2019, even in a highly religious country like Ireland (Donnelly and Inglis, 2010). The conflict between the churches' public positions and the societies' principles, values, and beliefs (like sexual behavior, family issues, and political orientation) is important for the decay of 'belonging' in terms of confidence in the church and the trust in religious leaders (Hoffmann, 1998, Nicolet and Tresch, 2009, Lüchau and Andersen, 2012, Hoffmann, 2013, Field, 2014, Kasselstrand et al, 2017, Kasselstrand, 2019, because of the interplay between ' cultural religion' and cultural values in Scandinavia (Kasselstrand, 2015;Demerath, 2020).…”

“…CONFIDENCE.CHURCH) and attitude toward the perceived power of the church in the society (abbrev. POWER.CHURCH) express the 'judgment/assessment' aspect of 'belonging' (Hoffmann, 1998, Nicolet and Tresch, 2009, Hoffmann, 2013, Field, 2014, Kasselstrand et al, 2017 and the individuals' stance about the church's authority (Hoffmann, 2013).…”

The macro polity and public opinion in religious context

“…Scholars have also stressed that tension exists between atheist men and perspectives on gender equality (Stinson et al 2013). Other research shows irreligious Americans tend to have less confidence in American social and political institutions relative to religious Americans (Kasselstrand et al 2017). While very little of this research speaks directly to political tendencies among the non-religious, the research also tends to be focused on specific identities within the larger umbrella of irreligion.…”