Motivations and Types of Religious Change in Contemporary America

Abstract

Background

It is estimated that around half of American adults have changed religion or denomination at least once, yet little is known about the effect of different motives on these changes.

Purpose

This paper seeks to understand the motives driving religious change and the relationship between the reason for religious change on the nature of that change, be it denominational switching, conversion, or disaffiliation.

Methods

The data come from the Pew 2007 Religious Landscape Survey and 2008 Conversion Recontact Survey. First, reasons for changing religion are presented, followed by a series of binary logistic and multinomial regressions that analyze religious changes, their motivations, and justifications.

Results

Among the many reasons for changing religious affiliation, motives directly associated with personal aspects of religion are much more commonly cited than mundane rationales, such as marriage or geographic mobility. Disaffiliates are more likely to view their religious change as being motivated by personal religious concerns, whereas denominational switchers and, to a lesser extent, converts tend to cite mundane motives.

Conclusions and Implications

Decisions regarding affiliation are the most likely to be attributed to personal religious motives, either in an attempt to justify actions to family and friends who have remained religious or because affiliation and non-affiliation are perceived as religiously distinct. Denomination switching and conversion are associated with mundane motives, perhaps due to the rise of religious pluralism, which asserts the validity of a range of religious options, reducing the religious significance of denominational switching and conversion. Thus, personal religious motives play a role in deciding whether to consume religion as a product, while choices regarding a particular brand of religion are attributed to more mundane concerns. This paper adds to our understanding of the interplay between secular, communal, and personal religious motives in shaping religious preferences. In doing so, it sheds light on the nature of such decisions and the broader religious landscape. Additionally, it may provide insights useful to religious leaders on how they might best attract new affiliates.

Appendix

Definitions and summary statistics of variables involved in the analyses.

Variable	Definition	Percentage/mean (SD)
Childhood religiosity
Very religious	= 1 if very religious as a child	37.2
Moderately religious	= 1 if moderately religious as a child	41.9
Not religious	= 1 if not religious as a child	20.9
Teen religiosity
Very religious	= 1 if very religious as a teen	28.6
Moderately religious	= 1 if moderately religious as a teen	33.8
Not religious	= 1 if not religious as a teen	37.5
Current religiosity
Very religious	= 1 if very religious now	35.0
Moderately religious	= 1 if moderately religious now	22.5
Not religious	= 1 if not religious now	42.5
Religious trajectory
Raised Protestant, now Catholic	= 1 if raised Protestant, now Catholic	4.5
Raised Protestant, now unaffiliated	= 1 if raised Protestant, now unaffiliated	16.9
Raised Catholic, now Protestant	= 1 if raised Catholic, now Protestant	12.5
Raised Catholic, now unaffiliated	= 1 if raised Catholic, now unaffiliated	12.2
Other	= 1 if other	4.8
Raised Protestant, now different Protestant denomination	= 1 if raised Protestant, now different Protestant denomination	48.2
Sociodemographic characteristics
Age left religion	Continuous variable	22.2 (10.72)
Age joined religion	Continuous variable	26.3 (11.07)
Age	Continuous variable	47.6 (16.2)
Female	= 1 if gender male	52.1
Male	= 1 if gender male	47.9
White non-Hispanic	= 1 if ethnicity White non-Hispanic	77.3
Black non-Hispanic	= 1 if ethnicity Black non-Hispanic	11.0
Hispanic	= 1 if ethnicity Hispanic	7.3
Mixed, other	= 1 if ethnicity mixed or other	4.4
Foreign-born	= 1 if nativity status foreign born	5.4
Native born	= 1 if native born	94.6
High school	= 1 if education high school or less	39.0
Some college	= 1 if education some college	30.4
Bachelor's degree	= 1 if education Bachelor's degree	18.0
Postgraduate education	= 1 if education postgraduate	12.6