Halfway to Heaven: Four Types of Fuzzy Fidelity in Europe

Storm, Ingrid

doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2009.01474.x

Cited by 98 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(65 reference statements)

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“…In general, in many European countries traditional church membership has declined significantly over the last decades (Halman & Draulans, 2006). Nevertheless, there remains a significant group of people that can neither be described as a church member2, nor as outspokenly unreligious (Storm, 2009).…”

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confidence: 99%

Meaning Making and Death in a Secular Society: A Dutch Survey Study

Wojtkowiak

Rutjens

Venbrux

2010

Archive for the Psychology of Religion

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This article focuses on the relation between death and religion in a secularized society. In the Netherlands, traditional religious membership has declined significantly together with traditional belief systems. This study investigates the relation between the experience of death and religious affiliation (unaffiliated, Catholic, and Protestant) in relation to meaning making. Parts of a nationwide survey study (n = 1212) are analyzed in order to investigate different forms of meaning making (Christian meaning, personal meaning, and denial of meaning). The results show that the experience of the death of a loved one is related to personal meaning giving only for Protestant participants. Moreover, religiously unaffiliated, Catholics and Protestants differ significantly in different ways of meaning making. In the discussions the authors focus on the different effects of different religious groups in the context of secular society.

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confidence: 99%

Meaning Making and Death in a Secular Society: A Dutch Survey Study

Wojtkowiak

Rutjens

Venbrux

2010

Archive for the Psychology of Religion

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“…In particular, qualitative research is needed to understand how respondents interpret these categories and what they seek to express by selecting them. This methodological question does not undermine research which takes nonreligious populations as a starting point or component part such as demographic research (e.g., Keysar 2007;Voas and McAndrew 2012;Wilson and Sherkat 1994), investigations into the stability of nonreligious populations (e.g., Lim, MacGregor, and Putnam 2010) or research investigating how nonreligious identification correlates or combines with other measures of religiosity and nonreligiosity, namely, belief and practice (e.g., Sherkat 2008;Storm 2009;Voas 2009). Such work enriches our understanding of nonreligious populations.…”

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confidence: 99%

Secular or nonreligious? Investigating and interpreting generic ‘not religious’ categories and populations

Lee¹

2014

Religion

105

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In research dealing with religious affiliation, generic nonreligious categories -'no religion', 'not religious', 'nonreligious', 'nones' -are frequently used to measure secularity and secularisation processes. Analysis of these categories is, however, problematic because they have not received dedicated methodological attention. Using qualitative research conducted in the UK, this article investigates what nonreligious categories measure and, specifically, whether they indicate nonidentification or disaffiliation as assumed or an alternative form of cultural affiliation. Findings suggest that generic nonreligious categories are sometimes used to express substantive positions and public identities, and that these are diverse. These findings flatten distinctions between religious and nonreligious categories as 'positive' and 'negative' respectively and indicate problems therefore in using nonreligious identification to measure secularity and secularisation. They suggest nonreligious identification is, however, a useful indicator of the advance of nonreligious cultures and the 'nonreligionisation' of societies.KEY WORDS: nonreligion and secularity; quantitative methods; atheist identities; indifference to religion; secularisation; nonreligionisation; religion in Britain; religious identities; disaffiliation The generic nonreligious categories frequently used in survey questionnaires appear to differ fundamentally from other identification or affiliation categories. Whether phrased as 'no religion', 'not religious', 'nonreligious' or 'none', these categories are apparently negative, allowing participants to record that a form of cultural identification lacks meaning or relevance to them or is perhaps entirely absent in their lives. Consequently, social researchers and reporters often describe and interpret the use of these categories as acts of 'disaffiliation' or 'non-identification'. Generic nonreligious categories seem, therefore, distinct from more explicitly positive confessional classifications that are also offered in religious identification survey questions. Selecting a category like 'Christian' or 'Hindu' indicates that a respondent is familiar with this term as a cultural marker and that it is meaningful to them to some degree. Such categories allow respondents to share an emic representation -the one that they would Religion, 2014 Vol. 44, No. 3, 466-482, http use in daily life or a reasonable proxy for the one they might normally prefer ('Christian' instead of 'Anglican', for example). By contrast, generic nonreligious options seem to be etic categories, used to locate the remaining individuals inside an analytical rather than a phenomenological framework. As Pasquale (2007, n.p.) says of the 'none' category, the terms themselves indicate that they are 'a function of survey method rather than a self-description'.In many countries in the world, increasing and large numbers of people are today choosing generic nonreligious categories: in Britain, the empirical focus of this article, 51 percent selected '...

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“…In the Danish case, even inside the Folk Church, the majority of churchgoers were against pubic religion. Denmark seemed a special case of 'belonging without believing' (Storm, 2009) where membership of the Folk Church was bound up with national pride and lack of pluralism as part of Danish cultural identity (Jenkins, 2008). Nonetheless, the Danish Lutheran tradition clearly sees it as inappropriate for religion to become mixed up in politics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a requirement that members are 'moderately religious' (Storm, 2009), unlike the first specifically British form of religio-ethnic national identity (Storm, 2011b) Dutch, British and French 'religious-Christians' represent sizeable residual constituencies outside of the churches who may still be prepared to listen to religious leaders' public pronouncements but without any strong desire for de-privatization. Members express relatively positive attitudes about public religion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Public Presence of Religion in Western Europe: its social significance among religious constituencies lying between the secular and churchgoing Christians?

Glendinning¹

2013

International Journal of Social Science Studies

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The study examines attitudes about public religion in the Netherlands, Britain, France and Denmark using ISSP survey data for 1998 and 2008. The context is de-privatization of religion in secular Western Europe due to Christian cultural defence. The majority of Dutch and British participants hold moderate opinions about mixing religion and politics. The majority of French and Danish participants are against public religion. Comparing 2008 to 1998, anti-public-religion attitudes are more evident in the Netherlands in 2008. It is moderate attitudes that are less likely in Britain and approval is even less likely in France and Denmark in 2008 compared to 1998. Overall, public religion has become more unpopular in all four countries. In terms of differences between religious constituencies within countries, attitudes about public religion have de-coupled from churchgoing in Britain unlike continuing relative approval of churchgoers elsewhere. Non-attendance of services is associated with disapproval in France only. In the Danish case, majorities express anti-public-religion attitudes across all religious constituencies in 2008, including Danish churchgoers. National differences emphasize differing traditions, church-state relations and current conditions. There are two instances of cultural defence in our analysis. The Dutch case represents growth in religious-Christian numbers outside of the churches who are not against public religion. The other instance of religio-ethnic cultural defence is among a growing minority of nominal Christians in Britain, who are neither religious nor churchgoers, but express approval of mixing religion and politics as part of an imagined national identity rather than any basis in Christian faith.

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Halfway to Heaven: Four Types of Fuzzy Fidelity in Europe

Cited by 98 publications

References 33 publications

Meaning Making and Death in a Secular Society: A Dutch Survey Study

Meaning Making and Death in a Secular Society: A Dutch Survey Study

Secular or nonreligious? Investigating and interpreting generic ‘not religious’ categories and populations

The Public Presence of Religion in Western Europe: its social significance among religious constituencies lying between the secular and churchgoing Christians?

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