By Paul A. Djupe, Denison University In the tribulation period of the end times, Christians are beset by demonic forces that only the final battle won by the heavenly host will vanquish forever. Under such conditions, it would hardly seem fair to have to maintain civility. You know that the other side isn’t going to play fair. In this way, tribulation may unleash dark sides of our personalities – anything is justified in the end times, particularly when the acts are done to press forward God’s will. Is there any evidence for this sort of dynamic? One way to capture anti-social orientations is ..read more

By Paul A. Djupe Every single time I present work on apocalypticism in modern American politics, I am asked two things: Aren’t there different types of end times thinking? And doesn’t end times thinking lead to apathy? Here I’d like to give my usual answers, but with data. The answers are surprising, or at least they have been to me, but accord with long-running dynamics explicitly pursued to lead to this point. First, a quick explainer. Religions are meant to be complete. They have narratives of the beginning, rules for the middle, and stories of how it will end. Stories about the end are re ..read more

By Paul A. Djupe, Denison University One of the questions looming over the 2022 elections is whether people will accept the results. That’s especially true of Republicans because of the widespread belief among identifiers that Trump lost the 2020 election due to fraud and the continuing assertion from Republican office-holders and seekers of the same. That means that 60 percent of Americans will have an election denier on the ballot. Not all Republicans are cut from the same cloth, however, and support for the election-denier position varies considerably. One of the common threads connecting d ..read more

Paul A. Djupe and Ryan P. Burge We noticed something strange – when conservative religious leaders were talking about environmental policy, they focused on the science and their problems with it. For example, during a sermon in 2006 Rev. Jerry Falwell made the argument that, “‘scientists who are not on the payroll of the government’ believe that ‘the jury’s still out’” on climate change. Rather than focus on the values motivating environmental action, much opposition to climate change action attacked the science and scientists behind climate change claims. Why? In our new article out at Politi ..read more

By Nicholas J. Higgins and Paul A. Djupe [Image credit: Minnesota UMC] In March 2020 as the first wave of the COVID-19 became a national pandemic, most states imposed or asked houses of worship (and other social institutions) to close in order to “stop the spread” and “flatten the curve.” Much of our attention has focused on houses of worship defying those orders, fueled by the prosperity gospel, and the litigation that resulted. But one of the results of these closure orders/invitations was that most houses of worship took steps to add some online worship capacity. This action led to the ques ..read more

By Ryan P. Burge and Paul A. Djupe [image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images] Once thought to be the shining city on a hill that defied the secularization thesis, the United States has been going through a profound change in losing its religion. There are so many important questions to ask as changes in religion are linked to so many facets of life. Obviously, we are trained on the political ramifications of religious disaffiliation, while others investigate questions linked to the family, social relations, individualism, happiness, and many more. Here’s the trick – for many years research in th ..read more

By Paul A. Djupe and Jacob R. Neiheisel The surge of Christian nationalism in the United States has given rise to a serious debate about the role of congregations in helping the worldview spread, seemingly at the behest of Donald Trump. There is no doubt that there are Christian nationalist churches out there – Robert Jeffress’s First Baptist in Dallas is one, and so is the St. Louis suburban church profiled on Vice. But academic research makes it seem like frequent attenders are less Christian nationalist because attendance often takes a different statistical sign compared to Christian nation ..read more