The Politics of Christian Religious Movements in the United States
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Southern Illinois University Carbondale OpenSIUC Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 8-1-2019 The Politics of Christian Religious Movements in the United States David Keith Searcy Southern Illinois University Carbondale, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Searcy, David Keith, "The Politics of Christian Religious Movements in the United States" (2019). Dissertations. 1726. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/dissertations/1726 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at OpenSIUC. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of OpenSIUC. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE POLITICS OF CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES by David Keith Searcy B.A., Southwestern Oklahoma State University, 2007 M.A., Oklahoma State University, 2011 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree Department of Political Science in the Graduate School Southern Illinois University Carbondale August 2019 Copyright by David Keith Searcy, 2019 All Rights Reserved DISSERTATION APPROVAL THE POLITICS OF CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES by David Keith Searcy A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the field of Political Science Approved by: J. Tobin Grant, Chair Kenneth Mulligan Darren Sherkat Laura Olson Randall Davis Graduate School Southern Illinois University Carbondale June 21, 2019 AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF David Searcy, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Political Science, presented on June 21, 2019, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: THE POLITICS OF CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. J. Tobin Grant This dissertation is an exploration of the religious movements within Christianity in the United States. After discussing the common strategies used in the social science literature to classify religious belonging, I develop an alternative method that leverages associational ties between religious groups and people who are not active despite their identity. I develop theory- driven classifications for people whose religious identity cannot be determined solely on their identification. The remainder of the dissertation tests whether religious movements correspond to differences in the social and political behavior of those in these religious categories. I find significant differences on demographics, religious beliefs and behaviors, and political partisanship. Significant differences are also found when the analysis is narrowed down to a specific electoral context, the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Throughout the dissertation I will compare the explanatory power of my new scheme, RELMOVE, to existing classification schemes like RELTRAD. The dissertation concludes with some final thoughts for future researchers on the usefulness of the scheme moving forward. i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS No project of this size is produced alone. Well…. No project this size that is worth reading is ever produced alone. I want to begin by acknowledging the immense contribution made by the members of my dissertation committee. The comments and support I received from the committee members; Darren Sherkat, Laura Olson, Kenneth Mulligan, and Randy Davis either were greatly encouraging to me in completely this dissertation or they pointed out corrections that improved the final product. If you find this project to be useful scholarship the credit belongs to my committee. If you found it to be exceedingly dull then all I can say is that it was originally much, much worse. Dr. Olson’s comments were a big help in getting the theory section. She gave me many helpful comments that kept me up late at night but improved the quality of this dissertation immensely. I wanted to thank the members of Epiphany Lutheran Church in Carbondale, IL. My family and I came to Epiphany after a particularly bad religious experience and Epiphany was an absolute revelation for me. The people were amazing and the community within the congregation was exactly what I needed at that time. I particularly wanted to thank Lyn Smith for her help in getting this dissertation finished. Lyn is a retired department chair in English who we attended Epiphany Lutheran with. Her copy editing was invaluable because me no write good. More than anything this dissertation was made possible by two people. The first is Tobin Grant. I met Dr. Grant in Spring 2015 and he was an incredibly important person in helping me through doctoral school. In the past four years he was not only the chair of my committee but he wrote me job application letters, he gave me personal advice, he was my boss when I worked at the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, he has directed me in conducting research, and ii we have co-authored an academic presentation that evolved into a publication. He made time for me despite being the Chair of the entire department during a budget crisis. He even invited my family to Thanksgiving dinner with his parents. When I began my doctoral program a friend of mine told me that, “Everything depends on having a good Chair.” I have had the benefit of a great Chair. Finally, the single most important person in my life is my wife Miranda. Miranda has always had more faith in me then I have had in myself. When I tell people that we have four kids I commonly get a, “You have four kids in grad school?!?” but that is entirely due to Miranda being an incredible wife and mother. If it wasn’t for Miranda, I never would have even applied to doctoral school much less finished it. Whenever I needed to spend some extra time on a project Miranda has always been more than willing to help. She was good natured about me dragging her halfway across the country to Illinois. She has been a constant source of inspiration to me. I simply could not have done this without her. Miranda entering my life has been the absolute highest blessing that I could have received. She believes in me when I need it, tells me to deal with it when I get down, and has motivated me to finish my degree on time because I live in fear of letting her down. I love you so much Miranda. iii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my children; Geoffrey, Elisabeth, Margaret, and William. Dad loves you. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................... i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................. ii DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................................... x CHAPTERS CHAPTER 1 – Introduction: Religious Belonging and the Community of Christ ..............1 CHAPTER 2 – Religious Belonging and Political Behavior .............................................18 CHAPTER 3 – Inter-Denominational Movements in American Christianity ...................49 CHAPTER 4 – RELMOVE: Building a Classification Scheme Based on Religious Movements ................................................................................................92 CHAPTER 5 – Demographics of U.S. Christian Movements .........................................125 CHAPTER 6 – Religious Behaviors and Beliefs .............................................................144 CHAPTER 7 – Religious Movements and Partisanship ..................................................159 CHAPTER 8 – Attitudes Toward Women Among Religious Movements .....................172 CHAPTER 9 – Religious Movements in the 2016 Presidential Election ........................184 CHAPTER 10 – Conclusion ............................................................................................196 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................209 APPENDICES APPENDIX A – Comparison Chart of Christian Denominations ...................................239 APPENDIX B – LR Model STATA Output for Table 6-5 ..............................................242 v VITA ..........................................................................................................................................301 vi LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE Table 3-1 – National Council of Churches Membership by Size and Religious Tradition ...........54 Table 3-2 – National Association of Evangelicals by Size and Religious Movement ..................66 Table 3-3 – Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches of North America Membership ...........................79 Table 4-1 – ANES Protestant Denominational Categories with Sub-Options.............................101 Table 4-2 – Percentage of Protestants with an Ambiguous Belonging Using Religious Tradition ...................................................................................................................104 Table 4-3 – Lutheran Identities on Religious Belief Measures ....................................................113 Table 4-4 – Presbyterian