The complexity of religion and authoritarianism

In my last posting, I made the statement that religion is based on fear and I have fretted ever since over that being too simplistic of a statement. Thankfully, I came across a journal article that has helped to clarify things a bit for me by demonstrating the challenge of understanding the affects of religion.

In the September 2007 issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Paul Wink, Michele Dillon, and Adrienne Prettyman report on their findings of their study contrasting “the relation of church-centered religiousness and spiritual seeking to authoritarianism” (Religiousness, Spiritual Seeking, and Authoritarianism: Findings from a Longitudinal Study, pp. 321-335).

Informants in the study scoring high on the religiousness scale indicated that

“institutionalized religion or church-centered religious beliefs and practices played a central role in [their] life, demonstrated by belief in God, an afterlife, and prayer, and/or frequent attendance (once a week or more) at a traditional place of worship” (p. 326).

Informants scoring high on the spiritual seeking scale indicated that

“noninstitutionalized religion or nonchurch-centered religious beliefs and practices played a central role in [their] life” and “typically reported a sense of sacred connectedness with God, a higher power, or nature and systematically engaged in intentional spiritual practices on a regular basis (e.g., meditation, Shamanistic journeying, centering, or contemplative prayer)” (p. 326).

The findings of the study confirm previous studies that indicate “that religiousness (beliefs and practices) is a better predictor of authoritarianism that denomination” and that church attendance and participation is a better predictor of authoritarianism than denominational affiliation. Wink, Dillon, and Prettyman conclude, “That there is something specific to being religious that predicts authoritarianism above and beyond the effects of religious conservatism, and independent of sociodemographic and personality characteristics” (p. 331). I was also very intrigued with their finding that “religious questing and spiritual seeking acts as a suppressant of authoritarianism” (p. 332)

This made me think of the informant for my doctoral dissertation. He described himself as very conservative when it comes to the authority of Scripture and articulated that the authority of Scripture takes precedence over the authority of church or human. It was probably my experience with the informant that made me most fretful over my statement about religion being based on fear for he was anything but fearful. Rather, this article has helped me to understand that he is on a religious quest and is a spiritual seeker even while being very much a part of institutionalized religion. So in some ways, the complexity of this issue has increased along with the clarification.