Ruben Below

“Importance of religion has declined dramatically across the world” Sociologists of religion present a new edition of one of the most comprehensive empirical studies of religious trends across the world – Detlef Pollack: the importance of religion has declined…

An updated and expanded new edition of “Religion and Modernity” finds that the importance of religion has declined dramatically across the world, even in former religious strongholds. buff.ly/aJjYN7n
#ReligiousStudies #NonReligion #SociologyOfReligion

Nice new study by @victoraraujo.bsky.social on how the growth of evangelicals in Brazil (a fascinating development taking place in other Latin American countries) did & didn't shape their electoral politics over the span of several decades. Really solid analysis.

Spirituality and Religion: How Does the U.S. Compare With Other Countries? Explore how adults in the U.S. and 35 other countries compare religiously and spiritually when it comes to affiliation, prayer, afterlife beliefs and more, according to Pew Research Center.

Across three dozen countries surveyed, adults in Ghana (87%) and India (79%) are most likely to hold this belief, while those in Poland and Israel are among the least likely (29% and 28%, respectively). www.pewresearch.org/...

Read my latest Lucid essay, The Iran Strike as a Holy War: open.substack.com/pub/lucid/p/...

Attending Church Encourages Acceptance of Atheists? Suppression Effects in Religion and Politics Research - Political Behavior A proliferation of religion variables presents opportunities for those studying religion and politics in the U.S. However, many studies in this growing subfield demonstrate the pitfalls of reporting t...

New study from @pauldjupe.bsky.social et al. out in @polbehavior.bsky.social. We've often found Christian nationalism & churchgoing are signed in opposite directions in regressions. Authors propose viewing such findings as suppression effects & explore implications.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Analysis of our new #health #data on the use of alternative medicines has been published by the Journal of Public Health (@springernature.com‬).

Laura Kemppainen and Teemu Kemppainen (‪@helsinki.fi‬ 🇫🇮) compared the use of complementary #medicines either side of the pandemic.

I'm at the Presidential Commission on Religious Freedom and... Yikes. An assemblage of Christian Nationalism, fake history, slander of nonreligious people, and outright Christian Supremacy.

🚨 Are young women becoming more left-wing & young men more right-wing?
We analyzed 32 European countries (1990–2023).
📊 Some show growing gaps—others don’t.
📊 Gaps tend to be bigger where gender equality is higher.
w/ @hudde.bsky.social
👉 doi.org/10.1093/esr/...

A line chart with a blue line showing a large growth of protest events from Jan 20 - May 31, 2025, and a green line showing the relatively modest growth of protest events during the same period in 2017.

My team and I at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@djpressman@bsky.social, Soha Hammam, & Chris Shay) have a new piece out: wagingnonviolence.org/2025/06/amer.... In it, we show that through May 2025, the size and scale of anti-Trump protests have dwarfed those in 2017. 🧵

"a ubiquity of tautological statements dressed up as theory" is one of my new favorite quotes

How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020 Christians remain the largest religious group, and Muslims grew the fastest from 2010 to 2020. Read how the global share of Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and the religiously unaffiliated changed, according ...

NEW: For years, my team has been working on a report about major changes in the global religious landscape between 2010 and 2020.

Here's the full thing: www.pewresearch.org/religion/202...

I'll post key findings below.

Plakat zur Sommerdebatte 2025: „Feindbild Diversität?“ am 18. Juni mit Isik, Rademacher, Tezcan. Moderation: Katrin Späte. Universität Münster

Feindbild #Diversität?
Das Thema unserer Sommerdebatte am IfS Münster
18.6. | 18 Uhr c.t. | Hörsaal.
Mit Hevidar Isik, Laura Rademacher & Levent Tezcan
Moderation: Katrin Späte
Im Anschluss: Get-Together im Foyer

www.uni-muenster.de/de/veranstal...

30% of Americans Consult Astrology, Tarot Cards or Fortune Tellers Most who use astrology (or a horoscope), tarot cards or a fortune teller say they do so just for fun rather than for insights about life. Pew Research Center.

Most Americans who engage in astrology, tarot cards or fortune-telling say they do it for fun, rather than for insights or guidance on life decisions. 🔮 ⭐ www.pewresearch.org/...

A long long time ago, in a far away galaxy... the US used to tax the rich

Despite recent attention to astrology, the number of Americans who believe in astrology doesn’t appear to have changed much in recent years.

Belief in astrology among U.S. adults
- Oct 2024 survey: 27%
- Dec 2017: 29%
-Gallup polls between 1990-2005: 23-28%

2/6

30% of Americans Consult Astrology, Tarot Cards or Fortune Tellers Most who use astrology (or a horoscope), tarot cards or a fortune teller say they do so just for fun rather than for insights about life. Pew Research Center.

NEW from @pewresearch.org
30% of Americans Consult Astrology, Tarot Cards or Fortune Tellers ✨🔮

Most say they engage in these practices for fun, rather than for insights or guidance on life decisions
pewrsr.ch/43vZaC1
1/6

Religious group membership and conspiracy beliefs influence vaccine uptake: Insights from 20 European countries Reports of lower vaccine uptake within religious communities pose a significant public health challenge. While religious group membership is often associated with health benefits, recent research has revealed a paradox: it may also be linked to vaccine hesitancy.

New #research published in Vaccine (@elsevierconnect.bsky.social) included analysis of our Round 10 (2020-22) #data.

Aoife-Marie Foran and Jolanda Jetten (University of Queensland 🇦🇺) with Orla T. Muldoon (@unioflimerick.bsky.social 🇮🇪) examined the link between religion, conspiracies and vaccines.

Important piece in the Michigan Law Review by Steffen Seitz on the growing use of conspiracy charges against left-wing activists—from Stop Cop City to pro-Palestine students.

The charges are designed to suppress and kill social movements

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

I remember when this was posted on the other site, my concern was that veterans can get free tombstones (with a free religious icon), whereas non-veterans’ families would have to pay more to include a religious icon.

Wow!

Check out this cool working paper.

"War Causes Religiosity"

The authors scraped web images of hundreds of thousands of gravestones of deceased Americans.

They found that people who were randomly drafted into war are at least 20% more likely to have religious gravestones.

🚨 Excited to share that my first dissertation paper got published in Politics and Religion this week!

I examine: Is Christian religiosity linked to nativist attitudes?
And does this relationship strengthen when PRR parties are in power?

Young Nones Might Not Hate Religion. But They Don’t Like the Vibes. - Christianity Today How Christian Smith's concept of a "Millennial Zeitgeist" helps explain their recent retreat from faith.

Young Nones Might Not Hate Religion. But They Don’t Like the Vibes.
www.christianitytoday.com/2025/05/chri...

Believing in Spirits and Life After Death Is Common Around the World Belief in an afterlife, God and spirits in nature is widespread globally. Older adults are more likely than younger adults to believe in God. Pew Research Center.

Even in countries where few people view religion as very important, many hold beliefs in spirits and/or life after death.

For example, few Swedes (7%) say religion is very important to them but nearly two-thirds believe in spirits in animals, parts of nature or objects.

Law and order, magical spirits, and false flag operations Frenken & Imhoff (2025) in Political Psychology

New #openaccess Paper!
doi.org/10.1111/pops...
Many individuals tend to associate spirituality with socially liberal and alternative ways of life, whereas authoritarianism is often linked to conservative, right-wing environments.

All you'll feel is doom and gloom: Multiple perspectives on the associations between economic anxiety and conspiracy beliefs The article investigates whether and how adherence to conspiracy beliefs (CBs) about COVID-19 pandemic might be associated with (and cause) economic anxiety over various cultural settings and time.

Research published by @ispp-pops.bsky.social featured analysis of our #survey data on conspiracy theories (2020-22).

A group of academics led by Magdalena Adamus (Masaryk University 🇨🇿) investigated the associations between economic anxiety and support for conspiracies.

Former Texas megachurch pastor indicted on child sex abuse charges Robert Preston Morris, founder of Gateway Church and former Trump spiritual advisor, faces five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child.

Wow. Robert Morris is pastor of one of the country's largest churches. One of the regulars on Trump 1's evangelical advisory board. Indicted on child sex abuse charges. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

Toward the end of his historical analysis of fascism in Europe, Robert O. Paxton muses on what an American-style fascism would look like. Writing in the early 2000s.

New pub! 🎉 In @sssreligion.bsky.social, Melissa Wilde, Tessa Huttenlocher & I present new data on the wealth owned by U.S. religious groups 100 years ago. ⛪

Stay tuned - the data set itself will be available on The Association of Religion Data Archives very soon!

The full pdf can be found here: www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/fileadmin/fi...
And in German: www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/unsere-pr...

Thus, our findings align well with existing research on Christian nationalism & cultural backlash. @profsamperry.bsky.social @andrew-whitehead.bsky.social @pauldjupe.bsky.social and many more :)