Religious Factors and General Social Attitudes Among Five Industrial Nations

Abstract

Religious affiliation and religious commitment have been seen to affect, in a variety of ways, social and religious values and attitudes (cf. Herberg 1955; Lenski 1961; Johnstone 1975). However, traditional religion is seeing declining involvement and commitment among industrial nations (cf. Sorokin 1956; Berger 1967, 1969; Luckmann 1967, Stark & Glock 1968; Wilson 1982; Inglehart 1990). The role of religion in these societies is waning as science and technology take on greater and greater significance and as the social life once defined by religion changes considerably (Wilson 1982). Nonetheless, not all researchers agree with the “secularization thesis”. In the United States, for example, it has been claimed that “religion is one of the most important of the many ways in which Americans ’get involved’ in the life of their community and society.... religion has an important role to play in the realm. But as with every other major institution, the place of religion in our society has changed drastically over time” (Bellah et al. 1985, p. 219).

I wish to thank Erwin K. Scheuch at Universität zu Köln and Ludovic Lebart at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications, Paris, France for extremely helpful sugge­stions and comments on an earlier draft of this paper.