Premium
Beyond the Lynn White Thesis: Congregational Effects on Environmental Concern
Author(s) -
Djupe Paul A.,
Hunt Patrick Kieran
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal for the scientific study of religion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.941
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1468-5906
pISSN - 0021-8294
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5906.2009.01472.x
Subject(s) - religiosity , white (mutation) , action (physics) , sociology , social psychology , set (abstract data type) , environmental ethics , religious belief , epistemology , psychology , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , quantum mechanics , computer science , gene , programming language
An extensive literature has explored the effects of religion on opinions about environmental protection and action on environmental issues, but has largely concerned itself with the effects of theology as inspired by the Lynn White thesis. However, religion is multifaceted and any complete study should also incorporate the social dimensions of religious experience. In this article, we employ a unique data set to demonstrate the varied informational effects of church membership on environmental attitudes. We find that social sources of information in the church shape the dimensions of religious belief and exert much stronger effects on attitudes on the environment than do doctrinal or religiosity measures.