Geoffrey W. Sutton PhD, Psychology and Culture

About half find religion to be important Dominated by the Christian faith, religion has been important in the U.S. and most of the world for centuries. However, in recent years the level of importance has declined in the U.S. What’s different now is the size of the drop in the past 10 years. Just under half (49%) of American adults report that religion is important in their daily life. Chart based on Gallup data- See Reference How much did the level of importance drop? 17% What is the time frame? 10 years What are the basic facts?  66% in 2015, 49% in 2025. How common is that size of a drop? Rare. Less than 10% of 160 nations see a drop that large in 10 years. How does the US compare with other nations? On average, religion is highly important at 83% in most countries, but the US at 49% is above the 36% average in countries with advanced economies. What’s the source? Gallup as reported by Vigers and Ray (2025, November 13) Read more at the reference link. Reference Vigers, B. &...

Viewing a Sacred Book 2023 by Geoffrey W. Sutton & Bing AI   Are Conservative and Progressive Christians Trading Insults? I'm in the process of writing about the assessment of spirituality, which I hope to complete by the end of the year. I've come across articles and research measures attempting to clarify the related concepts of fundamentalism and biblical literalism. And so, I have a question about the meaning of these terms and wonder if there is a way to delineate different approaches that recognizes differences but does not appear to denigrate the perspective of people with different views. Here's a summary of what I've found. Researchers have examined differences within religious traditions in the way subgroups of people communicate about their beliefs and live out their faith. Writing in Christianity Today (2023) Tim Pietz begins his essay on fundamentalism by noting the negative connotation of two of the terms (bold added for emphasis): “ Fundamentalist ” ...

  On 5 March 2021, Claire Giangravé wrote a conspiracy theory opinion piece for  Religion News Service .  Photo G Sutton Vatican 2019 In this post, I comment on a problem with articles like this one that offer selected quotes from people as a basis for supporting a premise without any obvious attempt to counterbalance the voices or either offer supporting data or a statement of limitations where there are no data. In short, readers are left with the notion that the author has presented factual news when we mostly have a collection of opinions. Following is the RNS title. Where is the evidence for a "breeding ground" that warrants singling out the Catholic church as worthy of an opinion article in a news source? Her opening statement offers a premise that allows us to pause and consider if the statement is true or false:  "If it’s true that all roads lead to Rome, it’s also true that in one way or another, all conspiracy theories lead to the Vatican."  In a liter...

  QAnon offers a religious worldview, that has won the minds of some conservative American Christians. Katelyn Beaty ( 2020, August 17 ) opines “Once the fascination of far-right commentators and their followers, QAnon is no longer fringe.” Argentino calculates a huge increase in QAnon content ( 2020, July 8 ). I have been researching the QAnon movement since 2018. Based on my most recent social media analysis, QAnon has seen a 71 per cent increase in Twitter content and a 651 per cent increase on Facebook since March 2020. New Religious Movements (NRMs) used to be called cults, but behavioral scientists have dropped the term cult because of its negative connotation. Religious scholars remind us that at one time Christianity was considered a cult. QAnon appears to be an NRM with a strong attraction for some evangelical Christians concerned about their faith and their country. Hypotheses about the growth of QAnon are not in short supply . Pastor Jon Thorngate of Wiscons...

Dawn French, Vicar of Dibley, BBC TV Survey results from Tearfund as reported in The Guardian  and CoE data indicate an increase in religious practices during the Covid-19 lockdown. Psychologists will recognize this as consistent with Terror Management Theory as people become more conservative when death awareness increases. The CoE reported 6,000 people called a prayerline during its first two days. The CHURCHTIMES provides some results Among the respondents who said that they prayed more than once a month, the largest age bracket were adults aged 18 to 24 (30 per cent), while 25 per cent of adults who prayed more than once a month were aged 55 and over. Adults aged between 18 and 24 were also more likely to pray about the Government’s response to Covid-19 : 25 per cent, compared with 23 per cent of those aged 65 and over, and 15 per cent of those aged 25-64. 34 per cent of the respondents aged 18 to 24 said that they had watched or listened to a religious service ...