Does Education Influence Religious Beliefs?

Or is it?

A new University of Nebraska-Lincoln study challenges that
age-old notion with findings that show education actually has a positive
effect on Americans’ churchgoing habits, their devotional practices,
their emphasis on religion in daily life and their support for religious
leaders to weigh in on the issues of the day.

The work, to be published in a forthcoming edition of the journal
Review of Religious Research, analyzed a nationwide sample of thousands
of respondents to the General Social Survey. The analysis determined
that education does, in fact, influence Americans’ religious beliefs and
activities—but the effects are more complicated than conventional
wisdom suggests.

“Education influences strategies of action, and these strategies
of action are relevant to some religious beliefs and activities, but not
others,” says Philip Schwadel, associate professor of sociology at UNL
and author of the study. “The effects of education on religion are not
simple increases or decreases. In many ways, effects will vary, based on
how you define religion.”

For example, the study found higher levels of education eroded
Americans’ viewpoints that their specific religion is the “one true
faith” and that the Bible is the literal Word of God. At the same time
education was positively associated with belief in the afterlife. And
while more highly educated Americans were somewhat less likely to
definitely believe in God, it’s because some of them believed in a
higher power, not because they were particularly likely to not believe
at all.

The research also found that disaffiliating, or dropping religion
altogether, was not a popular option for highly educated Americans—in fact, having a greater level of education was associated most often
with converting to mainline, non-evangelical Protestant denominations.

The study is unique, Schwadel said, because it examines
education’s effects on religion in the various ways that Americans are
religious—from their different beliefs, their varied ways of
participating and the nature of their affiliations with specific
denominations.

Also among the study’s findings:

* Education had a strong and positive effect on religious
participation. With each additional year of education, the odds of
attending religious services increased 15 percent.

* Increases in education were associated with reading the Bible.
With each additional year of education, the odds of reading the Bible at
least occasionally increased by 9 percent.

* Education was related to respondents’ switching of religious
affiliations. The odds of switching to a mainline Protestant
denomination increased by 13 percent for each year of education.

* The more educated respondents were, the more likely they were
to question the role of religion in secular society. Yet, they were
against curbing the voices of religious leaders on societal issues and
supported those leaders’ rights to influence people’s votes.

“The results suggest that highly educated Americans are not
opposed to religion—even religious leaders stating political
opinions,” Schwadel says. “But they are opposed to what may be perceived
as religion being forced on secular society.”

The research illustrates the unique, voluntary American brand of
religiosity, he said, and should open up a discussion about the
interactions between education and religion in modern American life.

“It’s clear that though the religious worldviews of the highly
educated differ from the religious worldviews of those with little
education, religion plays an important role in the lives of highly
educated Americans,” Schwadel says. “And religion remains relevant to
Americans of all education levels.”