Religion_1CR – Introduction to Comparing Religions

Note to the Instructor: This is the first in a series of six exercises that focus on comparing religions.  In these exercises we're going to analyze data from the Pew 2014 Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.  We're going to use SPSS to analyze the data.  A weight variable is automatically applied to the data set so it better represents the population from which the sample was selected.  You have permission to use this exercise and to revise it to fit your needs.  Please send a copy of any revision to the author so I can see how people are using the exercises. Please contact the author for additional information.

Goal of Exercise

The goal of this exercise is to introduce a series of exercises in which you will compare two religions of your choice.  In this introduction we'll help you choose the two religions you will compare and show you how to select out respondents in those two religious groups.  In the next exercise (Religion_2CR) we'll compare the two religions you chose in terms of religiosity (i.e., how religious people are). 

Part I—Concepts

We use concepts all the time.  We all know what a book is.  But when we use the word “book” we may not be talking about a particular book we’re reading. We could be talking about books in general.  In other words, we’re talking about the concept to which we have given the name “book.”  There are many different types of books – paperback, hardback, small, large, short, long, and so on.  But they all have one thing in common – they all belong to the category “book.”

Let’s look at some other examples.  Religious preference refers to the religion with which people identify.  Some people say they are Lutheran; others say they are Roman Catholic; still others say they are Muslim; and others say they have no religious preference.  Religiosity is another concept which refers to the degree of attachment that individuals have to their religious preference.  It’s different than religious preference.   Religiosity and religious preference are both concepts.

In other words, a concept is an abstract idea.  There are the abstract ideas of book, religiosity, religious preference, and many others.  Since concepts are abstract ideas and not directly observable, we must select measures or indicants of these concepts.  We call this process measurement.

Part II – The Data Set We'll be Using

The Pew Research Center has conducted a number of surveys that deal with religion.  Two of these surveys are the Religious Landscape Surveys conducted in 2007 and then repeated in 2014.  They were very large telephone surveys of about 35,000 adults in the United States.   For more information about the surveys, go to their website

We'll be using a subset of the 2014 survey in this exercise which I have named Pew_2014_Religious_Landscape_ Survey_subset_for_classes.sav.  For the purposes of these exercises I selected a subset of variables from the complete data set.  I recoded some of the variables, created a few new variables, and renamed the variables to make them easier for students to use.  There is a weight variable which should always be used so that the sample will better represent the population from which the sample was selected.  To open the data set in SPSS, just double click on the file name.[1]  Your instructor will tell you where the file is located.

Part III – Measuring Religious Preference

Religious preference refers to the religion with which respondents identify.  The Pew survey asked "What is your present religion, if any?  Are you Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such as Greek or Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, something else, or nothing in particular?" 

Now that you have opened the data set, run a frequency distribution for the variable R1 which is the name of the variable.  The variable name starts with the letter R which tells you that this variable describes religious preference.  There are seven variables in this category named R1 to R7.  We're going to look at some of them in this exercise.  Some of you have used SPSS, the statistical package we're using, and know how to get a frequency distribution.  Others of you are new to SPSS.  There is a tutorial that you can use to learn how to get a frequency distribution.  The tutorial is freely available on the Social Science Research and Instructional Center's website.  Chapter 1 of the tutorial gives you a basic overview of SPSS and frequency distributions are covered in Chapter 4. 

It's very easy to get frequency distributions.  Once you have opened the data set in SPSS, look on the menu bar at the top and click on "Analyze."  This will open a drop-down menu.  Click on "Descriptive Statistics" and then on "Frequencies."  You screen should look like Figure 1.

Title: Figure 1 - Description: This is the SPSS dialog box for Frequencies.

Figure 1

Notice that the list of all the variables is in the pane on the left.  I scrolled down to the variables that start with R (i.e., R1 through R7).  Select R1 by clicking on it and then click on the arrow pointing to the right.  This will move R1 into the "Variable(s)" box.  Your screen should look like Figure 2.

Title: Figure 2 - Description: This is the SPSS dialog box for Frequencies with R1 selected.

Figure 2

Now all you have to do is to click on "OK" to get your frequency distribution.  Your screen should look like Figure 3.  Note that I have only displayed the top part of the distribution because it's a very large table.[2]

Title: Figure 3 - Description: This is the SPSS output displaying the frequency distribution for R1.

Figure 3

Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the information in the table.

  • The first column is the value and the value label.  The value "1" refers to all people who answered Protestant.
  • The second column is the number of respondents who said they were Protestants (15,431).
  • The third column converts the frequencies to percents.  Notice that there are two types of missing information – responses that were uninterpretable and those who said they didn't know or refused to answer.  The percent column converts the frequency to a percent by dividing the frequency (15,431) by the total number of cases including those with missing values (35,071).  Carry out the computation for yourself and convince yourself that it is 44.0%.
  • The fourth column converts the frequencies to valid percents by dividing the frequency (15,431) by the number of cases with valid information (34,846).  In other words, it excludes the cases with missing information (225) from the denominator when computing the percent.  Carry out the computation for yourself and convince yourself that it is 44.3%.  This is called the valid percent.  The more missing information there is in the distribution, the greater could be the difference between the percent and the valid percent.  Normally we want to use the valid percents when describing the frequency distribution.
  • The fifth column is the cumulative percent.  Recall that the first twelve categories in the distribution were listed in Figure 3.  The cumulative percent for this twelfth category is 94.4%.  In other words, 94.4% of the cases with valid information selected one of the categories included in the first twelve categories.  You can see where this comes from if you add up the valid percents for the first twelve categories.

Now it's your turn.  The second category in the distribution is Roman Catholic.

  • What is the value for this category?
  • How many respondents said they were Roman Catholic?
  • What is the percent for this category?  What does this mean?
  • What is the valid percent for this category?  What does this mean?
  • Why aren't the percent and valid percents the same?
  • What is the cumulative percent for this category?  What does this mean?

Part IV – Measuring Religious Preference for Protestants

One problem with the first question is that over 15,000 respondents said they were Protestant.  We know there are many different types of Protestants so we might want to break Protestants down more finely.  To do this the Pew survey asked another question – "As far as your present religion, what denomination or church, if any, do you identify with most closely?  Just stop me when I get to the right one. Are you Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Episcopalian or Anglican, Church of Christ or Disciples of Christ, Congregational or United Church of Christ, Holiness, Reformed, Church of God, nondenominational or independent church, something else, or none in particular?" Run a frequency distribution for R2 which is the name of this variable.

This question was only asked of those who said they were Protestant in R1.  Notice that the number of cases with valid information was 15,403 and that there were 28 respondents who said they didn't know or refused to answer.  If you add these two numbers together, you get 15,431 which is the number who said Protestant in R1.  Those who didn't say they were Protestant in the previous question are included in the category that is labeled "system missing." 

The large number of categories in R2 makes it difficult to interpret.  R6 is an attempt to reduce the number of categories making it easier to interpret.  Run a frequency distribution for R6.  Notice that this variable combines many of the volunteered responses for R2 into two other categories – other Protestant religions and responses that were so nonspecific that they were impossible to recode.  Respondents who were not Protestants were assigned the value "0."

Now it's your turn.  Write a paragraph describing what the frequency distribution for R6 tells you about religion in the U.S.  Be sure to answer the following questions.  Use the valid percents.

  • What percent of adults are Protestant?  Not Protestant?What is the largest Protestant denomination?  What percent fall in that category?
  • What is the second largest Protestant denomination?  What percent fall in that category?
  •  Which Protestant denominations have less than 1% of all Protestants?

Part V – Another Way to Measure Religious Preference

Run a frequency distribution for R4.  Notice that this time Protestants are broken down by both denomination (e.g., Lutheran, Presbyterians, Methodist) and by religious tradition.  Religious tradition is divided into three categories.

  • Evangelical Protestant tradition
  • Mainline Protestant tradition
  • Historically Black Protestant tradition

To find out what the Pew Center means by these traditions, read the following Pew reports:

  • Chapter 1 of the full report for the 2014 Religious Landscape Survey on "The Changing Religious Composition of the U.S. Population" and
  • Appendix B to this report on "Classification of Protestant Denominations."

For more information on the difference between the evangelical and the mainline Protestant traditions, read the article by John Green in the PBS Frontline article on "Evangelicals v. Mainline Protestants."  For a history of the black church, read Marilyn Mellowes' article on "The Black Church."

Now it's your turn again.  Write a paragraph explaining in your own words what is meant by these three religious traditions – the Evangelical Protestant tradition, the Mainline Protestant tradition, and the Historically Black Protestant tradition. 

The problem with R4 is that there are so many categories that it's hard to interpret.  Run a frequency distribution for R5 which breaks Protestants down into these three religious traditions but does not include denomination.  Notice that it also includes non-Protestant religions.  Write another paragraph describing religion in the U.S. using R5.  Be sure to consider the following questions.  Use the valid percents.

  • What are the five largest religious groups in R5?  Note that this table includes the religiously unaffiliated as a group.  What are the percents for each of these groups?What percent of adults are Christian?  Non-Christian?  For this question be sure to also include Orthodox Christians, Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, and Other Christian as Christian when you compute the percent of adults who are Christian.
  • Which non-Christian group is the largest?  What is the percent for that group?

Part VI – Choosing the Two Religions to Compare

You're going to choose two religions which you will compare in subsequent exercises.  There are several ways you can do this.

  • You could compare your own religious group with another religious group of your choice.  If you don't have a religious preference, you could select "nothing in particular" to compare with another group.  For example, you could compare Lutherans with those who have no religious preference (i.e., nothing in particular).
  • You could compare two religious groups that you are interested in.  For example, you could compare Catholics with Lutherans.
  • Instead of comparing two religious groups, you could compare two religious traditions such as the Mainline Protestant tradition and the Evangelical Protestant tradition.
  • You could compare a Christian group with a non-Christian group.  For example, you could compare Catholics with Muslims.
  • You could compare two non-Christian groups.  For example, you could compare Muslims and Buddhists.

You want to compare two groups that have enough cases to make the comparisons meaningful.  Don't select groups that have fewer than 150 cases in them.  If you're having trouble selecting, two religious groups, talk with your instructor who will help you.  In the next section, I'm going to work through several examples.

Part VII – Example
 

One of the things we know about religion is that there are many different religious denominations or groups.  In Part 5 of this exercise you read several articles on different Protestant religious traditions – Mainline, Evangelical, and Historically Black traditions.  Consider Lutherans for example.  Open Appendix B on "Classification of Protestant Denominations" and scroll down to the "Detailed Summary of Protestant Denominations by Tradition and Family."  Under Lutheran you will see a listing of Lutheran denominations that are in the Mainline and Evangelical traditions.  This is what you should see.

Lutheran in the evangelical tradition

Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
Lutheran Church-Wisconsin Synod
Lutheran Brethren
Church of the Lutheran Confession
Free Lutheran
Apostolic Lutheran Church in America
Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ
North American Lutheran Church
Lutheran Church of the Reformation
Conservative Lutheran
Ethnic Lutheran (if born again)
Lutheran, ambiguous affiliation (if born again)
Lutheran, not further specified (if born again)

Lutheran in the mainline tradition<

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
American Lutheran Church/Lutheran Church in America
Ethnic Lutheran (if not born again)
Lutheran, ambiguous affiliation (if not born again)
Lutheran, not further specified (if not born again"

Let's assume that you are interested in Lutherans and want to compare these two different religious traditions.  How do you go about selecting Lutherans in these two traditions from the entire data set?  In this example, you would use variable R4.  Lutherans in the Evangelical Protestant Tradition are coded "4" and Lutherans in the Mainline Protestant Tradition are coded "37."  If your frequency distribution for R4 doesn't show the numerical codes, go back and read footnote 2 in this exercise and rerun the frequency distribution.

What we're going to do is to select out respondents who are coded either "4" or "37" on R4.  Click on "Data" in the menu bar at the top of the SPSS screen. This will be the second row at the top of the screen.  Now click on "Select Cases" in the drop-down menu and select "If condition is specified" in the option on the right.  (See Chapter 3, Transforming Data, in the online SPSS book cited on page 1 of this exercise.)   Your screen should look like Figure 4.

Title: Figure 4 - Description: This is the SPSS dialog box for Select Cases.

Figure 4

Now click on the blue button just below this option.  Copy the following statement and paste it into the box to the right of the arrow.

            R4 = 4 | R4 = 37

Title: Figure 5 - Description: This is the SPSS dialog box for Select Cases: If.  It tells SPSS to select out those cases which are a 4 or a 5 on R4.

Figure 5

Your screen should look like Figure 5.  This statement tells SPSS to select out only those cases which are coded "4" or "37" on R4.  The vertical line is the code for "or."  Click on "Continue" and then on "OK."  Run the frequency distribution for R4 again and this time you should only see Lutherans in these two traditions.  You should see 514 and 728 cases in these two traditions so you know you have enough cases for your comparisons.

Part VIII – Some Other Examples

I'll work several more examples.  Let's say that you want to compare all Protestants with all Catholics.  This time we would want to use R1 and select out all Protestants (code 1) and all Catholics (code 2).  So you would follow the instructions in Part 7 but this time paste the following in the box.

            R1 = 1 | R1 = 2

What if you wanted to compare all Baptists with all Pentecostals?  To do this, use R2 and paste the following into the box.

            R2 = 1 | R2 = 5

What if you wanted to compare all Muslims with all Buddhists?  To do this, use R5 and paste the following into the box.

            R5 = 60000 | R5 = 70000

Part IX – Now It's Your Turn

Decide which two religious groups you want to compare and select out the respondents for these two groups.  Run the frequency distribution for the variable you used to select out these respondents to see if you did it correctly.  If you did, you're ready to proceed to the subsequent exercises in this series.

 


 

[1] This assumes that the proper associations have been set up on your computer so the computer knows that .sav files are SPSS data files

[2] SPSS allows you to change the way your output is displayed.  You can change these preferences by clicking on "Edit" in the menu bar at the top of the screen and then clicking on "Options" and finally on the "Output" tab.  Under "Variables in item labels shown as" select "Names and Labels" and then under "Variable values in item labels shown as" select "Values and Labels."  Then click on "OK."  You can also try out other options.