Near-death experiences (NDEs) are common and impactful. Research shows that: (1) NDEs can undermine one's worldview, reducing wellbeing; and (2) making sense of salient life experiences via worldview formation enhances wellbeing. Nevertheless, there is a dearth of scholarship exploring the processes of worldview formation post-NDE and how such information might be harnessed to support near-death survivors' wellbeing, particularly-although not exclusively-among the non-religious. As religious nones are the fastest growing belief category in the UK and USA, this study addresses such lack with data from religious nones in these countries. It analyzes semi-structured interviews with thirty-three near-death survivors, specifically non-theists. Narrative and connecting analysis is employed to identify the processes of worldview formation. Consequently, a new theory is proposed: existential interruption and cultural conformity-the navigation of experiential and structural factors in meaning-making after an abrupt interruption to one's worldview. Such navigation, it is contended, has implications for wellbeing.
This study explores how South Korea's Buddhist, Protestant, and Catholic organizations responded differently to state-imposed public health measures during the COVID-19 crisis. We argue that these divergent responses are best understood through the concept of religious reflexivity-the process by which faith communities critically reexamine their traditions in a crisis. We contend that this institutional-level reflexivity is shaped by the interplay of three key contexts: (1) each group's doctrinal framework, (2) its constitutional interpretation of "religious freedom," and (3) its "structural ecology." Drawing on a thematic analysis of eighty official statements, we identify three distinct patterns of engagement-resistance, adaptation, and conformity. These paths emerge from how each community's reflexive process navigated its unique theological, legal, and structural realities. This study thus offers a more holistic model for understanding how religion-state relations influence public health collaboration during crises.
Religious endogamy provides insight into social closure by religion; it is shaped not only by assortative mating but also by religious mobility, including conversion and disaffiliation. Prior research suggests that both mobility and endogamy may entail different costs for men and women. Using Finnish population-wide register data on religious affiliation, conversion, and marriages for the period 1972-2020, we examine how religious mobility influences endogamy, with a focus on gender differences. Conversions increase endogamy in minority religions but slightly reduce it in the majority Evangelical Lutheran group. Effects vary by gender: conversions more strongly increase endogamy for men in minority religions, but do not do so for women in major religious groups. Conversions were found to occur close to the time of marriage, thus suggesting a desire or pressure for religiously endogamous unions. Our study highlights the importance of timing in measuring gendered endogamy to understand religious mobility-endogamy dynamics.
Scholarship on religion-state relations in the United States often focuses on abstract debates over religious freedom and disestablishment concerns, with limited attention to how religious and state actors interact in everyday life. This study addresses this gap by examining policing as a relatively neglected yet common site of local-level religion-state interaction. Drawing on 183 in-depth interviews with religious leaders in eight U.S. communities, we identify four modes of interaction with law enforcement. We find many religious leaders, particularly white Christians, "celebrate" police through public shows of support. Most leaders also "collaborate" with police on pragmatic concerns like traffic control. Finally, a smaller subset of leaders, often from marginalized backgrounds, engages in "coerced cooperation" with police to resolve community complaints or "confronts" police through protest. Our analysis thus identifies a variety of ways that religious and state actors interact and shows how such interactions are stratified. We conclude by outlining a new agenda for the study of religion-state relations that better accounts for the domains where religion-state interaction most commonly takes place and interrogates the real-world consequences of such interactions for religious and state actors alike.
Using a panel of 81 countries across six World Values Survey waves (1990-2022), we examine whether growth in internet diffusion is associated with religious decline. We construct a six-item composite religiosity index, align annual macro series to wave periods, and estimate country fixed-effects models with one-wave lags and a broad set of modernization, demographic, welfare-state, and cultural controls. We also estimate models separately for individual dimensions of religiosity. Across specifications, lagged internet penetration is negatively associated with religiosity within countries over time. These results remain robust under period dummies and in models estimated without lags, although reverse-ordering tests indicate that prior religiosity can also predict later internet use. Associations are strongest for denominational belonging and self-identification as a religious person. Overall, internet diffusion emerges as a robust macro-level correlate of within-country religious decline.
