From the Pulpit or in the Pews : Religious Beliefs, Clergy Messages and Social Influence on Latino Identity

Research on white Americans finds an emergent political divide, between those with traditional beliefs who worship regularly, and those who are less orthodox and seldom worship. In the last 15 years, religious adherents have adopted more conservative values and shown greater support for Republican candidates. Research on African Americans draws the opposite conclusion: religiosity is associated with stronger racial identity and greater Democratic support. Existing research does not examine the effects of a religious-secular divide among Latinos. The current study asks about the influence of religious affiliation, traditional beliefs, church activities, and clergy messages on ethnic group consciousness, partisanship and party identification, and social identity choice. Testing a theory of social and political information exposure, the empirical analysis gives special attention to the moderating effects of regular worship on Latino identity choice. Three national surveys are used to show that regular exposure to church environments is an important factor to consider in the analysis of religion and individual attitudes. Among Latino Catholics, and especially those who attend church on a regular basis, social identification is determined by factors from both the pulpit and the pews, although the most consistent effects are from social interactions between parishioners and not messages or sermons from clergy