Flexibility in American religious life: an exploration of loyalty and purity

David M. Elcott () and J. Andrew Sinclair ()
Additional contact information
David M. Elcott: NYU Wagner
J. Andrew Sinclair: NYU Wagner

Policy Sciences, 2017, vol. 50, issue 4, No 11, 649-673

Abstract: Abstract American social policy decisions are deeply intertwined with the religious lives of its citizens. Here we apply the tiered beliefs described in the Advocacy Coalition Framework to the views of several American Christian communities on social policy questions that involve (religiously defined) notions of sexual purity. We find a surprisingly large amount of variation in the policy beliefs, although this varies by denomination, and for Catholics varies by levels of loyalty to authority as well. We conclude that despite deep core beliefs about the fundamental nature of the world, and a scriptural orientation and notion of loyalty to authority defined by denomination, that there may be more policy flexibility at lower tiers of belief than the conventional wisdom would suggest.

Keywords: Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF); Christianity; Religion; Sexuality; Social policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11077-016-9271-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:policy:v:50:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s11077-016-9271-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11077/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11077-016-9271-z

Access Statistics for this article

Policy Sciences is currently edited by Michael Howlett

More articles in Policy Sciences from Springer, Society of Policy Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().