Here's a contemporary oddment that may be unexpected. Vast quantities of ink and pixels are devoted by sociologists and apostles of church growth about the decline of institutional religious participation in US life. But until Daniel Cox passed along this, I hadn't been aware of the divide pictured in this graph.
Cox equates the education gap with class status.
It has long been presumed, and in some cases feared, that higher education—and the widespread availability of information and knowledge via the Internet—would undermine religious commitments. Actual evidence for this is lacking. While religious doubting has grown in recent years, the most educated Americans show up to services most often. Even as they report less certainty in their religious beliefs, they participate more regularly in worship services. Higher education appears to reinforce regular religious participation.
He equates ongoing religious attendance with family stability (seems likely) and general engagement in community life.
One thing that seems clear is that the decline of churches will likely make inequality worse. College-educated Americans are more active and involved in every sphere of American social and civic life, from book clubs and PTA meetings, to sports leagues and town halls. On average, they have more friends, broader social networks, and more extensive ties to the places where they live. ... Churches offer one way to bridge the gap, but fewer Americans are turning to them.
What this description omits is that the clubby communal culture of institutions which reinforce the class values of the comfortable might be off-putting to the more precariously situated among us. Less education does correlate with less social stability for some people.
I feel abundantly grateful to have happened into a religious institution which knows itself to have a particular vocation to those who have little materially.
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