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Journal Article 1: Beyerlein, K., Soule, A. S., & Martin, N. (2015). Prayers, protest, and police: How religion influences police presence at collective action events in the United State, 1960 to 1995. American Sociological Review, 80, 1250–1271. doi:10.1177/0003122415612469

Do police treat religious-based protest events differently than secular ones? Drawing on data from more than 15,000 protest events in the United States (1960 to 1995) and using quantitative methods, we find that law enforcement agents were less likely to show up at protests when general religious actors, actions, or organizations were present. Rather than reflecting privileged legitimacy, we find that this protective effect is explained by religious protesters’ use of less threatening tactics at events. When religion is disaggregated into different traditions, only mainline and black Protestant groups have lower rates of policing than secular groups. As with the general religion finding, the buffering effect these traditions have on policing is mediated by protester tactics. Moreover, we find that fundamentalist Christians are more likely to be policed than are secular activists when threatening tactics are included. Finally, when actors associated with non-Christian religions engage in extremely confrontational tactics, they are more likely to provoke a police response than are similarly behaving secular groups.

Journal Article 2: Glass, J. L., Sutton, A., & Fitzgerald, S. T. (2015). Leaving the faith: How religious switching changes pathways to adulthood among conservative protestant youth. Social Currents, 2, 126–143. doi:10.1177/2329496515579764

Research revealing associations between Conservative Protestantism and lower socioeconomic status is bedeviled by questions of causal inference. Religious switching offers another way to understand the causal ordering of religious participation and demographic markers of class position. In this article, we look at adolescents who change their religious affiliation across four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and then observe their transition to adulthood using four crucial markers—completed educational attainment, age at first marriage, age at first birth, and income at the final wave. Results show that switching out of a Conservative Protestant denomination in adolescence can alter some, but not all, of the negative consequences associated with growing up in a Conservative Protestant household. Specifically, family formation is delayed among switchers, but early cessation of education is not

Journal Article 3: Lehmann, D. (2013). Religion as heritage, religion as belief: Shifting frontiers of secularism in Europe, the USA and Brazil. International Sociology, 28, 645–662. doi:10.1177/0268580913503894

This article draws a distinction between religion as heritage and as belief, and also shows the complications which arise in predominantly Christian countries when ‘new arrivals’ and evangelical, Pentecostal, or conversion-led, movements claim the recognition which has historically been afforded to hegemonic churches. Using evidence from Europe, the USA and Brazil it reveals the uncertain implementation of the state–religion boundary in the law, in taxation and in politics, and shows how even the most secular states allow religious institutions special exemptions, albeit in different ways. It asks whether religion is not producing demands amounting to a separate citizenship and why religious expression should require privileged treatment additional to freedom of speech in a secular world where religious affiliation is regarded as a matter of personal choice. It also questions the assumption of market theories of religion that more and more intense religion is good for religion and good for society.