Beyond the Lynn White Thesis: Congregational Effects on Environmental Concern

摘要

An extensive literature has explored the effects of religion on opinions about environmental protection and actionon environmental issues, but has largely concerned itself with the effects of theology as inspired by the Lynn Whitethesis. However, religion is multifaceted and any complete study should also incorporate the social dimensions ofreligious experience. In this article, we employ a unique data set to demonstrate the varied informational effects ofchurch membership on environmental attitudes. We find that social sources of information in the church shape thedimensions of religious belief and exert much stronger effects on attitudes on the environment than do doctrinalor religiosity measures.