___ It’s some other “special cause” movement, such as “animal rights” or “right to die.”
All right, if you’ve decided what makes sense out of the world for you, what you use most to comprehend the hurly-burly of life, then to what extent are the following things true for you?
___ 1. This outlook colors and shapes almost everything I experience in life.
0 = Not at all true of me
1 = Slightly true of me
2 = Mildly true of me
3 = Moderately true of me
4 = Decidedly true of me
5 = Definitely true of me
6 = Very definitely true of me
___ 2. I try to explain my outlook to others at every opportunity. (Use the scale above.)
___ 3. I am learning everything I can about this outlook.
___ 4. I think every sensible person should agree with this outlook, once it has been explained.
___ 5. I get excited just thinking about this outlook, and how right it is.
___ 6. It is very important to me to support the leaders of this outlook.
___ 7. Nothing else is as important in my life.
___ 8. It angers me that certain people are trying to oppose this outlook.
___ 9. No other outlook could be as true and valid.
___ 10. It is my mission in life to see that this outlook becomes “No. 1” in our country.
___ 11. This outlook is the solution to all of humanity’s problems.
___ 12. I am very committed to making this outlook the strongest influence in the world.
This is called the Zealot scale, for reasons I think you can easily understand, and it’s time to add up your numbers. If you are the kind of rather normal person who answers my surveys, your total will be something around 10—20. Which means you don’t get terribly worked up about your way of understanding things. But fundamentalists who say their religion provides them with their basic outlook in life score about 40. They are especially likely to say their religion colors and shapes almost everything they experience in life, that it is the solution to all of humanity’s problems, that it is very important to them to support the leaders of their religion, that they are learning everything they can about their religion, that nothing else is as important in their life, and no other outlook could be as true and valid.
No other group comes close to being as zealous. Feminists usually come in second in my studies, but way behind the religious fundamentalists, and one finds far, far fewer of them. And if you took all the zealous capitalists and socialists in my last study of over 600 parents and put them in a room to slug it out, not a punch would be thrown. You want to know who’s on fire, you want to know who’s making a commitment, you want to know who are putting their money, their time and their energy where their beliefs are, you want to know who are constantly “on call” for the cause—and in large numbers—it’s the fundamentalists.[21]
Zealotry and conversion. Fundamentalists, you may have heard, proselytize. Whether they go door to door, or just gently approach co-workers and neighbors, or pleasantly invite classmates to their youth group, fundamentalists usually believe they have an obligation to try to convert others. “Suppose a teenager came to you for advice about religion,” I have asked in several studies. “He had been raised in a nonreligious family as an atheist, but now this person is thinking about becoming much more religious, and wants your advice on what to do.” Even though fundamentalists often speak of parents’ sacred right to raise their children as they see fit, the vast majority of the fundamentalists said they’d tell the teen his parents were wrong. And virtually all said they would try to persuade the teen to join their religion.
One can wonder what fundamentalists would say if one of their children went to an atheist for advice on religion, and the atheist said the parents were wrong and tried to lead their child into atheism. But would such nonbelievers?[22] I have given several groups of atheists the mirror-image scenario in which a teenager who had been raised as a strong and active Christian comes to them for advice because he is now questioning things. Very few Manitoba parent atheists said they would tell this teen that his parents were wrong, nor would they try to get him to become an atheist. Instead they almost all said they’d tell him to continue searching and then decide for himself. A sample of active American atheists was pushier. About two-thirds would have thumped the drum for atheism, loudly or softly, and about half said they would want the teen to become a nonbeliever. But far, far more of the fundamentalists, we saw, would have tried to convert an atheist’s child.
I probed this apparent double standard with a large sample of Manitoba students. Half were told a troubled teenager who had been raised in a strong Christian family went to an atheist for advice. “Would it be wrong for the atheist to try to get the teen to abandon his family’s teachings?” A solid majority of both low and high RWA students (70 percent in each case) said yes, it would be wrong.
The other half of the sample got the mirror image situation of a troubled teen raised an atheist who went to a Christian for advice. A solid majority (61 percent) of the low RWAs again said it would be wrong for the Christian to try to get the teen to abandon his family’s teachings. But only 22 percent of the high RWAs thought proselytizing would be wrong in this case. Instead, the great majority of them thought it would be right for a Christian to try to convert the youth. That’s a double standard big enough to drive a busload of missionaries through.
Parents of university students have, we can safely surmise, raised some children, so we can inquire how much freedom of choice their kids had regarding religion. A solid majority of my samples said they wanted their children to make up their own minds about religion. But not the fundamentalist parents, who said they had made a strong effort to pass their beliefs on to their offspring—a response their children confirmed when describing how much emphasis was placed on the family religion while they were growing up. Fundamentalist parents said they did not want their children to decide about religion. Instead they wanted their progeny to believe what they believed, to keep the faith, and pass it on to the grandchildren.
6. Keeping the Faith, Not
Does the religious emphasis pay off? Yes, in the sense that if parents pay no attention to religion, the children are likely to become non-practicing Catholics, Presbyterians-in-name-only, “I guess I’m a Prodestent” Christians—or even unaffiliated “Nones.” But placing great emphasis on the family religion does not always produce the desired result, and may even backfire.
I have inquired about the current religious affiliations of parents of students at my university for many years. I now have answers from over 6,000 moms and dads. These parents were 48 years old on the average when they served in my studies, and since I also ask what religion they were raised in, we can see if they turned out the way their parents (the grandparents) intended.
Generally they did; about two-thirds of those raised in a Christian denomination still followed the path trod by their ancestors (e.g., raised a Lutheran, still a Lutheran)—although they were not necessarily active members. (Instead they were the “Stay Away Saints,” as some evangelical leaders call them.) But that means about a third of them had disconnected themselves from their home religion. Some had converted to another, but most of them had become Nones, (e.g., raised a Lutheran, now not anything), which was the category that grew the most—almost 300%!—in my studies from where it had started.[23]