From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity
Do the religious convictions of Americans explain the so called "God gap," the sorting that leads the devout and the unaffiliated to their separate homes in the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively? A great deal of religion and politics research, not to mention most conventional wisdom, assumes a direction of influence from religious faith to political behavior. But that narrative has come under increasing challenge in recent years, especially as political scientists and others have examined the role of political backlash in eroding rates of affiliation. Could it be that the direction of influence runs the other way that partisanship and political environment shape religion? Michele Margolis's From Politics to the Pews is the leading edge of this way of thinking about the intersection of religion and politics in the United States. Her analysis is not only theoretically compelling, but also pathbreaking in its research design and deeply profound in its implications. The basic argument is that the religiosity of Americans reflects their partisan attachments more than the other way around. Democrats are less religious because they are Democrats; they are not Democrats because they are less religious. And the same goes for Republicans, who do not necessarily gravitate to the GOP because of their religiosity, but "update" their level of religiosity because religion is associated with 412 Book Reviews