Green for God: Religion and Environmentalism by Cohort and Time

Abstract

Previous research demonstrates that religion plays a significant role in understanding attitudes and behavior regarding the environment. In addition, studies also demonstrate value change across cohorts and time in postmaterialist attitudes. However, limited empirical evidence exists that considers both simultaneously. The advantage of the approach relied on here is that the model can estimate “true” change in “proenvironmental” attitude levels within each religious group by cohort and period while also testing the role of compositional effects on these trends. Our analyses demonstrate that support for environmental spending is the result of period effects rather than cohort-based change. Moreover, although support for environmental spending differs among religious denominations, changes are the result of periodic shifts that are experienced by all denominations. Thus, without any unique denominational shifts in support for environmental spending, the so-called “greening” of Christianity is not supported here.

Keywords

environmentalism religion period generational trends

Introduction

Many surveys have queried Americans about environmentalism, and recent decades have witnessed dramatic public opinion changes on “proenvironmental” beliefs. Beginning in the mid-1960s, concern about the environment quickly became widespread only to decline in the following decade after the inaugural Earth Day in 1970. Although attitudes toward protecting the environment became more negative in the 1970s, public support remained substantial throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Daniels, Krosnick, Tichy, & Tompson, 2012). Yet survey-based research shows that concern for the environment has waned markedly since 2008, with only a recent uptick (“Americans’ Concerns About Global Warming on the Rise,” 2014; Scruggs & Benegal, 2012). These changes in Americans’ attitudes toward the environment have led to a search for explanations.

At the center of research into explaining fluctuations in the public’s environmental attitudes over time are the concepts of cohort and period. Previous studies have argued that the long-term changes in environmental concern result from the replacement of older generations of Americans with significantly different environmental attitudes (reflecting cohort-based changes), or because environmental viewpoints change among the population as a whole (reflecting a period-based effect). For example, past studies suggest that the surge in environmental concern among younger birth cohorts, the so-called “ecological generation” may have been a consequence of their unique socialization experiences during their formative years (Buttel, 1979; Hays, 1987). Conversely, Kanagy, Humphrey, and Firebaugh (1994) contend that although cohort replacement contributed to the increase in expressed concern for the environment between 1980 and 1990, these changes are modest compared with period-based contributions to rising ecological concern. Accordingly, this research indicates that no matter how well socialized into the environmental movement, people of all birth cohorts are affected by the nature of the times.

At the same time, we have learned a great deal about the influence of sociodemographic factors as well as variables related to values, beliefs, and other social-psychological constructs. It has been argued that religion can cultivate values and mores regarding stewardship, responsibility for nature, and social justice and thus, may play a significant role in shaping environmental beliefs and concern (Veldman, Szasz, & Haluza-Delay, 2012, 2014). A growing narrative asserts that the world’s predominant religions, Christianity in particular, have become more environmentally friendly—reflected in a worldwide movement variously referred to as the “greening of religion” (Clements, McCright, & Xiao, 2014; Guth, Green, Kellstedt, & Smidt, 1995; Kanagy & Nelsen, 1995).

Although much attention has been devoted to the supposed “greening of Christianity” in the United States that began in the mid-1990s, evidence reveals the emerging integration of environmental and Christians’ values began in earnest some three decades earlier (Musil, 2014). Reflecting a larger shift occurring within the nation at large, environmental concern emerged among religious communities in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, some of the best-known environmental organizations in the United States (e.g., Green Peace and the Sierra Club) began with religious or spiritual roots (Krech, 2005, p. 44). Moreover, apart from environmental organizations, religious and interfaith organizations have been among the more active soldiers to confronting climatic changes by carrying on the tradition of faith-based environmental activism and stewardship.

However, many studies also find that substantial variations exist in environmental assessments and policy preferences by religious belonging, belief, and behavior. Indeed, Christians differ from one another in the degree to which they are supportive of protecting the environment. Some denominations, including Catholicism, emphasize the stewardship orientation as essential to being Christlike (Downs & Weigert, 1999; Kearns, 1996). In addition, followers of fundamentalist beliefs or tradition (e.g., Boyd, 1999; Kanagy & Nelsen, 1995) and/or evangelical self-identifiers (e.g., Guth et al., 1995; Kanagy & Nelsen, 1995) tend to express the least amount of concern for the environment. Likewise, some studies have found that Catholics are greener than Protestants (Allitt, 1998; Greeley, 1993), whereas others report no significant denominational differences (Guth et al., 1995) once factors related to environmental attitudes and, often, to religion (e.g., political ideology, political partisanship, age, etc.) are controlled (Biel & Nilsson, 2005; Clements et al., 2014; Kanagy & Nelsen, 1995).

Our effort herein is to expand the literature by considering variations in environmental concern across Christian denominations by birth cohorts and over time—while also considering the extent that denominational differences account for large-scale changes in environmental opinion. Understanding the influence of religious denomination as a source of variation in environmentalism is important both theoretically and practically. In particular, trends such as the decreasing share of religious affiliates¹ in America along with variations in religious environmentalism across the major Christian traditions may be quite consequential for explaining fluctuations in the American public’s concern as well as offer insight into why some religions and some contexts may be more conducive to promoting interest in addressing the issue of climate change.

In this research, we use a recently developed analysis technique to simultaneously estimate age, period, and cohort (APC) effects on environmental support spending.² Specifically, we use cross-classified, random-effects models (CCREMs) to estimate APC effects while controlling for a number of factors identified as important for the development of environmentalism—while also considering the possibility that any such trends are a consequence of religion. Many of the existing studies are valuable, yet problems exist due to the linear dependency among age, period, and birth cohort, thus creating modeling problems that prevent the inclusion of explanatory variables that can be used in understanding the estimated patterns of these effects (Firebaugh, 1997). Our methodological approach will sort out these overlapping effects and distinguish between the individual and the contextual level for decomposing environmentalism trends into their respective cohort and period effects.

Theoretical Framework

Large-Scale Changes in Environmental Views: Period and Cohort Effects

In terms of understanding changes in public opinion, period and cohort effects are the most popular explanations. Cohort (or generational) effects represent changes that result from changes in the generational composition or because different generations experienced different social forces. From the generational perspective, environmental concern varies as a consequence of socialization—the divergent political histories experienced by birth cohorts that produce unique orientations (Jennings & Niemi, 1981, pp. 118-123; Mannheim, 1952) or a compositional effect when the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics associated with environmental concern are not equally distributed across birth cohorts (Pampel & Hunter, 2012). In either type of cohort-based explanations, attitudinal change originates from the replacement of individuals from one birth cohort with those of another cohort (Mayer, 1993). Yet the approach we use allows distinguishing between the specific characters of cohort-based change—socialization versus compositional—as the source of differential environmental concern is important for understanding social change.

More directly, Inglehart’s postmaterialism thesis posits that one’s value priorities reflect the prevailing economic conditions so that when economic conditions are poor and material things are scarce, one’s priorities are focused on basic material needs such as food and shelter. However, as economic conditions improve and basic needs are met, value priorities reflect issues related to quality of life (Inglehart, 1990, p. 66). At the aggregate, value preferences of older cohorts, who came of age in the Great Depression and World War I are distinct from those of younger cohorts, who came of age in the years of economic growth and prosperity after World War II. Prosperity encourages individuals to move beyond basic needs and therefore develop and possess postmaterialist values, such as environmental protection and social justice. The postmaterialist cohort hypothesis expects that through the continuous process of population replacement—as older, more materialists cohorts die and are replaced by younger, less materialist cohorts—the average level of postmaterialism in a society will gradually increase, even if all individuals maintain a steady postmaterialism outlook throughout their lifetimes (Abramson & Inglehart, 1987). In short, generational effects imply that as the proportion of postmaterialists increases, we can expect a shift in America’s values and issue priorities that is reflected in the degree of environmental concern—a quality of life value inherent in postmaterialism (Abramson & Inglehart, 1987, p. 25).

Alternatively, period effects are the result of cultural, social, political, or economic experiences or events that occur and are experienced by individuals of all ages and therefore yield more or less equal impact on society regardless of age, generation, or sociopolitical position. We can think of such Zeitgeists (Mannheim, 1952) or dramatic events altering the condition of the natural environment such as Chernobyl, the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident, or the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill that may have played key roles in affecting public thinking and concern for the environment (Leiserowitz, Kates, & Parris, 2006). The theoretical expectation is that social change occurs as a gradual process as a result of cohort replacement or as a major shift as a consequence of individual attitude change reflecting the impact of events and movements in the external world (i.e., time-period effects).

Although cohort- and period-based changes in environmentalism in the United States have been identified in previous research (Inglehart, 1990; Kanagy et al., 1994; Lowry, 2009; Pampel & Hunter, 2012), none have simultaneously estimated APC effects while also modeling the effect of cross-denomination variation in environmental attitudes as they apply to periods and cohorts.

Environmental Spending Support and Religious Preference by Period and Cohort

In what ways might we expect a Christian religious tradition to influence period- or cohort-based trends in environmentalism? To start, it is important to point out that the literature on religious effects on environmentalism is filled with contradictory results. Indeed, Lynn White’s (1967) denunciation of the environmentally destructive behaviors practiced by the “Judeo-Christian” tradition sparked interest in settling the claim that Western Christianity is at odds with environmentalism and ecological values (for a useful summary of the extant literature, see Taylor, Van Wieren, & Zaleha, 2016b). In general, the relationship between Christianity and environmentalism has been presented from two different perspectives. On one side of the debate, the Christian community is viewed as a barrier to the development of environmental consciousness in America by fostering a “dominate the earth” mentality that embraces practices that exploit natural resources and, in general, resists actions designed to protect the environment. A number of scholarly studies have uncovered a negative relationship between religion and environmentalism (Biel & Nilsson, 2005; Clements et al., 2014; Guth et al., 1995).

Others propose a view that Christian beliefs help to create support for the environment by promoting a “creation care” or simply “stewardship”—a scripture based belief about protecting the Earth and its resources. Several studies have found that Christian association can cultivate responsibility for nature (Allitt, 1998; Downs & Weigert, 1999; Greeley, 1993; Kanagy & Nelsen, 1995; Kearns, 1996), or alternatively, religion is not or only weakly associated with environmental concern (Boyd, 1999; Guth et al., 1995). Still, others find contradictory effects of Christian identity, beliefs, and behaviors with positive effects on some dimensions of environmental concern and negative effects on others (Boyd, 1999; Guth et al., 1995; Kanagy & Willits, 1993). Thus, there is ample evidence to expect some type of interaction (i.e., negative or positive) between Christianity and support for the environment.

It is also important to highlight that “Christians,” or “American Christians” for that matter, are not a monolithic group. Although many churches are acting “green” and the percentage of global warming skeptics among pastors (LifeWay Research Survey, 2010) and religious adherents (Pew Research Center’s “Religion and Views on Climate and Energy Issues” Report, 2015) has dropped in recent years, research shows considerable differences in global warming views among the major Christian traditions in the United States. More specifically, since 2008, acceptance of global warming has increased across all religious groupings, but the data also show consistent differences based on religious affiliation.³ One of the easiest ways to glimpse the potential contribution of a particular religious group on the construction of environmental values is to consider the substantial variation among the major Christian denominations in the United States (Figure 1) that have, despite fluctuations in acceptance rates, persisted with time (Figure 2).

Figure 1.

Religious groups’ views on global warming.

Figure 2.

Acceptance of global warming by religious affiliation.

It has been argued that cross-denomination variations in self-identified Christians reflect the divergent theological orientations (e.g., dominion framework and/or eschatological beliefs) that shape the tradition’s engagement with the environment and climate change (Boyd, 1999; Guth et al., 1995; Kanagy & Nelsen, 1995). From this perspective, identification with a religious denomination provides believers a distinctive view about the world and one’s place in it and, thereby creates a setting for divergence in views on environmental matters between members of the different major religious traditions (Veldman et al., 2014). Denominational preference then generates distinctive expressions of belief, practice, and commitment. Considering the multifaceted nature of different Judeo-Christian denominations, it is hardly surprising that we find the distribution of climate change believers, sympathizers, and skeptics is unevenly distributed across the major U.S. Christian orientations (R. P. Jones, Cox, & Navarro-Rivera, 2014).

At same time, scholars emphasize the importance of political, historical, and institutional context on religious experience and practice. Studies examining variation in environmental concern across Christian denominations in the United States find that the major religious groups have been polarized into liberal and conservative factions established by political, social, and cultural conflicts (see Veldman et al., 2014). Within the United States, especially since the Reagan administration, there is an increasing blurring between the political and religious spheres. Religious groups, once on the political sidelines, have become mobilized as part of broader political agendas to advocate on issues such as abortion and reproductive rights, gun politics, separation of church and state, and homosexuality. A number of studies have found American religions increasingly dividing into the two major political parties (Wuthnow, 1988), with evangelical Christians providing the activist base of the Republican Party (Green, Guth, Smidt, & Kellstedt, 1996; Kellstedt, Smidt, & Kellstedt, 1991; Wilcox, 1990). From the Democratic side, secularists, religious liberals, and Black Protestants are generally the most reliable and active part of the party’s electoral coalition (Green et al., 1996; Kellstedt et al., 1991; Miller & Wattenberg, 1984).

The clear tendency of political allegiances to parallel religious affiliation unites individuals’ political and religious beliefs on the environment. One manifestation of the intersection of faith and politics in America is the contribution to diverging environmental histories that influences the degree to which members of different major religious traditions engage in climate-related issues. As a reflection of the partisan gap in support for environmental protection and changing commitments in the U.S. domestic issue agenda, we can expect differences to manifest in the perceived issue importance and response to changing climate conditions not only within the Christian traditions but also over time. In other words, religious communities operate within the larger U.S. political, economic, and social context, and the extent to which religious bodies turn their attention to the dangers of global warming is often dependent upon developments in the broader U.S. society.

Several studies have found that organized religions shape cultural and ethical values (Kaplan, 2010) and, as a consequence, have the unique ability to construct a moral code that embraces environmentally protective beliefs (Veldman et al., 2014). At the same time, however, scholars may be overestimating the role of religion in developing or promoting concern about climate change. Environmental opinions and beliefs do not exist independently of cultural, economic, and political contexts. Rather, religion can be regarded as cultural practices under which people live and interpret their lives that are embedded within a particular sociocultural context. The postmaterial philosophy represents a shift of cultural norms from material to postmaterial values that has greatly contributed to the advancement of self-expression, environmental protection, and quality of life over materialist values of economic and physical security (Inglehart, 1990). Accordingly, the postmaterial values that are increasingly spreading in the political, economic, and social structures of American society act as a catalyst to the emergence of a widespread environmental movement.

In the cohort explanation, growing environmentalism happened with the replacement of older, more materialistic generations with younger cohorts who tend to have a more postmaterialistic outlook, and thus, exhibit more ecofriendly tendencies than adjacent older birth cohorts (Buttel, 1979; Hays, 1987; Kanagy et al., 1994). Therefore, we can hypothesize that reflecting a value shift in society toward postmaterialist concerns, younger cohorts of Christians will be more proenvironment than older cohorts (H1a). Regarding religion’s potential to influence cohort opinion change, we expect seculars (H1b) to claim the greatest environmental concern as their worldview is neither guided by religious identity nor grounded in theological or biblical eschatology. Rather than being directed toward other goals such as salvation, their outlook encourages postmaterialist values such as environmental protection and social justice (Inglehart, 1990).

In terms of a denominational effect, we anticipate the different origins of environmental sympathies and variations in embracing “environmental spirituality” among the different Christian denominations in the United States will likely reveal religion-specific cohort effects. As Christian groups differentially position climate change as a priority to be addressed by the respective faith, it is expected that cohort trends toward more proenvironmental views will be stronger among some Christian groups as compared with others. Especially, prominent in the literature is the antienvironmental or climate “skeptic” orientation among conservative or evangelical Protestants. In particular, “White” evangelical Protestants are substantially more likely to embrace a fatalistic eschatology that stresses personal salvation and evangelism in a world approaching end of times and typically impedes efforts to engage in climate activism (Guth et al., 1995). In other words, it is expected that given observed denominational differences in environmental concern uncovered in past research, we may find a differential cohort effect so that the supposed postmaterialist “greening” value change among younger cohorts will be weaker for evangelical Protestants than for the other Christian religious groups (H1c; on this point, see Smith & Johnson, 2010).

In contrast, if the American public’s environmental positions are changing from one time to the next, then it can be said that there are period effects on attitudes. It is also possible that increased attention to environmental problems and the growing importance of environmental protection in popular discourse prompted temporal opinion changes among American society as a whole. Such a result would be consistent with the view that fluctuations in environmental concern since the early 1970s are more likely the result of period effects (Honnold, 1984). Such an account implies that despite differences in the acknowledgment of climate change and resolve to work toward a solution, greater support of environmentalism has grown among religious practitioners regardless of denominational preferences (H2a).

Yet we have evidence that the attention to ecological problems by different religious traditions has certainly undergone historical shifts (see Figure 2). Religious environmental movements, particularly those within the Catholic and evangelical faiths, indicate that we might expect religious doctrine to influence temporal shifts in the support of ecological issues. The centrality of environmental care and stewardship that emerged in the 1970s, under the leadership of Pope John Paul II, has become large and widespread within the Catholic faith (Agliardo, 2014). As a consequence, we can expect a proenvironmental surge occurring in the 1970s that has continued relatively unabated (H2b).

We may see similar shifts within the evangelical community. Although we have certainly witnessed a greening trend among evangelicals, the history of evangelical engagement with the environment goes back several decades and also coincides with growing environmentalism in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Carr, Patterson, Yung, & Spencer, 2012; Musil, 2014). Similar to their Catholic brethren, the evolution of environmentalism for the evangelical faith emphasized stewardship as well as action to mitigate the serious environmental problems that existed. In the 1990s, Christian environmental activism and creation care became more pronounced, again mirroring the general trends in environmentalism in the United States, and in 1990 the National Association of Evangelicals passed a resolution highlighting the general shift in the church’s theological focus “Stewardship: All for God’s Glory” (National Association of Evangelicals, 1990). As with Catholics, we expect changes in evangelical theology to integrate environmental values and Christian values to have an important influence on support for environment-related spending. That is, we expect to observe a proenvironmental temporal shift among evangelicals (H2c).

Data and Methodology

The data we use to estimate period and cohort effects on environmental views by religious affiliation are based on the General Social Survey (GSS) for 1973 through 2014.⁴ As will become clear in the Analytic Methods section, the Level 2 unit of analysis is cohort-by-period cells. Each survey year is a separate period producing 29 time periods. On the basis of sample sizes and the goal of creating distinctions detailed enough to identify meaningful patterns of change, we examine 5-year birth cohorts resulting in 19 cohorts.⁵ Respondents’ ages pooled across all surveys range from 18 to 89. The GSS does not distinguish among respondents aged 89 and above and simply assigns these individuals an age score of 89. To avoid potential problems with pooling of data (Ploch & Hastings, 1994), respondents above 88 years of age are deleted from the sample.

Dependent Variable

To facilitate direct comparisons and to speak confidently about the significance of results, we model support for environmental spending with items utilized in earlier studies. Following Pampel and Hunter (2012), we summarize public support for spending as absolute, all, and relative. “Absolute” spending refers to support for environmental concern and is based on a question that asks people whether government spending in improving and protecting the environment is too much, too little, or about right. “All” spending refers to an individual’s average level of support across all spending items included in the GSS. The GSS consistently includes an extensive set of questions designed to assess the spending preferences of the American public for space exploration; improving and protecting the nation’s health; welfare; solving the problems of big cities; halting the rising crime rate; improving the condition of Blacks; dealing with drug addiction; improving the nation’s education system; military, armaments, and national defense; and foreign aid.⁶ The 11 spending topics were recoded so that spending too much is coded as 1, spending about the right amount is coded as 2, and spending too little is coded as 3. The values for “All” spending are calculated by simply summing an individual’s responses to each of the 11 government spending items and dividing the total by 11.

Most importantly, however, trends in environmental spending are best understood in relation to these other national spending priorities. Generally speaking, the American public tends to support government spending, so unless we consider how environmental spending compares with support for spending across all 11 spending topics, we run the risk of exaggerating the public’s concern for the environment as a funding priority. To evaluate “Relative” support in environmental concern, we calculate environmental spending as a ratio of overall support across the various governmental program areas for all years. Accordingly, the model intercepts refer to the average or “grand-mean” level of environmental spending support relative to other national funding priorities for all individuals—with values above 1 indicating that environmental spending support is greater than other national funding priorities, and values below 1 indicating lower environmental support relative to the other spending priorities. Cohort and period effects are represented in the degree of change from the intercept as graphically depicted in Figure 3. In other words, any increase or decrease across birth cohorts or years represents a change in the average willingness to support government spending on the environment relative to a host of various other national funding priorities.

Figure 3.

Environmental spending support (a) birth cohort and (b) period with all adults.

As a result, our models avoid conflating an individual’s environmental spending support with his or her general inclination for national spending as it adjusts scores downward for those who support environmental spending largely because they generally favor spending on national problems rather than because of a specific concern with environmental issues (Pampel & Hunter, 2012, p. 8). Accordingly, calculating the ratio of spending support reveals relative changes in national spending priorities and gives us direct insight into the true scale of temporal and cohort-based trends (see the online supplementary materials for descriptive statistics on relative, absolute, and all spending support).

Independent Variables

Religious tradition

Religious tradition is categorized using the Steensland et al. (2000) coding scheme for GSS data and consists (minimally) of the following preferences: evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, Black Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Other, and Seculars (or the nonreligious). Due to data constraints, however, we are unable to analyze Jewish respondents and respondents who identify with other religious traditions. We model environmental spending support by the separate religious traditions accomplishing two important objectives: (a) to assess the independent contributions of each determinant and whether or not the impact changes with religious tradition,⁷ and more central to our research purpose, (b) the degree of variability in environmental spending support across cohorts and time periods by religious groups. However, for comparison purposes, a final model is based on all responses and includes religious tradition as an independent control variable. This model incorporates dummy variables for each religious tradition, with evangelical Protestants as the reference category.

Control Variables

The potential determinants of environmental spending support identified in the literature are too numerous and varied to be assessed here. However, the analysis includes the majority of variables that previous studies have found to significantly influence support for environmental spending. These include church attendance, gender, race, party identification, marital status, children in the home, geographic region, education, urbanity, and family income. To assess the independent effect of religious service attendance, we include self-reported frequency of attendance recoded into three dummy variables representing frequent attendance, sometimes attend, and the reference category of never attend religious service. Race is coded as a dummy variable with African American as the reference category. Party preference is incorporated as a control variable (coded as dummy variables to represent a Democrat or Independent preference) with Republican partisanship omitted as the reference category. We measure region of residence with a dummy variable for the Southern region and gender with a dummy variable for female respondents. The following dummy variables are also included as controls: married, minor child(ren) in the home, and urban (100 largest Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas [SMSAs]), suburban (suburb of 100 largest SMSAs), and rural (with “other urban” as the reference category). We include different indicators of success and well-being including education and income. Education is coded as years of education (0 to 20), and respondent’s income is based on a continuous measure of self-reported family income (in 1986 dollars). All continuous variables in the model have been centered around the overall mean (see the online supplementary materials for descriptive statistics overall and by religious affiliation for the predictor variables).

Analytic Methods

The aim of our approach is to identify period and cohort changes in environmental spending support as a result of religious tradition. Of course, these effects are difficult to disentangle in the real world as the three factors of age, date of birth, and historical period overlap and operate in varying combinations. The basic challenge in APC analyses is due to the “identification problem” arising from the linear dependency between age, year of survey (period), and year of birth (cohort): Period = Age + Cohort (Firebaugh, 1997).

To address this challenge, we simultaneously estimate period and cohort effects using a multilevel model approach where individual characteristics (i.e., compositional effects) can be entered as Level 1 fixed effects variables, and birth cohort and year are treated as cross-classified Level 2 units (random effects). CCREM are specified to take into account the embeddedness of individuals in surveys within a time period by birth-cohort cross-classified matrix (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002; Yang, 2008; Yang & Land, 2008). As such, the linear CCREM model provides variance components at the individual level (Level 1) and cohort and period effects (Level 2), enabling comparisons of their relative importance. In this instance, the multilevel model is used to obtain the fixed effects estimates of age and other individual-level covariates associated with environmental spending attitudes and the random effects of period and cohort.⁸ In sum, the modeling approach used adjusts for the linear relationship between APC by treating cohort and period as cross-classified Level 2 units (Yang, 2006, 2008; Yang & Land, 2006).

In recognition of the multilevel characteristics of the data structure, we present three models to assess variability in support for environment-related spending associated with individuals, cohorts, and periods for each religious group (evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Black Protestants, Catholics, and seculars) as well as a comparison model containing all adults and controlling for denominational effects. To rule out any possible spuriousness whereby life cycle is acting as a substitute for cohort effects, Model 1 measures the overall effects of age and period on support for environmental spending. This model contains only age and age-squared as fixed effects. Consistent with prior research on opinion differences by age, the first model includes a quadratic age effect (Clark, 2015; Yang & Land, 2006, 2008).

The second model provides a baseline of the overall effects of APC, and the final model (Model 3) takes into account a number of explanatory variables, including social and demographic variables previously identified as important to an individual’s development of environmental concern. The advantage of this approach is that it provides the estimated effect of compositional and contextual factors on cohort and period-related attitudinal change as represented by shifts in the variance components corresponding with the inclusion of factors known to influence environmental spending support.

We begin with the Level 1 “within cell,” or individual model that provides the separate intercepts for each religious denomination:

\begin{matrix} {Environmental Spending}_{i j k (religious denomination)} = β_{0 j k} + β_{1} A_{j k} + β_{2} A_{j k}^{2} + β_{3} {CA}_{j k} + β_{4} F_{j k} + β_{5} W_{j k} + β_{6} E_{j k} + β_{7} M_{j k} \\ + β_{8} K_{j k} + β_{9} P_{j k} + β_{10} U_{j k} + β_{11} S_{j k} + β_{12} {IN}_{j k} + e_{i j k} . \end{matrix}

In the above equation, each individual (i = 1, 2, . . . , n_jk) is nested in both a birth cohort (j = 1, . . . , 19 birth cohorts) and a period (k = 1, . . . , 29 survey years); β₁ through β₁₂ are the individual-level fixed effects for age (A), age-squared (A²), church attendance (CA), females (F), Whites (W), educational attainment (E), married (M), minor kids in the home (K), party identification (P), urbanity (U), southern resident (S), income (IN), and e_ijk is the individual-level error term.

The Level 2 or “between cell” equation is

β_{0 j k} (religious group) = γ_{0} + c_{0 j} + t_{0 k} .

In this equation, β_0jk refers to the cell mean, γ₀ is the intercept—relative environmental spending preferences averaged over all periods—for each religious group (or all adults in the comparison model), and c_0j and t_0k are the residual random effects of cohort and period, respectively. Using these residual random effects, we examine the effect of each cohort and the effect of each period on evangelical Protestants’, mainline Protestants’, Black Protestants’, Catholics’, and seculars’ willingness to support government spending on the environment.

Results

We begin by looking at our results across religious groups and then a final model that measures the degree of variability in environmental spending support across cohorts and time periods by all adults with religious tradition as an independent control variable. Estimates of the CCREM models for environmental spending by religious affiliation are given in Table 1 and by all adults in Table 2 (see Figure 3 for visual depictions of the cohort and period trends). The intercepts in the models refer to the average level of relative environmental spending support (values greater than 1 representing more/values below 1 implying less support) across years (Model 1), and across years and cohorts (Models 2 and 3). The cohort and period variance components located at the bottom of the table indicate the extent to which environmental concern trends can be explained by generational replacement or represent shifts in response to changes in the larger economic and/or social context. The numbers in each of the graphs represent the sum of the model intercepts (with the individual-level control variables of age, education, and income grand-mean centered and all other covariates set to zero) and the random effects for cohort and period.

Table 1.

Linear, Cross-Classified Random-Effects Age–Period–Cohort Models: Environmental Support Spending.

Fixed effects	Evangelicals			Mainline protestants			Black protestants			Catholics			No religious tradition
Fixed effects	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Intercept	1.08 (.03)	1.08 (.04)	0.94 (.07)	1.14 (.03)	1.14 (.03)	1.08 (.08)	1.14 (.05)	1.14 (.05)	0.97 (.09)	1.12 (.03)	1.13 (.03)	1.09 (.07)	1.13 (.06)	1.12 (.06)	0.94 (.09)
Age	−0.01 (.00)***	−0.01 (.00)***	0.00 (.00)**	0.00 (.00)**	0.00 (.00)**	0.00 (.00)^†	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)***	0.00 (.00)**	0.00 (.00)*	−0.01 (.00)*	−0.01 (.00)*	−0.01 (.00)**
Age²	0.00 (.00)^†	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)	0.00 (.00)^†
Attend church regularly (reference: never)			−0.04 (.01)***			−0.02 (.01)^†			0.04 (.02)*			−0.03 (.01)***			0.00 (.03)
Attend church sometimes			0.00 (.01)			0.01 (.01)			0.06 (.02)***			−0.03 (.01)**			−0.02 (.02)
Female			0.01 (.01)			0.03 (.01)***			−0.03 (.01)**			0.02 (.01)*			−0.01 (.01)
White (reference: African American)			0.01 (.02)			0.10 (.03)***			0.03 (.03)			0.05 (.02)*			0.09 (.02)***
Education			0.00 (.00)			0.00 (.00)*			0.01 (.00)*			0.00 (.00)*			0.00 (.00)
Married			−0.02 (.01)^†			−0.02 (.01)			−0.02 (.01)			−0.01 (.01)			0.02 (.01)
Children in the home			−0.02 (.01)^†			−0.01 (.01)			0.01 (.02)			0.01 (.01)			−0.02 (.01)^†
Democrats (reference: Republican)			0.06 (.01)***			0.03 (.01)***			0.02 (.02)			0.03 (.01)***			0.05 (.01)***
Independents			0.04 (.01)**			0.05 (.02)***			0.07 (.03)*			0.03 (.01)*			0.06 (.02)***
Urban (reference: town/other urban)			−0.01 (.01)			0.00 (.01)			−0.03 (.02)^†			−0.01 (.01)			0.01 (.02)
Suburban			0.00 (.01)			0.01 (.01)			−0.02 (.02)			0.01 (.01)			0.04 (.02)**
Rural			0.01 (.01)			−0.02 (.01)*			−0.02 (.02)			0.01 (.01)			0.02 (.02)
South			0.02 (.01)^†			0.01 (.01)			−0.04 (.01)**			−0.02 (.01)**			−0.01 (.01)
Income			0.02 (.01)**			0.00 (.01)			0.02 (.01)**			0.00 (.01)			0.01 (.01)
Random effects: Variance components
Cohort		0.000	0.014*		0.000	0.004		0.000	0.009		0.000^†	0.017***		0.000	0.004
Period	0.002***	0.002***	0.040***	0.001***	0.001***	0.035***	0.000	0.000	0.015^†	0.001***	0.001***	0.032***	0.000	0.000	0.010
Individual	0.08	0.08	0.28	0.08	0.08	0.28	0.06	0.06	0.24	0.07	0.07	0.27	0.07	0.07	0.26
n	4,892	4,892	4,892	4,682	4,682	4,682	1,692	1,692	1,692	5,398	5,398	5,398	1,990	1,990	1,990

Note. Standard errors in parentheses. Random-effects coefficients omitted in the interest of space.

†

p ≤ .10. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.

Table 2.

Linear, Cross-Classified Random-Effects Age–Period–Cohort Models: Environmental Support Spending.

Fixed effects	All adults
Fixed effects	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Intercept	1.12 (.02)	1.12 (.02)	1.00 (.04)
Age	0.00 (.00)***	0.00 (.00)***	0.00 (.00)***
Age²	0.00 (.00)*	0.00 (.00)*	0.00 (.00)^†
Religious tradition (reference: Evangelical)
Mainline Protestant			0.02 (.01)***
Black Protestant			0.01 (.01)
Catholic			0.01 (.01)**
No religion			0.05 (.01)***
Attend church regularly (reference: never)			−0.03 (.01)***
Attend church sometimes			0.00 (.01)
Female			0.02 (.00)***
White (reference: African American)			0.05 (.01)***
Education			0.00 (.00)*
Married			−0.01 (.01)*
Children in the home			−0.01 (.01)*
Democrats (reference: Republican)			0.04 (.00)***
Independents			0.05 (.01)***
Urban (reference: town/other urban)			−0.01 (.01)
Suburban			0.01 (.01)
Rural			−0.01 (.01)
South			0.00 (.00)
Income			0.01 (.00)***
Random effects: Variance components
Cohort		0.000*	0.010***
Period	0.001***	0.001***	0.032***
Individual	0.08	0.08	0.27
N	19,906	19,906	19,906

Note. Standard errors in parentheses. Random-effects coefficients omitted in the interest of space.

†

p ≤ .10. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.

As a national funding priority, improving and protecting the environment tend to rank in the middle of the pack with average relative support hovering about 1.00. To the extent that religion influences environmental attitudes, we find that denominational preference is significantly associated with support for environmental spending with important differences manifesting as a consequence of the modeling approach. The model intercepts representing the average level of environmental support indicate that once relevant controls are in place (see Model 3 in Table 1), evangelical Protestants share a common Christian concern for the environment. In fact, the results show relatively little difference between the religious groups’ support for environmental funding (average relative spending revealed in the model intercept is roughly equal to 1.00 among the various religious groups). Still, the results based on all adults and controlling for denominational effects (see Table 2) indicate that, even though the religion–environmentalism relationship is quite marginal, evangelical Protestants are the least supportive of environmental spending and individuals who do not claim any religious association the most supportive.

At the same time, the results show very little evidence of cohort effects and at the very least raise serious doubts to narratives that see changes in environmental concern as stemming from generational replacement. In fact, the cohort variance components—indicators of how much of the variability in attitudes occurs at the cohort and period levels—in Table 1 confirm that cohort placement is largely unimportant for explaining environmental spending trends. In this way, we find the estimated cohort effects displayed in Figure 3 largely follow the same pattern for each religious group as well as among all adults. Although religious differences by cohort largely mirror those among the general public, it is worth pointing out that among older Catholic birth cohorts (those born between the early 1900s and the mid-1940s), there is a consistent decline in relative spending support. Yet these findings are hardly of the magnitude expected to indicate generational replacement as responsible for a reduction in public support for environmentalism in America. In short, the evidence fails to support the hypothesized postmaterialist value shift among younger cohorts of Christians (H1a). Nor do we see any sign of a differential cohort effect among seculars (H1b) or evangelical Protestants (H1c).

In contrast, period effects clearly show considerable variability from year to year, displaying no long-term period trends until the 1980s decade that shows, with the exception of Black Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, a clear proenvironmental shift as compared with earlier and later time periods. In the 1980s, the overall trend in relative support was above 1, indicating higher support for environmental spending than for other spending priorities. In general, the same patterns of change hold regardless of religious difference so that the denominational effect is restricted to altering the slope and the constant term representing the level of relative support for national environmental spending. Yet the period variance components provide some support for hypothesized relationships. As hypothesized (H2a) and despite differences in environmental histories, the degree of variability across periods is large and statistically significant regardless of denominational distinctions. By way of an example, among evangelicals, the period variance component shifts from 0.002 in the two initial models to 0.040 in Model 3.

Still, it is worth pointing out that the magnitude of change by time period is rather subdued among Black Protestants and seculars. Although the trends indicate overall stability in environmental concern among Black Protestants, the results also show they are consistently more likely to express support for environmental spending as compared with the other major Christian traditions and the religiously unaffiliated. The results confirm that Americans’ attention to ecological problems has undergone temporal shifts, but in general, environmental viewpoints changed among the population as a whole. Thus, although it was expected that alterations in religious doctrine, particularly those within the Catholic (H2b) and evangelical faiths (H2c), influenced changes in support for ecological issues, we find that religious orientation is largely inconsequential to temporal shifts.

Although our focus is not on explaining why attitudes vary across individuals, it is worth pointing out that a number of the individual-level fixed effects are significantly associated with support for spending to protect the environment (Tables 1 and 2). On this point, we find that religious behavior (as measured by church attendance) and party identification produce the most prominent differences. So, for example, frequent church attendance is negatively associated with government spending on the environment. This result confirms a religious participation pattern that appears prominently in the literature on environmental beliefs and behaviors in the American public (Guth et al., 1995). The positive signs of the coefficients for Democrats and Independents mean that, regardless of religious preference, Republicans are more opposed to environmental spending.

In sum, although a number of individual characteristics prove important for explaining differences in environmental spending among members of different religious groups, denominational affiliation cannot be used to account for macro-level changes in environmental concern. And, when we examine all respondents at once and include an individual-level control for religious tradition, the trends remain largely unchanged.

Discussion

Scholars who study trends in environmental beliefs and attitudes have used the concepts of cohort and period to understand the extent to which aggregate-level attitudinal change stems from the replacement of individuals as opposed to individuals changing their opinions over time (Kanagy et al., 1994; Pampel & Hunter, 2012; Wray-Lake, Flanagan, & Osgood, 2010). This article seeks to broaden our understanding of macro-level trends by focusing on whether support for funding environmental protection varies by religion across cohorts and time. Considering the importance placed on religion as a factor influencing environmentalism, it is fundamental to examine whether differences in Christianity’s expressions of ecological issues and patterns of religious affiliation influence changes in environmental concern and care as reflected in cohort and period differences.

The above analysis addresses two questions. First, what are the effects of period and cohort on support for environmental spending in the United States? We had expected younger cohorts to demonstrate greater proenvironmentalism. The results presented herein demonstrate that with regard to support for environmental spending, cohort effects are largely absent. However, we do see dramatic time changes in the general public’s concern for the environment. Our results corroborate trends that appear prominently in the literature on environmental spending support (Bosso & Guber, 2006; Daniels et al., 2012; Dunlap, 1991). Specifically, we confirm the decline in support for environmental spending in the 1970s followed by a rise in the 1980s and the decline in the early 1990s that has continued relatively unabated.

Second, what are the period or cohort effects in support for environmental spending for different religious denominations? We had expected that more recent Christian cohorts would be more supportive of spending on the environment as well as revealing religion-specific cohort effects, especially among evangelical Protestants, who routinely express greater skepticism of climate change and are less environmentally concerned. The evidence clearly demonstrates that support for environmental spending differs by religious groups. Yet there is very little evidence of cohort-based changes. However, in terms of period effects, we expected the increased attention to environmental problems and the growing importance of environmental protection in popular discourse to influence support for environmental spending marked by a proenvironmental temporal shift, irrespective of specific denominational engagement. And, although there are indeed period effects to the long-term trends, it is also clear that overall religious denominations move together. That is, with a few minor exceptions discussed in more detail below, periodic shifts in support for environmental spending are experienced by all traditions and move with the rise and fall of the environmental movement.

With regard to the period effects, the 1980s are generally characterized as a rejuvenated environmental movement—reaching a peak with the 20th anniversary of Earth Day in 1990. During this period, environmentalism surged in America where big jumps in membership to environmental groups and increased media attention to environmental destruction and major environmental catastrophes such as Bhopal, Chernobyl, and Exxon Valdez likely affected public thinking. This was also a period of major antiglobalization. However, although this period is characterized by booming economic growth and growing support for environmental spending, related to shifting postmaterialist values in a time of economic security, there was also considerable conservative backlash toward the environment. In fact, some accounts attribute the growth in public concern during the 1980s as a reaction against the Reagan administration’s opposition to environmental regulation (Dunlap, 1991, 1995). In sum, environmental spending trends demonstrate changes in support that are primarily the result of individuals changing their mind (i.e., period effects) rather than through the process of generational replacement. Moreover, our analyses reveal that although attitudinal change in support for environmental spending exists, religious denomination is largely inconsequential for explaining these trends.

This begs the question, why do we not see any cohort differences in terms of support for environmental spending, even among all adults? Certainly, theory and extant research demonstrate cohort effects related to postmaterialism, more generally, and environmentalism, more specifically, and our analyses fail to produce robust evidence of this effect. Our answer for why cohort effects fail to emerge is twofold. First, previous research estimating the degree of variability across cohorts and periods has typically relied on a modeling approach that is incapable of simultaneously modeling APC effects while examining the influence of key predictors. The advantage is that our approach encourages an effort to examine the relative impact of compositional and contextual factors over time and across birth cohorts, and to assess the consequences of how changes in these factors affect some of our most fundamental hypotheses about the religious origins of environmentalism.

Second, though previous studies have argued the trend in support for environmental spending parallels trends in other indicators of environmental concern (R. E. Jones & Dunlap, 1992), it remains possible that the dependent variable environmental support spending is a crude measure that does not adequately tap into concerns about the environment. Although the measure has the advantage of referring to spending in the country rather than a personal (i.e., out-of-pocket) commitment, the spending-based measure may understate environmental concern as it pits environmental funding against other national priorities deemed as more fundamental for a functioning system such as national defense, social security, crime, and so on. (see Pampel & Hunter, 2012). Certainly more precise measures of environmental concern exist. However, many of these measures have not yet been included in enough longitudinal surveys to allow for our methodological approach. Nevertheless, we hope that future data sets will replicate environmental issues measures so that similar analyses can be replicated.

As noted above, numerous studies have documented an association with religion alongside differences in ecological issues and concerns. Although many studies emphasize the connection between religion and environmentalism, we expand the literature by concurrently—via the multilevel approach—considering the interaction between macro-level trends and individual-level data. The results illustrate the importance of including religious affiliation in accounting for differences in environmental attitudes at the individual level. Cross-denomination differences exist rendering members of some Christian religious groups more willing to support government spending on the environment relative to a host of other national funding priorities. But differential support by these religious characteristics does not explain environmental spending variations over time as they apply to cohorts or periods. The similarity in the long-term trends demonstrates that the environmental concerns and practices of a given group are not caused by their religious tradition’s ethical ideals (Taylor, 2011, p. 255). Rather, environmental concern expressed by religious actors is a reflection of the sociocultural context in which these individuals are situated. In other words, religion is associated with differences in support for environmental spending across individuals, but it does not explain surges or declines in the importance of the environment as a national funding priority. This is perhaps the most important discovery of this research.

This research is also important in that we find no clear evidence of a so-called “greening” of Christianity. Rather, our findings confirm studies that contend religion is not promoting proenvironmental behaviors (Boyd, 1999; Clements et al., 2014; Guth et al., 1995; Taylor et al., 2016b). Indeed, despite research that cites examples of proenvironmental behaviors and the increasing number of statements by religious institutions and leaders as evidence for the greening of religion, our results confirm that there has not been a groundswell of religious environmentalism in the United States among the major Christian traditions (Taylor, Van Wieren, & Zaleha, 2016a). Moreover, considering the extant literature, we may conclude that in addition to continuing to lag behind secular society in the adoption of environmentally friendly practices, we may expect religious individuals and groups to contribute to environmentally destructive beliefs and practices (Taylor, 2016). So, although much recent attention has been devoted to the potential of religions to play a key role in the response to climate change, this analysis shows that religious engagement with the environment currently remains unfulfilled.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Juliet E. Carlisle is an assistant professor of political science in the Department of Politics and Philosophy at the University of Idaho.

April K. Clark is an assistant professor of political science in the Department of Political Science and senior research associate with the Center for Governmental Studies at Northern Illinois University.

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