Medieval Heresis and Protestantism

In addition to the current social and political circumstances, the appearance of heresies and reform movements during the Middle Ages. was largely determined by the educational tendencies and movement of humanism, which concentrated on the matter of the human being. Thisarticle offers a digressive analysis that examines the appearance, essence, and significance of Bogomilism, Catharism, Waldensians and their implications for later reform movements—more specifically Protestantism. It should be emphasized that in this context, such ideas, characteristic of medieval heresies, impacted Protestantism, as seen in the works of John Wycliffe (1328-1384) and Jan Hus (1369-1415). In fact, they were qualified to be Protestants even before the appearance of Protestantism as a movement, and Martin Luther (1483-1546), the bearer of the Reformation for his time, was well-informed of their works. Luther was also familiar with the movement of the Waldensians, which certainly had its own impact on the further development and establishment of Protestantism, even though it followed a period of mutual cooperation between the two communities

Faith, Race-Ethnicity, and Public Policy Preferences: Religious Schemas and Abortion Attitudes among U.S. Latinos

Research has demonstrated that white conservative Protestants are more opposed to abortion than their Catholic counterparts. At the same time, conservative Protestantism has made significant inroads among U.S. Latinos. This study augments existing research on religion and racial-ethnic variations in abortion attitudes by comparing levels of support for legalized abortion among Catholic and conservative Protestant Latinos. Data are drawn from a nationally representative sample of U.S. Latinos. Significantly greater opposition to abortion is found among religiously devout conservative Protestant Latinos when compared with their Catholic counterparts. Latino Catholicism, which functions as a near-monopolistic, highly institutionalized faith tradition among Hispanics, produces weaker antiabortion attitudes than those exhibited in Latino conservative Protestantism. Among Latinos, conservative Protestantism operates as a niche voluntaristic faith. These factors produce a religious schema that yields robust antiabortion attitudes. This study has important implications for understanding the intersection of race-ethnicity, religion, and public policy preferences

Protestantism in Macedonia Today

Protestantism arrived in Macedonia in the second half of the nineteenth century. Since then, a number of Protestant communities were established and their current membership is relatively small. The United Methodist Church in the Republic of Macedonia is considered to be traditional and is listed as such in the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia. The contemporary Protestant structure is composed of 12 Evangelical-Protestant churches. The subject matter of this paper is a sociological research on the Protestant communities in Macedonia and it will focus on key issues related to the structure and functioning of their communities, their mutual cooperation, and their cooperation with other religious communities

Elizabeth Bouldin, Women Prophets and Radical Protestantism in the British Atlantic World, 1640–1730

Review of Bouldin, Women Prophets and Radical Protestantism in the British Atlantic World, 1640–1730. Available online at https://historywomenreligious.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/bouldin_temple_final_may20161.doc

The Implications of Cultural Background on Labour Market Choices: The Case of Religion and Entrepreneurship

We suggest a methodology for identifying the implications of alternative cultural and social norms embodied by religious denomination on labour market outcomes, by estimating the differential impact of Protestantism versus Catholicism on the propensity to be an entrepreneur, on the basis of the diverse minority status of both confessions across European regions. Our quasi-experimental research design exploits the stronger degree of attachment to religious ethic of religious minorities and the exogenous historical determination of the geographical distribution of religious minorities in Europe. Our analysis of European Social Survey data collected in four waves between 2002 and 2008 in 22 European countries, indicates that cultural background has a significant effect on the individual propensity to become an entrepreneur, with Protestantism increasing the chances to be an entrepreneur by around 3% with respect to Catholicism. Our findings, stable across a number of robustness checks, provide further evidence on the need to take cultural elements into consideration when analysing economic behaviour.entrepreneurship, self-employment, religion, culture, Protestantism, Catholicism

Luther and the Girls: Religious Denomination and the Female Education Gap in 19th Century Prussia

Martin Luther urged each town to have a girls' school so that girls would learn to read the Gospel, evoking a surge of building girls' schools in Protestant areas. Using county- and town-level data from the first Prussian census of 1816, we show that a larger share of Protestants decreased the gender gap in basic education. This result holds when using only the exogenous variation in Protestantism due to a county's or town's distance to Wittenberg, the birthplace of the Reformation. Similar results are found for the gender gap in literacy among the adult population in 1871.Protestantism, education, gender gap

Luther and the Girls: Religious Denomination and the Female Education Gap in 19th Century Prussia

Martin Luther urged each town to have a girls’ school so that girls would learn to read the Gospel, evoking a surge of building girls’ schools in Protestant areas. Using county- and town-level data from the first Prussian census of 1816, we show that a larger share of Protestants decreased the gender gap in basic education. This result holds when using only the exogenous variation in Protestantism due to a county’s or town’s distance to Wittenberg, the birthplace of the Reformation. Similar results are found for the gender gap in literacy among the adult population in 1871.gender gap, education, Protestantism

The Contexts of Conversion among U.S. Latinos

The growth of Protestantism among U.S. Latinos has been the focus of considerable discussion among researchers. Yet few studies investigate how Latino Protestants and Latino Catholics differ, or which types of Latinos convert from Catholicism to Protestantism. Our study tests various theories about why some Latinos convert including a modified version of the semi-involuntary thesis, the national origin hypothesis, and assimilation theory. We use data from a large national sample of U.S. Latinos and find some support for assimilation theory and less for the semi-involuntary thesis. However, context matters. If we divide Latinos into national origin groups, these groups strongly predict who converts and who are lifelong Protestants. We discuss how war may influence the religious composition of early migrants and thus shape both the religious composition and conversion of later migrants

The Economic Effects of the Protestant Reformation: Testing the Weber Hypothesis in the German Lands

Following Max Weber, many theories have hypothesized that Protestantism should have favored economic development. With its religious heterogeneity, the Holy Roman Empire presents an ideal testing ground for this hypothesis. Using population figures of 272 cities in the years 1300–1900, I find no effects of Protestantism on economic growth. The finding is precisely estimated, robust to the inclusion of various controls, and does not depend on data selection or small sample size. Protestantism has no effect when interacted with other likely determinants of economic development. Instrumental variables estimates, considering the potential endogeneity of religious choice, are similar to the OLS results