Browsing by Author "Kalinowski, Brenton"

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    Religious Leaders in Houston Navigate COVID-19 : A Case of Exogenous Shock and Institutional Isomorphism
    (2022-01-06) Kalinowski, Brenton; Ecklund, Elaine Howard
    This thesis draws on 26 interviews and 100 surveys with congregational representatives in Houston, Texas to consider the challenges that religious organizations have faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic and their responses to these challenges. Specifically, I frame COVID-19 as an exogenous shock that has not only highlighted preexisting inequalities and trends in American religious life, but also may have accelerated these trends. I find that religious leaders must navigate the safety and wellbeing of members of their organizations while contending with concerns about declining attendance and the finances of the organization, the complexities of building an online presence, and the politicization of the pandemic, religious life broadly, as well as health safety protocols. I argue by way of implication that COVID-19 has been a catalyst for accelerating trends of participation in religious congregations, the growth of the internet as a medium for congregational interaction and growing political polarization in American religious life. Although growing, the amount of sociological research on COVID-19 and religion is currently limited and primarily focuses on the impact of religious affiliation and religiosity on health behaviors and outcomes during the pandemic. This work is unique in considering congregation-level responses to COVID-19 and the tensions being felt by religious leaders in navigating these responses and will be an important step to help scholars in thinking about the way the pandemic has shaped the role of religious communities in public life.
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    Trust in an Age of Uncertainty: Evangelical Christian Attitudes Towards Science and Medicine
    (2025-04-22) Kalinowski, Brenton; Ecklund, Elaine Howard
    In this dissertation I examine how religion shapes trust in science and medicine among evangelical Christians. Specifically, I focus on the role of religion in shaping perspectives on the intersecting authority of religious, scientific, and political institutions. To explore this topic, I draw from interviews with a racially diverse sample of 74 evangelical Christian leaders and congregants located in Houston, Texas conducted between March 2021 and May 2024. While researchers have identified mechanisms that explain the relationship between religion, science, and medicine, (such as religious understandings of conflict or collaboration with science, anti-institutionalism, and responses to scientific racism), I posit trust is a central factor that helps us to understand these disparate influences. Through this work I discuss evangelical Christian perceptions and trust of scientists, beliefs about authority on the topic of climate change, and trust in medicine and medical professionals. I find that when religious communities engage with scientific topics it often results in greater trust in scientific expertise but when churches frame science as being too political, distrust and misinformation are more prominent. This is important because evangelical Christians play an influential role in American political life, influencing decisions such as the repeal of Roe v. Wade or loosening climate restrictions. It is also important because many evangelicals are members of marginalized racial populations and their religious views can bolster or hinder their trust in science and medicine which has implications for addressing health and education disparities. More broadly, I argue for the importance of considering trust as a major influence on outcomes such as political attitudes, health, and educational attainment.