Religion and morality

A commenter asks about the relationship over time between religiosity, and crime and "sexual deviance." You got it!

If you will refer to my previous post on declining religiosity in America (or just take my word for it) the trend toward fewer people claiming religious affiliation began in about 1992. What a coinkydink! That's exactly when the crime rate began to decline. Here are property crimes (data is from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and I cribbed it from the Wikipedia article):

 

 

And whaddya know, that's also exactly when the homicide rate started to decline! (Note that it first started to go up sharply in the 1950s, a period of particular piety and conformity.)

 

 

 

I don't know what the commenter means by sexual deviance, but if he means sexual abuse of children, I got your sexual deviance right here!  

 

A recent literature review by a University of Alberta cult expert and his former graduate student paints a startling and consistent picture of institutional secrecy and widespread protection of those who abuse children in religious institutions "in ways that often differ from forms of manipulation in secular settings." It's the first comprehensive study exposing patterns of sexual abuse in religious settings. . . .

The result is "the first of its kind to provide a theoretical framework for analyzing and discussing religiously based child and teen sexual grooming," he said. One of the best-known cases of such grooming in the Catholic Church was uncovered by the Boston Globe in 2002 and dramatized in the 2015 film Spotlight. The Globe revealed that John J. Geoghan, a former priest, had fondled or raped at least 130 children over three decades in some half-dozen Greater Boston parishes.

Eventually a widespread pattern of abuse in the church was exposed in Europe, Australia, Chile, Canada and the United States. More shocking than the abuses themselves, said Raine, was the systemic cover-up that reached all the way up to the Vatican. . . .

"Abusers draw not only on their positions of power and authority as adults, which is potent in and of itself, but also on assertions about God's will-the ultimate unquestionable authority for religious adherents-and a figure that can inspire fear as much as it can awe and love." When abuse is disclosed, it is often met with skepticism or denial, even by the child's family, she said.

"Because devotion to the institution shapes social identity, especially for more devout individuals, members of a religious community may be entirely suspicious of the victim's claims, favouring instead the religious figure and his or her status and perceived credibility." In some cases, an entire society may be groomed, said Raine. She points to Ireland, where "a whole nation exhibited a 'culture of disbelief' towards abuse claims" after widespread revelations of abuse in the 1990s: "Members may have a greater loyalty to the institution than to the abused victim."

 

Hope that answers your questions!