Religious Scheme for 'Truth About Conservative Christians' - Syntax File

Developed by Michael Hout and Andrew Greeley, this syntax file recreates the religious classification scheme used in their book The Truth about Conservative Christians: What They Think and What They Believe (2008). Similar to Steensland and colleagues' religious tradition classification scheme (i.e. "RELTRAD"), individuals are categorized into seven groups: conservative Protestant, African American Protestant, mainline Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, other religion, and no religion. The first half of the syntax file is actually Jerry Park's code for RELTRAD, but the second half of the syntax utilizes the RELTRAD variable to create a new religious classification scheme (i.e., variable "Xrel"). So, although the categories are similar, Hout and Greeley's classification differs from Steensland and colleagues (run a crosstab of both variables in the file to see differences in how cases are coded). Hout and Greeley also reject the term "evangelical" in favor of "conservative Protestant."

Directions: The syntax files below can be run with any of the General Social Survey data files, except the two "Panel Data" files (i.e. GSSPANEL and GSSPANEL2).

Credit/Citation: Greeley, Andrew M., and Michael Hout. 2008. The Truth about Conservative Christians: What They Think and What They Believe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Submitted by: Michael Hout, Aug 6, 2018.