Religious Institutions and Political Participation in America PAUL A. DJUPE J. TOBIN GRANT Previous research on religious institutions and political participation finds that churches can increase participation among their members through the development of civic skills and the distinct political histories of religious traditions. This paper examines the various ways religious institutions promote the political participation of their members. We utilize the 1990 Citizen Participation Study to test seven hypotheses about the connections between religious institutions and political participation. We find, contrary to previous work, that church-gained civic skills and religious tradition do not directly affect political participation among those currently active in religious institutions. Rather, churches bring their parishioners more effectively into the political process through the recruitment of members to politics and when members come to see their church activity as having political consequences. INTRODUCTION There has been increased attention lately to religious institutions as purveyors of civility and civic responsibility. In this paper, we explore the ways that religious institutions promote political participation in the United States. While there are many types of groups in America, we focus on the role of religious institutions, especially churches. We do so for two reasons. First, unlike citizens of other western nations, most Americans, at both the elite and mass levels, have consistently claimed to be a part of some religious group (Kosmin and Lachman 1993; Wald 1997). Second, religion and churches have shown a great potential to affect American politics and have consistently intertwined with politics throughout American history (Gusfield 1963; Morris 1984; Noll 1990; Findlay 1993; Green, Guth, Smidt, and Kellstedt 1996; Wald 1997; Fowler, Hertzke, and Olson 1999). For example, churches formed the base for significant social and political movements (Zald and McCarthy 1987; Salisbury 1992), such as temperance (Gusfield 1963), civil rights (Morris 1984; Lincoln and Mamiya 1990; Findlay 1993), and, most recently, the Christian conservative movement (Liebman and Wuthnow 1983; Green, Guth, Smidt, and Kellstedt 1996; Martin 1996). A large literature has developed to explain the nature of the religious connection to political action, a connection largely, though not exclusively, rooted in the metaphor of religious for political activity. For instance, Peterson (1992) suggests that religious activity can spill over to political acti- vity due to the similarities of the tasks. We suggest that the connection is more intentional, that conscious efforts to derive political benefit from religious activity are necessary or that someone must link the sacred and political for adherents. That is, there is little direct, automatic connection of religious and political activities for religious adherents, though church-gained skills can be and are mobilized into the public sphere on a regular basis when religious adherents see or are made to see the connection. Using data taken from the Citizen Participation Study (CPS) (Verba, Schlozman, Brady, and Nie 1990) we assess directly the roles religion can play in promoting political participation. The Paul A. Djupe is an Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Denison University, Granville, Ohio 43023. Email: djupe@denison.edu J. Tobin Grant is a Ph.D. candidate, Department of Political Science, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210. Email: grant.112@osu.edu Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion