Do explicit films lead to a decrease in church attendance?

A researcher from Baylor university has published a study online in the Review of Religious Research suggesting that watching ‘R-rated’ (the American equivalent of 18-rated) films leads to reduced church attendance and lessens the “importance of faith” amongst young people, but does not affect whether they have doubts about their religious beliefs.

The study was conducted on over 2,000 young people and their parents through the 2003, 2005 and 2007-8 implementations of the National Study of Youth and Religion in the USA.   In the 2003 wave, the respondents were between 13 and 17 years old, but in subsequent years the participants included older “young adults”.

Regardless of individuals’ degree of faith, most participants had viewed at least 1 R-rated film: only 13.2% of respondents who indicated their faith as being “extremely important” claimed never to have seen an R-rated film, whilst 31% of those whose faith is “very important” to them claimed that the majority of films that they watch are R-rated.   However, individuals who listed their faith as “not at all important” watch a greater proportion of R-rated films.

The link between watching R-rated films and decreased church attendance is thought to be a result of the conflict between the content of the films and religious values. Such content includes sexual scenes, explicit language, intense or ongoing violence and drug abuse amongst other features. Even after taking into account the importance of religion in an individual’s family, peer influence and parental restrictions on media, doctoral candidate in sociology Phil Davignon claims that R-rated movies are distinctly damaging to religious faith.   He admits, however, that the Passion of Christ is an exception, despite being R-rated.

More information at: http://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=135300