Prayer Beliefs and Change in Life Satisfaction Over Time

Researchers have encountered significant difficulty differentiating between Conservative Christians, fundamentalists, evangelicals, and Pentecostals. Evidence of this may be found, for example, in the work of Woodberry and Smith (1998). These investigators argue that, “… distinguishing between Conservative Christians, evangelicals, charismatics, and Pentecostals is complex … They are better understood as loosely connected networks of ministerial, parachurch organizations, schools, seminaries …” (Woodberry and Smith 1998, p. 33). In fact, merely trying to identify the defining characteristics of Pentecostalism is fraught with difficulty, as Hunt et al. (1997) found. These investigators reluctantly concluded that, “… the movement is evolving so rapidly that it is not entirely clear whether these distinguishing hallmarks still hold” (Hunt et al. 1997, p. 2). Clearly, the current study is not the place to resolve these longstanding issues in the field. As a result, the term “Conservative Protestant” is used in the discussion that follows.

The proportion of Conservative Protestants in the current study might initially appear to be much higher than their numbers in the general population. However, it is important to recall that approximately half the participants in the current study are African American, and as the data provided later in this study will reveal, they are much more likely than whites to affiliate with Conservative Protestant congregations.