What do thousands of sermons reveal about the religious dynamics of America?
100 million Americans go to church each week to hear a sermon. Sermons have shaped the social and moral order of Western society and continue to influence people's lives in profound ways.
Yet sermons change.
How are they changing? And what do these dynamics tell us about the cultural evolution of religion in America?
To answer these questions, we looked at 24,000 sermons from churches across the United States.
Sermons reveal trends in the evolution of religion in America.
Billet, M. I., Götz, F. M., Gvirtz, A., Kramer, S. R., & Norenzayan, A. (in review). Natural language analyses reveal religious niches in 24,479 American sermons. Preprint available: osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/jvyfz_v2