Habits of the Heart

• DOI: 10.1177/0002716211408345
• Date: 01 September 2011
• Author: Ezekiel J. Dixon-Roman,Monica R. Miller
• Published date: 01 September 2011

The landscape of youth religious participation is an
underengaged area across both the humanities and social
science. While the humanities lack empirical data on
the changing religious life worlds of youths, existing
empirical work in the social sciences suggests that insti-
tutional religion buffers criminality and delinquency—
a brand of engagement the authors refer to as “buffering
transgression.” This is a process that both conceives and
privileges religion as an institutional and a moral force
responsible for creating prosocial behavior. While empiri-
cal studies on youths and religion keep religion arrested
Habits of the to institutional and moral functions, scholars in the human-
ities work hard to legitimate youth cultural forms, such
Heart: Youth as hip hop, by conflating its rugged dimensions with a
quest (and hope) for democratic sensibilities—a motif
the authors suggest is rooted in ideologies of teleo-
Religious
logical progress. Using the tropes progress, peril,
and change, this article explores the utility (and limita-
Participation as tions) of empirical work and the often misguided efforts
to moralize religion. Here the authors raise queries regard-
Progress, Peril, ing youth cultural change and religion and quan-
titatively model youth religious change over 16
years. The implications of these theoretical and
or Change?
empirical interventions point toward future work
at the social scientific intersections of religion in
culture.
Keywords: buffering transgression; hip hop; youth;
religion; religious habitus; political ideology;
By
latent class growth modeling
MONICA R. MILLER
and
Monica R. Miller is a postdoctoral fellow in the Center
EZEKIEL J. DIXON-ROMAN for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Among other publications, she is coeditor of a 2009
special issue of Culture & Religion on “Hip Hop and
Religion.” She is also cochair of Critical Approaches to
Hip Hop and Religion.
Ezekiel J. Dixon-Román is an assistant professor of
social policy and education in the School of Social Policy
& Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. Among
other publications, he is coeditor of the forthcoming
volume, Thinking Comprehensively About Education:
Spaces of Educative Possibility and Their Implications
for Public Policy.
NOTE: Although this article was not titled after Bellah et
al.’s ([1985] 2007) classic text, Habits of the Heart, it cer-
tainly resonates with this seminal work. The idea of the
connections between religion and radical individualism in
the political moral fabric of the United States can be read
in and through our analysis of the “buffering transgression”
hypothesis and theoretical lens of religious habitus.
DOI: 10.1177/0002716211408345
78 ANNALS,
AAPSS, 637, September 2011

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HABITS OF THE HEART
79
It is often the case, particularly among traditions in African American religion,
that religion has been understood and explicated as a modality of sociopolitical
“progress”—one that reflects a quest for more equitable realizations of democracy.
In fact, recent attention to Eddie Glaude’s (2010) provocative claim that the black
church is dead highlights the manner in which debates about black religion are
often grounded in questions about the promise or peril of its “prophetic” dimen-
sions. Here, the question about prophetic weight is usually typed as social and
political progress rooted in a social justice paradigm. The erroneous conflation
between religion and progress is latently evidenced in work by both scholars in the
humanities, working hard to legitimate youth culture (such as hip hop), and soci-
ologists of religion, whose empirical studies on youth and religion suggest institu-
tional religious participation among youths mitigates and buffers deleterious social
behaviors and criminal activity (Smith and Denton 2005; Johnson et al. 2000;
Patillo-McCoy 1998). While these efforts are often applauded as working on behalf
of the moral fabric of American society, in this article, we refer to the empirical
preoccupation with religion as the sanitizer and domesticator of crime as “buffer-
ing transgression”—an idea we suggest positions institutional religion as the ethi-
cal disciplinarian of social ills is constructed as a variable that produces prosocial
behavior among “deviant” populations. What such studies do not reveal, however,
especially for marginalized youths, is the extent to which “institutional” religion
upholds purchase and relevance in a changing cultural climate and landscape.
Moreover, studies such as these are not only complicit in the moralizing and “democ-
ratizing” of religion as progress and affirmative activity but, likewise, constrain,
limit, and relegate religion to an institutional phenomenon, thus denying not
only the symbolic violence of religion in American life but also the enduring
structuring of the religious habitus (Barrett 2010; Bourdieu [1980]/1990) and its
effects on social life—a point to which we return later in the article.
This article first explores the ways in which youth cultural forms of expression,
such as hip hop, have often been conceptualized as a modality of progress—cultural
practices expected to bear the responsibility of realizing the democratic project
on behalf of marginalized groups, especially youths. While suppositions such as
this one are helpful in authorizing cultural forms often stigmatized in larger soci-
ety, such claims are often journalistic in nature and bear the mark of racial represen-
tational analysis. Understood in this way, youth culture becomes a tool by which
to make larger sociopolitical critiques of American society—here, youth culture
becomes a technique of critique and a tool of progress for what appear to be, at
times, unsupported claims and moralized expectations. From journalistic claims
about youth culture, we move into a discussion exploring existing empirical studies
on youth and religion, suggesting that while such studies are useful in charting
a portrait of youth religious participation, such work falls prey to the “buffering
transgression” hypothesis, thus keeping religion arrested to institutional confines.
Differing from the first trend, studies such as these take seriously empirical data,
yet cut short the range of religious expression—this aborted perspective similarly
denies the enduring durability of the religious habitus and maintains religion as
a practice of morality and inherent benevolence. Moreover, these studies fail to

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THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
chart change in religious participation over long periods of time. This article raises
both empirical and theoretical concerns. We suggest that representational claims
regarding youth culture often lack an empirical and material base, yet we also hint
that empirical data, too, often fall short due to the rigid and limited conceptualiza-
tions of variables such as religion. Beyond a concern with the necessities and com-
plexities of empirical work, we suggest that existing social scientific work on youth,
religion, and faith-based institutions is often ideologically misguided in its need
to conceptualize religious participation as a moralizing force for progress, change,
and social conformity.
To what extent should popular cultural forms bear the burden of political expec-
tation? By conflating religious participation, youth culture, and political progress,
do we not risk perpetuating hegemonic notions of democracy and progress? We
suggest that to take such queries to task, we must likewise take seriously the empir-
ical changes in and theoretical implications of youth religious participation. Through
an interrogation of the tropes progress, peril, and change, this article critiques
and yet advocates for empirical work on youth and religion—we seek to say some-
thing about the often misguided efforts of moralizing religion. Moreover, we seek
to raise a theoretical query regarding youth cultural change and religion and their
implications for future work at the social scientific intersections of understanding
youth culture in religion and the religious in youth culture.
Hip Hop and Youth Culture as Progress?
Pushing the Democratic Project
The landscape of American society, often perniciously characterized as symboli-
cally violent and repressive, has often been typed as a terrain of struggle repre-
sented by diverse and sometimes competing quests for democratic possibilities.
Marginal groups have tenaciously wrestled for a seat at the table of freedom and
justice. It is against this geography for justice in culture from which philosopher
and cultural critic Cornel West engages the political and philosophical dimensions
of youth culture and hip hop. Similar to the work of public intellectual Michael
Eric Dyson, West sees in hip hop something fundamentally paramount to how
marginalized voices challenge the very moral, social, and cultural fabric in which
we live—sentiments often ignored but necessary for the opening of more faithful
democratic sensibilities. What is more, West argues that such work requires some-
thing greater of the public intellectual; he writes, “I do not believe that the life of
an academic—or at least all academics—should be narrowly contained within the
university walls or made to serve narrow technocratic goals” (2004, 188), acknowl-
edging that youth culture assists “to keep our fragile democratic...