18
The other interesting relationship involves a sense of opposition from the community to
hearing the views of the faith community. When clergy feel such opposition, we see dramatic spikes
in activity, both informal and formal. Informal discussion in the MO increases by over a third,
formal discussion by two-tenths. Taking a formal position on Issue 1 more than doubles and
informing others of that position increases by 170 percent (9 to 25 percent) when the MO member
feels community resistance.
This relationship is particularly important as it affirms the prophetic role that religious
interests play in American politics (Djupe and Gilbert 2003; Hofrenning 1995)—these interests put
forward unpopular positions in an attempt to have the world conform to religious dictates. Of
course, this also means that groups with unpopular positions find an organizational voice for their
interests, which is satisfying for democratic theory.
Multivariate Empirical Analysis
With a variety of possible explanations for MO political engagement with Issue 1 advanced
throughout this paper, a multivariate test is necessary. In Table 8 we present OLS regression
estimates of an index dependent variable composed of the four Issue 1 activity variables (the index
ranges from 0 to 4, with one point given for each activity – see Appendix B for variable coding).
The explanations correspond to those used above: internal group barriers (diversity, desire, and
resources), community barriers, and personal engagement.
[Insert Table 8 about here]
Despite strong bivariate evidence for the effect of resources on the activity levels of MOs,
the results in Table 8 suggest that only a limited desire for action constrains MO activity. To be fair,
enthusiasm is strongly correlated with the other two resource barriers at roughly r=0.5, but
enthusiasm is still the one to stand out. The size of the group mitigates the effect of other barriers
and leads to greater MO engagement of Issue 1. Greater size can increase efficacy as officials are
Convention