Samuel Perry
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profsamperry.bsky.social
Samuel Perry
@profsamperry.bsky.social

Professor | Books: Growing God's Family; Addicted to Lust; Taking America Back for God; The Flag and The Cross; Religion for Realists | CV: https://tinyurl.com/4hs86ntn

Samuel L. Perry is an American sociologist known for his research on American Christianity, politics, and sexual behavior. He is currently the Sam K. Viersen Presidential Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma. The topics of Perry's books and articles have included American evangelicals and their social engagement, Christian nationalism, moral incongruence and religious responses to pornography use, religion and interracial marriage, Christian adoption and foster care, and English Bible translations. .. more

Political science 43%
Sociology 29%
Pinned
Thrilled and honored that my book Religion for Realists was given the 2025 Distinguished Book Award by @sssreligion.bsky.social last night.

It’s vital that we understand religion and religious people. The social sciences are remiss to ignore either.

Hire more religion specialists.

🚨 LSE Assistant Professor in Political Science 🚨

We’re hiring a tenure-track assistant professor - any area of empirical political science - to join our wonderful Government Dept @lsegovernment.bsky.social

Any questions, please reach out to me

📣 Please share! 📣

jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Thanks for the important work!

Fascinating article on Christian nationalism in the UK and right-wing seculars converting to Christianity as a signal of Anglo Protestant identity and values.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Why Tommy Robinson supporters are turning to Christianity - BBC News
The Church of England is grappling with what to do about followers of the far-right figure embracing faith.
www.bbc.com

Hugely important study. Turns out the Voting Rights Act was actually super helpful for protecting racial minorities from voter suppression in states that were notorious for voter suppression. Among the many disastrous legacies of Roberts' tenure, gutting the VRA is up there.
As we all wait for Callais to come down, our piece showing that Shelby County increased the racial turnout gap in most of the covered parts of the country has cleared the replication check and is incoming at JOP.

Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
As we all wait for Callais to come down, our piece showing that Shelby County increased the racial turnout gap in most of the covered parts of the country has cleared the replication check and is incoming at JOP.

Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
Twitter pays people based on engagement (views, retweets, comments, etc). It appears that many MAGA accounts are based abroad and they use AI technology to generate low-effort rage bait.

My guess is that this will get worse as AI tech improves. For instance, fake videos of minorities doing crime.

not this guy.

Always nice to get some love from the institution. Congrats to my stellar colleague Meredith Worthen on her accomplishments as well!
www.ou.edu/news/article...
Two OU Researchers Ranked Among World’s Top Sociology Scholars
Two University of Oklahoma faculty in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences have been ranked by analytics site ScholarGPS as among the world’s most productive and impactful sociologists over t...
www.ou.edu

Bless you, Dr. Ratliff. That's exactly what's needed.

Rejections don't have to be unnecessarily frustrating & wasteful of reviewers' & authors' time. I'm not saying let authors get away with only gesturing at revision. Reject them if they try that! But gosh quit with the endless rounds of review leading to rejection. It's cowardly & poor leadership.

In addition to more desk rejects so we don't waste literally everyone's time with manuscripts that won't make it, editors need to exercise their discretion to say "Based on reviews you should revise X, X, & X. You get one shot. Fix it all & we'll publish. If you don't convince me, I'll reject."

Among the many maddening things about journal publishing is the total lack of assurance that good faith efforts at revision will result in a pub rather than endless rounds of review & maybe still rejection. Could all be solved with a higher bar for R&R decisions & more decisive editorial leadership.

Thanks so much!

Thanks Philip!

Like being brilliant, well-read, & curious certainly contributes to an academic's success. But what the daily job requires is sitting down & focusing for long periods, making machines give you the info you need, crafting sentences, revising, & other activities you improve at via practice & habit.

Years ago while I was having a procedure, the doctor remarked how ironic it was that he spent years doing the intellectual work to become a physician when the greatest contributor to his success is mundane technical mastery.

Totally would say the same about academia, for better or for worse.
Mark Silk: “Judeo-Christian values are out and Christian nationalism is in.”

Mark Silk has been studying the use of "Judeo-Christian" in American life for over 40 years. Here is the Religion News Service columnist and scholar of American religion: ...an exclusivist Christian vision of the national…
Mark Silk: “Judeo-Christian values are out and Christian nationalism is in.”
Mark Silk has been studying the use of "Judeo-Christian" in American life for over 40 years. Here is the Religion News Service columnist and scholar of American religion: ...an exclusivist Christian vision of the national future has led to an open rejection of “Judeo-Christian” by significant figures on the religious right. “This is not a ‘Judeo-Christian’ Movement,” declared self-described Christian nationalists Andrew Torba and Andrew Isker in their 2022 tract, “Christian Nationalism: A Biblical Guide to Taking Dominion and Discipling Nations.” In his 2023 book “Mere Christendom,” the prominent pastor Douglas Wilson, who likewise describes himself as a Christian nationalist, writes that there is “no such entity as the Judeo/Christian religion” and calls the Judeo-Christian 
thewayofimprovement.blog

Reposted by Samuel L. Perry

Congratulations to Professor Samuel L. Perry, winner of the SSSR’s 2025 Distinguished Book Award for 'Religion for Realists: Why We All Need the Scientific Study of Religion,' published by Oxford University Press.
@oupacademic.bsky.social @uofoklahoma.bsky.social
sssreligion.org/awards-grant...

Isker was the keynote speaker at Webbon’s conference last year and the Trashworld “fake and gay” language was thrown around a lot. Here’s where Isker explains his meaning in the preface.

Yeesh. Gotta read Andrew Isker’s The Boniface Option to understand Webbon’s use of “fake and gay” here. It’s Isker’s shorthand for the ethos of “trash world.” Basically it’s their sophomoric memelord way of saying Christians are worldly and ineffectual (“spiritually homosexual”).
watching these two Christian Nationalists have a conversation and see if you can spot the part where I spit coffee all over my screen.

Reposted by Samuel L. Perry

watching these two Christian Nationalists have a conversation and see if you can spot the part where I spit coffee all over my screen.

Anyone else find that often the articles they're proudest of are often the least cited? Hurts my heart.

It very much is. Always the difficult question of which causes which? Does lower religiosity cause greater societal advancement? Or does greater societal advancement cause lower religiosity? I've seen evidence for both, and both are likely true. But interesting academic convo of what moves first.

The percentage of Americans who say religion is an important part of their lives declined from 66% in 2015 to 49% in 2025. Among the fastest declines in the world.
news.gallup.com/poll/697676/...

Congrats Paul!