Religious Affiliation and Military Service in the United States

Abstract

Those who serve in the armed forces are shaped not only by incentives and opportunity structures but also by institutions that cultivate norms of duty, authority, and collective obligation. This study argues that religious institutions function as such socializing agents and play a measurable role in military enlistment in the United States. Complementing existing research that focuses on denomination or belief as key indicators, we introduce an institutional framework that emphasizes participation in religious communities. The focus is not on the affiliation but instead on the socialization offered and conducted in those institutions. Religious communities cultivate behavioral dispositions, such as discipline, hierarchy, and collective orientation, that align with the demands of military service. As such, they are associated with an increased likelihood of enlistment. Using data from the 2024 Cooperative Election Study (CES), we employ logistic regression models to distinguish between religious identity, institutional engagement, and individual religiosity. The results show that, per our sample, religious identity and evangelical affiliation are not significant predictors of enlistment. Instead, regular participation in religious institutions is strongly and consistently associated with a higher likelihood of military service. These findings suggest that institutional socialization can be an important factor in explaining the relationship between religion and military service.

1. Introduction

Service in the armed forces is not only a matter of opportunity, compensation, or individual preference, but also of social meaning and moral obligation. Religion, a central social institution that shapes beliefs and attitudes towards authority, sacrifice, and duty, remains an understudied influence on military service in the all-volunteer force. In this article, we explore the link between affiliation with religious institutions and enlistment in the U.S. armed forces. We suggest that religious institutions provide a worldview and promote social behaviors that make volunteering more likely. This argument centers on the power of institutional socialization rather than on spiritual belief and tradition alone. Simply put, we want to consider the narrative or meaning-making institution that may promote military volunteerism, not just the presence or absence of belief. Thus, this article highlights individuals who attend religious services and are exposed to the religious institution socialization process. If religious communities cultivate dispositions aligned with military service, then the presence or absence of institutional embedding should correspond to contrasting rates of enlistment.

Existing scholarship on the links between religion and military enlistment in the U.S. identifies a positive association between religious adherence and enlistment to the military (Burdette et al. 2009; DeFronzo and Gill 2008). From an organizational perspective, the assumption is that the institutional religious accommodation will support recruitment efforts among minorities (Sandhoff 2017). At the same time, the quantitative research on this association has been very limited, studying mostly several Protestant denominations and communities in the U.S. or examining Israeli case studies, where religion is an essential aspect of current military service. Those studies pointed toward a link between a religious–nationalist axis and enlistment as the fulfillment of a religious–nationalist ideology. We add to the discussion by examining organizational dynamics through which the participation in religious institutions conditions military enlistment. We argue that institutions that create community, provide meaning, a form of discipline, social expectations, and respect for authority are more likely to produce individuals who see the value of military service and will to protect their national communities. Likewise, these communities are more likely to be targeted for recruitment by military institutions that are seeking individuals who are already socialized for discipline, sacrifice, and narrative meaning.

In recent years, policy, professional, and academic discussions on national security have circled back to the question of military personnel. How can a nation defend itself, its interests, and values without having enough soldiers? Changes in the security landscape, among them the Ukraine War and the collapse of Pax Americana, force states to reverse a decades-long process of decline in mass armies (Haltiner 2007). At present, states struggle in recruitment and face unprepared and understaffed armed forces as they deal with motivation gaps and decline population. As such, academic, professional, and policy debates shifted to finding the factors and explanations for how to convince and motivate recruitment (Simon et al. 2026; Snyder 2025; Woodruff et al. 2025). This study contributes to this conversation by adding an organizational perspective centered around the role of religion in facilitating recruitment. If religious institutions cultivate dispositions toward authority and collective duty, then they may constitute an important social reservoir for military recruitment at the precise moment when states are struggling to not only sustain but grow their volunteer forces.

To address this question, we examine the Cooperative Election Survey (CES) to assess the relationship between being part of religious institutions and military service. We use logistic regression analysis to assess the association between religious affiliation and behavior that is linked to being religious (attendance and prayers), with the aim of servicing participation across different groups. The logistic regression analysis shows that higher rates of attendance, used as a proxy for community participation, are associated with increased likelihood of enlistment.

2. Literature Review

Religious faith carries motivational significance for war, and it is no coincidence that Eisenhower himself referred to the Normandy landings as a “Great Crusade” in his Order of the Day on the eve of the invasion (Eisenhower 1944). Nevertheless, research shows that the relationship between religious belief and the perception of military conflict is highly complex and far from one-dimensional (Guth and Nelsen 2025). For example, religious affiliation in the United States functions in practice as a confound of political attitudes toward war and foreign affair (Baumgartner et al. 2008; Brown 2016; Guth 2013; Roy 2016). This is certainly the case in Israel as well, where religiosity versus secularism accounts for a substantial portion of the debates and tensions surrounding war, tied as they are to political identity (Ridge 2026), a pattern that is especially salient in the 2026 war against Iran, and particularly with respect to willingness to sacrifice (Naon and Ben Shalom 2026). The argument is further complicated by the fact that the mechanisms through which religious belief shapes support for war are themselves varied, including the pursuit of justice, altruism, and identification. Moreover, religious beliefs may serve as an explanatory factor for preferences regarding particular types of military engagement—in the American sense, such as “operation” versus “war”—and for the differential resource mobilization that each requires (Guth and Nelsen 2025). Historically, religious affiliation has been a positive predictor of support for interstate conflict and, in the past, has been linked to a willingness to serve.

What is the association between religion and military enlistment? Broadly, this association has been underdeveloped analytically, touched mostly within the periphery of scholarly conversations and niche cases. The sociology of religion has long distinguished between institutional religion and individual religiosity (Bellah et al. 2007). Both dimensions shape attitudes toward authority, violence, sacrifice, and civic duty, which are core elements of military service. Comparative research emphasizes that religion’s influence on enlistment is context-dependent, mediated by national histories, civil–military relations, and dominant religious traditions (Hassner 2016).

In the U.S., several quantitative studies show a positive association between religiosity and military enlistment: a trend that is more historically pronounced among conservative Protestant and evangelical youth. Using longitudinal and cross-sectional data, Burdette et al. (2009) find that young men with higher religious involvement in their communities are significantly more likely to enlist, even after controlling for socioeconomic background. They argue that Christian religious narratives that portray the U.S. as a “covenant society” and that follow God’s calling reinforce military service as a morally legitimate life course. Regional and denominational cultures further moderate this relationship. Maley and Hawkins (2018) demonstrate that the “Southern military tradition” in the U.S., which is characterized by high religiosity and conservative Protestantism, partially explains elevated enlistment rates, although structural factors such as labor markets also matter. Another analysis on Protestant religiosity and enlistment by DeFronzo and Gill (2008) shows that states with higher levels of religious adherence experienced different enlistment patterns before and after 9/11, suggesting that religious context interacts with national threat perceptions to positively impact military service.

Moving beyond U.S.-focused studies, Israel presents a distinct case where military service is deeply embedded in national identity and where the role of religion is prominent. Cohen (1999), Røislien (2013), Libel and Gal (2015), and Levy (2012, 2014, 2016) document a growing religiosity within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). This has been more with some religious groups, while absent from others. On one hand, the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) communities, where religious norms historically discouraged enlistment, are underrepresented and even benefit from a politically engineered exemption from service. At the same time, the national religious groups, where military service is framed as both a civic and religious duty, are overrepresented within military ranks. Similarly to Protestants’ approaches to recruitment in the U.S., for this community, enlistment is not merely compatible with religiosity but actively religiously valorized, especially in combat roles.

Comparative European research suggests a weaker or more ambivalent relationship between religiosity and enlistment in more secular societies. Hassner’s (2016) comparative framework notes that where religion is privatized and civil–military relations are strongly secular, religiosity plays a less direct role in motivating enlistment. Historical and colonial cases, however, show different patterns. Petersen’s (1989) analysis of ethnicity, religion, and military recruitment demonstrates how religious identity can be strategically mobilized by states, such as the British colonial use of Sikh religious identity to encourage enlistment, linking faith with martial valor.

Beyond enlistment behavior, religiosity is associated with support for military action and militaristic values, which indirectly affect recruitment pools. Beller finds that while simple religious attendance may not independently predict militarism, religious fundamentalism and ideological belief structures are associated with stronger support for military force (Beller 2017). Such orientations can normalize military service as a desirable or honorable pursuit.

Institutional mechanisms also matter. Rosman-Stollman (2008) shows how military chaplaincies in the U.S. function as mediating structures, making military service more compatible with religious life and thereby lowering barriers to enlistment for religious individuals. Similarly, Stahl (2017) and Sandhoff (2017) studies highlight how the U.S. military has actively incorporated religious language and institutions, indirectly shaped recruitment norms, and created a diverse space that accommodates religious recruits’ needs.

Another domain where the association between religion and enlistment was examined more extensively was in the context of violent nonstate actors, such as terrorists, insurgents, and rebels. Here, religion is perceived as a radicalization tool that facilitates recruitment and violence in the name of divine guidance. Iannaccone and Berman (2006) identify militant religious extremists as a form of entrepreneurs who use the credibility of the clergy to recruit individuals into extremist and terrorist groups. Davis et al. (2012) explain how religion can offer legitimacy for violence and present the participation in such acts as a religious duty. Perliger and Pedahzur (2016) explain that extreme religious interpretations that are expressed as totalistic ideology can accelerate radicalization and participation in group violence, especially when it is combined with perceived external existential threat. Gates and Nordås (2015) take a different approach, suggesting that faith can be used by rebel groups to cultivate a sense of community in a way that affects recruitment and support of the group.

Across the literature, religion and religiosity are linked to military enlistment through several interrelated pathways, though these pathways are unevenly theorized and empirically tested. First, religion functions as a moral–symbolic frame, providing narratives of sacrifice, duty, obedience, and righteous violence that render military service, or its equivalent in cases of violent nonstate actors, meaningful and legitimate. This pathway has been demonstrated in contexts such as the United States and Israel, where religious and national identities overlap. Second, religiosity shapes enlistment through community and identity mechanisms: dense religious networks, denominational cultures, and group norms (e.g., evangelical Protestantism in the U.S. South or national religious communities in Israel) socialize individuals into viewing enlistment as honorable or expected. Third, religion functions via institutional mediation, as military organizations accommodate religious practice (e.g., chaplaincies, religious language, exemptions), lowering cultural or moral barriers to service for religious individuals. Fourth, religiosity indirectly affects enlistment by fostering pro-militaristic attitudes, especially where fundamentalist or totalistic belief systems normalize the use of force and elevate participation in violence as morally justified.

3. Socialization in Religious Institutions

Religious institutions are more than communities of worship. From sociological and organizational lenses, they are also important socialization agents. While designed for religious and internal community purposes, religious socialization additionally carries unintended or ancillary implications. Scholarship points toward several recurring ideas that are associated with religious socialization and that have broader societal implications. These include tendencies toward altruism (Nguyen and Wodon 2018; Oviedo 2016), discipline (Marcus and McCullough 2021; McCullough and Willoughby 2009), respect for authority (Parsons 1951), and, in some cases, even accepting the idea of sacrifice for a greater good. All of these are character traits of individuals who see themselves as part of a community and not above it.

Exploring religion from an evolutionary perspective, some scholars (Bloom 2012; Oviedo 2016) suggest that the socialization religious institutions offer increased altruism towards the in-group. Those ideas correspond with the Durkheimian outlook that religion produces individuals who are oriented towards collective conscience, reinforcing social norms and cohesion (Durkheim 1965). And indeed, on average and compared to other groups, religious people demonstrate a high degree of prosocial behavior. They are more likely to volunteer (Nguyen and Wodon 2018), donate to philanthropic causes (Grönlund and Pessi 2015), and support nonprofit organizations (Wiepking et al. 2014).

Religious practice often encourages routines in prayer times, fasting cycles, holidays, and ceremonies. It also requires bodily regulations with dietary laws, sexuality and gender norms, and hygiene requirements. Through those, religion fosters self-discipline and restraint (Weber [1922] 1978). McCullough and Willoughby (2009) explain that self-control correlates with religiousness. They note that people with higher self-control scores tend to be more religious, and religious parents have children with higher self-control. Marcus and McCullough (2021) determine that sacred rituals and exposure to religious environments influence self-control over extended periods, ranging from weeks to years. They also argue that high-quality longitudinal research supports the hypothesis that religious involvement promotes the development of self-control over time. Looking at substance use and religiosity, DeWall et al. (2014) find that highly religious people exhibit better self-control compared to less religious people, noting they consume less tobacco.

A cardinal creed within religion is the importance of religious institutions as a source of interpreting holy scriptures and mediating religious activities. Under this function, religious institutions earn a degree of authority and respect (though it varies across religions, communities, and denominations) among practitioners. This understanding is embedded in the socialization process, cultivating individuals who respect authority and understand hierarchy. In his work on the sources of authority, Max Weber explains that “… the authority of the sacred tradition is one of the most universal and primordial forms of legitimacy…’ (Weber [1922] 1978). Similarly, Talcott Parsons understands religion as a stabilizing normative order that reinforces role expectations, promotes conformity, and legitimizes institutional autonomy (Parsons 1951).

Religious institutions cultivate community not only through shared belief but also through repeated practices of social integration, boundary construction, and moral obligation. By embedding individuals in dense networks of interaction, ritual participation, and collectively reinforced norms, these institutions generate durable forms of social cohesion and mutual accountability. Illustrating this trend, Atkinson (2023) explains that religious communities enhance cooperation among non-kin by deploying fictive kinship language, symbolically transforming strangers into members of a moral family. This symbolic reframing strengthens trust, reciprocity, and in-group solidarity while clarifying expectations of loyalty and responsibility. From a sociological perspective, such mechanisms extend beyond identity formation: they normalize commitments to collective welfare, legitimize hierarchical authority, and valorize sacrifice on behalf of the group. These processes help explain why religiously embedded individuals may be more receptive to institutions that demand discipline, duty, and service. In this sense, religious socialization does not simply transmit doctrine; it organizes social relations and behavioral expectations in ways that align with the normative structure of military institutions.

4. The Institutional Effect on Enlistment

So, how does the institutional factor inherent within religious institutions translate to enlistment? Much of the existing scholarship on religion and the military examines how religion functions within military institutions and settings. Far less attention has been paid to how American religion shapes the decision to enlist in the first place—how religious teachings, communities, moral frameworks, and embodied practices may condition, encourage, or complicate adolescents’ orientation toward military service.

Religion, specifically American conservative forms of religious experience, offers a useful interpretive schema whose myths and narratives can work to gently (or not) push individuals into military service. Burdette et al. (2009) hint at this argument in their cluster analysis of twenty thousand adolescents (grades 7–12) taken from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. They found that highly religious evangelicals are more likely to enlist—but only among those without college experience. They theorize that something within the mythos of American conservative experience, coupled with certain common social and political factors, creates the mechanism for this encouragement. Other scholars have noted the interest or desire for college as a mediating factor for enlistment among adolescents (Teachman et al. 1993; Bachman et al. 2000; Kleykamp 2006). In this regard, religious experience provides a moral or narrative framing, encouraging military enlistment, while the opportunity for a college education offers structural alternatives.

Yet, what is it about the narrative inherent in religious mythmaking that encourages enlistment? In his study of American religion post WWII, Wuthnow (1988) highlights the covenantal nature of American religious conservatism alongside narratives that highlight the missionizing impetus of Christianity (Wuthnow 1988, pp. 247–48) and the role Christians place on fighting hunger and solving other social ills (ibid., p. 250).

Something in the message of the American conservative experience represents an ‘encouragement’ for military service. While not focused specifically on issues of enlistment, Hassner (2016) has noted how religious expressions and experiences provide “a framework of ethics, ideology, and identity” (Hassner 2016) that can legitimize military violence, alongside symbols and rituals (Hassner 2011) that condition the course of military conflicts in oftentimes surprising ways. The implication here is that there is something in the structure of religious experience that echoes or resonates with certain military or militarized attitudes. Hassner’s theoretical intuition is empirically strengthened in recent works on the Israel Defense Forces, where Stern and Ben Shalom (2020) have noted how the everyday rhythms of military life (Stern and Ben Shalom 2020)—alongside religious narratives—of ritual discipline, self-sacrifice, and cosmic redemption (Stern 2023) encourage soldiers to experience combat service not only as organizational duty but as a morally structured form of devotion in which obedience, endurance, and self-restraint take on transcendental meaning. It is tempting to reduce the relationship between religion and military service to a classic Durkheimian (1998) narrative found in the elementary forms of religious life, of how religious expressions and ritual practices provide the basis for moral collectivities. The collective here is the military. This approach, however, runs the risk of eliding all the individual variations through which individuals (mostly late adolescents) may relate spirituality to service.

To be sure, much more is known in the Israeli context than in the American one. While military service in Israel is compulsory, de facto meaningful ‘combat’ service is not. Conservative-oriented national religious communities in Israel have invested a great deal of effort, energy, and monetary resources towards encouraging long-term and intensive combat service among their adolescent youth (Levy 2014). For them, military service in general is both an ideal and a danger. Ideal, in that it is one practical expression of a collective redemption that they see the state of Israel as ushering in. Dangerous, in that intensive military service places religious youth in contact with others from more secular backgrounds in ways that are seen to threaten future religious faith and fidelity (Stern 2014). Consequently, most national religious youth attend some form of pre-military rabbinic seminary as a means of spiritually fortifying themselves for meaningful combat service (Rosman-Stollman 2014).

The mechanism here is not one of meaning in the Protestant sense of the term, but rather of structure in its Catholic sense. For these Jewish adolescents, religion provides the narrative structure through which intensive military service is undertaken, as well as the discipline required to resist carnal temptations along the way. The relationship between religion and the military should therefore be understood within this broader framework: religion operates not only as a medium of collective meaning-making, but also as a functioning structure for the disciplining of young military bodies.

Likewise, “religious experience” here is somewhat different from political ideology (albeit with some overlap). Although religion may contain ideological elements, it exceeds ideology insofar as it does not merely articulate beliefs about the world but structures bodies, routines, and forms of discipline through which those beliefs are lived. Guth and Nelsen (2025) demonstrate that while opinions regarding military conflict may be conditioned by political ideology, religion—broadly understood—often plays an independent role. As they argue, “religious factors make a substantial contribution, sometimes indirectly through political orientations, but often as direct forces in their own right” (Guth and Nelsen 2025, p. 18). In this context, religious experience includes a wide bricolage of narratives, myths, and moral frameworks that animate meaning-making systems promoting self-sacrifice and military service.

5. Institutional Effect

Drawing on those discussions, we suggest that there is a pronounced institutional effect, where affiliation with religious communities can increase the likelihood of enlistment. Specifically, we hypothesize that individuals who participate in religious communities, and consequently are being socialized by and through religious institutions, will be more likely to join military service than those who do not.

6. Data and Measures

6.1. Data

This study uses data from the 2024 Cooperative Election Study (CES), a large-scale, nationally representative survey of U.S. adults conducted online by YouGov during the 2024 election cycle. The CES employs a matched random sampling design, drawing a probability-based target sample from the American Community Survey and matching respondents from opt-in panels on key demographic characteristics. The Common Content dataset includes approximately 60,000 respondents interviewed in pre- and post-election waves, allowing for precise estimation across states and demographic sub-groups. Post-stratification weights adjust the sample to match population benchmarks on age, gender, race, education, and related interactions; analyses in this study use the recommended weights to ensure population-level inference. The study relies on CES measures of military service, religious affiliation, and age to examine descriptive patterns linking religion and military participation. The CES combines the historical Pew survey religious questions with the traditional political and demographic data previously gathered in the Congressional Research Survey. It is the most representative social research survey assessing religious and political identity.

Our dependent variable is Current Military Service. It is a dummy variable that is measured using self-reported CES items. Respondents are classified as such if they are currently serving in the U.S. armed forces. The sample does not account for past military service, given that different cohorts enlisted under circumstances that may have affected their motivation and justification, such as mandatory draft or economic recession.

We use several independent variables: Religious, Evangelical, Attendance, and Prayer. Religious is presented to address the question of whether religious identity offers a strong explanation for the studied relationship, corresponding to existing scholarship (Levy 2014; Libel and Gal 2015). Evangelical refers to a Christian sub-group that has been identified in the literature as one where this relationship has been pronounced in the U.S. context (Burdette et al. 2009; Maley and Hawkins 2018). Attendance and Prayer capture behavioral attributes, which are important measures in identifying religious groups and correspond with our argument.

Religious Affiliation is a dummy variable indicating whether the respondent has a religious identity. It draws on the CES variable of Any Religion and is categorized via the survey question of “What is your present religion, if any?” All respondents who identify a religion, including something else, are scored a “1” and all respondents who identify as atheistic, agnostic, or nothing in particular are scored a “0.” We do not test for the denomination level, given that the sub-sample of active duty personnel is marginal in some denominations, and thus does not have statistical power. Evangelical is a dummy variable that indicates whether a respondent describes themselves as ‘born-again’ or as an evangelical Christian. Those who respond yes are scored “1” while those who respond no are scored “0.” Attendance refers to religious attendance, a dummy variable that scores respondents who attend religious services at least monthly as a “1” and those who attend less or not at all as “0.” Prayer is a dummy variable that refers to the frequency of prayers. It scores respondents a “1” if they pray daily and “0” if they pray less frequently or not at all.

The model includes several control variables that account for alternative potential explanations for the relationship studied. Democrat or Republican are variables that capture political affiliation with respondents who respond to the question, ‘Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as a …’, are scored a “1” and everyone else are scored a “0.” The variables Liberal and Conservative are dummy variables that capture political ideology. Respondents who describe their own political viewpoint as very liberal/conservative or liberal/conservative are scored “1” and everyone else are scored a “0”. We use the dummy variable Employed to address employment status and the variable Trust in Government to account for approaches toward the government. Trust in Government was scored “1” if the respondents stated “A great deal” when asked if they trust the federal government in Washington to handle the nation’s problems. All other respondents are scored a “0.” The dummy variables High School or Less and College Graduate capture educational level. We account for gender with the Women variable, and the Married variable captures marital status.

6.2. Methods

This study uses a logistics statistical analysis design to examine the association between religious affiliation and military service in the United States. The analysis does not attempt to estimate causal effects; instead, it identifies an association between participation in religious institutions and socialization and the likelihood of enlistment in the armed forces. The analysis uses three models across two analyses. The first is a baseline model that examines the association between religious affiliation and enlistment, while controlling for alternative explanations, among them being level of education, political affiliation, gender, marital status, and others. The second and third models break down the components of what religion recurrently means in the literature, looking at attendance and prayers, to identify what it is in being religious that drives the association with enlistment. The second model follows our argument and explores the association between attendance and enlistment. This model uses the variable of attendance in religious institutions’ activities as a proxy for exposure to institutional socialization. The third model examines the association between the frequency of prayers and the likelihood of enlistment.

The second analysis follows the same models and structure, but instead of focusing on the variable religious affiliation, differentiating between those identified as religious and those who are not, it focuses on the Evangelical group. Focusing on this group is due to the group’s prominence in participation in military service in the U.S. (Burdette et al. 2009; Maley and Hawkins 2018). The analysis examines whether this group’s prominence drives the analysis, when referring to religious versus non-religious, or if it is indeed the role of institutional socialization that determines the association with enlistment.

6.3. Results

The empirical models show that religious identity alone is not significantly related to military enlistment. This is true across models. It means that religious identity is not a strong explanation for why some groups decide to enlist while others do not, per our sample and model. Yes, scholarship did identify an association between religious affiliation and enlistment (Burdette et al. 2009; DeFronzo and Gill 2008; Levy 2014), so how do we explain that? To address this, we examined common measurements for religion that capture essential and quantifiable aspects of the notion of being religious—how people behave. Model 2 in

Table 1. The association between religious identity, attendance, and prayers with joining military service in the U.S.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Religious Affiliation	0.076	−0.23	−0.118
Attendance		0.752 ***	0.974 ***
Prayers			−0.618 ***
Democrat	−0.673 **	−0.634 **	−0.663 **
Republican	−0.552 **	−0.536 **	−0.538 **
Liberal	0.021	0.041	0.011
Conservative	0.321	0.232	0.279
Employed	1.074 ***	1.05 ***	1.026 ***
Trust in Government	0.99 ***	0.952 ***	0.951 ***
High School	0.006	0.008	0.008
College Degree	0.098	0.076	0.055
Woman	−0.978 ***	−0.977 ***	−0.918 ***
Married	−0.145	−0.19	−0.183
Cons	−5.816 ***	−5.831 ***	−5.761 ***
N	60,000	60,000	60,000
Pseudo R2	0.05	0.06	0.06

** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

introduces a specific type of behavior, the frequency of attendance, into the analysis. It shows that a high degree of attendance in religious services, at least monthly, is positively associated with a higher likelihood of enlistment. Namely, those who attend religious services more are more likely to join the military than other groups. Attendance proved to hold in model 3 and across the second analysis in

Table 2. The association between evangelical identity, attendance, and prayers with joining military service in the U.S.

	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Evangelical	0.291	0.028	0.18
Attendance		0.649 ***	0.883 ***
Prayers			−0.675 ***
Democrat	−0.664 ***	−0.648 ***	−0.663 **
Republican	−0.556 **	−0.552 **	−0.551 **
Liberal	0.037	0.071	0.033
Conservative	0.277	0.208	0.251
Employed	1.07 ***	1.059 ***	1.026 ***
Trust in Government	0.979 ***	0.939 ***	0.937 ***
High School	−0.005	0.012	0.003
College Degree	0.121	0.074	0.066
Woman	−0.983 ***	−0.984 ***	−0.918 ***
Married	−0.153	−0.199	−0.189
Cons	−5.841 ***	−5.945 ***	−5.829 ***
N	60,000	60,000	60,000
Pseudo R2	0.05	0.06	0.06

** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

, presenting consistency and significance (at the 0.001 level). We treat the attendance variable as a proxy for socialization, following a rationale that a high degree of attendance increases institutional socialization. In turn, increased institutional socialization shapes the personal characteristics and worldview that make enlistment more plausible. This means that being part of a religious community and internalizing its values and worldview is a key predictor in the process.

Model 3, across both analyses, introduces the role of prayers into the analysis. The examination of the frequency of prayers serves as an indicator of religiosity and the internalization of religious groups’ beliefs. We see the frequency of prayers as distinguished from attendance, given that it can take place individually and does not necessarily require a communal activity and engagement. Models 3 in Table 1 and Table 2 show that the frequency of prayers, specifically those who report that they pray at least daily are less likely to join the military than others. Those results are significant (at the 0.001 level) across analyses and models.1 This means that the key explanation for enlistment among religious groups is found in community engagement and not in identity or religiosity.

The logistic regression results allow us to calculate odds-ratios as well as probabilities (p-values) for respondents who meet a specific demographic profile. Using those, we can translate the findings into meaningful summaries. In this case, we assess the expected likelihood of serving in the military for religious, male, employed, college-educated respondents who trusts the federal government. We compare expected values for conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. Religious conservative Republicans who meet these demographic characteristics have an odds-ratio of 0.019 for currently serving in the military, if he regularly attends religious services it increases to 0.025, and if he attends and prays it is 0.020. Religious respondents who meet this demographic profile are 31.1% more likely to serve in the military if they attend religious services and 2.1% more likely to serve if they both attend and pray daily. When one considers liberal Democrats who have the same demographic characteristics, their odd-ratio is 0.0126 for those currently serving, increasing to 0.019 when they regularly attend religious services, and 0.0132 when attending and praying daily. The data shows that democratic religious respondents are 49% more likely to serve in the military when they regularly attend services and 4.9% more likely when they attend and pray. Religious respondents, regardless of their political party, are more likely to be serving in the military when they attend religious services regularly.

Religious attendance and prayer have an important but contradictory impact. There is a strong-positive relationship between attending religious services and enlistment and a strong-negative association between individual prayer and current military service. The control variables provide important context; individuals who identify as Democrats or Republicans are less likely to serve in the military. Neither liberal nor conservative ideology is an important predictor. Employment and trust in government are both significant at the 0.001 level and positive. Women are significantly (at the 0.001 level) less likely to serve in the military. Neither education nor marital status is significant in explaining that relationship.

We perform a similar analysis to generate the odds-ratio for respondents who identify as evangelical Christians. The results are similar to religious individuals, but with one exception: prayer leads to lower levels of military service. We use the identical demographic control profile2 and report expectations for conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. Conservative Republicans have an odds-ratio of 0.022 for currently serving in the military; this increases to 0.024 when regularly attending religious services and is 0.020 when the respondent attends and prays daily. Evangelicals who meet this demographic profile are 7.3% more likely to serve in the military if they attend religious services. Evangelicals who attend and pray are 8.3% less likely to serve. When one considers liberal Democrats, the odds-ratios are 0.016 for evangelicals, 0.019 for evangelicals who regularly attend religious services, and 0.015 for those who attend and pray daily. Democratic evangelicals who attend services are 20.2% more likely to serve in the military than those who do not attend. Democratic evangelicals who attend and pray are 6.7% less likely to serve in the military than evangelicals who neither attend nor pray. Evangelicals are identical to general religious groups in that they are more likely to serve when they attend religious services, but are less likely to serve if they attend and pray.

Our second empirical model controls for individuals who identify as evangelical, addressing the prominence of this community in existing scholarship (Burdette et al. 2009; Maley and Hawkins 2018). The trends in those models’ results (Table 2) are identical to those that examine Religious Affiliation in Table 1. The evangelical variable is not significant in any of the three models, while religious attendance continues to be significant (at the 0.001 level) and positive. Similarly, daily prayer is significant (at the 0.001 level) and negatively related to active military service. All control variables have the same relationship in both empirical models.

7. Discussion

Our results show that religious institutions play an important role in increasing armed service enlistment. They continue the line of scholarship that identifies the association between the two (Burdette et al. 2009; DeFronzo and Gill 2008; Levy 2014; Libel and Gal 2015; Stern and Ben Shalom 2020). However, the mechanism that feeds this association here is a bit different than what has been discussed in prior studies. While former studies explored the role of specific denominations and religious groups, as well as associated tenets and traditions (Burdette et al. 2009; Libel and Gal 2015; Maley and Hawkins 2018; Stern and Ben Shalom 2020), this study showcases the importance of the socialization process that those institutions offer.

Burdette et al. (2009) identified the weight of attendance in the religious community’s activities in determining the likelihood of enlistment, yet it has been interpreted under the umbrella of high religiosity. The results of this study separate elements in religious identity. When broken down into the components of what religion often means, namely participation (in the form of the variable frequency of attendance) and practice (in the form of the variable frequency of prayers), we see that religious affiliation as an indicator, per our analysis, loses its statistical significance. Instead, we see that attending a religious community’s activities, and as such, being socialized by the organization, demonstrates a positive and statistically significant association with the likelihood of enlistment in the military. Furthermore, we see that the alternative explanation of religiosity, as it is captured by the variable on prayers, is statistically significant and negatively associated with enlistment. These trends suggest that what takes place through community engagement in a religious institution explains the association with increased likelihood of enlistment.

These findings both support and refine the existing scholarship. Consistent with prior studies (e.g., Burdette et al. 2009), we find a positive association between religious involvement and enlistment. However, by disaggregating religious identity, participation, and belief, this study demonstrates that the relationship is driven specifically by institutional engagement rather than religiosity per se. In doing so, it is adding to discussions that attribute enlistment patterns primarily to theological orientation or denominational culture.

It also supports our argument, which emphasizes how socializations transpire through active membership. Scholars identify how this socialization occurs organically within communities and in support of communal life (Atkinson 2023; Grönlund and Pessi 2015; Nguyen and Wodon 2018). Yet, the characteristics and behavioral traits that help keep kids sitting down at church for the duration of the ceremony or to volunteer in support of vulnerable communities cultivate self-discipline and altruism that are transferable to other social domains, like the military. The mechanism underlying this relationship is likely to operate through multiple reinforcing pathways. First, religious institutions transmit normative frameworks that valorize duty, sacrifice, and service to a collective. Second, they cultivate behavioral discipline through routinized practices and expectations of compliance. Third, they embed individuals within dense social networks where military service may be normalized or indirectly encouraged. Together, these processes translate institutional participation into dispositions compatible with military enlistment.

These findings introduce an institutional argument, complementing and adding to existing discussions about belief-centered and denomination-based explanations. Rather than treating religion as a set of doctrines or identities (Burdette et al. 2009; DeFronzo and Gill 2008; Maley and Hawkins 2018), the results demonstrate that religion operates as an organizational environment that socializes individuals into behavioral dispositions aligned with military service. This reframing contributes to broader sociological debates on institutional embeddedness by showing how participation, rather than identity, structures downstream behavioral outcomes.

It is important to note the limitations of this study. First, the cross-sectional nature of the CES data limits causal inference; while the analysis identifies robust associations, it cannot determine whether religious participation causes enlistment or whether pre-existing dispositions drive both. Second, the use of attendance as a proxy for institutional socialization, while theoretically grounded, cannot directly capture the content or intensity of that socialization. That will require a future study that targets the socialization process. Third, the focus on current military service excludes veterans, whose enlistment decisions may reflect different historical and structural conditions, such as mandatory draft or economic recession. Finally, selection effects may be present, as individuals predisposed toward discipline or collective orientation may be more likely to both participate in religious institutions and enlist.

8. Conclusions

This study suggests that the relationship between religion and military service in the United States can be explained through an institutional approach. Adding to the body of work that emphasizes the part of religious identity and belief, we show that participation in religious institutions and the consequential socialization can offer a strong alternative explanation for this relationship. Using nationally representative data, we show that regular attendance is positively associated with enlistment. At the same time, individual religiosity, measured through frequency of prayers, is negatively associated with military service. These findings indicate the explanatory power of institutions within this conversation. By introducing the institutional participation analytical focus instead of the denomination and belief one, this study contributes to a more holistic understanding of how religion shapes behavior in non-religious domains. Religious institutions function as organizational environments that cultivate discipline, collective orientation, and normative commitments aligned with military service.

These findings carry broader implications in a global security environment that is growing more complex. The resurgence of interstate competition, rise in armed conflict, and militarization have renewed attention to the problem of manpower in advanced democracies (Krebs et al. 2026; Gilli et al. 2025; Haltiner 2007; Howorth 2025; Otis and Connick-Keefer 2026; Reitan and Stenberg 2025; Simon et al. 2026). Across the United States and other Western countries, armed forces face persistent recruitment shortfalls, raising concerns about force readiness and long-term sustainability. Recent scholarship highlights how changing demographic patterns, declining propensity to serve, and evolving labor market opportunities have collectively narrowed the pool of eligible and willing recruits (Jonsson 2026; Rostoks and Gavrilko 2025; Simon et al. 2026; Snyder 2025; Woodruff et al. 2025). In this context, understanding the social foundations of military participation is not only an academic exercise but a pressing policy concern.

The findings presented here suggest that institutional participation may constitute one such foundation. If engagement in religious institutions increases the likelihood of enlistment through processes of socialization, then the broader decline in participation in organized religion may carry implications for recruitment capacity. When Eisenhower was president and church attendance was peaking, around half of the U.S. population was Protestant, but today this number has fallen to ten percent (Anderson 2020; Burge 2023; Plante 2024). The PRRI (2023) shows that individuals between 18 and 29 are the least religious Americans and have the highest percentage who are not affiliated with an organized religion. The final survey year was 2022, and the percentage of those identified as “no religious identity” had grown to 38—its highest historical level. The non-religious population is growing. This means that as religious orientation shifts from being concentrated around organized institutions to isolated private individuals, along with the increase in non-religious affiliation, we can expect to see challenges in military recruitment. While this study does not directly test macro-level recruitment trends, it points to the importance of identifying and engaging with institutional environments that cultivate dispositions aligned with military service. In this sense, religious communities can be understood not merely as cultural groups, but as organizational reservoirs that historically contributed to the reproduction of military manpower.

Importantly, the institutional logic advanced in this study extends beyond religion. If the mechanism linking institutional participation to enlistment operates through the cultivation of discipline, collective identity, and normative commitment, then other non-religious institutions may serve similar functions. Organizations such as civic associations, sports teams, youth movements, and other structured communal settings may likewise socialize individuals into behavioral patterns compatible with military service. Identifying such institutions and understanding the specific forms of socialization they provide may offer alternative pathways for recruitment in increasingly secular societies.

Future research can build on these findings in several directions. Longitudinal analyses are needed to better establish the temporal relationship between institutional participation and enlistment decisions. Comparison across denominations could clarify whether specific traditions, practices, and narratives matter more than others. Comparative research across national contexts could assess whether the institutional effect observed here varies under different civil–military regimes and levels of secularization. Additionally, qualitative work, including interviews with recruits and non-recruits, could shed light on how individuals interpret the influence of institutional environments on their decisions to serve.

Ultimately, as traditional sources of institutional socialization evolve or decline, the challenge for military organizations will be to identify and engage with new environments that cultivate the dispositions necessary for service. This study suggests that the future of recruitment may depend not only on incentives or messaging, but on the broader institutional ecosystems in which individuals are embedded.