Capturing Missing Evangelicals in RELTRAD - Syntax File

Created by Ed Stetzer and Ryan Burge, this syntax file modifies the popular religious tradition classification scheme of Steensland and colleague (i.e. "RELTRAD"), who divided individuals into seven distinct religious groups: evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, black Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, other religious groups, and no religion. Stetzer and Burge argue that this religious typology has never been fully and accurately operationalized. Specifically, syntax files often failed to sort two small, but significant groups (those who claim "Christian" generically and those who describe their religious affiliation as "interdenominational") into the evangelical Protestant category. Using General Social Survey, this code revises the popular RELTRAD scheme in order to capture these "missing" evangelical Protestants.

Directions: The syntax files below can be run with any of the General Social Survey data files, except the two "Panel Data" files (i.e. GSSPANEL and GSSPANEL2).

Credit/Citation: Stetzer, Ed and Ryan P. Burge. 2016. "Reltrad Coding Problems and a New Repository." Politics and Religion 9(1):187-190.

Submitted by: Ryan Burge, Sep 16, 2018.