For many families in the United States, religious beliefs, practices, and communities constitute a foundational source for the support and maintenance of family life. Recent decades have seen a sharp increase in interest from family scholars concerning the ways in which religious families interact with and are supported by their religious beliefs and activities, both with regards to family processes and to how parents communicate their faith to the next generation. However, less attention has been given to the ways families engage with their religious communities. In the studies presented in this document, I attempt to further our understanding of family functioning within the context of the religious community. Chapter 1 contains a brief literature review and introduces a conceptual model for the study of religious families. In Chapter 2, I present a longitudinal study of religious development in 1,746 American youth from adolescence to emerging adulthood. Using a combination of parent and youth respondents, I estimate a hierarchical linear model to predict five distinct dimensions of youth religiosity as nested within 50 different faith traditions. The results of these analyses indicate differential effects from parents and the religious community upon the examined dimensions. While parental transmission efforts significantly predicted religiosity in all dimensions, engagement with the local religious congregation predicted future levels of external religious practice, religious exclusivity, and belief in the supernatural. Furthermore, affiliation with a faith tradition that prioritized youth integration, predicted personal religious practice. In Chapter 3, I present findings from a qualitative study of the interfaith couples. We interviewed 32 happily married, interfaith couples from around the country. Chapter 3 presents a brief theoretical framework for conceptualizing interfaith marriages and then explores who our participants identified as sources of influence and guidance for their marriage and parenting. Couples reported accepting and rejecting influence from outside sources. The key sources they reported accepting influence from were themselves, family, friends, professionals, and spiritual sources. Chapter 4 concludes the dissertation by re-examining the conceptual model for the study of family religiosity and providing some personal reflections on the implications of the research for religious leaders.
