ABSTRACTS

The Oppositional Impact of Feminism and Religious Fundamentalism:

Gendered Variations in Ideological Processes on US National Identity

Carrie L. Alexandrowicz, Brown University, carrie_alexandrowicz@brown.edu

The coexistence of religion and government in the US has historically informed both social institutional development as well as individual ethics and citizenship. More recently, religious fundamentalism in particular has functioned as both a social movement and a political entity by defending traditional family values and emphasizing moral certainty. For these reasons, research on personal ideology has often linked fundamentalism to nationalistic self-identity. This paper not only considers the divergent effects of religious fundamentalism on nationalism, it also introduces a seemingly competing ideology into the analysis: feminism. Using data from the 1996 General Social Survey, I examine how fundamentalism and femin-ism differentially affect nationalism by gender. Preliminary results indicate that the influence of these ideologies not only differs substantially for men and women, but they also may not be as oppositional as previously theorized.

The Mobilization of “Anti Anti-Cult Movements”: A Turning Point in the

French Cult Controversy?

Véronique Altglas, University of Warwick, v.altglas@warwick.ac.uk

This paper is based on data very recently collected in France. It will concentrate on an organization called CAP pour la Liberté de Conscience (Coordination of Associations and Peo-ple for Freedom of Conscience), which took legal action last September against the main anti-cult organization in France, the UNADFI (National Union of Associations for the Protection of the Family and the Individual). Although the UNADFI is a state-funded charity and official partner of the French Interministerial Mission of Vigilance and Combat against Sectarian Deviations (MIVILUDES), the CAP demanded UNADFI’s dissolution on the assumption that their practices infringed religious liberty. Not only did the CAP lose its case, but it was also found guilty of abusive procedure by the Tribunal of Paris. Nevertheless, this is the first time that individuals involved in religious movements and alternative therapies in France have struck back and accepted social visibility. This empirical case will shed light on the current dynamic of the cult controversy in France and its possible future. More broadly, it contributes to an understanding of the management of religious diversity in France.

Evangelical Alternative Science: Parallels between Intelligent Design

Theory and the National Association for Research and Therapy of

Homosexuality

Antony Alumkal, Iliff School of Theology, aalumkal@iliff.edu

When mainstream science has conflicted with evangelical doctrine, evangelicals have often responded not by renouncing science but by creating alternative scientific paradigms. This paper discusses two scientific movements started in the late twentieth century that are popular with American evangelical leaders—Intelligent Design Theory (IDT), which advances a critique of Darwinism, and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexu-ality (NARTH), which differs from mainstream psychiatric guilds by arguing that homosexu-ality is a treatable illness. I note that both movements: (1) include non-evangelical Christians (Catholics is particular) in leadership and attempt to persuade non-Christians; (2) accuse their opponents of propagating politics and/or philosophy disguised as science; (3) downplay their own religious bases; and (4) claim to be defending the moral foundations of society. I discuss what these movements reveal about the current state of American evangelicalism.

The Religious Mainline as a Non-Historiographic Touchpoint

Yakov Ariel, University of North Carolina, yariel@email.unc.edu

In the last decade, the historiography of religion in America has abandoned its traditional touchpoint and adopted a new narrative in which Protestantism is presented as merely one component of the American religious story. While awareness of the broader pic-ture as well as an inclusive attitude is admirable, this historiographic shift has been too radical. Historians have replaced a narrow narrative with an extremely broad one, giving up on a “touchpoint” altogether. The result is often a lack of sound historical perspective. I argue that while we should pay much attention to the place of other religious communities in American society and culture, ultimately one cannot tell the story of religion in America without pointing to the centrality of Protestant groups and modes of thinking in shaping American institutions and values.

Religious Beliefs and Illness Behavior of Africans in the 21^st Century

Augustine A. Aryee, Fitchburg State College, aaryee@fsc.edu

The study of people’s patterns of behavior is generally tied to the study of systems of belief. This paper will examine some aspects of the philosophical and religious beliefs that permeate every facet of the African’s pattern of behavior and which affect his views of illness and health. Accra, Ghana, was the focus of this research. A subsample of 1017 informants provided data on the mixed use of new and old medical systems. Religion is intricately tied to African medicine. African health depends on physical, spiritual, and social wellbeing. Natural and supernatural elements are inextricably interwoven. Health is not seen merely as a biological matter, but one bonding the human body and the soul in total harmony. What governs health and illness is not germ theory as in the Western world. Tensions and aggres-sions found in social relations cause troubles. So, too, supernatural forces can bring evil to human beings. Good health can be preserved only by the observance of social norms and taboos, the maintenance of a harmonious relationships with the members of the supernatural world, and the resolution of interpersonal and group strains and tensions.

Denominational Variations in Spiritual Capital among American Youth,

1976-2006: Identifying Trends from Monitoring the Future

John P. Bartkowski, Xiaohe Xu, and Kristi McLeod, Mississippi State University,

bartkowski@soc.msstate.edu

This study extends the burgeoning body of scholarship on youth religiosity by analyzing evidence from several decades of Monitoring the Future (MTF). Using trend data from MTF, we explore denominational variations in spiritual capital among American high school seniors from the 1970s to the present. Spiritual capital is defined as (1) exposure to and internalization of religious norms, (2) integration within religious networks, and (3) expressions of religious trust. We find that stocks of spiritual capital among American teens are generally robust but subject to distinctive temporal variations across denominational families. We pinpoint those denominations that have successfully sustained the trans-mission of faith to the next generation during the past four decades—and those that have failed to do so.

Religious Freedom in Contrast: A Comparative Analysis of Canada and

the United States

Lori G. Beaman, University of Ottawa, beaman@alcor.concordia.ca

This paper includes a comparison of key Supreme Court cases from the United States and Canada on the issue of religious freedom. Recent Canadian cases indicate that the Supreme Court of Canada is moving toward greater latitude in interpreting the religious freedom guarantee contained in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In contrast, the situation in the United States is less promising. Both countries, however, still work within a predominantly Christian framework. Moreover, the Supreme Court of Canada has imported several problematic concepts from United States jurisprudence, including the notion of sincerely held belief.

Early Dissertations in American Sociology of Religion

Anthony J. Blasi, Tennessee State University, blasi3610@cs.com

Taking a reference-work approach, this paper describes American dissertations in the sociological study of religion that were written before 1930. The earliest (Pelton, NYU 1895) is homiletic in nature. The others better resemble the sociology of our day, but they reveal no conceptual development for the subdiscipline. Rather, they reflect typical studies found in general sociology in the US at the time: a history of local charities sponsored by a denomination (Appleton, Columbia 1906), an evaluation of ministries in an inner-city setting (Young, Penn 1912), a handbook for conducting community studies (Carroll, Denver 1914), religious demography (Bossard, Penn 1918), a history of a social institution (Jansen, Chicago 1920) and of a reform impulse (Barnhart, Chicago 1924), studies of a cultural contact (Price, Chicago 1924), ethnic settlement (Janzen, Chicago 1926), and a category of organizations (Daniel, Chicago 1925), anthropological reconstruction of a culture (Gower, Chicago 1928), and a development of a pure type (Kincheloe, Chicago 1929). The hegemony of the University of Chicago in the 1920s in the sociological study of religion, if not in sociology more generally, is evident.

Prostitution, Parenting, and Pedophilia: An Exploratory Study of

Women’s Accounts of Life in a Sex Cult

Miriam Williams Boeri, Kennesaw State University, mboeri@kennesaw.edu

Using accounts from in-depth interviews with women who lived in the Children of God/The Family, I present personal testimony from women who reared children in this group while simultaneously engaging in “Flirty Fishing,” a form of sacred prostitution. Some of the women gave birth to nine or more children, some were not sure of the fathers, and others reported that their children were sexually and physically abused by male members of the group. Preliminary findings from this ongoing study support previous research suggesting that male-dominated new religious movements are associated with the sexual exploitation and abuse of women and children, specifically that this type of cult environment not only attracts pedophiles but also encourages adults to engage in activities associated with pedophilia and child abuse.

Foundational Issues in the Study of Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada

Paul Bramadat, University of Winnipeg, paul.bramadat@uwinnipeg.ca

While a great deal has been written about ethnicity and Christianity, very little has been written about the complex interaction between these two forces within contemporary Canadian communities. In this paper, I will introduce the three-volume “Religion and Ethnic-ity in Canada” project, and I will use my experience as co-editor of Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada to reflect on some of the foundational issues we face when we examine the relationship between these two powerful forces. Some of these are: the crisis of membership and involvement within the major Christian traditions in Canada, the de-Christianization of the broader society, the emergence in the census process of “Canadian” as an ethnic self-identification, and the implications of the de-Europeanization of Christian communities.

“We’ve Always Had Human Rights”: Religious Movements and Discursive

Change in the Global Human Rights Regime

David V. Brewington, Emory University, david.brewington@emory.edu

Religious voices have long been a significant part of human rights movements and discourse, yet they have often been neglected in empirical and theoretical efforts to understand global human rights and globalization. This paper documents the long history of involvement of these religious voices in human rights efforts, and attempts to recognize and theorize how religious voices begin to make theological and religious sense of the secularized global human rights regime. Protestant, Catholic, Islamic, Judaic, and Buddhist discourse about human rights implies “we’ve always had human rights,” there theorized as a Meyerian and Robertsonian response to a secular global human rights regime begun in earnest after World War II.

From A Beautiful Mind to a Critical Theory of Religion: Rational Choice,

Religion, and Adorno

Christopher Craig Brittain, Atlantic School of Theology, chris.brittain@utoronto.ca

This paper examines the presuppositions of rational choice explanatory models of human behavior, as they are applied to religious practice. The work of two scholars is ana-lyzed in particular: Rodney Stark and Lawrence Iannaccone. The reliance of this approach on macroeconomic assumptions will be explored, and their reduction of religious behavior to “consolation” will be challenged. The limitations of rational choice theory are illuminated through a comparison with the social theory of Theodor W. Adorno. This criticism will be illustrated by drawing from a popular depiction of the presuppositions of rational choice theory, in the form of a scene from the Academy Award-winning film A Beautiful Mind. This analysis will show that, rather than assisting the study of religion to escape from theological and metaphysical assumptions, rational choice theory is itself laden with problematic presup-positions.

How Religious Institutions Enable Internal Reform Movements: Voice of

the Faithful and the Enabling Mechanisms of the Catholic Church

Trica Colleen Bruce, University of California Santa Barbara, mein@umail.ucsb.edu

When religious institutions become the target of social movements, the onus typically falls upon movement participants to negotiate a place at the bargaining table. The absence of participatory features within highly centralized religious institutions are legitimately cited as restrictive to an internal movement’s tactical choices and outcomes. So too, however, must more subtle enabling mechanisms of religious institutions be recognized for their role in actually facilitating internal movements. Drawing from a three-year study of “Voice of the Faithful,” a Catholic lay movement formed in response to revelations of sexual abuse and nondisclosure within the Catholic Church, this paper highlights the process by which internal movements re-purpose existing church structures in order to advance movement goals. Findings reveal that even while official church sanctioning remains at bay, institutional avenues can serve as intermediary enabling mechanisms for reform occurring from within.

Religious Involvement, Race, and Adolescent Sexual Behavior

Amy M. Burdette, University of Texas, burdamy@prc.utexas.edu

Studies show that religious involvement delays and limits adolescent sexual behavior; however, these effects are not uniform across racial and ethnic groups. For example, research suggests that religious involvement may not delay sexual intercourse among African Ameri-cans (particularly males). Although scholars have begun to acknowledge racial and ethnic variation in the effects of religious involvement on adolescent sexual behavior, several issues call for further investigation, including (1) limited measures of religious involvement (i.e., church attendance); (2) limited racial and ethnic groupings (i.e., African American and Cauca-sian); and (3) limited measures of sexual activity (i.e., sexual intercourse). The National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) contains several measures of religious involvement, race and ethnicity, and adolescent sexual behavior. Using these data, the present study seeks to overcome the limitations of prior research on religion, race/ethnicity, and sexual activity among US adolescents.

The Meanings of Mary: Tourism, Faith and Cultural Dimensions of

Marian Apparitions

Michelle Madsen Camacho, University of San Diego, mcamacho@sandiego.edu

This paper explores the social and cultural dimensions of pilgrimages to Virgin Mary apparition sites in Latin America. Meanings of these pilgrimages vary by race, gender, and class. I examine how tourism to these sites contributes to cultural productions of spiritual practice. Two sites will be compared: the festival of the Virgin of Urkupiña in Cochabama, Bolivia (unrecognized by the Catholic Church) and the Marian apparitions at Betanía, Venezuela (an “official” site in the eyes of the Church). Comparing both sites with fieldwork and ethnographic interviews, I examine ideas of syncretism and cultural fusion and analyze local responses and interpretations of these “miraculous” sites.

The Man Who Has Will Always Be Given More? Winners of the Protestant

Market in Taiwan

Hsing-Kuang Chao, Tunghai University, wade0429@mail.thu.edu.tw

Beginning with the mid-1960s, Taiwanese Protestant Christianity had been stagnant for about thirty years. New statistical data, however, show a moderate growth during the last decade of the twentieth century. This paper will investigate whether the growth of Taiwanese Protestant Christianity, especially of small denominations and independent churches in the urban areas, can be explained using a supply-side framework. Two levels of factors are involved: First are contextual factors, such as industrialization and rural-urban migration. Second are institutional factors, such as churches’ theological stands, ritual practices, and growth strategies. The contextual factors may be important to increase the prospect pool for recruiting new members to Protestantism. This paper argues that institutional factors may be more important than contextual factors to understanding the growth of small denominations and independent churches in urban areas. These churches not only provide a substantive meaning system to rural-urban immigrants, but they also launch different evangelical move-ments and organize community programs to satisfy these prospects’ needs.

True Buddhism is Not Chinese: Taiwanese Immigrants becoming “True

Buddhists” in the US

Carolyn Chen, Northwestern University, cechen@northwestern.edu

The majority of Taiwanese immigrants who are practicing Buddhists begin practicing after migrating to the US. Despite the claim in the immigration and religion literature that religion preserves ethnicity, Taiwanese immigrant Buddhists adamantly deny any link between their ethnic traditions and “true” Buddhism. Rather, Taiwanese American Buddhists appeal to western values and science to legitimate their religious choices. This paper explores how contextual factors shape the discourse of true Buddhism in the US and further argues that religions may challenge rather than preserve ethnic traditions.

Confucian Marxism and the Weberian Thesis

Weigang Chen, University of Vermont, wxchen@pop.uvm.edu

The increasing salience of cultural conflicts in the post-Cold War era brings the Weberian legacy of comparative religion to the center of current debates on globalization. Specifically, these conflicts force us to confront directly the toughest challenge posed by the Protestant ethic thesis: If the principles of justice and equality are beyond the peculiarity of Occidental civilization, how then can we give a full explanation as to why in the West, and only in the West, the ideal of public reasoning by private people has materialized? The present study seeks to address this fundamental challenge by drawing on Confucian Marxism—a distinctive Marxist school that seeks to combine Marxist aspirations for radical justice and the Confucian ethical tradition. I argue that at the core of the problem of “the clash of civilizations” is an intrinsic linkage between Eurocentrism and the liberal paradigm of “civil society.” The prospect of global justice, therefore, hinges on the development of a new conception of the “social” that reverses the liberal interpretation of the relationship between bourgeois subjectivity and public reasoning, and derives instead directly from the primacy of ethic life for social formation.

Sacred Sacrilege: Religion and Popular Culture in Singapore

Lloyd Chia, University of Missouri, lloydchia@mizzou.edu

Religion and popular culture are often seen as mutually exclusive domains. But Singapore has pop-star and magician pastors; Malaysia has Islamic boy bands; Iran has officially sanctioned pop concerts; and England has seen “Harry Potter” church services. Are these isolated anomalies, or do they portend a religiously inspired sociocultural shift? This study explains finding religious practice in “strange places” and finding “strange practices” in religious places. It accounts for monotheistic religions making their stake in popular culture industries and expressive genres. How do these social agents deal with the perceived sacrilegious mixing of sacred and profane? The research employed in-depth interviews of producers, consumers, and critics of religious popular culture; it included observations of sites and events. This paper explores a “crisis of meaning” that occurs between for and against postures of the confluence of religion and popular culture. It also seeks to account for intra-religious pluralization by examining the tensions between factions to define the sacred.

Emergent Global Ethics: Reenchantment and the Rhetoric of the

Dispossessed

JoAnn Chirico, Pennsylvania State University, jxc64@psu.edu

A global ethic is emerging, rooted in the religious and quasi-religious experiences of disenfranchised groups within developing societies. For them, globalization has not only failed to alleviate poverty and suffering; it has worsened it. Violent conflict, starvation, the AIDS pandemic, and environmental destruction threaten their survival. The emergent global system is not far, economically, politically and strategically, from the “war of all against all.” We lack adequate meaning at the level of the globe and increasingly within societies to sustain satisfactory social systemic function. Disaffected groups are promoting an ethic that transcends the instrumental rational models, in particular the Washington Consensus, that resulted in their disaffection. They are forcing more substantive, value rational (reenchanted) concerns into local and global debate. For many groups, particularly grassroots women’s labor movements, these emergent ethics have religious roots.

The Charismatic Movement and the Contemporary Worship Style: How

their Impacts on Church Growth Differ between Mainline and

Conservative Congregations

Hui-Tzu Grace Chou, Utah Valley State College, chougr@uvsc.edu

It has been observed that congregations involved with the charismatic movement or using the contemporary worship style grow faster than other congregations. However, there are still questions to be answered. First, are the impacts of the charismatic movement and the contemporary worship style on church growth caused by other factors? Second, are their impacts on church growth similar for both mainline and conservative congregations? Analyzing the data of the National Congregations Study, the results of logistic regression show that the charismatic movement and the contemporary worship style work differently on church growth between mainline congregations and conservative congregations. The contem-porary worship style has a significant impact on church growth among conservative congrega-tions, while the charismatic movement has a significant impact among liberal congregations, after controlling for the age of congregations and other variables. Different religious needs between liberal and conservative congregations and the definition of disinherited groups are also discussed.

Strong Religion and the Hard Sciences: American Muslims and Hindus

and the Applied Sciences

Richard Cimino, New School for Social Research, relwatch1@msn.com

Many American Muslims and Hindus have training and/or work experience in the applied sciences, particularly engineering, medicine, and the hi-tech fields. This paper will examine the religious discourse of these applied science professionals and the impact it has had in the Muslim and Hindu communities of the US. Through content analysis of their writings in publications and online, and interviews with these professionals, I will seek to understand the relationship and interaction between applied scientific knowledge and religious belief and practice. I am particularly interested in the way members of this “new technical knowledge class” have taken up an autodidactic approach to their faiths while assuming leadership positions in the Muslim and Hindu immigrant communities (often due to the shortage of trained clergy and leaders).

The New Buddhism

James William Coleman, California Polytechnic State University, jcoleman@calpoly.edu

As Buddhism moves from Asia and the ethnic enclaves of Asian immigrants into postmodern Western culture, it is undergoing a transformation as sweeping as any in its long history. In the new Buddhism that is emerging among western converts, the classic distinc-tion between monks and laity is becoming blurred. Meditation is no longer the primary domain of monastics but is the central religious practice among all members. Moreover, celibate monasticism itself is a far less common and less revered practice. At the same time, institutional structures are being redefined, and women have moved into leadership roles unprecedented in patriarchal Asian traditions.

Rescuing Weber: A Critique of the Culturalist View of Protestantism and

Progress in Latin America

Madeleine Cousineau, Mount Ida College, mrcousineau@comcast.net

During the past fifty years millions of Latin Americans have been converting to Protestantism. A number of social scientists and religious observers have defined this phenomenon as a new reformation that will bring democracy and prosperity to the region. They frequently turn for their inspiration to Max Weber’s Protestant ethic thesis. However, their analyses are limited in several ways: (1) They are one-sidedly idealistic (or culturalist), in contradiction to Weber’s more nuanced view of the relationship between religion and economics; (2) they neglect to distinguish between the rational, inner-worldly ethic of eighteenth-century English Calvinists and the more emotional, world-rejecting beliefs of contemporary Pentecostals, who constitute the majority of Latin American Protestants; (3) they fail to consider the socioeconomic context; (4) they are not supported by empirical research. This paper provides evidence of these limitations, along with a critique of the ideological underpinnings of the culturalist view.

Material Culture and the Sociology of Religion: Speaking the Language

of Objects

Douglas E. Cowan, Renison College, decowan@uwaterloo.ca

Until very recently, relatively little attention was paid to the material culture of religious traditions except as adjuncts to specific beliefs and practices. Hundreds of thou-sands of books and countless millions of words have been written about the various beliefs, doctrines, ritual practices, and organizational structures of religious traditions worldwide, but the objects that make those traditions recognizable to the rest of the world—and to practition-ers—have been largely ignored. Can we learn things from the social life of material objects that we cannot learn in other ways, things that other species of data either cannot disclose or cannot disclose as clearly or as easily? Using examples drawn from research on the material culture of modern Paganism, this paper will lay out what Baudrillard called a “language of objects” as a meaningful approach to the sociological study of religious belief and practice.

Religious Leadership under Fire: Conflict and Tension in the Air Force

Chaplain Service

Barbara J. Denison, Shippensburg University, bjdeni@ship.edu

Recent reports from the USAF Academy in Colorado have focused attention on evangelical Protestant Air Force chaplains engaged in proselytizing activity among academy cadets. Training chaplains receive at Air Force Chaplains’ School reinforces the governing paradigm that denounces any attempt to proselytize as an illegitimate activity for chaplains. Additionally, the mandate for Air Force Chaplains in the AF Chaplain Service has focused on the free exercise of religion and providing spiritual support, comfort, counseling and other services for all, regardless of religion, faith, or creed. This paper is an initial attempt to use source materials from USAF Chaplain Service documents and directives as well as news reports to examine this crisis created by competing models of religious leadership among USAF chaplains.

God Matters, Ritual Doesn’t: The Effects of Importance of Religion and

Church Attendance on Moral Beliefs

Scott A. Desmond, Purdue University, and Rachel Kraus, Ball State University,

sdesmond@purdue.edu

According to Durkheim, religious rituals such as church attendance help to support the moral order. In contrast, Rodney Stark has recently argued that religious beliefs (impor-tance of religion) are significantly related to moral beliefs, while religious rituals are not. We used a sample of adolescents to test Stark’s hypothesis that church attendance is unrelated to moral beliefs. Preliminary results provide partial support for Stark’s hypothesis. Consistent with Stark’s argument, a measure of religious importance had a significant effect on moral beliefs about violence, property offenses, marijuana use, and drinking. Adolescents who reported that religion was important to them were more likely to believe that these behaviors are wrong. Contrary to Stark, however, church attendance had a significant effect on moral beliefs about marijuana and alcohol use. Therefore, religious rituals may have a significant effect on some moral beliefs but not others.

Muslim Discourses in the Public Sphere in Québec

Ali G. Dizboni, Royal Military College of Canada, dizboni-a@rmc.ca

The Muslim presence in the West, and in Québec in particular, raised a number of serious challenges and questions ranging from security concerns to sociocultural issues (identity, integration, etc.). Depending on particular circumstances, Western democracies adopted different approaches ranging from laisser-faire to interventionism. My paper will discuss the leading discourses of Muslim intellectuals living in the West, like Tareq Ramadan, about the place of Islam in the Western public sphere. My discussion will deal with fundamental issues of identity, laws (Shari‘a), and cultural integration. The mediatized controversies around issues of Kirpan and headscarf in Québec and Islamic Courts in Ontario show the policy-relevance and the social sensitivity associated with these questions. My objective is to assess the theoretical and empirical implications of Muslim intellectuals’ discourses both for Québec’s experience of social integration and for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Spiritual but not Religious”? Spiritual and Religious Identities among

Academic Scientists

Elaine Howard Ecklund, SUNY Buffalo, and Elizabeth Long, Rice University,

ehe@buffalo.edu

Science is often perceived as incompatible with religion. Rarely, however, do scholars examine the place of spirituality in relationship to science. This paper compares religious to spiritual identities among academic scientists in the natural and social sciences at twenty-one different elite US research universities. Using recently collected data from a national survey of over 1600 academic scientists and in-depth interviews with 250 scientists, we specifically compare faculty in the natural science disciplines of physics, chemistry, and biology as well as the social science disciplines of sociology, psychology, political science, and economics. Findings reveal several distinct frameworks for the place of spirituality, when compared to religion, in the lives of elite scientists. We situate these results in the midst of studies of spirituality in the general US population and make projections about the relevance of findings for issues related to secularization and higher education, as well as those related to the intersection of religion and science.

Spiritual Dimensions of Everyday Life: Perspectives from Elders

Susan A. Eisenhandler, University of Connecticut, susan.a.eisenhandler@uconn.edu

Though reliance on attendance and other measures of formal religious participation is widely acknowledged to be of limited scope in understanding the meaning and salience of faith for people of all ages, continued preference for such measures profoundly inhibits our understanding of how religion and spirituality are perceived in the daily life and lived experi-ence of older adults. The social milieu or context surrounding older adults is an important factor that shapes faith practice and the spirituality evoked in daily life. This paper addresses some spiritual dimensions of faith that emerged during an ongoing study (2005-2006) that includes face-to-face interviews and participant observation with fifteen elders from one residential community. A special focus is a discussion of gardening and other intrinsically valued secular activities and the construction of transcendent meaning in late life.

Mellowing with Age? Exploring Age Variations in Anger toward God

Christopher G. Ellison and Wei Zhang, University of Texas, cellison@prc.utexas.edu

Although many studies have reported salutary associations between religion and health, a modest literature has begun to identify aspects of religiousness that have harmful health consequences. Much of this work focuses on “religious struggle” or negative relation-ships with God (e.g., feelings of anger, abandonment, etc.). Researchers have called for more attention to the social sources and patterning of “religious struggle.” Our study contributes to this area by developing and testing a series of hypotheses concerning the age distribution of anger toward God. We address the following questions: (1) Are there age variations in this type of anger? (2) Can these variations be accounted for in terms of individuals’ social location, exposure to chronic stressors or personal crises, or religious background? (3) Do the effects of these factors on individuals’ anger toward God vary by age? Data come from the 1988 NORC General Social Survey, a nationwide sample of US adults—to our knowledge, the only large-scale representative database containing information on this topic. Findings are discussed in terms of the interplay of psychological and sociological perspectives, and study limitations and future research directions are elaborated.

Wrestling with the Meaning of Multiracial Congregations

Michael O. Emerson, Rice University, moe@rice.edu

Based on seven years of research, key findings from the Multiracial Congregations Project will be discussed with a focus on the implications for race relations, racial inequality, religion, and other aspects of social life. An important question guiding the presentation and subsequent discussion will be whether more of such congregations would be beneficial to US society and to groups within the society.

Muslim American Politics and Presidential Elections: Discourse,

Strategies, Orientations

Marcel Fallu, Université Laval, marcel.fallu.1@ulaval.ca

Muslim organizations “advocate active engagement in the political process.” In 2004, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), a coalition of several American Muslim advocacy groups, endorsed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry; in 2000, a similar coalition had advocated bloc-voting for George W. Bush. Defending a “Civil Rights Plus agenda” in a context of increased scrutiny, these organizations—who claim to speak on behalf of a strikingly diverse minority—have engaged in the American system through, among other means, the formation of Political Action Committees (PACs). Through content analysis, I will provide insight on how their Islamic orientation is articulated with American citizenship, patriotism, and nationalism in an institutional context marked simul-taneously by the separation of state and religious institutions and the omnipresence of religious values in the public sphere.

Religious Coping, Family Stressors, and Elderly Depression in Taiwan

Daisy Fan and Gang-Hua Fan, University of Texas, daisy@mail.la.utexas.edu

The purpose of this study is to examine the buffering effect of three dimensions of religion (attendance, coping, and private practice) on psychological distress in the presence of family stressors among elderly Taiwanese. Using the 1999 Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan, results thus far suggest that religious attendance may buffer the deleterious effect of financial hardship and negative family interaction on distress; while, sur-prisingly, religious coping turns out to exacerbate the stress experience related to negative family relationship. The nature of religious behaviors in Taiwan and the salience of family relationship to Taiwanese elderly may account for some of the findings.

Are Religious Revivals Over in France and the UK? When History and

Sociology Compete for the Answer

Sebastien Fath, École Pratiques des Hautes Études, faths@wanadoo.fr

Are religious revivals over in France and the UK? Comparing the contemporary Evan-gelical scene in Britain and in France reveals a striking difference. In the first case, Evangeli-cals seem condemned to decline. In this national context, revivals appear to be clearly over. In the French case however, Evangelical figures have multiplied by seven in the last 50 years. This contrast will be described and addressed in the first part of the paper. How does sociol-ogy of religion address these two national cases? In the second part of this analysis, I will highlight the contrast between two sociological frameworks. At this stage, should be give up the possibility of unifying the analytic framework? Does sociological truth on one side of the Channel become sociological error on the other side? Maybe not. In the last part of the paper, I will evaluate the opportunity of “rescuing” sociology with comparative history.

The Place of the Charismatic Renewal in the Formation of the Coalition

of Opposition to the Consecration of V. Gene Robinson as Episcopal

Bishop of New Hampshire

Dana Fenton, Lehman College CUNY, ddfen@juno.com

In the course of my research on Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic Episcopalians both before and after the approval of the election of Gene Robinson, a gay man with a partner, to the episcopate in the Episcopal Church, I started to hear about the healing movement that started with the Bennets and continued with the McNutts. I quickly learned that the healing movement was intimately connected with the charismatic renewal in the Episcopal Church in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I later realized that many of the current leadership of the “Biblically Orthodox” Episcopalians first worked together in the loose network of the Charismatic Renewal.

The Mormon Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Michelle Fether-Samtouni and Barry Goetz, Western Michigan University,

michelle.fether@wmich.edu

One hundred years after its publication, Weber’s theory of the Protestant ethic contin-ues to have tremendous force for debating the links between ideas, economic structures, and social behavior. This paper will discuss how religious ideas continue to influence human action, particularly economic action within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormon Church is well known for its financial success and work ethic. Church leaders frequently stress that work is a blessing from God and a fundamental principle of salvation, while idleness is condemned. The unemployment rate in Utah, where the majority of the population is Mormon, is 3.8% compared to the national average of 4.9%. In this paper we will conduct a content analysis of church scriptures, Sunday school textbooks, and official church magazines that reveal linkages between Mormon doctrine and the stimulation of a strong work ethic. We conclude that Weber’s argument about religious ideas influencing social and economic outcomes is still relevant for understanding Mormons and other social groups, and also show that Weber’s ideas about the Protestant ethic in particular has special resonance for understanding the cultural life of Mormonism today.

Drumming as Embodied Spirituality: Focus on Religious Venues

Tanice G. Foltz, Indiana University Northwest, tfoltz@iun.edu

This paper is part of a larger project that centers on drumming in its multiple uses for healing, serving special populations, and creating a global drum community. My analysis of drumming as embodied spirituality addresses Weber’s concern with the disenchantment of the rational world and proposes that drumming is one pathway of spiritual re-enchantment. Drumming connects participants and leads them into a “flow” state that can be likened to Turner’s conceptualization of “communitas,” defined by a feeling of unity and bonding often found in spiritual settings. I draw upon studies of trance and entrainment, as well as my participant-observation experiences in experiences in several religious and spiritual venues. These include Yoruba Candomble House ceremonies in Bahia, Brazil, as well as Pagan rituals and Christian worship services in the US, where drumming is employed to enhance parti-cipants connection with the spirit world.

How Congregations Advertise and Market Themselves

Steven Frenk, Duke University, and Wayne Luther Thompson, Carthage College,

wthompson@carthage.edu

This paper identifies types of congregational communication strategies and activities. Religious congregations enter into relationships with the social environment. Evangelism and other attempts of congregations to project an image are clues to theological stances, growth and survival strategies, scope and targets of programming and market niches. Congregations range from inward orientations to enthusiastic and extensive activities to communicate about themselves and what they have to offer. Do growing, evangelical, or newer congregations act more aggressively to communicate and advertise themselves than other congregations? Do the content and style of advertising and other communications of congregations affect worship and the creation of sacred space for those groups? How do congregations cultivate and project images of themselves in lieu of demand for privatized, personal meaning in modern societies, and with what results? Data for this analysis come from the Social Ecology of Congregations project. This study combines fieldwork in dozens of congregations with surveys of congregational lay leaders and professional staff in those congregations and broader samples. The initial wave of data comes from three urbanized Southeastern Wisconsin counties.

Views on Marriage among Immigrant Muslim Women in the Los Angeles

Area

Inger Furseth, KIFO Centre for Church Research, inger.furseth@kifo.no

This paper explores the experiences of and discourse on marriage among Muslim women in the Los Angeles area. The study is based on in-depth interviews with a small sample of immigrant women. The women are divided into four categories, based on their orientation toward society and the religious community: the Representatives, the Communi-cators, the Belongers, and the Ambivalent. Analysis shows that the Representatives tend strongly to favor arranged marriage. The Communicators are more hesitant toward arranged marriage. The Belongers have a diverse view on this issue, while the Ambivlent are negative to arranged marriage. The latter group favors marriage based on love and individual choice. This study suggests that there is a link between these immigrant women’s religious orientation and their view on marriage. Whereas most of the women wore the hijab on a daily basis, some had never done so, and some had quit. Their discourse on the hijab centers on religious obedience, oppression, identity, and dialogue. This study suggests that women use the hijab to position themselves in the religious landscape, inside and outside the religious community.

Canadian History of Wicca: Obstacles on the Path of the Uninitiated

Researcher

Mireille Gagnon, Laval University, mireille.gagnon.1@ulaval.ca

How does one retrace Canadian Wiccan history without being a Wiccan? Though the researcher might be welcomed in the communities, it will soon become apparent that information will be harder to gather than one would think. Troubled pasts of communities, rivalry between members involved in witch wars, informants with several pagan names are just some examples of issues with which the researcher has to deal. In order to understand the Wiccan presence in Canada, one must be able to dig in its past and find out how it got here and how it developed. How does an uninitiated avoid the many obstacles? In this paper I will show the challenges of working in such an environment, while keeping in line with our professional ethics and our continual search for balanced information.

Evangelicalism and Change in the DUP: Implications for the Northern

Ireland Peace Process

Gladys Ganiel, Trinity College Dublin, gganiel@tcd.ie

In 2005 the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) became the largest political party in Northern Ireland. Since its inception in 1971, it has been regarded as a vehicle for Protestant fundamentalism and as a destabilizing force in the peace process. This paper presents new research about the changing role of evangelicalism within the DUP. It highlights the DUP’s shift away from “evangelical” issues, demonstrating how evangelicals within the party are pursuing those issues through interest groups rather than the party. This has increased the party’s secular appeal and ability to negotiate with the republicans, while keeping evangeli-cals on board. I also draw on interviews to explore how evangelicals’ personal convictions intersect with pragmatic political decisions. As the DUP attempts to appeal to a wider base, the evangelical convictions of key individuals will be sources of tension, contradictory stances, and ideological confusion that may hinder its ability to reach accommodation with republicanism.

Beyond Identity: A Framework for Understanding the Dynamics of

Religious Journeys

Gladys Ganiel, Trinity College Dublin, and Claire Mitchell, Queen’s University Belfast, gganiel@tcd.ie

Scholarship on evangelicalism has focused on explaining the persistence of this so-called “old time religion.” Evangelicalism has been conceived as a reaction to modernity and as providing people with a meaningful social identity. In this paper, we move the debate beyond religious persistence and social identity, presenting a more dynamic analysis of evan-gelicalism. Drawing on research among Northern Irish evangelicals, we argue that evangeli-calism is better understood as a journey or process rather than a social identity category. We develop a theoretical framework for understanding evangelicalism as a process, identifying and highlighting the dynamics of change at various stages of the journey: conversion, con-servatism, privatization, moderation, and transformation. This allows us to make conclusions about both the persistence and the fluctuation of evangelicalism in Northern Ireland over time. It also allows us to contribute to the theoretical debate about how to conceive religion’s role in the contemporary world.

Turkey’s Quest for European Union Membership: Will the EU Accept a

Muslim Candidate?

Brent Garrett, US Department of Homeland Security, wbrentgarrett@aol.com

Ankara is currently in the process of institutionalizing far-reaching reforms required by Brussels in order to be considered a serious candidate for membership in the European Union. Many Turks are convinced, however, that even if Turkey succeeded in the reforms required for EU accession, Brussels would ultimately reject Ankara’s application due to the fact that Turkey is a Muslim candidate. Ankara’s accession to the EU would indubitably buttress Turkey’s chances of becoming a successful modern democracy in the Muslim world. This paper will examine the following: to what extent does religion play a role in determining Turkey’s eventual acceptance or rejection as a member of the EU? Turkey’s acceptance into or rejection from the EU will certainly cause reverberations throughout the Muslim world, as well as throughout Europe’s Muslim communities.

The Impact of Race on Denominational Variations in Social Attitudes:

The Issue and its Dimensions

David A. Gay, John P. Lynxwiler, and Warren S. Goldstein, University of Central

Florida, dgay@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu

Although the impact of religious affiliation on social attitudes is a popular research topic in the sociology of religion, few scholars have examined the role that race plays in this relationship. Moreover, studies that do explore the interplay of race and religious affiliation seldom move beyond the general categories of conservative, moderate, and liberal denomina-tional families. Our research uses recent General Social Survey data to compare the social attitudes of African Americans and their White counterparts within established designations of religious affiliation. Along with control variables, we include attitude measures for political tolerance, legalized abortion, gender equality, premarital sex, homosexual lifestyles, and extramarital sexual relations. Our analysis isolates levels of support for these attitudes within categories of race and religious affiliation to determine if variations emerge and whether they are nested within specific issues or denominations or reflect more general patters of race differences.

The Secularist Movement in Québec

Martin Geoffroy, Université de Moncton, geoffrm@umoncton.ca

The Secularist Movement in Québec has been gaining ground in the last ten years by successfully pushing the Québec government to complete the secularization of the public school system in the province. The movement is mainly represented by a militant organization called the Mouvement Laïque Québécois. The dream of its president, Daniel Baril, would be to have a system similar to the “secularist” regime in France to deal with Québec’s dealings with religion. This paper is based on interviews done with the leaders of this organization and on content analysis of their documents. It will show that despite some gains on the political front, the secularist movement in Québec remains relatively marginal.

Worlds Apart? A Comparative Study of the Place of Religion in Canadian

and American Public Space

Martin Geoffroy, Université de Moncton, and Jean-Guy Vaillancourt, Université de

Montréal, geoffrm@umoncton.ca

Based on many years of fieldwork in Canada and the US, this paper will attempt to point out both the differences and similarities in the way these two neighbors deal with reli-gion on an everyday basis. In Canada, it seems religion has been perceived as a symbol of individual choice rather than a collective one as in the US. But is that really totally true? In recent years the Canadian court system has seen more and more cases of collective demands based on religious believers. These demands are confronting the so called Canadian concep-tion of political non-involvement in religious affairs, and with a new Conservative Canadian government with ties to western fundamentalism, the question of these differences can be asked without sounding as out of place as before. Is religion becoming more political in Canada, as it can be in the US?

Muslims of the West: Loyalty to Faith and Membership in Western

Society

Kamel Ghozzi, Central Missouri State University, ghozzi@cmsu1.cmsu.edu

The growing presence in Europe and North America of a second and third generation of western Muslims deeply challenges the West’s traditional image of Islam as an “Eastern Religion,” as well as western Muslims’ traditional self-image as “immigrants” in foreign lands. Nevertheless, western Islam remains deeply problematic and somewhat irritating to the west-ern mind. Many in the West question the adaptability of Islam as a new religious component in the religious pluralism of western societies. Given its organic nature, Islam equates religion and society, and merges religious law and social structure; hence, it may not easily accept the western principle of separation of realms or any notion of civil religion. This paper explains the dilemma lived by large numbers of western Muslims as they struggle to bridge the gap between loyalty to faith and membership in western society.

The Night the Guru Spanked Natalie Wood: Emotion and Legend at

Esalen

Marion S. Goldman, University of Oregon, mgoldman@uoregon.edu

Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California is a legendary community, retreat, spa, and think tank founded in 1962. Aldous Huxley, Joseph Campbell, Abraham Maslow, Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg, Bishop James Pike, and Timothy Leary were among dozens of well-known fig-ures associated with the institute. Since the late 1960s, three central informal narratives have supported the institute’s foundational mission, encouraging personal spiritual growth and social sensitivity. One of these three contemporary legends is the “wise father” story, about the Hollywood party where Fritz Perls, a gestalt therapy guru, turned a gorgeous movie star, Natalie Wood, over his knee and spanked her. She responded with a satirical movie, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, and a personal search that led her back to Esalen almost two decades later. This narrative reveals ways in which Esalen encouraged emotional intelligence through exploring personal vulnerabilities.

Sweet Potato Latkes and Other Southern Jewish Delicacies: Exploring

the Myriad Flavors of Jewish Identity Formation in the American South

Dana M. Greene, Appalachian State University, greenedm@appstate.edu

This paper addresses the richness of Jewish American identity formation in the Ameri-can South by focusing on the socioreligious definition that has been adopted by members of Southern Jewish communities that link their regional identities to their religious heritage, thereby becomingly “Jewishly Southern.” This process of self-definition, coupled with the meaning of having a religious tradition that links ethnicity and geographic regionality repre-sents the crux of this study. Thus, drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, this paper addresses the myriad social considerations linked to cultural capital—e.g., opportunities for upward mobility; experiences with racism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of ethnically entrenched bias; religious freedom; interactions with differing denominations within Judaism; and most important, Southern pride and Southern history—to define a contemporary Jewish American identity in the South that is tied to collective group historical memory and an understanding/interpretation of the lived experience of being both Jewish and American, as well as residing in the Southern US.

What is Religion for Americans?

T. Jeremy Gunn, Emory University, jgunn@law.emory.edu

Several religious identity symbols are part of the 21^st Century culture wars in the US: Ten Commandment monuments, “intelligent design” as an alternative to the theory of evolu-tion, crèches and holiday images, and the phrases “in God we trust” and “one nation under God.” These symbols are largely uncontroversial when they are a matter of individual expression, but they elicit a firestorm when some citizens insist that governments adopt or promote them. Curiously, the proponents of such symbols do not base their arguments on religious requirements (e.g., that scripture or theology demands it), but on nationalist or identity grounds. The arguments are “our country was founded on religious principles” and “we are a religious people,” not “the Bible commands us to do this.” Theology is thin; identity conflicts control.

Where the Babies Are: Patterns of Congregational Fertility

Conrad Hackett, Princeton University, chackett@princeton.edu

Since children usually inherit parental religious identity, fertility patterns are consequential for religious institutions. Despite scholarly and popular interest in church growth and decline, the relationship between congregations and fertility has been neglected. Using the Congregational Life Survey, an innovative, large-scale study of American congrega-tions, I report and analyze congregational fertility patterns. High fertility is found in congrega-tions affiliated with small denominations, whose members are not identified in standard demographic surveys. Using regression analysis, I estimate the influence of theology, compo-sitional characteristics, and pro-natalist congregational culture upon congregational fertility rates. Within congregations, there is a close relationship between completed fertility rates and current fertility rates among women of childbearing age.

How Theology Matters for Congregants in Presbyterian Churches

Jennifer Campbell Hackett, Princeton Theological Seminary,

campbell.hackett@ ptsem.edu

This study investigates how the theology and culture of eight Presbyterian (PCUSA) congregations influence the way members frame ethical issues. Anticipating that many Pres-byterian congregations may shy away from providing theological resources to address sub-jects such as political behavior and medical ethics, I study “typical” congregations as well as congregations distinguished by strong evangelical or liberal theology. I find that members of the evangelical churches think theologically about a narrow range of topics and tend to frame social problems on a personal level. Members of liberal congregations think theology is relevant to a broad range of topics and tend to think structurally about social problems.

Evangelicalism as the Future of an “Illusion”? An Evolutionary

Perspective

Durk Hak, Enschede, Netherlands, durkhak@home.nl

It is supposed (a) mainline modern Christianity as described, e.g., by Bellah will result in secularization, unchurching, and unbelief, and (b) the soteriology of both historic Christian religion and early-modern Christianity are no acceptable any longer to modern Christian believers. Two orthodox Christian reactions to modern Christianity are observed: one “reform-ative” fundamentalist (and regressive); the other evangelical. The question addressed in the paper is whether the adaptive capacity of evangelicalism to the requirements of modern soci-ety is great enough to last until the end of the century. Evangelicalism (and “reformative” fundamentalism) is seen as a “family of denominations” with a hard core consisting of (1) accepting Jesus Christ as savior, (b) personal conversion, (c) reaching out to the world, and (b) the Bible as God’s word, “inerrant in matters of faith and practice”—to which evangelicals subscribe to a lesser or greater degree. It is assumed that evangelicalism is instrumental to a modern religious person’s needs for physical and social wellbeing. The kingdom of heaven can be achieved because of the believer’s voluntary decision to accept Jesus Christ as savior. Evangelicalism is supposed to have the greater adaptive capacity to modern society of the two, and consequently is supposed to “have” the future. Yet, it is institutionally relatively weak, and we cannot yet foresee the consequences of institutionalization or oligarchy formation, nor the effects of the coming generation of evangelical academics and academic evangelical theologians.

Catholic Decline and the Challenge of Liberalism

Pierre Hegy, Adelphi University, hegy@adelphi.edu

This paper reviews major findings about Protestant decline since the 1960s and then concentrates on Catholic decline in more recent years. I review the literature on strictness and rational choice, and find that they have little explanatory power. I hypothesize that secular liberalism and internal secularization have played a major role in mainline Protestant decline. I then apply these criteria to Catholic interview data.

Bringing Theology Back In: Building a Swedish Lutheran Parish in an

Industrializing City

Michael Hillary, University of Wisconsin–Waukesha, mhillary@uwc.edu

Early in the study of immigration communities of the late 19^th and early 20^th centur-ies, a general model of immigrant churches emerged, describing them as central institutions in the creation of ethnic communities, providing essential services to members of the com-munity, organizing responses to challenges from the surrounding society, variously facilitat-ing, regulating, and resisting assimilation. A vast array of historical work documents varia-tions and exceptions among churches, based on ethnicity, leadership, various characteristics of local context, political challenges, and historical timing. This paper gives attention to a difference curiously neglected or left out of focus in the literature on immigrant churches—theology. Historical research on Swedish Lutherans in an industrializing city is used to examine how a distinct theology gives shape to ethnic parishes with practices and structures both similar to and different from common patterns found in Catholic parishes. While aspir-ing to the inclusiveness of many ethnic Catholic parishes, theological constraints systemati-cally undermined this ideal.

Buddhism in the HomeSpace

Jane N. Iwamura, University of Southern California, iwamura@usc.edu

In the sociological study of Asian North American Buddhism, the temple has served as the primary site of research. While there are good reasons for this focus, examining Buddhist practice in the home can prove equally illuminating. Drawing from a pilot study of Japanese American Buddhists and their home shrines (obutsudan), I discuss how Buddhist altars and altar practice play an understated, but important role in mediating family relations, ethnic identity formation, and religious attitudes. Monitoring Buddhism in the “homespace” also reveals much about the way in which practices change in diaspora and over time. In addition to looking at Japanese American home altars, I will also consider other examples (e.g., Chi-nese, Vietnamese) to discuss the relevance that these alternative spaces hold for the study of (Asian) North American religions broadly conceived.

A “New” Religious Movement: The Dutch Prophetess and Healer, Mrs.

Sonja de Vries

Lammert G. Jansma, Foundation Forces (Netherlands), f2hlgjansma@hetnet.nl

In my paper I will discuss the movement that has assembled around the prophet and healer Mrs. Sonja de Vries, which has its center in the village of Oudehorne (Friesland, Netherlands). Important elements in the doctrine of the movement, which considers itself a Christian movement, are personal growth, reincarnation, and health/illness. This movement has a firmly established structure and a belief system collectively shared by its adherents. This type of highly institutionalized movement seems to be an exception among current emerging religious groups, where loosely organized groupings seem to be the rule. In this paper both the organization and the belief system are discussed, and an explanation is given why this particular movement developed into a full-fledged organization.

The Political Past as Sacred Past: Making Shivaji a Sacred King in

Western India

Daniel Jasper, Moravian College, djasper@moravian.edu

In this paper, I look at the ways in which the seventeenth-century king Shivaji has been deified in the Marathi-speaking region of western India. The memory of Shivaji was “rediscovered” as a model of a glorious political past during the colonial period. In recent years, his legacy has been reframed, positing him as a religious leader. In tracing the deification of Shivaji, I identify how secular spaces of commemoration have been constructed as sacred spaces of worship. In this paper, I analyze the actions of officials and popular actors, including local and state agencies, political parties, and civil organizations. This dual focus shows the ways that new religious practices and beliefs are institutionalized by a variety of social actors with different objectives or toward different goals.

Rituals of Civil Religion: Beyond Durkheim

Diane Johnson, Kutztown University, dijohnson@kutztown.edu

Some of the most virulent objects to Robert Bellah’s “civil religion” find their origin in its alliance with Durkheimian ritual. This paper explores the possibility of meeting these criticisms through a modification in the century-old analysis. Roy Rappaport’s Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity provides a concept of religious ritual that moves us beyond a focus on belief to emphasize the ritual creation of obligation and the digitalized communica-tion of social change. Applied to an analysis of the published text of congressional hearings, Rapport’s religious ritual allows for a more complete interpretation of the complexities of Bellah’s scheme, a clearer perspective on his differences with his critics, and a more system-atic investigation of the process and globalization of America’s civil religion over time. The model is illustrated through an analysis of the legislative history of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (1975-2000).

Sociological Theory and the Sociology of Religion: Bridging the Gap

between Distinct Fields of Discourse

D. Paul Johnson, Texas Tech University, d.paul.johnson@ttu.edu

Religion was a key concern of the classical-stage founders of sociology, and their theoretical analyses of religion have served as a reservoir of concepts and ideas that have influenced subsequent developments in general sociological theory. As sociology has frag-mented into numerous specialty areas, including the sociology of religion, each has tended to develop its own theoretical ideas and styles of discourse. The goal of this paper is to argue for more explicit convergence between general sociological theory and theoretical concepts and ideas used in the sociology of religion to show how both areas can be thereby enriched. Theoretical ideas from the sociology of religion that can be related to general sociological theory include the concept of civil religion (in both its “priestly” and “prophetic” forms), church-sect theory and its elaborations, emergence and subsequent of secularization theory, the focus on religion as socially constructed and as reflecting and reinforcing individuals’ identities and group memberships, the contrasting functions of different religious orientations in escalating/reducing conflict, and the overlap between the “new paradigm” rational choice/market model of religion with exchange and rational choice theory generally.

Orientalists, Islamists, and the Global Discourse on Islam: Shaping the

Modern Image of a Religion

Dietrich Jung, Danish Institute for International Studies, dju@diis.dk

Against the background of the ongoing public debate that focuses on differences between Islam and the West, this paper suggests a change of perspective. It will start from the observation that both Western analysts and Islamist activists define Islam similarly as an all-encompassing religious, political, and social system. In shifting from differences to similarit-ies, it associates the evolution of this particular modern image of Islam with a complex process of cross-cutting (self)-interpretations of Muslim and Western societies within an emerging global public sphere. Thereby the changing infrastructure of the global public sphere has facilitated the gradual popularization, trivialization, and dissemination of a previously elitist discourse on Islam and the West through which the idea of Islam as an all-encompassing system became accepted knowledge in the Western and Muslim worlds alike.

“Dark Pilgrimages” in Virtual Reality and Cyberspace: The Example of

“‘Browsing’ through Auschwitz

Lutz Kaelber, University of Vermont, lkaelber@uvm.edu

The current frontier in post-Fordist pilgrimages is the expansion of religious journeys into the worlds of cyberspace and multimedia generated hyper-reality. In many cases official as well as unofficial websites in cyberspace offer potential or actual travelers to sacred sites guides and other information, and they sometimes act as virtual depositories of local know-ledge that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to obtain. Some virtual pilgrimage sites offer a curious mix of kitsch, commerce, and salvation, and many seem to vanish as quickly as they spring up. Some virtual tours, however, go further and take visitors or viewers on a “dark pilgrimage,” which, as a concept, is analogous to “dark tourism”: journeys to and through sacred sites of atrocity. William Miles has painted an ominous picture of dark pilgrimages in referring to the cybertourist as soon no longer being able to perceive a substantial difference between walking and “browsing through Auschwitz.” This paper addresses the current state of “browsing through Auschwitz” by analyzing as sociological phenomena the currently offered virtual tours through Auschwitz as well as the virtual recreated gas chamber(s) in the 2005 BBC series “Auschwitz.”

Ethnographic Fluidity: Connections between Religiosity, Vulnerability,

and Power

Kristina Kahl, University of Colorado, kristina.kahl@colorado.edu

This paper engages the methodological tool of reflexivity to uncover issues of power and of insider/outsider perspectives based on an ethnographic study of a new Foursquare Gospel church facilitated by a woman pastor. Research has shown that focus of standpoint positions provide a detailed view of the complexities of ethnographic work. Specifically, this research gave insight into the dynamics of power relations between the researcher and the researched. Central issues of standpoint positions in this study include age, class, and social status of the key respondents in relation to the researcher’s own status level. Second, this research found that the multiplicity of fluidity provided this study with more complex and enriching perspectives than a traditional insider/outsider perspective. Fluidity enhanced understanding of the researched and the study itself. The relationship complexities of stand-point and fluidity perspective provide insight into how data collection can be impeded or magnified within the research process and research outcomes.

On the Conceptualization and Measurement of Religious Intolerance:

Theoretical Considerations and an Empirical Application

Vyacheslav Karpov, Western Michigan University, Kimmo Kääriäinen, Finnish Church

Research Institute, and Elena Lisovskaya, Western Michigan University,

v.karpov@wmich.edu

The spread and intensity of religious conflicts throughout the world suggest the importance of research on religious intolerance. Specifically, comparative survey research could shed light on the spread and determinants of religious intolerance in various national, cultural, and political settings. However, systematic survey research on religious intolerance is rare. Theoretically justified conceptualizations and reliable empirical measures of this phe-nomenon are hard to find. Seeking to fill this gap, we conceptualize religious intolerance as the unwillingness to grant civil religious liberties to religious out-groups. Such a conceptuali-zation is based on the interpretation of religious freedom as a universal human right as well as on other forms of tolerance. We apply this conceptualization to an empirical study of reli-gious intolerance in Russia (2972 interviews conducted in 2005). We show that the Religious Intolerance scales we constructed are reliable, valid, and applicable in other national and reli-gious contexts.

Islam, Orthodoxy, and Religious Intolerance in Russia

Vyacheslav Karpov, Western Michigan University, Kimmo Kääriäinen, Finnish Church

Research Institute, and Elena Lisovskaya, Western Michigan University,

v.karpov@wmich.edu

We explore religious intolerance (defined as the unwillingness to grant religious liber-ties to religious out-groups) in Russia using 2005 data from a representative national survey (n = 2972, including over 1300 from four predominantly Muslim regions). Findings show remarkably widespread and strong religious intolerance. Orthodox Christians were found on average less tolerant of Muslims than Muslims were of Orthodox, while both were highly intolerant of Jews and Western churches. Tolerance varies greatly by region, suggesting that exposure to diversity and traditions of peaceful coexistence increase Muslim-Christian toler-ance. We find that in today’s Russia religious intolerance is essentially a nonreligious pheno-menon: it has little to do with either Orthodox or Muslim traditional religiosity. Predictors of intolerance included political authoritarianism, ethnic prejudice, and religious ethnocentrism.

Japanese-American Religiosity: A Contemporary Perspective

Tetsuden Kashima, University of Washington, kashima@u.washington.edu

Although Japanese Americans constitute a relatively small population, their signifi-cance in major social and political areas of American society garners considerable attention. Much of the sociological attention focused on their early immigrant social history and adjust-ment, the violation of their civil rights during World War II concomitant with their superior record of military service, and their present status. Scholarly attention is less focused on their religiosity and religious institutions, areas with more than a century-long social history. A knowledge gap is consequently apparent about their present-day religious attitudes and beliefs. Through a generational and age-focused perspective, their religiosity, especially centered on Protestantism and Buddhism, is examined from data derived from 1999-2000 interview studies conducted on the West Coast and Hawaii.

Freedom of Incorporation and the Incorporation of Religious and

Voluntary Organizations in the 19^th Century United States and Canada

Jason Kaufman, Harvard University, jkaufman@wjh.harvard.edu

This paper examines state support for religious and voluntary organizations provided via the legal form of incorporation. The term “freedom of incorporation” refers to variance in citizens’ “relationship to the means of incorporation,” or their ability to secure corporate charters from state legislatures. Legislative records for each of the original thirteen American states as well as the Canadian provinces of Ontario (Upper Canada), Québec (Lower Canada), Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick are examined for the period 1780-1820. Though incorpora-tion is not a conventional frame within which to view church-state relations, the results raise interesting new questions about the topic. Most American state legislatures, for example, sup-ported religious activity via incorporation, though there were nonetheless major differences in incorporation rates by state. By contrast, there were no charters granted to religious organi-zations in any of the Canadian provinces for this time period. This contrast is striking when seen in the light of the American tradition of church-state separation and Canada’s lack thereof. A preliminary explanation focuses on emergent differences in the perceived role of the state as a regulator of private civic activity.

Definitional Issues Concerning Child Sexual Abuse in Alternative

Religions

Stephen A. Kent, University of Alberta, steve.kent@ualberta.ca

Working with data from approximately three dozen sectarian groups, this study identifies at least seven variants of child sexual abuse in alternative groups. Although these seven variants appear in secular and mainstream religious situations as well, unique aspects about the origins and operations of many nontraditional groups increases the likelihood of these types of violations occurring.

The “Christianization” of South Korea: Religious and Nonreligious

Factors for Protestant Growth

Andrew Eungi Kim, Korea University, aekim@korea.ac.kr

This paper argues that several important points of convergence between the imported faith and traditional Korean religions strengthened the appeal of Protestantism in Korea. In particular, Korean Shamanism, the enduring core of Korean religious and cultural thought, is especially important to explain the prominence of its worldview and practices in the uniquely Korean form of Protestantism. The paper also argues that key historical and social circum-stances in Korea—and the resulting sentiments—have galvanized a large number of Koreans to embrace the imported faith as a means of making sense of their experience in a rapidly changing world. Indeed, such political, economic, and social strains as the traumatic experience of the Korean War (1950-53), the fear of further North Korean attacks, the anomie arising from rapid industrialization and urbanization, abject poverty for a substantial segment of the populace, and the deeply-rooted sense of deprivation arising from a widening income gap have all encouraged a large number of Koreans, particularly the underprivileged classes, to embrace a new value system offering them hope and a way out of misery.

Religion—A Seedbed of Civic Privatism? How Religious Familism

Influences Civic Engagement

Young-Il Kim, University of Virginia, yk2a@virginia.edu

This paper uses GSS data to examine how religious familism influences doing nonreli-gious volunteer work. It is assumed that religious involvement fosters civic engagement, but critics often say that familism erodes civil society by turning attention to the well-being of one’s own family rather than engaging in the broader society. To what extent, then, does family impede civic participation? By constructing an index for measuring religious familism, I aim to answer two questions: Does the relationship between familism and civic engagement vary by religious tradition? What factors may account for the variation between involvement in religious organizations and participation in nonreligious civic activity? Based on previous literature, I hypothesize that church-going families with young children will be less likely to participate in secular civic activity. I also hypothesize that religious familism along with family structure, income, and education explains the variation between involvement in churches and other kinds of voluntary associations.

From Tolerance to Prohibition: The Question of the Islamic Headscarf in

France’s and Québec’s Schools

David Koussens, Université du Québec à Montréal, koussens.david@courrier.uqam.ca

The debate about the wearing of Islamic headscarves by Muslim women in schools arose for the first time in France in 1989 and in 1994 in Québec. While relying on different principles, the two countries refused to interpret the religious sign and adopted similar positions authorizing the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in public schools. This situation is no more effective. On March 15, 2004, the French government passed a law banning Islamic headscarves from schools, thereby rejecting the visibility of religious diversity in educational institutions and reaffirming the role of schools in the transmission of republican values. Meanwhile, Québec still refuses to interpret the headscarf and reiterates the role of schools in the redefinition of values shared by the population. Through a juridical comparative analysis, I propose to show how the two positions diverge.

Fighting a Culture War? The Political Priorities of Washington Offices

Rachel Kraus, Ball State University, rmkraus@bsu.edu

James Davison Hunter argues that liberals and conservatives, competing with one another to create their respective versions of a moral America, are engaged in a “culture war.” Does this thesis apply to Washington offices? Unlike independent religious lobbies that represent only those who belong to or donate money to them, Washington offices are the political advocacy arm of their parent religious body, to whom they are formally tied. Utilizing an in-depth analysis of office literature, office websites, and interviews with the offices’ directors, I identify and compare the political priorities of 15 religious conservative and liberal Washington offices during the 108^th Congress. Results indicate that, with few exceptions, Washington offices are not engaged in a culture war. Instead, they champion very different causes. Liberal offices are most concerned with social welfare and economic justice, while conservative offices devote their time to religious, life, and culture issues.

Moral Crisis in a General Motors Town: An Examination of Church

Response to the Flint, Michigan Sit-Down Strike, 1936-37

Amy Lane, University of Missouri, aml705@mizzou.edu

This paper examines the context of the 1936-37 sit-down strikes during which churches of Flint, Michigan were faced with a crisis of morality over whose ownership rights were best supported by church doctrine. They were torn between supporting laborers who could contribute only pennies to local churches and wealthy bankers and General Motors managers who occupied the pews of prestigious churches. The historical evidence suggests the majority of churches upheld the GM status quo by condemning the strike. However, oral histories and non-mainstream media suggest a few of the less affluent churches supported the strikers by providing meeting places, sustenance, and emotional support. Rather than arguing Flint churches were simply conservative, I point out instead that churches were sur-prised by the outbreak of the strike. The ways they responded were influenced not only by class interests, but also broader national debates over employer ownership of the means of production and the human rights of workers.

Reasonable Irrationality: Religious Abnegations of the World Revisited

Lauren Langman, Loyola University of Chicago, llang944@aol.com

Whereas the dialectic of rationality was a central theme for Weber, for the Frankfurt School the Dialectic of Enlightenment was a critique of the irrationality of rational modernity leading not to utopia, but to a society where the “technicians without feelings and specialists without hearts” created highly efficient death camps. The insights of Weber recede before the current explosion of an “abstract empiricism” guided by the logic of classical political econ-omy. Given the works of Homans, Blau, and Coleman, a “one dimensional,” causal/linear approach to religion has taken hold in the sociology of religion as seen in Stark and Finke’s “rational choice” approach. As Horkheimer argued, the traditional theory of Smith, Bentham and Locke revived stands opposed to an emancipatory Critical theory with its dialectical understanding of Reason as both emancipatory and dehumanizing. The absurdity of a rational choice approach to religion can be seen in the embrace of Islamic fundamentalism.

Religion in the Public School System

Solange Lefebvre, Université de Montréal, solange.lefebvre@umontreal.ca

In June 2000, Bill 118 was adopted. It swept away schools’ Catholic and Protestant confessional structures and brought in a compromise solution regarding their educational services related to religion. Mindful of the public’s range of sentiments regarding the school’s supervision of the spiritual or religious aspect of students’ lives and aware of the need to clarify the teaching establishment’s role in this matter, the legislature added to the Public Education Act such provisions as would create in Québec’s public schools a secularity open to the religious fact. This is the tenor of articles in the Act assigning public schools the responsibility “to facilitate the spiritual development of students so as to promote self-fulfillment” (art. 36) as part of an educational project that “must respect the freedom of conscience and of religion of the students, the parents and the school staff” (art. 37). It was also in this spirit that a non-confessional service of spiritual care and community involvement was set up for all students regardless of their religious convictions. France is also going through some changes regarding religion in the public school system.

The Roman French Catholic Church in Canada

Solange Lefebvre, Université de Montréal, solange.lefebvre@umontreal.ca

This paper offers observations regarding several dimensions of Roman Catholicism in French Canada, the seeds of which were sown over 400 years ago. Research conducted by Statistics Canada on ethnic identity shows that the Canadian francophone population is still mostly composed of people of French ancestry. I will reflect on the relationship between ethnicity and religion among French Catholics up to the present and how it has been changed with the arrival of French-speaking immigrants from other parts of the world since the 1960s. In a final point, I will explore the changing nature of religious practice and ideas. The liveli-ness of Christian practices in the 1960s and 1970s has given way to an intergenerational crisis in the transmission of religion. Following upon the work of José Casanova, I argue that the strength of the voluntary culture is decisive in our high modern culture to assure the survival of religious institutions. According to some surveys, this is weaker in Québec than elsewhere in Canada, at least in its formal forms.

“Extreme” Catholicism on College Campuses: Reclaiming or Renovating Tradition?

Laura M. Leming, University of Dayton, leming@udayton.edu

US Catholic Colleges have seen a growing number of young adults arrive on campus who are proud of their Catholic identity, actively engage in a variety of traditional and non-traditional religious practices, and seek a supportive Catholic environment. This study inves-tigates the religious practices and impact of these Catholic Millennials as revealed in the first year of what is planned as a longitudinal study of a Midwest evangelical-style Catholic cam-pus group. A mixed-methods approach, using survey and interview data as well as participant observation, yields insight into how these “extreme” Catholic students interpret their fidelity to Catholic tradition and their efforts to renovate Catholic practices.

Somewhere between Heaven and Hell: Congregation Members Reflect on the Afterlife

Pamela Leong, University of Southern California, pamelale@usc.edu

This study examines how 35 members of an urban, West Coast congregation conceptualize heaven and hell. Congregation members are overwhelmingly GLBT, low SES, and African American. A sizeable proportion of the congregation is HIV-positive or HIV-at-risk. Fear mongering and promoting despair among a population that is already extremely marginalized makes little sense for the pastor, who intentionally avoids persecutory images, de-emphasizes the hellish, and highlights universal redemption, salvation, and heavenliness. The respondents’ frameworks for understanding heaven and hell are in line with the church’s religio-therapeutic emphasis. Most respondents described heaven/hell not as physical spaces but as internal/psychological processes (states of mind, emotions, or life conditions). Their interpretations provide substantial allowance for redemption/salvation. These alternative formulations illustrate how heaven and hell are very much individualized and personalized concepts. Finally, although there is less preoccupation with moral infallibility and a general disbelief in divine judgment, many respondents continued to believe that placement in heaven or hell is controllable.

How Religion Circulates in America’s Local Public Square

Paul Lichterman, University of Southern California, lichterm@usc.edu

Alexis de Tocqueville famously argued that American religion would enhance American civic life. He imagined that religion would promote concern for fellow humans and temper the passions that produce uncivil behavior. US sociologists and political scientists have been rediscovering Tocqueville’s writings amidst the news that American civic group memberships have declined steeply in the past thirty years. Many of them reiterate Tocqueville’s paean to American religion. But what does religion do in US civic life today? How, it at all, does religion circulate in local, civic organizations? This paper investigates how religious language circu-lates in local, voluntary associations in the US, using two ethnographic examples of religious community service groups. I suggest that when scholars equate public religion with religious deliberation about social issues, we miss important factors that shape the public influence, or irrelevance, of religious discourse. Members of local, religiously based civic groups shared dis-tinct ideas about what it means to be a religious person, quite apart from their religious beliefs about the world. In both cases, shared notions of religious identity limited and even silenced religious deliberation. In these groups, and perhaps others in the American civic arena, a “good” religious person was not someone who develops elaborate religious reasons for opinions on social issues.

Joining Systems Theory and the Sociology of Religion

Robert Liebman and Martin Zwick, Portland State University, liebmanr@pdx.edu

Systems theory offers conceptual and theoretical tools for the study of religions as sociocultural systems. We show how systems theory can augment historical and sociological studies of religion through three demonstrations of the use of systems ideas in the literature (Bellah, Sloan Wilson, Sharot). From thermodynamics we use the ideas of openness and closedness to consider the persistence of tradition in Islam and Judaism. From game theory, we use the ideas of cooperation and defection to examine tensions between exclusivist and ecumenical traditions in Christianity. From complexity theory, we use the idea of differentia-tion to consider how the embeddedness of religious systems within the larger society influ-ences the relations of church and state and processes of acculturation.

The Last Shall Be First: The Leveling Effect of Pentecostalism among

Latino Immigrants

Tony Tian-Ren Lin, University of Virginia, ttl6c@virginia.edu

Harvey Cox points out that Pentecostal practices have a leveling effect to lift those who are socially disadvantaged. Tongue speaking, for example, allows the poor, uneducated, and illiterate to speak with as equal authority as the educated and elite. This effect is especially prominent in Latino Pentecostal Christians, who not only have an actual linguistic disadvan-tage, but also face alienating realities in other parts of their lives. They are culturally and socially disadvantaged because of their immigrant status and often have lower educational attainment. This study finds that Pentecostal Christianity offers a sophisticated system of cultural logic for its adherents. I seek to understand the process by which Pentecostalism becomes a compensatory force in the daily lives of these immigrants. Through ethnographic research and structured interviews, I articulate the theodicies they create. I find that Pente-costalism not only possesses leveling qualities but it also reproduces the disadvantaged life.

“Epistle to the Galatians’ or Epistle to the Galli? Roman Cultural Politics

and Pagan Influences in the New Testament and Beyond

Orestis Lindermayer, Athens, Greece, orlindermayer@hotmail.com

Rodney Stark has asked us to reconsider the history of early Christianity. In this paper I will try to reconsider the culture of early Christianity, especially that of the New Testament. I will argue that one of the reasons for the success of Christianity in late antiquity and beyond was the formulation by Christians of a theory of “Romanness”—a new, initially marginal, sense of Roman identity. In this sense, I will also follow in the steps of Sir James Frazer, whose Golden Bough had put forward the controversial point that Jesus Christ of the Gospels corresponds to the Carnival King of the pagan Roman Saturnalia. Here I will examine the text of the apostle Paul’s “Epistle to the Galatians” and place it in the context of other contemporary non-Christian texts. I hypothesize that Paul’s Galatians were Galli—in fact, reformed Galli—in the sense of Galli as castrati converts to the pagan Roman cult of Cybele and Attis. This twist can help us understand the links that exist between the cult of Cybele on the one hand and Christianity on the other, especially in what concerns the later development of the cult of the Virgin Mary.

“Heart and Head” in Reaching Pastors of Black Churches

Adair T. Lummis, Hartford Seminary, alummis@hartsem.edu

From the nineteenth century to the present in America, evangelical preaching that “brings down the Spirit” to members’ hearts in the Black church has been the cachet of the superior pastor. Black churches may also need pastoral leaders may also need pastoral leaders to stretch the minds of youth and other members, to keep their church administra-tively sound, and to take a pivotal leadership role in the surrounding community. According to some African-American church leaders, foundations and seminaries, this is particularly true for pastors of Black congregations in the 21^st century, especially the many pastors without graduate seminary education. Using insights gleaned from three recent survey evaluations and interview data from one seminary’s certificate program, the “heart-head” connection or disjunction will be explored in reaching pastors of Black churches.

Religious Experience and the Economy of Exchange: Notes toward a

Theory of Material Christianity

Kenneth MacKendrick, University of Manitoba, mackendr@ms.umanitoba.ca

Drawing on recent studies dealing with religion and the marketplace, my paper will explore the social construction of “religious experience” within competitive and consumer oriented markets. Neither celebrating the potential of the market to replicate itself and pro-duce cultural goods nor lamenting its power to hollow out formerly sacred ties, I will provide an explanation as to why competitive market-places and mystical revival go hand in hand.

Religion, Religiosity, or Something Else? Political Trends in the US

Sandy Marquart-Pyatt, Utah State University, sandm@cc.usu.edu

The question of how religion and politics intersect among members of the US general public has received renewed media attention in recent years, especially in the popular press. However, sociological explanations related to the values divide are relative sparse in pointing out broader issues that have been advanced as possible explanations for larger processes potentially at work. This research explores how religious group membership and religiosity are related to a number of political issues and compares them using two large public opinion surveys, the General Social Survey and the American National Election Studies. Trend data are examined for three decades, showing how views of religious groups and the intensity of participation in religious life are linked with larger cultural and political trends, as evidence in evaluations of different groups and the relationship to political ideology, tolerance, and con-ventional and unconventional political activism. Unanticipated results are highlighted in the discussion.

Affinity, Identity, and Transcendence: The Experience of Religious

Racial Assimilation in Diverse Churches

Gerardo Martí, Davidson College, gemarti@davidson.edu

How do diverse races come together? Why should social scientists care? Synthesizing ethnographic data drawn from two extensive case studies, the core of this paper provides a heuristic model for understanding the process by which believers of disparate ethnic and racial heritages assimilate into multiracial churches. Three “moments” will represent key phases of the lived experiences of members as they co-construct common bonds of spiritual kinship. In addition, the paper argues for the strategic importance of the multiracial church as a fascinating site for investigating core human interactions and then provides cautions and suggestions for future work.

From Watch Night to First Night

Richard McCarthy, Kutztown University, and Melissa Warner, University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, mccarthy1117@att.net

The idea of celebrating the New Year seems to be a part of almost all cultural/ethnic and religious traditions. Jews, Chinese, Muslims, and Christians all celebrate the holiday, although at different times and in different ways. However, our paper will concentrate on the Western tradition, tracing New Year’s and, especially, New Year’s Eve from the Roman Empire, through Medieval Christianity, the Reformation, and observances through US his-tory. In the 19^th century, many Protestant denominations introduced “Watch Night,” observing New Year’s Eve with programs of prayer, hymns, and meditation in reaction to raucous New Year’s Eve celebrations. In the past few decades a new, ecumenical celebration, “First Night,” has arisen in many communities in the US. This is an alcohol-free, family-friendly celebration. One of our authors was invited to examine First Night in Evanston, Illinois, and will discuss what he observed.

The History of Oppression of Religion in the Soviet Union and the

People’s Republic of China

Charles Allan McCoy, Purdue University, mccoyc@purdue.edu

While throughout history specific religions have been oppressed by the state, it was not until the 20^th century that we find Communist states opposed to religion in general. To study their oppression of religion this paper performs a comparative analysis of two of the last century’s major communist countries. The main thesis of this paper is that the divergent approaches of oppression used in the Soviet Union and China caused different reactions. Religious groups in the Soviet Union faced a more hard-line approach that actively sought to eliminate religion. As they had no other option for survival, religious groups reacted with greater resistance and protest. In China, where the state adopted a softer approach of control and restriction, we find religious institutions more willing to adapt and conform to the new system, seeing this as their best option for survival.

Feeling Jesus in the Backbeat: Music and Emotion in an Evangelical

Worship Experience

Kevin L. McElmurry, University of Missouri, klm143@mizzou.edu

One perennial problem for maintaining religion’s place in the modern world is the question of how to make the traditions (the old) new and relevant, while conversely relating the new and rapidly changing culture to the traditions of the past. This is more than a question of recruitment and growth, though these are certainly concerns of the modern era. It is also a question of where, how, and in what contexts religious bodies negotiate the distinc-tion between the sacred and the secular on an ever-shifting cultural field. My paper draws on ethnographic data gathered from a large Mid-Western Evangelical Protestant congregation to track the shifting boundary between sacred and secular as it is elaborated in everyday practices. Employing theoretical and methodological tools from cultural sociology and the sociology of music, I explore the relationship between popular culture and religious experi-ence and argue that this relationship is in part mediated through emotion.

Consumer Culture and the Logic of Religious Markets

Andrew McKinnon, University of Toronto, amckinno@chass.utoronto.ca

Rational choice theory is the only major approach to take account of the consumer form of contemporary religiosity in North America. This paper argues, however, that by positing consumer behavior as a set of transhistorical cross-cultural dispositions, RC theorists fail to theorize adequately what is unique about this new situation. As Pierre Bourdieu argues, these economic models and their scholastic reason misrepresent the logic of actors and thus, I suggest, also why religion has become ever more market-like and the tools of rational choice more useful.

The Trajectory of African-American Studies

Omar M McRoberts, University of Chicago, omcrober@uchicago.edu

This paper presents a critical review of developments in the sociological study of African-American religion from the early twentieth century to the present. I explain how major themes of migration, accommodation/resistance, and functional adaptation and differentia-tion have motivated and organized much research in this tradition. I then highlight lines of inquiry into African-American religion that transcend or integrate these major themes in important new ways.

Catholicism as Memory in a Spiritualist Congregation

Dierdre Meintel, Université de Montréal, dmeintel@videotron.ca

The spiritualist congregation in Montréal where the research was carried out is composed mainly of Québécois francophones who were brought up as Catholics. Here I dis-cuss how religion is articulated with social memory for the members of this group. I suggest that in this case the religious rituals of the Église spirituelle de la guérison (pseudonym) do not efface the Catholic past of its members but rather reinforce and, to a certain degree, celebrate it. Here religious memory is not transformed in a lineal way (Hervieu-Léger) but is rather renewed through ritual activities and transformed in shared experiences of communitas (V. Turner).

Socioeconomic Status and the Influence of Religious Participation on

Political Participation

Veronica Momjian, Fordham University, vmomjian@westlondongarcia.com

Recent US political activity suggests that many poor and working-class individuals undermine their social and economic interests by voting in favor of shared cultural values associated with religious beliefs. Building upon Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social capital, this paper examines the use of class-cultural models of social movements, and argues that religi-osity, as a form of cultural and social capital will be a better predictor for political participa-tion among lower classes. Political participation, therefore, is as much a product of culture as it is of economic interests and is determined within the constraints of social class and through cultural beliefs and practices that are class relevant. Individuals seek to enact change within the social arena through various forms of cultural and social capital, religion being one such form. This paper proposes that among individuals with lower socioeconomic status, higher religious participation will be positively related to political participation; for individuals with higher levels of socioeconomic status, higher levels of educational attainment will be positively related to political participation.

Faith under Communism: Insights into Cuban Catholicism Today

Margarita Mooney, Princeton University, margarita@princeton.edu

Since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, religious freedom in Cuba has been severely restricted. Changes in the international context after the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1992 and the visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba in 1998 have reopened many spaces for private worship and public engagement of religion. In this paper, I review how the largest religious institution in Cuba, the Catholic Church, has reconstituted itself during the last ten years. Data for this paper come from secondary research, a review of Catholic publications in Cuba, and observations and interviews from my visits to Cuba. This paper attempts to answer several questions: What challenges does the Church face in reconstituting the clergy and religious? Given the lack of clergy and religious, what types of lay leadership have evolved? What explains the interest in entering the Church among youth reared in revolutionary Cuba.

Jewish Ghost Stories: Support for a Cultural Source Theory for

Extraordinary Human Experience

Christopher M. Moreman, St. Francis Xavier University, cmoreman@gmail.com

Encounters with the dead appear in folklore around the world and throughout history. Depictions of spirits are similar across traditions. Jewish ghost stories, however, differ in a significant way: they regularly involve only invisible spirits, whereas ghosts regularly appear visibly in the folklore of other cultures. Adding to this are surveys of first-person experiences with apparitions. Several studies, in both the East and West, have reported 10-30% of respondents claiming first-hand encounters with spirits of the dead. Further analysis of these reports has found that visual apparitions are by far the most common. Ghost stories are easy to find in the rich folklore that exists throughout the history of Judaism. That within this long history the appearance of ghosts is almost totally limited to auditory apparitions is surprising given the cross-cultural survey data. An explanation must be sought for the divergence between Jewish experience, or the reports thereof, and the cross-cultural studies.

When Immigrant Religious Groups Attract Québécois Converts

Géraldine Mossière, Université de Montréal, geraldine.mossiere@umontreal.ca

Though often conceived in terms of ethnicity, migration has also significantly modified Québec’s social landscape. When arriving, newcomers bring with them new beliefs and practices. Here I describe two religious groups where an interactional space of contact between immigrants and members of the host group is formed and where new identities are developed among all the participants, be they immigrant or native-born Québécois. The paper is based on two field studies: one conducted in a Pentecostal congregation and one in a Sufi group. Both are based in Montréal. There membership includes mainly African immigrants, nevertheless they also attract a minority of Québec-born members. I will examine the reconstruction of identity of these Québécois as new converts and discuss the role of the religious marker in this process. My data lead me to suggest that we should question the widespread assumption that the Quiet Revolution shifted Québécois identity from one based on religion to one based on language.

Christianity in Japan: Toward a Sociology of Success and Failure

Mark R. Mullins, Sophia University, mmullins@sophia.ac.jp

Since the reopening of Japan to the West in the late nineteenth century, scores of denominations and sects have made their way from Europe and North America to Christianize Japan. In spite of significant growth periods over the past century, institutionally affiliated Christians still amount to only approximately one percent of the population. When one considered the number of missionaries and the financial resources invested by both Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, this is hardly a picture of success. In sum, the story of Christianity in Japan is often told as one of “failure” when compared to the remarkable growth of Christianity in South Korea and, more recently, in China. Many observers have suggested that the “Westernness” of Christianity represents a major obstacle to church growth in Japan. Sociological studies to date, however, indicate that indigenization (i.e., de-Westernization) does not guarantee growth in this context. The aim of this paper is to identify other key factors (sociocultural and macropolitical that help to explain the predicament of this transplanted religion.

Women, Gender and Feminism in the Sociology of Religion: Theory,

Research, and Social Action

Nancy Nason-Clark and Barbara Fisher-Townsend, University of New Brunswick,

nasoncla@unb.ca

Religion continues to be a powerful and empowering force in societies around the world. It helps to shape—and indeed is shaped by—the needs, dreams, and ideals of men and women everywhere. Yet, when scholars of religion consider religious beliefs and practices, they often overlook or minimize women’s reality. Moreover, as an analytical frame, gender is seldom at the center of conceptualizing religious experience or examining its impact upon believers. Various feminist epistemologies have sought—with some success—to restructure academic discourse as it related to women’s lives and circumstances. However, within the sociology of religion, our collective consciousness is still in its early stages of development. In this paper, we examine contemporary theory, research, and social action initiatives within the sociology of religion that attempt to take seriously the concepts of women, gender or feminism.

Hochschild’s “Commercialization of Feeling” Thesis: Relevance for

Churches

Mary Jo Neitz, University of Missouri, neitzm@missouri.edu

This paper examines Hochschild’s work on the commercialization of intimate life and explores its relevance for thinking about some of the recent changes in both people’s expecta-tions for congregational life and what congregations are doing. While families and churches have had different relations to the public sphere, both families and congregations are affected by social changes that have objectified and commodified intimacy and commitment.

Religious Competition: A Qualitative Study

Paul J. Olson, Briar Cliff University, paul.olson@briarcliff.edu

The topic of religious competition has continued to appear in the sociological literature since the publication of Peter Berger’s The Sacred Canopy nearly forty years ago. Indeed, the issue is central to the debate between secularization theorists and “new paradigm” scholars. Unfortunately, the concept is very difficult to operationalize, and theoretical work on the con-cept has been lacking despite its importance. In this paper, I shed light on the nature of reli-gious competition through interviews with Catholic priests and Protestant ministers. I explore the ways in which clergy members conceptualize religious competition and the religious marketplace, the methods they use to compete, and the unwritten rules of competition in a Midwestern religious market.

Canada’s Contemporary Religious Landscape: Reflections on the

Religious Data in the 2001 National Census

Roger O’Toole, University of Toronto, otoole@utsc.utoronto.ca

From the beginning of Canada’s existence as an independent nation, the decennial census has included compulsory questions on religious affiliation—a circumstance that per-mits sociologists to view current patterns of religiosity within a historical context of thirteen decades of religious continuity and change. Inspection of recently published census data raises several interesting issues including: the contrast between Canadian and US religious organizational frameworks, the continuing increase in the proportion of those professing no religion, the persistence of nominal Christianity among the vast majority, and the significance of a recent rapid growth in adherence to Asian, African, and Middle Eastern religious tradi-tions. Contemplation (of these} and other topics inspires broad theoretical questions concerning the relevance of secularization, public religion, spirituality, identity, ethnicity, and immigration, as well as drawing attention to the role of religious competition, encasement, hegemony, diversity, fragmentation, and privatization in the mosaic of contemporary Canadian life.

Inner-Worldly Mysticism and the Success of Social Integration: The Sikh

Panth in the Immigrant Waves of Italy

Enzo Pace, University of Padova, vincenzo.pace@unipd.it

This paper reports the results of empirical research on the recent wave of Sikh immi-grants to Italy. They arrived ten years ago, meeting the needs of cattle breeders in the Po Valley, where the production of Parmesan cheese has traditionally been concentrated. The economic relevance of this sector along with the structure of the labor contract (bergamino contract), which provides lodging (close, of course, to the cattleshed) in addition to a good salary, soon brought Sikh people with their families. The process of social integration, including the recognition of their religious difference, has been successful. Discussing the Weberian notion of inner-worldly mysticism along with the concept of the teofratria (religious brotherhood), I argue that the religious assumption that work is worship is a strategic resource for the social mobilization of the Sikh that facilitates the outcome of their social integration.

Remaking Selves: Buddhist Meditation in the Context of Late Modernity

Michal Pagis, University of Chicago, mpagis@uchicago.edu

The Buddhist doctrine of non-self is often contrasted with the modern western cele-bration of the self. This is why the recent popularity of an ancient Theravada technique of meditation (Vipassana) among laymen in South East Asia, together with the spread of Vipas-sana to western locations, is surprising. Based on ethnography among practitioners of Vipas-sana in Israel and the US, this paper exemplifies how an “other worldly” meditation technique that aims to dismantle the Experience of a separate sense of self is now used to achieve a model of selfhood originally posed by modernity. In a paradoxical turn, the personality ideal of the Buddhist recluse monk who is independent from social relations fits well with the autonomous independent individual that modern culture promotes. Thus, the practice of meditation, as part of non-self theory and practice, is used to deconstruct unwanted “social” elements of the self and offers a way out of the dependency of the self on others.

France’s Sectes in Social Context: A History of Public Management of

Minority Religions—from the Guyard Report to Chirac’s “Principle

du Laïcité”

Susan J. Palmer, Dawson College, spalmer@dawsoncollege.qc.ca

This paper looks at the social context of France’s new religious movements from 1995 to the present—a period remarkable for its active mobilization against the perceived dangers of les sects. It includes an analysis of France’s public “management” regarding religious minorities and the impact of these measures upon the NRMs themselves. My hypothesis is that NRMs have received a greater measure of tolerance and accommodation since 2002 when the new government under President Chirac came into power and the “Muslim problem” took precedence in the media. I will test this hypothesis by following the trajectory of several groups focusing on their history of persecution/conflict across this period. The primary method involves field research, participant observation, interviews, and a questionnaire. I also review documents from the NRMs, media reports, court documents, dossiers of the secret service, anti-cult propaganda, and government reports.

Religious Public Policy toward New Religious Movements: The French

Case in European Perspective

Sabrina Pastorelli, École Pratiques des Hautes Études,

sabrina.pastorelli@ephe.sorbonne.fr

My paper will focus on French public policy toward “cults.” First, we will take into account what is intended as “cult” and the insertion of this phenomenon as a problem in the political agenda. Then, to analyze the development of the political program, we will concentrate on the processes of enunciation and legitimation of the problem and its insertion into the public and media debate. Furthermore, we will focus on the realization of the public policy—assessments and adjustments—and on the approval of the law against “cults.” We will finally try to put the French situation into perspective with another European country, Italy, while taking account of the actions and attitude of such international institutions as the Council of Europe and the European Parliament.

Pride in the Nation: The Role of Religion

Lauren E. Pinkus, Ohio State University, pinkus.4@sociology.osu.edu

What are the sources of individuals’ feelings of national pride? Past research focuses on different aspects of what constitutes pride, but limited studies examine the indicators that might predict it. My research examines both structural aspects of the nation and individuals’ characteristics that inform pride, with an emphasis on religion and sport. A total of 59,280 individuals in 48 nations are examined using data from the 2000 World Values Survey. I find that individuals that are more religious, involved in sport, older, and have less education are more likely to have national pride, a finding that is bolstered by residing in a nation that has individual rights and civil liberties and lower levels of national development. These findings confirm some prior research in the area of national pride, but more important, they bring to the forefront the need to investigate both religion and sport as sources of national pride.

American and Catholic: The Composition of the US Bishops’ Economic

Pastoral

Anthony J. Pogorelc, Catholic University of America, apogorelc@theologicalcollege.org

2006 marks the twentieth anniversary of the US Bishops’ Pastoral Letter Economic Justice for All. This document represents the most successful attempt of the bishops to employ a consultative process in the exercise of teaching authority. In contrast to other bishops’ statements, its application of deductive reasoning led it to employ an inductive method in its composition. The documents of Vatican II are the theoretical foundation of this pastoral letter. They promote inculturation, which calls local churches to integrate cultural mores into their polity. This paper will examine from historical and sociological perspectives the ecclesiological, theological and cultural literature that shaped the Economic Pastoral’s composition, the process itself, and its consequences.

Getting to the Table: Establishing a Context for African-American

Catholics and Setting the Stage for Additional Research

Tia Noelle Pratt, Fordham University, tnpratt@prodigy.net

African Americans’ sometimes painful and always edifying history as members of the Roman Catholic Church remains woefully under-discussed by both Church leaders and scholars from various disciplines. In recent years, the American hierarchy has made concerted efforts to address the Church’s history of racism and discrimination toward African Americans. Specific efforts at inculturation aside, the repercussions of actions taken (or not taken) in past centuries by the American Church are still being felt today. Scholars of both the African-American religious experience and American Catholicism have yet to engage this rich area of sociological inquiry in great detail. As part of a larger project on identity construction among African-American Catholics, this paper is a brief overview of American Catholicism and the African-American religious experience in order to establish a contextual foundation for research on the African-American Catholic experience.

A Sociological Analysis of Latino Religions: The Formation of the

Theoretical Binary and Beyond

Alberto Lopez Pulido, University of San Diego, apulido@sandiego.edu

This presentation provides a review of early sociological research focusing on Latino Religions. Primarily a review of doctoral dissertation research, it posits that the very early scholarship focused predominantly on Mexican Americans and Chicanos and emphasized a binary between institutional versus popular religious expression. First identified in the groundbreaking research of Patrick H. McNamara, this paradigm served to influence and frame the discourse of the sociology of Latino religions for the next twenty years. It would not be until the early 1990s that—through scholarship produced in ethnic studies, religious studies, and history—this paradigm would be augmented and expanded. A thorough and retrospective presentation of these scholarly contributions is analyzed and assessed in this presentation.

The Hinduization of the Hare Krishna Movement

E. Burke Rochford, Middlebury College, rochford@middlebury.edu

Once a radical and controversial new religion, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), more popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement, has evolved into a new denomination in order to survive. During the mid-1980s, in the midst of decline and grave financial problems, ISKCON’s leadership embarked on a campaign to build congregations of Indian-Hindu immigrants in support of its temple communities. Today a considerable majority of ISKCON’s North American membership is of Indian descent. Given the dissimilar religious and organizational orientations of Western and Indian-Hindu members, two distinct and mutually estranged congregations have emerged. I trace the involvement of Indian-Hindus over the course of ISKCON’s American history and demon-strate how their involvement is changing the movement’s religious culture (e.g., worship, preaching). Organizational maintenance in the form of a Hindu revival is transforming a new religion that once symbolized the radicalism of the 1960s.

The Worldwide Church of God in Québec: A Case Study of a New

Religious Movement in a “Distinct” Society

Claude Rochon, Université de Montréal, claude.rochon@umontreal.ca

When it comes to new religious movements, is Québec a distinct society? Since its founding in 1933, the Worldwide Church of God (Église Universelle de Dieu) has emphasized doctrinal orthodoxy. However, from 1986 to 1995 significant doctrinal changes were imple-mented that brought the church closer to traditional evangelical beliefs, even within the evangelical fold. Moreover, doctrinal orthodoxy was no longer considered a test of member-ship. Thus, differences that may have emerged in Québec during and after the changes (and even some that may have existed before) may provide clues as to the extent to which an NRM ethos is assimilated (and how membership is lived out) in Québec’s distinct society. Through a mix of data collection techniques—review of the (scant) literature, survey of official and officious websites in and outside of Québec, and informant and participant observation—a case study is built and suggestions for further research are offered.

Gender, Patriarchy, and Religion in Japan: Testing a Socialization Model

of Gender Differences in a Non-US Context

Michael Roemer and Matt Bradshaw, University of Texas, mroemer@mail.utexas.edu

Women are almost “universally” found to be more religious than men. Religion scholars typically argue that socialization is responsible—but is this true? Miller and Stark examined this assumption and found virtually no empirical support, leaving them to a controversial conclusion: biology, not socialization, may predispose women toward higher levels of religiousness. In opposition, sociologists have recently developed a model of patriarchal socialization. The original test of the model provided support by showing that gender differences in church attendance, prayer, strength of affiliation, belief in God, and self-reported religiosity were indeed smaller in egalitarian (versus patriarchal) contexts. In a follow-up study, however, patriarchal socialization was found to explain gender differences in church attendance and religious identification, but not subjective religiousness, spirituality, the use of religion in daily life, and religious coping. Here we test and provide partial support for the utility of the theory in a non-US context: Japan.

Maintaining Religious Identity: Chaldeans in Australia

Richard Rymarz, Australian Catholic University, r.rymarz@patrick.acu.edu.au

Chaldeans are Christians who have had a long historical association with the region that encompasses modern Iraq—now an overwhelmingly Islamic area. Since the sixteenth century they have been in full communion with the Catholic Church but maintain their own liturgy and governance. Over the past ten years substantial numbers of Chaldean Catholics have settled in Australia and are now beginning to display an institutional presence. This paper will explore some of the ways that Chaldeans seek to assert their religious and cultural identity which is challenged both by living in a culture which, while not overly threatening, is ver different from their country of origin, and by the dominance of Latin Catholic Church in Australia. A particular emphasis will be on how adolescents and young adult Chaldeans manage the transition to life in Australia.

Who Goes to World Youth Day?

Richard Rymarz, Australian Catholic University, r.rymarz@patrick.acu.edu.au

A key feature of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II was the staging of World Youth Days (WYD). Beginning in 1985, these events—held internationally every two or three years—are among the largest international gatherings of young people. The 1995 gathering in Manila, for example, recorded an attendance of well over four million. Simply for its attracting so many participants, WYD has become a significant social phenomenon. Participants are mainly Catholics, although the invitation to take part is extended to all. There has been little empirical work, however, on who attends WYD. This paper will report on research conducted on some Australian pilgrims who attended 2005 WYD in Cologne. This is the first stage in a longitudinal study that seeks to investigate the impact of WYD on pilgrims. Data on pilgrims both under and over eighteen years of age will be presented.

Faith-Based Conferences as State-Sponsored Religion

Rebecca Sager, University of Arizona, rsager@email.arizona.edu

Recent research on the influence of religion has focused mainly on how it affects institutional structures such as law or politics. However, little attention has been paid to how the state itself can create and promote religion through cultural means. I find that through their sponsorship of conferences aimed at faith-based social service providers, state organizations and actors actively create and promote religion in these cultural contexts. In this paper I explore this topic through field research conducted at four such conferences. I find that while the stated intention of these events is to bring information and awareness to faith-based leaders, what actually happens is the generation of religion through two main mechanisms: (1) Religious exhortations by the leaders of the conference used to engage the audience and inspire religious responses. (2) Encouragement of religious expression in the small groups at the conferences. Through these mechanisms state organizations/actors become not just passive observers, but active initiators of religion.

Flexible Boundaries: Religious Identity in the Twelve Tribes

Nicole Saunders, Concordia University, nic.saunders@gmail.com

This paper is intended to contribute to a growing body of literature on agency in the development of religious identity within the boundaries of a religious group, the Twelve Tribes religious community near Winnipeg. Every religious movement is composed of individuals, each of whom has his or her own life story and history which contribute to the way each negotiates and embodies the theology of the group. This boundary negotiation is the interac-tive process by which the individual makes the boundaries of the group flexible through dif-ferent interpretations, living out a religious identity in a unique manner, while at the same time sharing the commonalities of membership within the Twelve Tribes. How does one, throughout the period of a lifetime, craft a religious identity? By asking this question, we can attempt to paint a picture of what religious adherence looks like in Canada, a shifting land-scape of religiosity.

Social Stratification and the Effects of Religious Involvement on

Changes in the Sense of Divine Control in Late Life

Scott Schieman, University of Toronto, and Alex Bierman, University of Maryland, abierman@socy.umd.edu

Using data from adults age 65 and older, we examine the effects of religious involve-ment on change in the sense of divine control and the role of two core dimensions of stratification—race and socioeconomic status (SES)—as contingencies. Race and SES modify the effects of religious involvement on change in the sense of divine control in three ways: (1) irrespective of levels of religious involvement, low-SES African Americans report no changes in the sense of divine control; (2) low levels of religious involvement are associated with the largest decreases in the sense of divine control among high-SES white elders, low-SES whites, and high SES African Americans, respectively; (3) high levels of religious involvement are associated with the largest increases in divine control among high-SES whites and African Americans only. We discuss the methodological and substantive implications of our findings for linkages among religious involvement and beliefs across dimensions of stratification.

Laïcité in France: A French Feminist Perspective

Jennifer Selby, McMaster University, selbyja@univmail.cis.mcmaster.ca

This paper considers contemporary French debates on secularism and its relationship to the status of women and their societal roles within religious worldviews. Many theorists maintain that the ideology of laïcité, the separation of religion from state institutions creates an impenetrable social and religious landscape for practicing Muslims in France, who account for 8-20% of the population. Arguably, this laïc ethos is directly challenged by the religious visibility of Muslim women: popular perceptions of the headscarf are often linked to patriarchal oppression and human rights violations. Drawing from anthropological fieldwork in a suburb of Paris (from Sept 2004 to Dec 2005), this paper examines how a French feminist organization focuses its efforts on politically supporting the notion of laïcité to protect women’s rights. I consider the implications of this correlation to examine the current social and legal debates in France on religious symbols in public spaces.

Chaplaincy in the Canadian Forces: New Challenges for an Old

Institution

David Seljak, St. Jerome’s University, dseljak@uwaterloo.ca

At present, the organization of the Chaplaincy in the Canadian Forces reflects the quasi-established status of the mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. For example, except for one Muslim, all CF chaplains are Christians; set they serve personnel who are of many faiths and none. Today chaplains find themselves challenged by many social developments, such as the breakdown of institutional religion and concomitant rise of interest in spirituality, the new religious diversity among CF personnel, and the increasing bureaucra-tization of the CF chaplaincy. These challenges come at a time when the CF hope to expand the role of chaplains to aid soldiers in dealing with ethical problems family and personal issues as well as increased trauma (including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Interviews with chaplains are used to illustrate the nature of the changes that this institution is facing in new times.

Who Does She Think She Is? Analyzing Self-Perceptions of a Charismatic

Leader: Mary Baker Eddy through Archival Research

Susan M. Setta, Northeastern University, s.setta@neu.edu

Both scholars looking at the diverse Christological leanings of the earliest Christian communities and those exploring charismatic authority in more contemporary new religious movements assume that charismatic leaders have a clear view of their own role in the revela-tions they proffer. But despite the wide-ranging studies on charisma, attempts to understand the individual’s self-perception from the perspective of the sociology of religion have been rare. In this study I draw on archival materials to access the self-perceptions of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science. To do this I will use archival sources from the Mary Baker Eddy Library recently made available to non-Christian Scientists and draw on the methodologies of Biblical scholarship, sociology of religion, and intellectual history. To explore the different perceptions of what I call charismology, I appropriate from Biblical scholarship the herme-neutic that explores the various christologies that emerge in early Christian narratives.

Religious Conversions in South Asia: Agency and Social Bonds, Action

and Structures

Sarah Shafiq, University of Notre Dame, sshafiq@nd.edu

This paper looks at how structrual or macro aspects affect individual choices and preferences. I employ macrosocial concepts by Scheff, Wiley, and Mead to show that although strong solidarity brings high status and power, it limits the element of agency, due to the creation of strong boundaries around the self upon encountering an unfamiliar ideology. I propose that we have agency, but it depends on the strength of the social bonds; and action depends on the resources of structures available. I begin this analysis by explicating the concepts of bonds, solidarity, and power/status. Then I look at theories dealing with encounter with the “other.” Finally, I present my theory with the help of the case of Indian civilization, by analyzing the state of bonds in a traditional society and how bonds influence social solidarity and the concept of power/status, when encountered with the “other” in relation to agency.

Globalization and the Ordering of the World: Theory and Research in

North America

John H. Simpson, University of Toronto, hermanjs@sympatico.ca

Whereas the popular meaning of globalization refers to the spread of capitalism and markets throughout the world following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the use of the term “globalization” in social theory predates the end of the Cold War and refers to a much broader set of phenomena than is typically described in contemporary mass media. Arguably, Roland Robertson in 1985 was the first to use the term in a comprehensive sense. He and others developed a variety of approaches to the globalization question (neo-Marxian, Weberian, interactionist, functionalist), each relevant in some way to religion/culture. A review of several perspectives is followed by a consideration of the problem of unity and diversity in defining and theorizing globalization—and how the “solution” to that problem contributes to a sociolo-gical understanding of the contemporary world.

Structure and Agency in Religious Empowerment: A Pragmatic

Alternative

David Smilde, University of Georgia, dsmilde@uga.edu

The idea that religious participation facilitates the autonomy and agency of adherents has become a centerpiece of sociological research on religion. Nevertheless, recent critiques of rationalist biases within the sociology of religion and the sociology of culture have brought the larger conceptual issues of structure and agency into discussion. In this paper I will suggest that pragmatist scholarship within social theory, cognitive linguistics, and the philosophy of science can facilitate formation of a nonreductionist concept of religious empowerment. Empirical examples will be provided from my work on Pentecostal men in Caracas, Venezuela.

Borderlands and Boundaries: Globalization, Culture and Translation in

the Sathya Sai Movement

Tulasi Srinivas, Wheaton College (Massachusetts), tsrinivas@comcast.net

This paper examines the nature of the “new paradigm” in the sociology of religion with specific reference to the globalization of nonwestern religions. The study is an ethnography of the successful globalization of the Hindu derived, religious Sathya Sai movement. The paper uses anthropology of culture literature to introduce the complexity of culture to create a dynamic model of the new paradigm where the translation between cultures is problematized. The paper demonstrates how cultural translation is central to the growth of global religious movements and unpacks the four subprocesses of cultural translation: awareness, dis-embedding, transformation, and re-embedding.

The Domestication of Fundamentalist Masculinity: The Case of the

Haredi Yeshiva World in Israel

Nurit Stadler, Hebrew University, msstad@mscc.huji.ac.il

As in other fundamentalist groups, a central feature of the Haredi (ultraorthodox) community in Israel is extreme gender separation. This separation is reflected in social rela-tions between men and women, the role of each in the family, emotional relationships with children, and ideas about the body and pollution. In Haredi writings, women’s taking chare of their children and husbands ensures their share in the rewards of the world to come, while men dedicate their lives to yeshiva studies. However, an analysis of popular books, films, and audio cassettes that are currently produced by younger Haredim reveals that, although the rabbis instructed men to withdraw from family obligations by leaving domestic tasks to female contral, the new media instruct young yeshiva scholars to integrate their studies with their family tasks and functions. In these materials yeshiva students are asked to provide aid and emotional support to their wives and children. These books and cassettes offer the yeshiva scholar a repertoire of popular psychological texts about human nature and medical knowledge about the “female instincts.” Many instruction books devote chapters to the psychological profile of women, asking men to be more open to their wives’ needs and sensi-tive to their ambitions and desires. This process of domestication involves the redefinition of both fatherhood and motherhood, and the encouragement of a more emotionally involved relationship with children, the family, and the community.

Along the Cutting Edge of Scholarship: On Borrowing or Stealing Each

Other’s Tools

Peter Staples, University of Utrecht, shstaples@hotmail.com

When we examine the modus operandi of scholars as they describe and explain what happens along the cutting edge of history, some of the differences between historians and sociologists depend upon their toolboxes. What happens when scholars start to share or steal each other’s tools? This problematic is illustrated by four examples: (a) the concept of “folk-ways” operationalized by an American historian dealing with the colonial period; the “blue-print” that Bartlett operationalized in his account of the Making of Europe in the medieval period; (c) a reexamination of their tools in light of Zijderveld’s account of social institutions (Rotterdam technology); and (d) the use of different sets of highly specialized toolkits succes-sively to generate a description and explanation of the ecumenical movement (from social movements to elite negotiations via unofficial and official networking and organization).

The Cutting Edge of History and the Cutting Edge of Scholarship

Peter Staples, University of Utrecht, shstaples@hotmail.com

The conference theme (“the inevitable historical dimension”) is reinterpreted in terms of “the cutting edge of history.” Doing so raises such questions as: What do we mean when we talk about the cutting edge of history? (a philosophical question) and How do scholars describe and explain what happens along the cutting edge of history? (a reflection on praxis along the cutting edge of scholarship). The search for answers is framed by what I call “the quest for the emerging church”—a new research question that has already surfaced along the cutting edge of scholarship in Europe. The intersections between history (actual historical process) and the sociology of religion and between historians and sociologists can be exam-ined from this perspective. This examination not only helps us to understand the differences between the “tools” used by historians and sociologists, but also reinforces the call for greater levels of interdisciplinarity.

When I Survey the Cutting Edge of History: The Rising and Falling of

the Gospel of Political Correctness in the Netherlands

Peter Staples, University of Utrecht, shstaples@hotmail.com

When we identify those who deal with what is happening nowadays along the cutting edge of history, we find sociologists plus a few historians who also deal with ongoing devel-opments. This segment of the knowledge-generating industry is now dominated by journal-ists, while the “prophetic” mantle has fallen upon “columnists.” An examination of how current events are presented by “the media people” in the Netherlands suggests that the phe-nomenon of “political correctness” has mutated into a modality of “civil religion,” what has already embedded itself in all but the most conservative congregations and most political par-ties. However, it is currently under threat following rapid swings in public opinion in the aftermath of traumatic historical events such as Srebrenica, the assassinations of Fortuyn and van Goch, and the Cartoon Crisis.

The Catholic Worker and Resistance to the State: On the Relevance of

Anarchy

Paul Stock, Colorado State University, pstock@lamar.colostate.edu

Historically, the Catholic Worker movement, founded in the midst of the Great Depression, has remained antagonistic (although not always internally unified) to all things related to the State. The Catholic Worker can be best described as Christian anarchists with no centralized organizational structure or hierarchy. The purpose of this paper is to demon-strate the utility of studying anarchism today, despite its marginalized connotations, as well as presenting the Catholic Worker as a viable subject of study in sociology. By compar-ing/contrasting the Catholic Worker in light of social movements and new social movements theory, I explore how the decentralized organizational structure of the Catholic Worker pre-sents an example of contemporary anarchism based predominately in opposition to the State, while providing necessary services to the poor, homeless, and forgotten. The Catholic Worker also presents an alternative organizational model for social causes that typically evolve into movements.

Going and Coming: The Belated Development of the Chapel of Our Lady

of the Miraculous Medal as a Pilgrimage Site

William H. Swatos, Jr., ASR/RRA Executive Office, and Sophie-Hélène Trigeaud, École

des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, bill4329@hotmail.com

This paper provides a preliminary report of an on-going study at the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Paris. The chapel is unique as a contemporary Marian site in that pilgrimage to it is not connected to a contemporary vision, but rather to the 1830 vision of a sister of the Daughters of Charity, (St.) Catherine Labouré, which in its own time was connected to the widespread distribution of an devotional amulet (the Miraculous Medal), to whose use many miracles were attributed, rather than any “coming to” a site, coupled with the long life of Catherine and her insistence on personal secrecy. As a result, the chapel, which remains a working convent, though now much more aware of the tourist presence, did not become a significant site of pilgrimage until after World War II. Our work combines a program of quantitative data collection, observation, and interview techniques in an attempt to discern the several dynamics that lead to contemporary visitation to the shrine, both for touristic and religious purposes.

Renewal Prophets and Movements of Renewal

Don Swenson, Mount Royal College, dswenson@mtroyal.ca

In most literature on religious leaders and types of organizations, there has been little to link the various types of sacred leaders with the multivaried forms of religious organiza-tions. The intent of this paper is to take one type of religious leader, the renewal prophet, and to create with it a nexus to a little-discussed form of religious organization, the movement of renewal. The heart of this paper will be to present a case for the linkage between renewal prophets and movements of renewal. I then provide evidence for it using both historical and current data. The historical base will be built on the early monastic movement of the Benedictines of the first millennium and the many other kinds of orders during the second millennium. These empirical cases will be taken from the Catholic Charismatic Movement, drawing upon the work of Swenson, McGuire, and Poloma. The more recent rise of evangelical movements within denominational Christianity from the work of McKinney and Finke provides a newer example.

Cultural Coexistence as Seen in the Islamic Architecture of China’s

Central Plain

Xiaorong Tang and Changwen Chen, Sichuan University, tshelizi@yahoo.com.cn

In Langzhong City, one of the four most well-known ancient cities of China’s Central Plain, three typical styles of religious architecture exist close to the local Muslim community: the Christian church, the Buddhist temple, and the mosque. As a representative holy place for faith, religious architecture is remarkably cohesive, which has a significant social and psychological impact on its followers. Being he material carrier of a faith and the aesthetic symbol of culture, it absorbs and is affected by multiple cultural factors from its surround-ings out of a need to suit its local environment. Here these include Confucianism, basic features traditional to Chinese architectural design, and local considerations. In Islamic architecture in Langzhong, Islamic culture and Chinese culture influence, infiltrate, and coexist with each other. As visual proof of the existence of religion and material symbols of the development of human cultural history, styles of religious architecture reveal features of a religion’s cross-cultural propagation. We particularly refer to two famous Islamic sites in Langzhong, the Baba Temple, which is called “the Mecca of China” and the Chengguan Mosque, in an attempt to demonstrate that this cultural coexistence demonstrates a general social and psychological adaptation that made Islam accessible to local Muslims. In this respect we see the mosques of Langzhong as a micro study whose results contrast with Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” thesis that cultures cannot be changed.

Images of Religion in the Policy Process: The Case of Religious

Arbitration in Canada (Ontario)

Ronan Teyssier, École des HautesÉtudes en Sciences Sociales, ronan.l.teyssier@ulaval.ca

Agenda-setting and public policy evaluation theories can be of relevance in investigat-ing religions’ treatment in the public sphere. After reviewing recent contributions, I will focus on the issue of “sharia courts” (religious arbitration in family matters) in Ontario. The agenda-setting approach will enable us to increase our understanding of how and why religious arbitration became a “problem” requiring a governmental “solution.” The policy evaluation perspective will then be used to analyze the official report presented on the question of religious arbitration by the study group led by Marion Boyd. Finally, I will argue that even though deeper theoretical foundations and empirical illustrations have still to be designed, policy analysis is a powerful tool for understanding how religions are conceived, portrayed, and perceived in the public sphere.

Contemporary Manifestations of Religion? The Example of the “Carriers

of Diversity” within the German Police Forces

Barbara Thériault, Université de Montréal, barbara.theriault@umontreal.ca

In the early 1990s permission was granted for foreigners living in Germany to join police departments. German citizenship was no longer considered a prerequisite for becoming a police officer. Second-generation Turks and, increasingly, “Muslims” were being sought. Against the backdrop of recruitment initiatives, I pay attention to the officers responsible for recruits of “non German background.” Their situation is difficult: the recruitment initiatives do not rest on strong institutional foundations. Indeed, there are no multicultural policies underlying them, merely a dispensation to the civil service law. Looking at the work of those I refer to as the “carriers of diversity” within the German policy. I cast a wary eye on the “techniques” they use to deal with the “other.” I argue that there is a convergence between a lack of strong institutional foundations and a Christian model for dealing with the other that is characteristic of the German situation.

The Social Ecology of Congregations Project: Congregational Studies from the Middle-Level

Wayne Luther Thompson, Carthage College, Jeffrey Kroll, University of Arizona, and

Steven Frenk, Duke University, wthompson@carthage.edu

This study examines how congregations operate and relate to their social environ-ments in three regional religious economies: southeastern Wisconsin, Raleigh-Durham, and Tucson. We employ a middle-level methodology between case studies and national samples by combining field work in individual congregations with surveys of congregational lay and professional leaders to examine a comprehensive set of issues that affect local faith communi-ties. How are mission, worship, and other activities related to and affected by the broader social context beyond the congregation? Our research relies upon regional judicatory officials as research stakeholders and informants for generating research questions about congrega-tions. Judicatories operate at the middle-level between denominations and local congrega-tions. Mid-level judicatories also provide crucial entry ports for gaining access to and coopera-tion from individual congregations. The initial wave of data collection comes from three urbanized counties in southeastern Wisconsin. All identifiable congregations were invited to participate in the research.

No Laughing Matter: The One/Twelve Cartoons that Shook the World

(Applying Durkheim to “The Clash of Civilizations”)

Edward A. Tiryakian, Duke University, durkhm@soc.duke.edu

On September 30, 2005, a daily Danish newspaper published a set of cartoons to illustrate the prophet Muhammad for a children’s book. The cartoons set off a wave of protests in the Danish Muslim community, but only in January and February 2006 did it set off a global wave of violence, burning, and even killings in the Islamic world. Given the function of cartoons in the West, why did it produce such violent reactions in the Islamic world? This paper examines the reactions in the West to the cartoons and the violence they provoked. It then utilizes the Durkheimian sacred-profane dichotomy to analyze polar trans-gressions of the sacred for both “West” and “East.” Finally, I go to another depth level of the situation to account for variations within the Islamic world in reacting to the cartoon. The central focus of this paper is that the contemporary furor and chain reaction surrounding the publication and dissemination of the Danish cartoons fed on structural conditions of acute antipathy between the Muslim world and the Western world, exacerbated by the “war on ter-rorism.” This antipathy reflects conditions in both the Middle East and in Western countries with a growing Muslim minority population.

Conversion to Mormonism in France among Young Adults Today

Sophie-Hélène Trigeaud, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales,

shtrigeaud@hotmail.com

Although the Mormon Church is historically American, it has had dramatic growth in Western Europe since the second half of the twentieth century. Approximately 33,000 members of this Church live in France. Whereas in Utah Mormon education of the children of the community is the principal means of gaining/retaining members, in France proselytism is the most important way to increase numbers. Therefore, the study of conversion to Mormon-ism in France, rather than a historical perspective, seems to be the most productive method for studying the contemporary situation of an American NRM in Western Europe. This analy-sis is based on five years of ethnological research I have conducted in the francophone zone (France, Belgium, Switzerland), mainly among young adult Mormon members. I then compare this to a survey I conducted in Utah among students at Brigham Young University.

Regulation of Religious Pluralism in Québec

Jean-Guy Vaillancourt and Elisabeth Campos, Université de Montréal,

jean.guy.vaillancourt@umontreal.ca

Religious pluralism has become a distinctive trait of religion in contemporary Western countries. The emergence and proliferation of ethnic groups has contributed to the dismem-bering of the traditional religious landscape. Governmental authorities in Western countries are thus faced by plural demands emanating from groups with religious traditions that differ from the Judeo-Christian roots of these nations. Questions arise from this pluralism and have an influence on the regulation of the religious sphere by public authorities. These interrogations gravitate mostly around the more or less liberal conception of religious freedom that is accepted and around the reactions toward groups with radical convictions that contain doctrinal aspects that are in opposition to the basic rights and values commonly shared and accepted in these societies. We shall limit our comments to the current situation that prevails in Québec and illustrate our ideas with recent examples.

ISKCON at 40: Indian Immigrants, Krishna Consciousness, and the

Future of a New Religious Movement in North America

Travis Vande Berg, Ithaca College, tvandeberg@ithaca.edu

July 2006 will mark the 40^th anniversary of the founding of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in New York City by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad. Over these forty years, ISKCON has experienced a broad array of changes in its external relation-ships with the larger society and within its internal membership and organization. One of the major changes has been a membership shift from Western countercultural seekers to Indian Hindu immigrants. In this paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Chicago and Toronto ISKCON temples, I will discuss the relationship between two subgroups of these Indians, both of which self-identify as Krishna Conscious but have different understandings of exactly what Krishna Consciousness means. These two constructions of Krishna Consciousness have resulted in different types of membership for each subgroup and, more important, in the development of two conflicting visions for ISKCON’s future in North America.

Liturgy and Imaginary Communities

Barbara R. Walters, CUNY-Kingsborough, bwalters@kbcc.cuny.edu

The study of medieval music and the musical experience of the thirteenth century provide a bountiful resource for the examination of the religious and cultural memoriae that bind and separate religious groupings. Moreover, liturgical music, examined within the system of meaning in which it was composed and delivered, shows the role of medieval liturgy as a site of ideological struggle between textual and quasi-literate communities. As such, liturgical analysis provides important clues on communication and group dynamics in mono-lithic cultures. The focus of this paper is specifically on the idea of “borrowing” through analysis of various types of intertextual relationships and their plausible meaning in the context of the historical period. The analysis discloses an inclusive subtext for otherwise marginalized religious women and martyrs.

First Steps in the Study of Nondenominational and Independent

Churches: How to Find the Churches

Jacqueline Wenger, Catholic University of America, jackie_w@comcast.net

Two recent studies, the National Congregations Study and the American Religious Identification Survey, have recognized nondenominational churches as a significant phenom-enon in contemporary American Christianity. I am currently studying a group of thirty middle-class nondenominational congregations in the suburbs of Washington, DC to learn what is unique about them and why they are independent. The first challenge in this study has been how to find nondenominational churches. These churches often meet at schools or community centers, so not “steepled” buildings announce their presence. No convenient lists are available for an organizational body, and Yellow Pages listings are woefully inadequate. This paper will describe some helpful ways to find nondenominational churches and some pitfalls to avoid. Use of the Internet, including Web search sites and phone look-ups, availa-bility of state and federal records, school rental lists, methods for making contacts, Saturday sandwich boards, and the “drive-around” method are discussed.

Thomas F. O’Dea on Mormon Intellectual Life: An Assessment Fifty

Years Later

O. Kendall White, Jr., Washington and Lee University, whitek@wlu.edu

The 1957 publication of The Mormons not only marked a significant point in the social scientific study of Mormonism, but this work became a classic to which many scholars still turn. O’Dea was not at the time optimistic about the prospects of viable intellectual life among Mormons. He argued that the tradition (1) lacked sufficient philosophical sophistica-tion to provide for the development of meaningful theology and (2) that Mormon social structure forces intellectuals to become apologists or apostates. This paper challenges both claims and appeals to experience over the past fifty years to document theological develop-ment and posits a continuum between apostates and apologists rather than the dichotomy suggested by O’Dea.

Utilizing a Practice Approach to the Study of Religious Identities:

A Case Study in Muslim Conversion

Daniel A. Winchester, University of Missouri, daw0f7@mizzou.edu

What is it to be a religious person in contemporary social life? Is it about holding beliefs or values? Adopting a particular worldview? Maintaining certain group affiliations? Confronting questions of religious identity means entering complex conceptual terrain, but perhaps one of the most promising approaches within the sociology of religion in recent years turns our analytic attention to practice, to the diverse ways individuals go about “doing” their religious identities in the variegated contexts of everyday life. This paper engages with some of the available literature on practice and then applies such an approach to an empirical study of Muslim converts in mid-Missouri. I focus my attention on the religious practices these individuals incorporate into their daily lives, demonstrating how these practices work to constitute a new religious identity. I argue that, for these individuals, converting to Islam is not simply about accepting a set of propositions or ideas about the supernatural order, willy-nilly, but about acquiring—in and through practice—the practical competence and embodied subjectivity necessary to create this order in their everyday lives. It is through this process of practicing the faith that a Muslim religious identity is formed.

Socially Constructing the Experience of Individuation and Group

Membership: A Challenge to the Premise of Rational Choice Theory

Bonnie Wright, Ferris State University, bonnie-wright@sbcglobal.net

Rational choice theory presumes the existence of an abstract culturally universal indi-vidual who maximizes self-interest. I argue that the existence of “the individual” in society makes a better research question than a presumption. Comparing mainstream American secular, Pentecostal, and Jehovah’s Witnesses’ cultural practices, I will offer evidence to support the argument that people’s relationship to themselves, each other, and their society or community is lived through detailed visible practices that may predominately construct the experience of individualism or community membership. This argument is rooted in Marx’s premise in The German Ideology that lived visible social practices are the basis of human social life and consciousness. Detailing the lived practices of social groups used to breakdown social consciousness of communal interdependence and construct “an experience of individu-ation,” as well as lived practices reinforcing communal interdependence and constructing “an experience of membership,” challenges the premise of rational choice theory.

Explaining the Growth of Christianity in China: A Research Agenda

Fenggang Yang, Purdue University, fyang@purdue.edu

Protestantism has been growing fast in China. In 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party took power on the mainland, there were less than a million Protestant adherents. Fifty years later, the number of Christian believers is anywhere between 50 and 100 million. What accounts for this rapid growth? The Chinese government, evangelical Christians, and aca-demic scholars of religious research inside and outside of China have offered explanations. This paper attempts to assess these with particular attention to their respective empirical evidence or data. What kinds of data do we need to test various social scientific explanations of Christian growth in China? Furthermore, will Christianity continue to grow in China, as in South Korea, or will it level off, as in Taiwan and Hong Kong? Again, what kinds of data do we need to make such a prediction, no matter how tentative it might be?

Independence and Integration: Chinese Christian Churches in America

Fenggang Yang, Purdue University, fyang@purdue.edu

This paper will provide a brief history and current overview of Chinese churches in the US with a focus on the tensions between independence and integration. Chinese Christians have strongly desired independence, whereas the larger American society has expected, and sometimes forcefully pressured for, integration. Racism has been an important undercurrent in this struggle. In the 19^th century, many Chinese Sunday School classes and mission churches were established by American denominations for Chinese immigrants, but the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and other anti-Chinese measures prevented Chinese from integration into American society. In the second quarter of the 20^th century, Chinese Chris-tian independence movements in China and America converged, but not until after 1965 has independence become the mainstream of Chinese Christianity in America. Independent, but not isolated, the experience of Chinese American churches demonstrates a different form of integration.

Mennonite Cultures of Pacifism: Resistance, Knowledge, and Use

Kendra L. Yoder, University of Missouri, klyd29@mizzou.edu

North American Mennonites have a long history of pacifism. This experience of pacifism is often presented as a unified story extending across time and space, describing this subculture’s relationship to state-mediated military power. This largely institutional narra-tive suggests a high degree of centrality or commitment to being pacifist. It also suggests a high degree of salience to pacifism, where Mennonites use this cultural form to guide their decisions and actions. Longitudinal survey data demonstrate, by contrast, that over time the salience of this cultural form among Mennonites has changed, whereas the idea that Menno-nites are pacifist has remained central. I explore the ways in which resistance to changing historical circumstances influences the tension between knowledge of pacifism and use of pacifism within the Mennonite subculture.

Progressive Politics, Conservative Practices: Rethinking Gender in the

Asian-American Church

Karen L. Yonemoto, University of Southern California, kareny@usc.edu

Contrary to the assumption that evangelical churches reinforce conservative social politics, a growing number of Asian-American churches in Los Angeles are promoting progres-sive politics of race and gender. However, despite their progressive rhetoric, case studies of Asian American churches suggest that they in fact observe conservative gender practices that keep women in positions of subordination and marginalized spaces. This paper will address the tension between the progressive rhetoric asserted by church leaders and the conservative realities experienced by church congregants. Based on discourse analysis of sermons and interviews, the paper suggests that use of progressive language merely masks conservative church practices, thereby protecting male privilege and power. This paper concludes by discussing the ways that lay women and men create subversive spaces to define and redefine new politics of gender and power, navigate within spaces of conservative evangelicalism, and ultimately reshape church culture through the embodiment of new gendered and racial selves.

Does Religion Influence Gender Role Ideologies in Taiwan?

Elisa Jiexia Zhai and Christopher G. Ellison, University of Texas,

jzhai@mail.la.utexas.edu

Studies conducted in the US have long associated certain forms of Christianity, particularly conservative Protestantism and Catholicism, with support for traditional gender role ideologies, e.g., ambivalence toward women’s higher education and labor force participa-tion and/or support for female (wifely) domesticity. However, most empirical studies are limited to Judeo-Christian sociocultural contexts, and it is not clear whether these forms of Christianity play similar roles in non-western settings. Using data from two recent nationwide surveys in Taiwan, we compare the links between religious tradition—Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and various folk and indigenous religions—and gender roles in Taiwan. Even with controls for other background factors, our findings link Christianity with relatively progres-sive gender role attitudes and practices. A number of explanations and implications are discussed.