ABSTRACTS
Helpful Hunters and Punch-Bowl Christians: Ritual and Conversion in a Chinese Protestant Church
This paper presents results from a four and one half year participant observation study of conversion at a Chinese Protestant church. It was found that a variety of helping behaviors held important consequences for conversion. These behaviors are unusual in Chinese society and suggest that conversion to Protestant Christianity relates to social conditions faced by Chinese immigrants. Church members were found to provide favors and gifts in ways that are unusual in Chinese society (e.g., anonymously, to perfect strangers, with no expectation of return, and to persons of lower status). These patterns of giving confound the traditional Chinese manner of building social networks and instead bind individuals to a larger society of Chinese Christians. These findings are discussed in relation to recent theoretical statements on ritual, especially via Bell and Rappaport. Moreover, the Confucian aspects of such behavior are discussed in relation to Fingarette.
Religion, Gender, and Well-Being among Arab-American Elders
Kristine J. Ajrouch, Eastern Michigan University, kajrouch@emich.edu
Three measures of religion are studied in relation to age, gender, immigrant status and well-being among Arab Americans. Data come from a pilot study consisting of 101 Arab Americans aged 56 and above residing in the Metropolitan Detroit area. Results indicate that older age is associated with more religiosity, and being Christian is associated with less church
attendance. Immigrant status and gender do not correlate with any of the three indicators of religion. Women have lower life satisfaction, but no gender differences exist with regard to self-rated health. Immigrants have both lower life satisfaction, and worse health. Those who are more religious report both worse health and higher incidents of discrimination. This study highlights some of the contexts that potentially influence the link between religion and well-being among Arab-American elders.
Religious Discourse: An Attempt to Produce Cultural Dialogue
Maria de Lourdes Beldi de Alcântara, University of São Paulo, loubeldi@uol.com.br
The work aims at discussing on the Evangelical Church influence inside the reserve of Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. Since 1910, when the Reserve was created, it was inhabited by the Kaiowa, Ñandeva and Terena Indians, and intense has been the influence of Christianity on these people. This work tries to focus on the analysis of discourses from the Pentecostal Indian-preachers who have their small churches inside the reserve. The religious discourse intends to make a new reading (to have a new understanding) of the cultural influences these Indians have suffered. The purpose of this work is to understand which is the pattern of cultural dialogue they produce, to intent to understanding of updating their identities impregnated with hybrid symbols.
My ethnographic study, to be a book tentatively entitled Utopian Devotions, explores the worldviews of Anglo, Hispanic, Native American, Asian-American, and African-American homeschoolers who invoke “the sacred” in their daily practices and longer term aspirations. Three years of fieldwork have revealed a remarkable degree of “reflexive spirituality” among parents and children engaged in homeschooling. What I have heard in interviews suggests that for many homeschooling is an on the ground, experimental utopian practice interwoven with the urgency of visions of sacred childhoods and the constraints of mundane life. Home-schoolers’ stories reveal religious identities creatively amalgamating expert discourses from religious, educational, and parenting authorities with the particularities needs of diverse families. This practice-oriented spirituality opens up a world of deeply reflective and moral decision-making for parents, and often kids. Regardless of whether families describe them-selves as having begun homeschooling for “religious reasons,” most report that they find their homeschooling lives spiritually and morally richer than when children were in school.
Science and the Liberal vs. Evangelical Protestant Debate over Homosexuality
This paper discusses the use of science in the pro- and anti-homosexuality literatures produced by liberal and evangelical Protestants respectively. Liberal Protestants argue that science provides new knowledge that necessitates the reinterpretation and/or the repudiation of portions of the Bible used to condemn homosexual behavior. In so doing, liberals tend to avoid subjecting science to the same critical scrutiny with which they subject the Bible. Evangelicals argue that the Bible is the highest source of truth and cannot be overturned. Evangelicals further argue that (good) science confirms biblical teachings that homosexuality is contrary to God’s will. Finally, evangelicals argue that the psychiatric establishment, which declassified homosexuality as an illness, is practicing flawed science. I discuss how these findings are consistent with the historical approaches to science in the two religious subcultures.
Morality and Its Impact on American Popular Culture
Yaakov Ariel, University of North Carolina, yariel@email.unc.edu
Calling upon people to undergo a conversion experience and accept Jesus as their savior, Evangelical Christians promote a dualistic world view according to which human beings are either sinners or saints. Evangelicals believe that born-again Christians should, by definition, be law-abiding, hard-working, and loyal citizens. Poverty, unemployment, or drug addiction are triumphs of Satan, evidencing the moral failure of individuals involved in such situations. The solution to such evils is not social reform, but evangelism, which can bring about transformation of human beings on a large scale. Emphasizing individual morality over and against social reform has become the cornerstone of evangelical public agenda, strongly affecting the policies of the current administration, on both domestic and international issues.
Is America Really in Moral Decline? Evidence from the World Values Survey Wayne Baker, University of Michigan, wayneb@umich.edu
Has America lost its traditional values? Is religion declining in significance? Has America become a nation of moral relativists? Many politicians and religious leaders believe so, as do the majority of Americans, based on public opinion polls taken over the past several years. I examine the question of “decline” with data from the World Values Surveys, the largest systematic attempt ever made to document attitudes, values, and beliefs around the world. The evidence shows that America has not lost its traditional values. Indeed, it remains one of the most traditional nations in the world. Religion and spirituality continue to be significant. More Americans are moral absolutists than the peoples of most nations. However, most Americans perceive a moral crisis. This perception-reality gap does not represent mass ignorance of the facts or an overblown moral panic. Rather, the widespread perception of a moral crisis is a real and legitimate interpretation of life in a society that is in the middle of a fundamental transformation and that contains growing cultural contradictions.
Tell it to me Straight – What’s Immoral about Gay Commitment?
Gayle R. Baldwin, University of North Dakota, gayle_baldwin@und.nodak.edu
On Sunday, August 24, 2003 in the “wedding announcements” section of The Grand Forks Herald, Grand Forks, North Dakota, Kim Porter and Linda Baeza placed an announcement of their commitment ceremony that had taken place a few days before. Needless
to say, the publication of the photo and announcement created multiple responses from the locals. This paper examines the religious and moral values reflected in the letters and articles that ensued in the wake of this announcement in an attempt to answer the question, What moral values are considered authoritative when evaluating the commitment between gay and lesbian couples?
In Whose Service is Perfect Freedom?
Freedom is one of those slippery concepts that frequently entails the very opposite of what it purports to represent. This paper will try to unravel some of the ways in which the contradictions of submission to one’s God, one’s guru, or one’s leader may be celebrated as freedom by the submitter, but as exploitation and control by the non-believer. The rhetoric of converts and apostates, and of religions and legislators will be examined in the light of fundamentally opposing assumptions of just what might be meant by religious freedom.
We do it: Good - You do it, Bad: An Essay on Double Standards and Other
Nefarious Moralities
We all agree that being good is right and being bad is wrong. We all believe that love is a good thing and hate is not. But we do not all agree on what is good or what love entails. And even when we seem to agree, we somehow manage to see the actions of others from a different perspective to that from which we see the same actions performed by ourselves. The paper examines some of the ways in which two near-identical actions can be transmogrified through religious rhetorics so that they end up at opposite poles of a moral/immoral continuum - or escape into the neutrality of an amoral category.
Church Culture as a Strategy of Action: An Empirical Test Among Black
Congregations
Cultural theory posits that social groups possess a cultural repertoire or “tool kit” that reflects beliefs, ritual practices, stories, and symbols that provide meaning and impetus for resource mobilization. However, little empirical research has been forwarded relative to the relationship between longstanding Black Church cultural components – specifically, scripture, spirituals, gospel music, prayers, and various types of sermons – and activism among Black churches. Most research has been theoretical, anecdotal, or based on qualitative findings. Using a large national sample of Black congregations across seven denominations, I test aspects of cultural theory. Findings support the consistent, direct relationship between prayer and gospel music and community action and less influence by spirituals and general usage of sacred scripture. Sermonic references to social justice also engender politically-based community action. Results from this study illustrate the relationship between community action and cultural markers associated with ethics, morality, and priestly as well as prophetic church emphasis.
Moral Codes and Religious Freedom
Lori G. Beaman, Concordia University, beaman@alcor.concordia.ca
Religious freedom is bounded in many ways, not least of which is the inclusion of moral codes about what is good or right in society. This paper will examine the legal parameters of religious freedom, with particular attention to the ways in which moral codes are implicated in the boundaries of legal discourse on law. The paper will also consider law's collusion with other discourses and the ways in which moral codes overlap between discursive frameworks. The paper draws on case law, employing a textual analysis in order to “reveal codes.”
Freedom of Religion and Freedom from Religion: The Prisoners’ Dilemma
James A. Beckford, University of Warwick, j.a.beckford@warwick.ac.uk
This paper draws on the findings of a 3-year investigation, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, into the treatment of Muslims in the prisons of France and England and Wales. The main aim was to discover to what extent the treatment of Muslim inmates varied with the different relations between religions and the state in Britain and France. The central hypothesis was that the treatment of Muslims would be better in France because this country’s strict separation of religion and state would work to the advantage of religious minorities in the absence of an established Church. This paper will explore some of the reasons why the findings did not confirm the hypothesis, with special reference to issues of religious freedom. It will analyze some of the contrasts between British and French prisons in terms of their provisions for (a) the freedom of inmates to practice their religion, (b) the opportunities for inmates to enjoy freedom from religion, and (c) the constraints on the freedom of prison chaplains to organize religious and pastoral services for inmates. The focus will be primarily on Muslims, but some of the findings will also be applicable to inmates from other faith backgrounds.
For and Against: Comparing Denominational Position Statements Regarding
Persons With AIDS and Statements Regarding Gay and Lesbian Leadership, 1980-2004
Robert E. Beckley, West Texas A&M University, Jerome R. Koch, Texas Tech University,
jerome.koch@ttu.edu
This research compares content analyses of official statements and position papers put forward by several mainline Protestant denominations. The Episcopal Church, ELCA, PCUSA, and the UMC have presented their adherents with varying levels of advocacy or opposition to several key social issues. We first examine the manner in which these denominational bodies support, oppose, or take no position regarding ministry to and care for persons with AIDS. The progression of these pronouncements is compared with positions taken regarding homo-sexuality. Specifically, we examine denominational positions regarding gay/lesbian ordination, same-sex marriages, and whether clergy are permitted or prohibited from presiding at same-sex commitment ceremonies. These statements are also compared as they vary over time.
Conscience, both individual and collective, is contested terrain in contemporary America. Traditionally, individual conscience was concerned with how well one meets oblige-tions to others. That aspect of conscience is alive and well, but must meet an increasingly strong demand to take care of oneself, or even to love oneself, before one can be concerned with others. The notions that one should avoid “guilt-tripping” and that “there are no shoulds” have not replaced the obligation to love one’s neighbor, but have made its meaning problematic. Collectively, America swings between the idea that American history is a long succession of criminal acts—(“This is the worst society in human history,” as one student said to me in 1968— and the idea that America has never done anything wrong, that we are a “blessed” nation that “conquers but to save.” I will try to describe the social location of these conflicting understandings.
Engendered Gender? Gender Differences in Religious Belief and Practice among
Catholics
Mary E. Bendyna, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, bendynam@georgetown.edu
Research in the sociology of religion has long found that women tend to exhibit higher levels of religiosity than men. To varying degrees, this pattern holds across a range of measures of religious belief, belonging, and behavior. Nonetheless, there has been little study of the causes or consequences of these differences, particularly within specific religious traditions or denominations. This paper examines gender differences in religious belief and practice among Catholics in the United States. It focuses on possible explanations for gender differences in religious commitment in general and tests a number of hypotheses regarding the sources of these differences among Catholics in particular. Data for the paper come from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate Catholic Poll, an annual national random sample telephone survey of Catholics in the United States conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. These data are supplemented with data from the General Social Surveys conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
Morality, Ethics and Teenage Witches
Helen A. Berger, West Chester University, and Douglas Ezzy, University of Tasmania,
jwolff7040@aol.com
This paper, based on ninety interviews, explores the ethical and moral world of teenage Witches in England, the United States, and Australia. Most of these young people are converts, a few are second generation, but almost all speak of Witchcraft as providing them with a moral basis on which they have developed ethical systems that guide their life choices. Through their practice of Witchcraft, they believe that they have developed a moral system that affords them a greater ability to live in an ethnically, religiously, and sexually diverse social world, while at the same time making them environmentally aware. These trends are analyzed drawing on the concepts of reflexivity, individualization, and detraditionalization.
Interrogating the Relationship of Religion, Spirituality, and Environmentalism
What is the relationship between religion and environmentalism? Sociologists have traditionally framed this question with regard to Lynn White’s provocative thesis that “Judeo-Christian” theology devalues the environment. Sociologists have queried whether Christians generally, or theologically conservative Christians specifically, are likely to demonstrate low levels environmental concern. In an effort to open new lines of investigation, this paper compares the relative levels of environmentalism held by people who are either religious or spiritual. The finding that people who identify as spiritual have a statistically significant, but weak tendency to be environmentalists illustrates 1) the benefit of investigating the relationship of contemporary moral issues from new theoretical viewpoints, and 2) helps provide a richer description of what it means for modern Americans to be “spiritual.” This paper analyzes qualitative and quantitative data from a nationwide survey on religion, science, politics, and the environment.
Sociology’s Bearing on the Problem of Conscience and Western Religions
Anthony J. Blasi, Tennessee State University, blasi3610@cs.com
As a deliberative process, conscience is distinct from the moral sense. The predominance of conscience over conformance to norms is an aspect of the modern condition, of which sociology too is a part. Using as a point of departure the description of conscience in the manualist school, from an earlier phase of modernity, the paper explores the impact of sociological thought on the consideration of norms, deeds, roles, and consequences in the conscience process.
Lydia Meets Leviticus in the Wake of the American Tattoo Renaissance: A
Qualitative Overview of Spirituality and Body Art from Client, Artist,
and Media Perspectives
Marti Blose, Rutgers University, mlblos@wharf.ship.edu
As the border between private and public, the body is very much the matter of everyday experience and a crucial element in social life. Skin, the largest organ of the human body, has been altered from its natural state with the addition of tattoo art in cultures all over the world, often for purposes that could be labeled religious or spiritual. Sociological research indicates that tattooing is an act of growing cultural significance in America. Further, forms of body alternation that are more extreme, such as implants and branding, are gaining popularity, with client motivations indicating spiritual fulfillment. Connections between body art and spirituality have been limited, and little attention devoted to such associations beyond the symbol itself. In an expansion of this focus, based on dissertation research that involves ethnographic, survey, and interview data, tattoo art is related to the spiritual significance of the act of creating the image on the part of the artist, and ownership and audience reactions on the part of the wearer.
Way to Give: Tithing Practices of Low-Income Churches
Stephanie Boddie, Washington University, sboddie@wustl.edu
The most literal understanding of tithe is to give one tenth of one’s gross income. Under the Mosaic and Levitical laws, tithing became a central principle for godly living. Tithes were used to maintain the temple and to care for the priests, the poor, the sick, and the elderly. To meet these needs required giving about 23 percent of a family’s income per year. Following this practice, tithing became a moral obligation and social responsibility for members of churches to provide for the operation of the church and the needs of the poor. In a qualitative study of fifteen churches in low-income communities, we explore how and why these churches teach tithing. Findings show there are various teachings and rationales for the practice of tithing. Some members tithe from low wages while others call for economic justice that would redistribute church offerings to care for the poor within the churches.
Short–Term Missions as Civic Service: A New Ethic
Stephanie Boddie and Elizabeth Johnson, Washington University, sboddie@wustl.edu
For many citizens, service is an expression of faith in God and moral obligation to the community. Within the early church, the “great commission” issued by Jesus to his disciples established a sender-receiver model of missions. This model was often characterized by evangelism and an imbalance of power. At the beginning of the new millennium, there are over four thousand agencies devoted to Christian missions with over 425,000 people working outside their countries of origin. Many of the new forms of short-term missions emphasize mutuality, reciprocity, and “peer-to-peer” balance of power. Informed by a new ethic of self-determination, increasingly mission programs consist of volunteers whose tasks include cooperation with overseas jurisdictions, for self-governance, self-support and self-propagation. Based on case studies, we advance an understanding of missions as a form of civic service and
compare the sender-receiver model and partnership model to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of this new ethic.
Work Ethic in Islam from the Perspective of Religion-Economy Relations
H. Ezber Bodur, Kahhramanmaraþ Sütçü Ýmam University, hebodur@ksu.edu.tr
In this paper, I will discuss the Islamic economics which began to grow among some Muslim scholars and activists as a part of political Islamism or Islamic fundamentalism during the first decades of twentieth century. After that I will try to illustrate the importance of work ethic which is entirely different from the Islamic economics based on the views of Islamist activists. My aim is to illuminate the affect of values on economic attitudes and behaviours and then to show the influence of socio-economic structure on religious ideas from the social action theory of Weber. On the other hand, this study I will concentrate on the analysing of recent papers about work ethic appearing in top Turkish newspapers. So I will emphasise the inter-action of work ethic with other social processes.
Tim Bower, Western Michigan University, tim.bower@wmich.edu
Using data from the World Values Surveys, this study examines the impact of political changes on morality, particularly religiously based morality, in post-communist nations. It has been noted that the tie between religion and morality has been weakening, yet close examination of the adherence to three traditionally religious moral attitudes (Attitudes toward premarital sex, abortion, and homosexuality) yields mixed results. Of particular interest are several patterns, which demonstrate that while the church is becoming a stronger ‘plausibility structure,’ other patterns reveal a weakening of such influence on moral attitudes. The findings of this multivariate examination will add to the secularization/desecularization debate as well as spawn interesting directions for future research.
The rational choice approach applies principles of economics in the analysis of religious behavior. I argue that the rational choice model of religious participation, best articulated by Stark and Finke’s Acts of Faith, is reductionist. I examine the church selection process among minority racial and ethic groups in the context of social stratification and perceived constraints on individual choice by the religious opportunity structure. In examining how religious participation is socially structured, my paper restores neglected concepts of inequality, group membership and identity to prominence in the interpretation of religious participation. I argue that proponents of the new paradigm within the sociology of religion have effaced social inequality and the group dimensions of religious belonging, and that the inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities will lead to a more thorough understanding of the complexities surrounding future religious participation in American society.
The Right Fight? Competing Discourses in the Campaign against the Equal
Rights Amendment
Martha Bradley, University of Utah, bradley@arch.utah.edu
This paper argues that the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment was a discourse which pitted feminists against homemakers. In this rhetorical war, discourses drew the feminist as the enemy of family values, traditional female gender roles, the advocates of disruptive and dangerous change, and the homemaker as the defender of all that was good and true about the American experience--family, morality, and tradition. The campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment was diverse and decentralized, but fought in part by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from church headquarters in Salt Lake City through a grass roots campaign that was organized along ecclesiastical lines, this campaign was a war fought with words through pamphlets, lectures, letter writing campaigns, and in the media and was one which triumphed in each of the states it targeted.
Religion, Empathy, and Altruism
Matt Bradshaw and Christopher G. Ellison, University of Texas at Austin,
cellison@prc.utexas.edu
After outlining a series of theoretical arguments linking various aspects of religious involvement with prosocial attitudes and behaviors, we test relevant hypotheses using data from the 2002 General Social Survey (GSS). Specifically, this paper examines the relationship between religion (church attendance, prayer, afterlife beliefs, and biblical literalism) and two classes of outcomes: (a) prosocial attitudes (empathy, selflessness, and altruism); and (b) prosocial behaviors (a range of 15 low-initiative and high-initiative, organized and informal helping activities). Attendance and prayer are positively associated with each set of prosocial attitudes. Attendance, prayer, and specific beliefs are linked with most, but not all, behaviors; in multivariate models some, but not all, of these associations are mediated by prosocial attitudes. Contingent aspects of these relationships, and implications for theory and research, are also discussed.
Deborah A. Bruce, Research Services, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),
dbruce@ctr.pcusa.org
Using data from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey, personal religious practices are compared among worshipers in different age groups. All worshipers in over 2,000 congregations selected by NORC to be representative of congregations across the country participated in the survey (April 2001). Surveys were given in worship, providing extensive data about individuals actively involved in religious life in America. Practices examined include traditional indicators of religious life such as private prayer, Bible reading, and saying grace before meals, as well as alternative expressions of spirituality such as meditation and visiting religious web sites. Younger worshipers are less likely to be members of the congregation; to experience God’s presence, joy, and inspiration in worship; and to read the Bible and pray regularly. Very few in any age group visit religious Internet sites, shop at Christian bookstores, meditate, or read new age books.
Reginald A. Bruce, University of Louisville, reg.bruce@louisville.edu
This paper extends prior research by examining the role leadership plays across different denominational families. Data come from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey and are based on a national random sample (N=1,181). Congregational leadership is shown to impact significantly the beliefs and perceptions of followers (e.g., sense that worship service helps in everyday life, strong sense of belonging, etc.). However, it is unrelated to certain religious behaviors (e.g., level of giving, daily devotional activity, etc.). Results indicate striking differences between conservative Protestant and Catholic congregations. When compared to Catholic worshipers, worshipers attending conservative Protestant congregations rate their leaders as more transformational, empowering, supportive of innovation and creativity in the congregation, likely to take into account the ideas of others, and focused on a direction for the future. Mainline Protestant leaders fall in between. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications that leadership effectiveness has on the lives of followers and congregations.
The Emergence and Expression of Competing Moralities in the Contemporary American Catholic Church: The Case of the Divorced Catholics’ Movement
Anna Bruzzese, State University of New York at Stony Brook, aippolit@ic.sunysb.edu
Why is there no moral consensus among American Catholics today? I argue that the Second Vatican Council had a unique impact on the American Catholic church, as it created a space for the expression and emergence of competing moralities. The lack of moral consensus among Catholics is apparent on issues as diverse as divorce, premarital sex, birth control, abortion and the role of women in the church and society. It is not a simple division between the hierarchy and the ordinary Catholics, as both groups have their share of moral radicals, liberals, conservatives and ultra-traditionalists. In order to explain the ‘explosion of dissent’ in the U.S. church, I compare the American and Polish Catholic churches in the post Vatican II era. I also specifically examine the case of the divorced Catholics’ movement using the concepts of role conflict and identity revision to clarify the mechanisms of dissent within the contemporary American church.
Everything You Know is Wrong: How Globalization Undermines Moral Consensus
George Van Pelt Campbell, Grove City College, gvcampbell@gcc.edu
This paper will argue that one significant reason for the contemporary lack of moral consensus in the United States is an effect of pluralism and globalization called the “relativization of tradition,” the subject of a forthcoming book I have written. The paper will define the relativization of tradition as individuals experiencing a sense of threat and insecurity about their own traditions when confronted with other traditions and then describe relativization at the cultural level. Next it will argue that moral consensus is most likely to break down in periods of cultural relativization and illustrate this in two such periods, the 1920s and the present generation. Finally three mechanisms that facilitate moral diversity during those periods will be discussed: the influenced of the zeitgeist, individual considerations trumping communitarian ones, and the eroding of social control mechanisms.
Religious Diffusion and the Political and Social Consequences of Missionary
Style
H.B. Cavalcanti, James Madison University, cavalchb@jmu.edu
Religious diffusion is a process that is fraught with social and political consequences. While those may not be the intentional goal of missionaries, they are certainly at least by-products of their presence in the field. The missionary personalizes the way the faith and the denominational structure is appropriated by local converts and that has consequences for the host country. Missionary styles are worthy of studying then, because they set the local parameters for transplanted denominations, and interact in unexpected ways with the conditions in the host country. This paper compares the work of two American Protestant missionaries in an open religious market (mid-twentieth century Brazil), examining how early cultural influences affected their style, and how the style had consequences for the personalization of mission.
Racial Variation in Religiosity and Parish Satisfaction among Catholic Parishioners
James C. Cavendish, University of South Florida, jcavendi@cas.usf.edu, and
Paul Perl, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate
Although Catholic Church leaders have become increasingly aware of the longtime contributions of racial and ethnic minorities to Catholic parish life in the United States, only a limited amount of social science research has attempted to document the diversity of religious beliefs, values, and practices among these groups. This is especially true of Black Catholics where the extant social scientific literature is sparse. Using data from the recently administered U.S. Congregational Life Survey, we describe the ways in which Black Catholics differ from Catholics of other racial and ethnic backgrounds in their religious beliefs, values, and practices. Then, using multivariate analyses, we examine both the individual and parish characteristics that predict whether Blacks will express satisfaction with their parishes.
Is Islam in the Global Era Only a Cause of Conflict?
It is no longer possible to conceive of a single world culture that defines for the planet a standard image of good society. Conflicting images abound. Non-Westerners, whether within Western or non-Western contexts, search for authenticity in their pursuit of solutions to economic, political or cultural problems. The Islamic Revolution in Iran illustrated one such quest. In spite of the potential for conflicts of values, it would be a mistake to re-duce indigenization simply to an opposition to modernity. Even Muslims are trying to achieve modernization with authenticity. The paper intends to present the major theories concerning the globalized forms of Islam and rejects the overly simplistic approaches: religion as either a cause of international conflict or a counter-postmodern force. It will illustrate how religions in general and Islam in particular accelerate, as well as oppose, global modernization and will examine the interplay between modernity, globalization, and Islam in the West.
Sources of Religious Freedom in China: The Case of the Catholic Church
Shun-hing Chan, Hong Kong Baptist University, shchan@hkbu.edu.hk
This presentation examines the sources of religious freedom in contemporary China by analyzing the case of the Catholic Church from the perspective of state-society relations. I argue that there were three different sources of religious freedom in Chinese society. First, the state began to withdraw from society in 1979, and allowed Catholic priests to take charge of church affairs in the government-established church. This is the result of institutional change of state. Second, the underground Catholic churches emerged and began to develop in the 1980s, challenging the religious policy of the state. This is the result of social organizations to fight for religious freedom. Third, there was a tripartite, interactive relationship among the state, the government-established and the underground church. In this relationship, the state compromised its religious policy and became more realistic in the handling of the government-established church and underground church. This was the result of an institutional trans-formation of the state by society.
Family Matters: Religious Inheritance in Catholic and Protestant Families
This paper uses quantitative and qualitative analyses to explore the differences in religious inheritance experienced in Protestant and Catholic families. The basic assumption is that Catholics, Protestants and Jews have developed different strategies for passing along religious traditions from one generation to the next because they have faced different challenges to their survival. Catholics have traditionally relied more heavily on institutional mechanisms, Protestants have relied more on literal mechanisms, and Jews on ritual mechanisms. This suggests that the utility of various theoretical and empirical models for predicting religiosity should also vary by tradition. We test this hypothesis empirically by comparing standard predictive models of religiosity for Catholics and Protestants, controlling for stages in the family life course.
Seeking for Solutions: Conversion to Conservative Protestantism among Urban Immigrants in Taiwan
Hsing-Kuang Chao, Tunghai University, wade0429@mail.thu.edu.tw
This paper analyzes the religious conversion of urban immigrants from mainline conventional religions to the conservative Protestantism in Taiwan. Utilizing a case study design, the data for this research was gathered by methods of participant observation, in-depth interviews, and documentary analysis. The finding indicates that, instead of intimate involve-ment, seeking for the practical blessing and social supports have shaped the conversion process among these urban immigrants. The analysis of their conversion behavior is in light of the marginal social status, development of social networks, social and religious capital of converts, and medium tension recruitment strategy of conservative Protestant churches. Stark’s proposition regarded to the level of tension between a religious group and its sociocultural environment is used to understand and explain how could the conservative Protestant minority groups successfully convert these urban immigrants.
Where Lies the Wisdom: The Question of Moral Creativity
Donna M. Chirico, York College, chirico@york.cuny.edu
Apathy and indifference are often cited as the roots of political inaction, but for many a more complex cognitive matrix exists. Action in the name of a cause, particularly a religious one, requires that a person moves beyond speaking or thinking about issues. Conflicting demands of social structure limit action because going against institutional hierarchy minimizes external psychic rewards. This is as true for religious leaders as it is for community members. This paper will explore how the social system suppresses moral creativity, as expressed in political activism, by altering the way a person conceives his relationship to the system. Psychological development of the self is modified as the values that maintain the social structure are incorporated into the cognitive structure of the individual. Using Reinhold Niebuhr as a case study, one sees how extrinsic rewards influence moral thinking and modify behavior so the goals of the hierarchy become the goals of the individual. In the end, despite the fervor of convictions, there is a consequent failure of liberal political morality because of the rewards of the system are too difficult to resist.
Factors Affecting People’s Attitude toward Some Moral Issues
This research studies factors that affect people’s attitudes toward some controversial moral issues, including abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia. Based on the multiple regression analysis of GSS data, after controlling for some important variables, the results show that people’s attitudes toward these moral issues are strongly affected by their belief in the existence of God. People who believe in the existence of God, regardless of their religious service attendance, education level, gender, age, income, race, and location (South), are less likely to support abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia. This result implies that religious belief is still an important factor in people’s moral attitudes in the U.S.
The Non-sacred Use of Congregational Space: The Moral Imperative and the
Dissemination of Morality
Ram A. Cnaan, Charlene C. McGrew, and Beverly Frazier, University of Pennsylvania,
The main thesis of this paper is that opening congregational property for social work is a moral choice adopted by most congregations. Similarly the choice of which social program to house reflects a more discrete moral choice. In every community in America numerous congregations visibly stand as major community institutions. Most of them command a property that is used for a variety of social and human causes. Based on the empirical data from the Philadelphia census of congregations and the conceptual approaches of “broken windows” and “private ownership” these buildings are both community stabilizers and sources of moral and social support. By using the physical space of the sacred institution to enhance social causes, congregations are choosing what social issues are morally appropriate and consequently legitimize them. This paper reviews the topic and shed light on the key programs that are housed in congregations and how they help
Leaving the Faith: Apostasy among African Americans
Brian Coleman and Christopher G. Ellison, University of Texas at Austin
bcoleman@mail.la.utexas.edu
Religion has often been cited as occupying a central location in African American communities. Many scholars have shown that African Americans exhibit one of the highest degrees of religiosity in the United States. Despite a long history of the significance of religion, its influence has waned among some African Americans in the later part of the twentieth century. Surprisingly little scholarship has been done to examine who these apostates are. Pooling years of the GSS (1972-2002) we plan on examining hypotheses focusing on sociodemographic variables, secular opportunities, "counter-normative" or "nonascetic" values and practices, and psychological orientations. This could shed new light on the correlates of apostasy, and the salience of broad demographic processes versus psychosocial versus subcultural factors in sustaining religious non-affiliation among certain segments of the African American population.
Sociability and the Transmission of Tracitions: A Criticism of Giddens and Habermas
Xavier Costa, University of Valencia, llomadels@yahoo.es
Having established the distinctiveness of the sociability to be found in festive traditions in a previous study on the Fire Festival of the Fallas of Saint Joseph in Valencia (Spain), in the present paper I ask how far the dominant sociological ideas about the fate of tradition in the modern world can throw light on this sociability. For this purpose, I shall concentrate on assessing Anthony Giddens’s and Jürgen Habermas’s perspectives on tradition (and the sacred). In both cases my criticism is the same: a restricted view of the role of tradition and its mechanisms of transmission corresponds with a diminished understanding of reflexivity and its public sphere. In so doing both Giddens and Habermas are unable to see the specific mechanisms of transmission of festive traditions such as the Fallas, which include a special type of reflexivity and public sphere.
A Case Study in Spiritual Libertarianism
Contemporary interrogations of politics and morality, discourses of moral decline, and the failure of liberal morality find precursors in American religious movements. In this paper I examine conservative libertarian discourses of moral decline in regards to the allegedly deleterious effects of New Deal policies on individual and social morality. Alternatives to New Deal politics and Social Gospel Christianity preoccupied corporate attorney James C. Ingebretson and a core of political, academic, and business elites from the 1940s through the 1990s. I use historical comparative methods to illuminate the particular course Ingebretson’s moral and political crusade took in the wake of a personal conversion experience. Ingebretson joined forces with cultural elites such as Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, and Ira Progroff to create a discourse of redemptive “spiritual” libertarianism: a potent cocktail of Jungian theory, Gnostic Christianity, and “growing edge” philosophy which prefigures the New Age moralism known as “creating one’s own reality.”
"Beware of What You Wish For”: Religion and the Moral Discourse of B-grade
Horror Cinema"
Douglas E. Cowan, University of Missouri-Kansas City, cowande@umkc.edu
While it is often dismissed by cultural critics for its emphasis on violence, poor production values, and fairly predictable plot lines, B-grade horror cinema contributes in substantial ways to the moral discourse of late modern society. Most particularly, in what appears at first as an action-driven absence or inversion of moral sensibilities, many of these films actually instantiate very traditional moral discourses and themes as they have been articulated in both Christianity and Buddhism. Drawing on examples of B-grade horror films such as the Hellraiser and Wishmaster series, this paper will examine a variety of these instantiations and suggest a theoretical framework for understanding their popularity in terms of religious and moral discourse. This paper will also point to other instances—e.g., the nervy retelling of the Charon myth in Ghost Ship—in which an understanding of the religious underpinning is essential for an appreciation of the cinematic event.
“I know it when I see it”: The Moral Economy of Pornography
Douglas E. Cowan, University of Missouri-Kansas City, cowande@umkc.edu
Using pornography in North America as a "hard core" case study, this paper employs propaganda theory and aspects of Foucualdian analysis to examine the religious discourse in which moral strictures are embedded. Specifically, it examines the documentary responses of different Christian churches to the social problem of pornography and asks: Are these resources intended to facilitate discussion and debate based on a reasonable presentation of data and available response options, which is very often the stated intention of the resource? Or are they instead designed to generate a very particular response---in this case, moral and often legal censure---and are based on a very carefully managed presentation of information and options? If the latter, then the discourse is less a discussion on an important social issue then it is an institutionally imposed position to which members of participant denominations are expected to conform, whether or not they agree with the position.
A Consistent Ethic of Life: Prudential Judgment or Moral Judgments
William V. D’Antonio, Catholic University of America, wvda@doubled.com
In this paper I examine voting patterns of members of Congress, especially Catholic members of both the Republican and Democratic parties. The purpose is to reflect on the social and political consequences of the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin’s efforts to promote a dialogue in the public square about life from its prenatal stages to death. For Bernardin, a consistent of life is one in which society protects life throughout all its stages. A review of church policies, pastoral letters, and lobbying activities in the halls of Congress is compared with roll-call votes on abortion and a broad range of social justice and budget issues over the period 1979-2002. Findings suggest the impact of the bishops on the makeup of the Republican party, Congressional voting on abortion issues, and a lack of support for the social justice issues for which they also lobby. I raise questions about the prudential and moral judgments implied in these roll-call votes.
The WREP Project: Examining Church-State Cooperation in Welfare
Grace Davie, University of Exeter, g.r.c.davie@exeter.ac.uk
WREP stands for Welfare and Religion in a European Perspective. It is a large (eight nation) project concerned with the relationships between church and state in the delivery of welfare in Western Europe. This paper looks at the theoretical perspectives that underlie this project, arguing that the framework set out by David Martin in The General Theory of Secularization is as pertinent now as it was when the book was first published in 1978 in understanding the partnerships between Church and State—not least their respective roles in the delivery of welfare. There is a crucial difference, however. It lies in the fact the churches and associated institutions are now taking more rather than less responsibility with regard to welfare, right across Europe. The WREP project relates closely to wider debates about social capital and the place of faith based communities within this.
Faith on the Avenue
Germantown Avenue cuts through Philadelphia, connecting the inner city to affluent suburban communities beyond. It is a route which wears its history of revolutionary battles, epidemics, emancipation, manufacturing, and waves of immigration. Here Philadelphians have gathered to worship. “The Avenue” is the spiritual home of almost 80 congregations. The diversity of faith communities reflects the religious fabric of the city. Congregations founded in the 18th century stand beside storefronts which opened last month. Despite the diversity of the population, worshippers are largely sorted by language, race, class and tradition. Into this mix is an emerging Muslim section, creating a new dynamic in the religious marketplace. This visual presentation will look at the changing religious dynamics along this urban Avenue, how the diversity is socially constructed, and acceptance of newcomers negotiated. It represents the first stage of a longer study of the religious ecology of Germantown Ave.
In their mission statement, the direct sales company Pampered Chef states, “We are committed to providing opportunities for individuals to develop their God-given talents … dedi-cated to enhancing the quality of family life.” From regular “team” meetings to male-oriented spouses’ programs, Pampered Chef stresses the part-time commitment to a business that a woman works around her family’s needs. Research data gathered from almost two years’ participation in the Pampered Chef organization provide the basis for this examination of the appeal of direct sales to stay-at-home (and wanna be) moms, who espouse “traditional” family and religious values.
Many religions are concerned with the problem of illness. They organize healing pilgrimages and benedictions for sick people, but the cure of sickness is not their main preoccupation—they are primarily concerned with the salvation of souls. At the other extreme, groups such as Christian Science, Antonianism (which emerged in Belgium in 1910), Inviation to Life (which appeared in France in 1983), and the followers of the Christ of Montfavet (founded by a French spiritual healer in the mid-20th century) are directly concerned with the treatment of illness. I first describe an ideal-type of healing religions. This type of religion refers to poverty, physical and mental difficulties, and all kinds of misfortune. Healing religions consider that suffering is not a normal condition of humanity insofar as God provides the spiritual tools to enable health and a sense of well-being. I shall also show how religio-therapeutic groups treat the problem of illness, demonstrating their links to a hedonistic philosophy which is also found in the New Age.
Voices of Change: Different Institutional Approaches to Politics Among Korean-American Evangelicals
Elaine Howard Ecklund, Cornell University, emh5@cornell.edu
How will second-generation immigrants negotiate different approaches to the intersection between religion and politics? This paper examines Korean-American evangelicals and specifically asks how participation in a multiethnic or second-generation congregation provides different models for the intersection between religion, race, and politics. I interviewed eighty-eight second-generation Korean Americans across the nation, in five multiethnic and four second-generation congregations. Korean Americans routinely told me their congregations were not political organizations. In their narratives, Korean Americans folded aspects of evangelicalism with the broader institutional category of American minority to structure political understandings. While some legitimated political noninvolvement through an evangelical theology, those who were politically involved took aspects of a discourse for social justice from black churches and individuals while remaining largely involved in second-generation or multiethnic congregations. This research has implications for how Korean Americans and other second-generation immigrants may bring voices of change to the institutional relationship American evangelicalism has to politics.
When Bedrock Socialization Erodes, Ideas about Morality Change: Some Observa-tions Made by Older Adults
Susan A. Eisenhandler, University of Connecticut, susan.a.eisenhandler@uconn.edu
This paper discusses and analyzes observations 46 older adults (men and women aged 60-96) made about morality and faith. In interviews from a recent qualitative study elders were asked to recall aspects of religious and family upbringing and to trace continuity and change over the life course. Participants were also asked about the transmission of moral and religious beliefs. The inter-generational changes that emerged as substantively important are found in the idea that bedrock socialization—the mutually supportive presence of schools, churches, communities, and families that spoke with clarity about the “golden rule,” or “doing the right thing”—has consistently eroded over time. This has meant that some older adults have learned, in their words, “to bend,” on moral issues both in response to the general erosion of bedrock, and more tellingly, in response to changes they directly confronted because their children and grandchildren stood on friable rock.
Anxious Moments: The Calming Role of Religious Faith and Practice Among U.S.
Adults
Christopher G. Ellison, Amy Burdette, and Terrence Hill, University of Texas at Austin,
cellison@prc.utexas.edu
Although a burgeoning literature focuses on religion and health, few studies have centered on anxiety or tranquility. These emotional states can be viewed as mental health outcomes, and they may have important physical health sequelae as well. After developing a series of arguments linking aspects of religion with anxiety and tranquility, we test relevant hypotheses using multivariate OLS models of data from the 1996 GSS. Results indicate that the self-reported frequency of religious attendance and the belief in an afterlife are positively related to recent feelings of tranquility and inversely linked with recent anxiety. Frequency of prayer has no direct relationship with either outcome. On the other hand, strong beliefs in the pervasiveness of sin are associated with greater anxiety, but are unrelated to tranquility. Finally, belief in an afterlife and frequency of prayer appear to mitigate (buffer) the deleterious effects of poor health and financial decline on anxiety and tranquility.
Work, Family, and Depression Among Married Women: Does Religion Make a
Difference?
Christopher G. Ellison and Margaret L. Vaaler, University of Texas at Austin,
mvaaler@mail.la.utexas.edu
Past research literature has called attention to aspects of work and family life (especially role strain and perceived unfairness) that contribute to depressive symptoms among women. However, no studies have explored the role(s) of religious factors in mediating or moderating these relationships. Specifically, we will use data from two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to explore the role of women’s (and couples’) religious affiliation, attendance, and belief (and dissimilarities therein) in shaping: (a) configurations of women's work and family roles; (b) women's expectations and values regarding the allocation of women's and men's labor; (c) women's experiences and perceptions of work and family roles; and (d) the links between these sets of factors and women's self-reports of depressive symptoms.
Demonstration of Religiosity and Its Impact on Morality in Modern Society:
The Case of Shenzhen since Economic Reform
Lizhu Fan, Fudan Univeristy, faith1938@hotmail.com
China's current pace of development brings forth opportunity and disruption to every level of society. These challenges of modernization have stirred China's soul. Today many in China actively affirm the spiritual dimensions of their own lives. A new generation of urban workers, moving beyond the basic struggle for economic survival, confronts deeper questions of personal meaning. Intellectuals and artists alike seek to strengthen their culture's moral sensitivities. And people at many levels of society turn avidly to books and internet sites exploring the previously disparaged wisdom traditions of classical China and Christianity, as well as new religious movements. Those changes did have great impact on the moral life of the Chinese people and we shall demonstrate this with the case of Shenzhen which the researcher has spent some years.
What Do You Believe?
Sarah Feinbloom, Sarafina Productions, sarah@sarafinaproductions.com
In this documentary, a relifiously diverse group of teens reveal their personal struggles and beliefs about faith, morality, suffering and death, prayer, the prupose of life and the divine. The discussion ranges from hormones to heaven, and includes Buddhist, Muslim, Pagan, Native American, Jewish, and Catholic teens to paint a broad picture of the religious and spiritual lives of young people, while at the same time raising issues of religious pluralism in American life.
Hyper-Masculinities, Hyper-Christianity & Hyper-Technology: The Promise
Keepers’ Use of Technology to Empower Masculine Spirituality
James A. Fenimore, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, fenimore@nycap.rr.com
This paper is an ethnography of the Promise Keepers, an evangelical Christian organization dedicated to renewing the faith of men through revivals held throughout the country. They use an impressive array of multimedia technologies to communicate an evangelical message that constructs masculinity in a highly structured form. Masculinity is defined in specific terms that leads to the construction of the “ideal man” that is also the ideal Promise Keeper. I conclude that there is an artificial or virtual environment constructed by the Promise Keepers that encodes their ideological and theological beliefs resulting in a reified hegemony. This “reified hegemony” has a structuring effect on the participants of the conference that is highly coordinated. Using Durkheim’s theory of “social morphology” this paper extends his work along with Wajcman’s “built environment” and Bray’s “encoding patriarchy” to describe the reification of patriarchy through the structure of a Promise Keepers conference.
Speaking in Different Tongues? Religious Discourse about Abortion in Germany
and the U.S.
Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin, mferree@ssc.wisc.edu
Using comparative data from newspaper debates over abortion in Germany and the U.S. between 1970 and 1994, I explore the different ways that Protestant and Catholic speakers frame the meaning of abortion, and what dissent with the denominations looks like. Despite being ostensible, universal, and invariant, Catholic talk about abortion is different in Germany and the U.S. But Protestant talk is more dependent on the political and cultural context of each country than Catholic talk is, and frames respect for the individual conscience in different political and moral terms in each country. The variety of religious speakers and the separation of church and state as a principle in the U.S. also contribute both to different forms of argument and different newspaper norms for covering religious disagreements.
Race, Religion, and Morality: An Historical Study of an Episcopal African-
American Campus Ministry
Catherine Fobes, Alma College, fobes@alma.edu
This historical study explores the connections between race, religion, and morality by examining a case study of vocational call to campus ministry during the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing on diocesan archival data, I investigate the sociological factors that shape the ministerial call to an Episcopal African-American campus ministry in the southeastern United States. How and why did race, gender, and class influence the call? How was women’s and men’s labor used to maintain or challenge the societal gender and racial order? What are the moral obligations of judicatory officials to hire and train young women and men for these positions? This study addresses these questions. In doing so it makes visible the dynamics by which women and men discerned vocations to campus ministry and were recruited for leadership jobs at particular historical moments in relation to changes in educational institutions, religious institutions, and the gender and racial order of the wider society.
Women’s Spirituality, Drumming, and Healing
Tanice G. Foltz, Indiana University Northwest, tfoltz@iun.edu
Over the past twenty to thirty years, women have been increasingly drawn to drumming in Western society. This paper examines several Midwestern women’s spirituality groups that use drumming as “sacred technology.” Feminist drummers understand drumming to be a profound resource for women to remember their natural rhythms, reclaim their voices, reconnect with others and ultimately, to heal themselves. The healing aspects of drumming are explored in relation to women’s spirituality using an ethnographic approach and in-depth interviews with members of women’s drumming groups.
within the Social and Ecclesial Environment of the Contemporary United
States since 1960
During the time of the Second Vatican Council, there was a turn toward emphasis on parishes as places of ministry and community within the Catholic Church in the United States. This vision led to the development of new structures at diocesan and parish levels. A variety of interrelated features of those structures caused them to reach their limits within a generation. As a result, less formal networks have come to acquire relatively more importance in resourcing parish life.
Religion and Gender: An Attempted Overview
Inger Furseth, KIFO Centre for Church Research, Oslo, inger.furseth@kifo.no
This paper attempts to give a brief overview over five areas in the study of religion and gender: women’s religious experience, the role of women in religious institutions, explanations for women’s religious participation, feminism and religion, and the relationship between religion and sexuality. The article argues that 1) The area of research asking how religious experienced is gendered continues to be important. 2) There is a need for more studies that analyze the effects of women’s participation in religious institutions. 3) Few studies ask how religious institutions recruit and mobilize women into participation. 4) The development within feminism that appeared in the late 1980s and 90s opens up for new perspectives where religion is viewed as a phenomenon that plays a role in the structuring and restructuring of gender relations. 5) The area of the relationship between religion, sexuality and the body needs to be further explored.
Is the New Age a Religion of Well-being or Something More?
There is currently a great debate among scholars about what exactly is the new age. Some say that it doesn’t even exist anymore and are talking about a “post-new age” or a “next age.” This paper will seek to establish that the new age is a religio-social and cultural movement of spiritual and physical well-being. I will demonstrate this by showing how the theorizing of the movement varies a lot from one country to another by adopting a systematically cross-national approach. I will, more specifically, compare the different theories elaborated on the new age in the last ten years in Canada, the US and France. This will enable me to show that the theorizing on this subject may sometimes be biased by the cultural context in which the sociologist is working.
The “Minority Jurisprudence” Debate among Western Muslims: From Immigrant
to Resident Islam
In Europe as well as in North America, Muslims’ self perception is rapidly changing from a community of temporary immigrants to a permanently settled minority of Western Muslims. This transformation has made it imperative on traditional Islamic jurisprudence to come up with Islamic solutions to a number of daily challenges the Western life imposes on its Muslim residents, as related to diet and dress codes, marriage from non-Muslim families, acceptable and unacceptable banking and financial transactions, activism and participation in secular political systems, and so on. This paper highlights the debate currently taking place among Muslims in The West around the validity of traditional Islamic jurisprudence and the relevance of its traditional answers to the daily challenges they face in their new societies. The paper is also an assessment of Western Muslims’ attempts at instituting a “jurisprudence of minorities” especially designed to Western Islam.
This paper focuses upon the fate of Christian values in the Western world. It argues that within this context a sociological assessment of the fate of Christian values is very specifically related to the debates about secularization and its rival paradigms. The paper shows how three main paradigms – secularization, persistence and separation – offer radically different assessments. Alongside these three the paper sketches a fourth paradigm, namely a cultural theory of religious transmission. This paradigm challenges the more traditional paradigms and assumes that religious values and beliefs depend heavily for their transmission upon religious practices, families and communities. The paper argues that this cultural theory is a more distinctively sociological theory than its three rivals, since it alone takes seriously the role of socialization in the transmission of religious values and beliefs. In addition, it suggests that if the current decline of Christian practice continues in Britain and Western Europe, then Christian values (and beliefs) may also decline.
Models of Secularization and Religious Rationalization in Emile Durkheim and Max Weber: The Unilinear, the Dialectical and the Paradoxical
In recent decades, the theory of secularization has been placed into question by the new paradigm in the sociology of religion. This is the result of a single interpretation of the theory of secularization—one that perceives secularization taking place solely in a unilinear manner. Other interpretations are possible. The classics in sociology of religion, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, provide the foundations for the theory of secularization. Durkheim and Weber provide three different models for the theory of secularization: the first is unilinear, the second is dialectical, and the third is paradoxical. This paper explores the full corpus of Durkheim and Weber’s writings on religion. This paper will argue that the process of secularization is not always unilinear, but can also take place in a dialectical or paradoxical manner. Whereas the unilinear and dialectical theories of secularization are modern, the paradoxical theory of secularization is both pre- and postmodern.
Regaining God's Grace: The Soteriology of The 700 Club Following the September 11th Attacks
The crisis of modernity experienced by Evangelical Christian Americans has broadened in the wake of the September 11th attacks and the ongoing terrorist threat, expecially given the belief that America is a Christian nation protected by God. Following the attacks, the question of how this could happen to a nation of God’s chosen dominated the discourse of Pat Robertson’s The 700 Club television program, to which many Evangelicals and Fundamentalists turn for understanding and guidance. Guided by theory of Weber and others, this paper examines the soteriology presented by the program through qualitative and quantitative content analysis of a sample of shows following the attack. Initial analysis shows Robertson lays out a clear soteriological construct on how he believes the individual Christian and the nation as a whole should respond to regain God’s favor and protection.
Generating Catholic Generations: The Distinctiveness of Catholic Generational Formation
Mark M. Gray, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, mmg34@georgetown.edu
Generations are mostly conceived as “national” entities—creatures of the specific historical experiences of population cohorts within a nation-state. However, distinctions often involve international events. World War II and Vietnam have been centrally important in defining both the so-called World War II Generation (born 1901-24) as well as the Baby Boomers (born 1943-1960) in the United States. Conveniently enough often used “Catholic” generations have cohort boundaries that mirror U.S. Generations but focus mostly on the direction of the world-wide Church. The Vatican II Generation forms amongst the Baby Boomer Generation and the currently emerging “Millennial” generation among Catholics is sometimes referred to as the “John Paul II” Generation, as those Catholics born since 1981 have known no other pope. This paper empirically explores the distinctiveness of U.S. Catholic Generations in the context of world-wide Church events as they may have influenced American culture and generational formation in general. Survey research evidence is presented showing the influence of Catholics coming of age during or just after the Second Vatican Council in helping to shape the cultural “boom” of the Baby Boomer cohort. Without Vatican II and its influence in the formation of a generation of U.S. Catholics the legend and lore of the Baby Boomer Generation may have been slightly less pronounced. The distinctiveness of the Post-Vatican II and John Paul II generations are explored as well.
Conservadox: The New Denomination in Judaism
Shifts in Judaism have been an essential part of its history since the emergence of the Reform movement since the 18th Century. However, throughout these past centuries Orthodox Judaism has remained intact and for the most part unchanged. My claim is that Orthodoxy is experiencing a shift, more readily combining the morals and values of the secular world with Jewish Law. This claim is based on the study of an Orthodox synagogue in Ottawa, Canada that has recently implemented family seating and an increased (although restricted) role for women while simultaneously maintaining an Orthodox liturgy and clergy. This revolutionary experiment was done in response to a severe financial crisis that threatened the closure of this synagogue.
Beyond Parochialism: Catholicism Rediscovered
American study of organized religion tends to focus on the congregation. The case of Roman Catholic parishes shows this is a too narrow concept. The parish is not just a voluntary association, but also an organization for service delivery, a subdivision of a multinational concern, and in some countries parishes are districts of a semi-governmental public institution. In present Dutch society, half of all Roman Catholic persons do not regard themselves as members of any denomination. Yet, when asked, they are prepared to identify themselves as belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. Parish councils, as survey data shows, are not inclined to require a radical choice. Rather, they are trying to stay in contact with their secularized public, welcoming anyone searching for ‘something more’. This attitude may not only be a concession to late-modern consumerism, but may also reflect a typical Catholic mentality.
Can Durkheim Account for Conversion and Reaffiliation? A Comparison Between a Structural-Functional Research Program and Stark and Finke’s Rational-
Choice Theory
Durk H. Hak, University of Groningen, d.h.hak@ppsw.rug.nl
Stark and Finke are among the most prominent theorists and researchers in the sociology of religion nowadays. Recently they demonstrated the progressiveness of the rational choice research program by formulating a novel version of Stark and Bainbridge’s theory on conversion and affiliation. But their monopolization of scientific truth for utilitarian individualist or rational-choice theories only, denying structural functionalists in particular their rightful place in the sociology of religion, is questionable. To a degree, it is for propagating the new theory, but it has also to do with a skewed view of how the social sciences progresses. To demonstrate the progressiveness of structural functionalism Durkheim’s hard core of structural functionalism is applied to construct a scientific research program on conversion and reaffiliation. The structural-functionalist research program is supposed to be as progressive as Stark and Finke’s. And finally, a plea for a multi-paradigmatic theoretical-empirical sociology (of religion) is made as long as there is not a definite “winner.”
Chinese American College Students and Their Growing Interest in Christianity
Brian Hall, Rutgers University, brianhall@alumni.rutgers.edu
Since the early 1990s, Chinese American young people have been showing an interest in and converting to the Christian religion in increasing numbers. For this project, I employed quantitative and qualitative methods to explore how and why Chinese American students at a public university in New Jersey became interested in Christianity. I then developed two models derived from Lofland and Stark to make sense of this phenomenon. One model takes into consideration the cultural background factors or “predisposing conditions” that are enabling Chinese American young people as a group to be open and receptive to Christianity; the other model pinpoints the “situational contingencies” that are arising out of the interaction between Chinese Christians and Chinese non-Christians and that are prompting some of these young people to actually convert to the Christian religion.
On Being Religious: Patterns of Religious Commitment in Muslim Societies
Riaz Hassan, Flinders University, riaz.hassan@flinders.edu.au
Using an analytical framework developed by the Berkeley research program in religion and society, this paper will report findings from a comparative study of Muslim piety in seven Muslim countries. The findings show similarities as well as significant differences in patterns of religious commitments among the respondents in the study. This is probably the first attempt to compare and “map out” Muslim religiosity in Muslim countries. The first part of the paper will report the findings and their analysis by gender, life cycle, education, and social position. The second part of the paper will discuss the findings using analytical insights drawn from Emile Durkheim and Mary Douglas’s sociology of religion. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the sociological implications of these findings fro social, political, and religious trajectories of Muslim countries.
All Gods Children: Race, Religion and the Changing Face of Race Relations in a
Andrea Henderson, Richard Phillips, and Jeffry A. Will, University of North Florida,
jwill@unf.edu
Racial “harmony” in Jacksonville, Florida has frequently been credited to the role of a number of African American clergy. On several occasions in the past decade, potentially “explosive” events were defused by these clerics, allowing Jacksonville to maintain a 4-decade period of relative racial calm in a state that has become infamous for riots in Miami, Tampa, and St. Petersburg. On the other hand, Jacksonville made international headlines when the Pastor of the locally powerful (predominately white) First Baptist Church accused the Prophet Mohammed of being a pedophile. In the late 1990s, as part of a comprehensive policy to address racial concerns, the local Human Rights Commission and The University of North Florida entered into a collaborative effort to understand race relations in this community. In this paper, we examine religious and racial differences concerning race relations using data from a series of annual public opinion surveys conducted between 1999 and 2003. Through this analysis, and in collaboration with City officials, economic and social policies for the amelioration of those problems identified in this research are continuing to be developed.
Rethinking the Relations between Religion, State and Politics: A Feminist
Perspective
Hanna Herzog, Tel-Aviv University, hherzog@post.tau.ac.il
This paper offers a feminist perspective for understanding the triangular structure formed by religion, state, and gender, while examining it empirically in the context of Israeli society. It claims that “women,” “religion,” and “state” as social categories are formulated by their encounter. Though “women” are often the site signifying the struggle, and they are also the site through and over which the struggle is waged, in the course of the struggle between state and religion, it is not only women who are constituted as a category; religion and state as well. The encounter between the categories is power-driven. The categories possess a history of relations and are saturated with connotations and meanings marking out a specific mode of action, while the encounter between the categories occurs at intersections of disputes over material and symbolic resource allocation and policy decisions.
A Comparative Study on the Conversion Factors of Rural versus Urban Christians
in China
For the last two decades, most of the Protestant church growth in China has occurred in rural areas. However, this rural population is now migrating to the urban centers. To study the phenomenon of Chinese conversion to Christianity, I will apply and compare various conversion theories, such as narrative theory, identity theory, ritual theory, process theory, and religious/spiritual theory. Data come from ethnographic interviews of rural and urban Christians. Hopefully, this kind of eclectic approach, i.e. the combination of various theories, will expand our general understanding of Chinese conversion to Christianity and also enhance comparative studies on the Christian conversion of rural and urban China.
Identity Tensions Among Chinese Intellectual Converts to Christianity
Huang Jianbo, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, jbhmhuang@hotmail.com
In recent years, more and more intellectuals were converted to Christianity, which has attracted some attention from the society and the intellectual circle. In the context of modern China, these believers are confronting with a couple of identity dilemma: faith vs. rationality, belief vs. tradition, individual vs. structure, and fidelity to state vs. fidelity to church. They are still in the process of pondering, far to find a satisfactory solution.
Does “Moral Decline” Mean the “End of the World”?
Daniel Johnson, Gordon College, djohnson@gordon.edu
In certain religious circles, the rhetoric of moral decline is sometimes associated with the suggestion that civilization as a whole is drawing near to its end (however variously that end may be defined). Yet the link between these two ideas is not a necessary one. It generally rests on two further claims. The first is that a society's moral life is its most fundamental element, the very foundation upon which society is built. The second actually entails replacing the conventional imagery of decline with the modern discourse of decadence, in which the course of human history is viewed as a prolonged slide away from an Edenic state and toward a ruinous end. Through an analysis of survey data and an exploratory content analysis of religiously-based direct mail appeals, I seek to clarify the contexts in which these further claims are (and are not) being made.
Family Relations and the Cultural Preservation of Religiousness among African-
Americans
Vanessa Jones, James Bryant, Edward H. Thompson, and Michael Nigro, College of the Holy
Cross, jbryant@holycross.edu
In a recent comparative study of 342 elders, we found that African-Americans exhibited significantly higher rates of religiousness than elderly white Americans across extensive measures of public and private religious activity. These findings illuminated the continued strength of a distinct, African-American collective religious consciousness that is evident in attitudes, beliefs, behavior, and ethnic identification. Their religious orientation functions not only for faith practices, but to inspire collective political activism against social injustice and to culturally integrate individuals into African-American communities. In this paper, we examine how much and in what ways family relations contribute to the cultural preservation of religiousness. Using new interviews with a sample of African-American elders from the same population as our previous study, we examine how elders use their familial positions to transmit religious traditions and moral lessons to their kin.
Benjamin Nelson and Max Weber on Religion, Usury, and Capitalism: A
Comparison
Lutz Kaelber, University of Vermont, lkaelber@zoo.uvm.edu
Max Weber and Benjamin Nelson both discussed usury laws as an impediment to the development of the capitalist economy. This paper discusses the ways in which Weber addressed the prohibition of interest and its effect on the economy at some length early in his career, and shows how Weber’s thought developed in the context of this and his later writings. The paper concludes that usury played an important role in Weber’s attempt to relate medieval religion to economic practice, even though he considered the religious proscription of usurious practices only a slight detriment to economic development. Benjamin Nelson’s work, on the other hand, is not as closely tied to Weber’s as commonly assumed. While following up on some of Weber’s remarks, Nelson was more concerned with cultural rationales about usury. The paper also discusses the significance of Weber’s and Nelson’s argument for current historical writings on the topic.
Deborah Kapp, McCormick Theological Seminary, dkapp@mccormick.edu
What happens when a congregation sings a hymn or praise song? Ask a pastor this question, and she might tell you that people are singing their faith, "praying twice," or echoing the biblical text around which the worship service is ordered. Ask a worshiper this question and you may hear something else--the story of a grandmother, or a Billy Graham revival, or a deceased member of the congregation. Ask a musician and you may hear yet another story about a hymn's composer or author. Congregational singing is a rich, complicated practice. This paper explores the multi-vocality of congregational singing, and investigates how the politics and practices of authors, composers, redactors, musicians, pastors, singers, and religious bodies are expressed as congregations sing hymns, psalms, and/or songs. The data for this paper are drawn from ethnographic research in a variety of worship settings. Insights from ethno-musicology and liturgical theology enrich the analysis.
On Usage of "Spirituality" in the Context of Japanese Media
Kenta Kasai, Center for Information on Religion, Japan, ktkasai@nifty.com
Some writers on religion maintain that the term "spirituality" recently used more widely than before. They often refer to the usage in such phrase as “not religious, but spiritual.” However, if ever, it is true to a limited context. We have a growing number of titles of papers including the term “spirituality” in English, and also in Japanese. But in my examination of the letters from readers of recent 18 years in major newspapers in Japan, there are almost no entries of "spirituality” (or reisei, a Japanese word in translation). Increasing use of the term are limited, and not popular, only in the papers of human care professionals, especially in medicine, nursing, and religion. In this presentation I will show the detailed context of the usage of the term in Japanese media and comment on it.
Sectarianism in New Immigrant Religions
Fred Kniss, Loyola University Chicago, knisses@ameritech.net
New immigrant religious communities vary in the degree of sectarianism they exhibit. Their sectarianism also varies in kind. Some groups practice different varieties of cultural sectarianism, while others’ sectarianism is more theological in nature. The variations in both quantity and quality of sectarianism affect how new immigrants are able to engage U.S. civil society. The patterns observed in new immigrant sectarianism suggest some new complexities for church-sect theory as it has developed in North American sociology of religion.
Existing scholarship on religion rarely considers the Jewish community. On the few exceptional occasions that Judaism is an object of study, this faith tradition is treated as a unified community. This project examines the Washington D.C. offices that serve as the official and formal organizational representatives of two Judaism branches to illustrate variation within the Jewish community. Utilizing interviews with organization directors, websites, and various organizational materials, this paper analyzes and compares the top legislative priorities, advocacy tactics, and use of religious language by the Religion Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC) and the Orthodox Union Institute of Public Affairs (OUIPA). Results suggest that even though both groups emphasize the core Jewish value of “tikkun olam,” the only issue on which these two organizations agree is support of Israel. Furthermore, the RAC is comfortable utilizing religious language in their communications with elected officials more than the OUIPA.
“Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of Thy God in Vain”: National Religious Advocacy Groups’ Use of “God Talk”
Rachel Kraus, Purdue University, krausr@soc.purdue.edu
Despite their long-standing prominence on Capitol Hill, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish Washington, D.C. offices have been almost totally overlooked by sociologists. Certainly, political scientists have discussed these groups’ structural and political characteristics, while bypassing their religious characteristics. The scant research on these groups’ use of religious language suggests that most do not use religious language. Those groups that do use “God Talk” are more likely to be conservative. However, this paper argues that 1) the use of religious language varies across groups and contexts and 2) some liberal Protestant and Jewish groups use religious language more than conservatives. Utilizing interviews with organization directors, sign-on letters, letters sent to the President or Congress, action alerts to their consti-tuency, and optional vs. required language that they suggest their constituency use when they contact political leaders, this paper analyzes how 15 religious-based Washington offices use religious language for their advocacy activities.
Religion, Family, and Homosexuality: Conflict in the Lives of Gay and Lesbian Jehovah’s Witnesses
Janja Lalich, California State University, Chico, jlalich@csuchico.edu
Like many other fundamentalist Christian religions, the Jehovah’s Witness sect condemns homosexuality. As a result, gay and lesbian members have experienced conflict between their sexual and religious identities and beliefs. For some this has resulted also in conflict with family members who are also Jehovah’s Witnesses. In efforts to better understand, negotiate, and/or resolve these conflicts, some have sought support through networks of others who faced or are facing similar dilemmas. This paper will be based on a preliminary analysis of data gathered at international conferences of current and former members of Jehovah’s Witnesses who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered. Data are drawn from surveys of conference participants, qualitative interviews, and participant observation.
Bound by Denominational Ties? Asian-American Ministry in a Mainline
Protestant Church
Previous ethnographic studies have noted that Asian-American churches tend to be non-denominational or loosely linked to their denominations. Yet, the question why Asian- American congregations lack denominational ties remains unanswered. This research attempts to address this question through the experience of Asian Americans in the Episcopal Church. I collect data from (1) participant observation at the annual consultation of the Episcopal Asiamerica Ministry in 2002, 2003 and 2004, (2) in-depth interviews with individuals active in Asian-American ministry at congregational, diocesan, and national levels, and (3) documents, news articles, and reports from church archives. I argue that Asian-American Episcopalians continue to experience marginalization despite the denomination¹s attempts to promote racial reconciliation and diversity. In addition, due to the hierarchical structure of the denomination, Asian-American congregations in the Episcopal Church are unable to adapt as quickly as their nondenominational counterparts to the changing needs of their communities.
Temples as Enterprises
Graeme Lang, City University of Hong Kong, Selina Ching Chan, National University of
Singapore, and Lars Ragvald, Lund University, graeme.lang@cityu.edu.hk
Large temples built in mainland China during the reform era have absorbed large amounts of capital, and some of them were expected to produce returns on these investments through revenue from the anticipated flow of visitors. As enterprises designed to generate income, some appear to be successful while others, provisionally, are failures. We review four cases, focusing on three large state-owned temples in Guangdong and Zhejiang. Control of two of these temples was eventually privatized, and three of the four temples are now managed by entrepreneurs or private companies. We review these cases to illustrate the reasons why some temples succeed and others fail, and how control over temples may be transferred in attempts to rescue failing temples and recover the costs of their construction.
Predicting Moral Relativism Among American Adolescents
Youn Ok Lee, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, yolee@email.unc.edu
Moral relativism, the belief that morality does not reflect an objective standard as a basis of right and wrong, but is based on the authority of one’s own individual preferences, has been identified by many sociologists as a distinctive aspect of modern morality. This analysis provides a description of American youth who profess moral relativism and explores relationships among religious identities, practices, and commitments. This analysis is based on data from The National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), a nationally representative survey of American adolescents. Logistic regression is used to explore what role, if any, religion and religious participation have in predicting moral relativism among teens ages 13 to 17. Results suggest that some religious traditions significantly predict increased odds of teens being morally relative net of religious practice, and that among parental variables, similarity between parents with regard to religion is a significant predictor of teen’s moral relativism.
Catholicism as Contested Terrain: The Emergence of a Catholic Pro-Change
Organization
The context of the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal provides fertile ground to study the emergence of new ways of claiming religious identity. This analysis of how lay and clerical Catholics interface and negotiate this crisis documents the emergence of a Catholic pro-change organization in the Midwest and interprets its efforts to influence church leaders toward more accountability and greater lay participation as a form of religious agency. The methodology combines participant observation, interviews and artifact collection over an 18-month period. Documenting a critical time in Catholic church history, the focus of analysis is how the roles of laity and church leaders are being renegotiated. The paper provides empirical data on how lived Catholicism evolves and changes through the religious agency of its members and a window on emerging forms of lay protest and lay leadership.
The Oppositional Church in the Era of HIV/AIDS
Pamela Leong, University of Southern California, pamelale@usc.edu
The visibility, legitimacy, credibility, and tradition of commitment to social justice that is considered illustrative of black churches allude to their promising role in confronting the AIDS problem that has so disproportionately affected African Americans. However, there is evidence that mainstream black churches’ response to AIDS is far from aggressive (or progressive) enough to make real progress, with these churches tending to remain less than compassionate toward those who are HIV-affected. Separatist religious organizations, thus, offer alternative and oppositional religious and social culture, providing familiar and empowering sites for the unique experiences of persons who are low-income, black, gay, and HIV-positive. Examining one Los Angeles congregation, this study finds that this church is able to address the unique needs of its parishioners as it engages in a variety of oppositional tactics: It destabilizes and subverts gender categories, fosters open dialogue, reinterprets biblical passages, affirms and legitimizes differences, and resists multiple systems of oppression.
Urban Buddhism in China Today: A Case Study of The Jade Buddha Temple in
Xiang-ping Li, Shanghai University, lxp_sh@mail.shu.edu.cn
In today’s China, urban Buddhism has emerged with distinct characteristics from the traditional forms of Buddhism. The general characteristics of urban Bud-dhisms, such as the specialization of religious ritual services, the constituency of Bureaucracy, economic entity of common interests, cultural features of urban Buddha disciples, the private sphere in religious belief, etc. This paper will focus on the Jade Buddha Temple in the City of Shanghai, one of the largest urban temples in China today. I will describe and analyze its historical development, the distinct character-istics of urban Buddhism, structural adjustments, and social functions. I will also describe and analyze the lay community (patrons and regular visitors) of this temple.
Beyond Beliefs: Religious Identity in American Civic Life
Paul Lichterman, University of Southern California, lichterm@ssc.wisc.edu
Americans often say that religious beliefs are divisive in public and ought to be kept private. Some social commentators, on the other hand, fear that without religious moorings, Americans lack the deep moral sources they need to anchor meaningful public debate. What both sides share is an assumption that religious influences public life by way of beliefs. How does religion work in the local civic arenas said to be so crucial to democratic citizenship in America? Research there shows that religion’s influence on local civic discourse and action depends partly on the identity groups construct, apart from their beliefs. Scenes from two religiously based groups show the frustrations members encountered as they tried to act on their beliefs in local civic life. Their group identities undercut their beliefs. The two cases suggest that religious groups themselves, and not just the constraints of surrounding institutions, sever religious motivations from civic action. Cultural customs as well as institutional structures have to change for Americans to put religious motives in the service of democratic, civic action.
Intermarriage and American Jewish Identity
Robert Liebman and Joshua Bass, Portland State University, cfrl@pdx.edu
Intermarriage is the fault-line of American Jewish identity, representing at once the triumph of Jewish acceptance and the specter of Jewish disappearance in the minds of a divided Jewish community. We investigate responses to intermarriage as a window into the construction of contemporary American Jewish identity. How Jews talk about intermarriage reveals much about how Jewish identity takes shape among the multiple dimensions of group consciousness in America. Jews are simultaneously members of an ethnic group and a minority religion. In postwar America, when most Euro-ethnics gained standing as whites, Jews stood apart as both white and religiously distinctive. Not Black and not Christian, Jews occupy a contingent position in the American racial structure. The ambivalent identity of Jews in White Christian America informs a variety of responses to intermarriage. We map these responses to intermarriage by identifying six groups (rejecters, resisters, adapters, inclusivists, accepters, and outsiders.
Religious Organizations and Globalization: A Study of Mennonite World
Conference
David Lind, University of Missouri, dhl7a1@mizzou.edu
The study of international religious organizations contributes to our understanding of globalization. Based on document analysis and fieldwork at the 14th Mennonite World Conference in Zimbabwe, 2003, this paper explores the institutional context of Mennonite World Conference and places it within the relational setting of changing demographics, technologies, economies and politics related to “globalization.” Mennonite World Conference is a “global” organization constituted by a loose association of member conferences from 80 countries that profess some connection to Anabaptism. In the past 20 years, the global face of the Mennonite church has reconstituted itself and MWC marked the turn of the century as a time when Mennonites from the South became more numerous then Mennonites from North America and Europe. As a site for international representation and fellowship, MWC can inform theories of globalization that typically ignore religious processes and institutions.
The Morality in the “Morality Books” in Taiwan
This study examines the moral views and persuasion presented in the morality books (shan shu) currently published in Taiwan. Morality books are booklets used in Chinese popular religion to spread religious instruction and moral exhortation. Unlike Buddhism or Chris-tianity, Chinese popular religion does not have a distinct set of doctrines, a body of canonical writings, or special clergy to give religious or moral teachings. Instead, Chinese popular religion draws its teachings from various sources (Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, etc) and presents them in the form of morality books, which are free of charge and easily available. This study tries to explore: (1) The major themes of the most popular morality books in Taiwan; (2) The reasons given to justify and recommend a moral norm and how they relate to general moral consciousness; (3) How newly composed morality books respond to some recent major changes in personal and social morality in Taiwan.
NRMs
My paper focuses on the conflict between commitment to a charismatic ideology and individual desires for family formation, career and financial security. Using longitudinal panel data from three different NRM groups (compared to a non-cult reference group), I investigate how respondents describe instances of strain that arise between commitments to the group/organization and the demands of family, career and self-responsibility for the future. While I expect to find that tension between group ideology and personal desire was low in the first years of affiliation (Wave 1 data, 1974-1976), I anticipate narratives of increased tension to surface in the Wave 3 data (2000). Total personal commitment to a charismatic leader comes at a high personal and social cost, yet preliminary findings suggest that serious devotees are willing to pay it. My data come from the Urban Communes Project, a longitudinal study of members of communal houses at Wave 1 (1974-1976). At Wave 3, some 25 years after the start of the project, some respondents still identify themselves as members of their original groups, while others declare themselves ex-members.
Manage to Educate: Religious Commitment in Yiguan Dao
This paper documents the mechanisms adopted by Yiguan Dao to recruit new members and increase the commitment of both new and existing members. As a syncretic Chinese sect, YGD holds a very open attitude toward other traditions when it recruits neophytes. After recruiting new members, the sect devotes itself to generating and sustaining the commitment of sectarians through holding research courses which reinterpret Chinese traditional moral requirements from the perspective of YGD. At the same time, the sect utilizes these reinterpreted requirements, together with the mechanism of vows, to influence the sectarians’ ideas and behaviors. Guided by the vows they make, new recruits of YGD could choose to become core members through fulfilling stricter requirements step by step. Through case study, this paper finally indicates that a gradual strictness exists in YGD; this mechanism is helpful to increase the commitment of YGD believers because of its flexibility and consideration, as well as its ability to mitigate the free rider problem.
Drums Along the Mainline: Churched Women in Drumming Circles
Drumming circles are filled with women who are regular attenders in mainline Christian congregations, as well as those who seldom attend church services. This paper explores why women, both churched and unchurched join drumming classes and groups and what they obtain from their participation. Interviews and surveys with women in drumming circles and classes connected with a religious institution are used to understand the growing attraction of this kind of musical interaction in the overall health (spiritual, physical, social/mental) of participants.
Gay Inclusion in Mission and Ministry: Affiliations That Divide Clergy and Laity
Adair T. Lummis, Hartford Seminary, alummis@hartsem.edu
Several of the questions in a 2002 survey of over 2,000 clergy and laity, nationally distributed in one denomination, focused on attitudes concerning gay inclusion in mission and ministry, such as: whether addressing homophobia should be a mission priority of denominational offices and their congregation, willingness to have a lesbian pastor, and advocacy involvement for gay rights. Comparable to recent studies of other denominations, clergywomen are more open than clergymen to homosexuals in the church. This may be why lay men in congregations pastored by women were more open to gay inclusion. Single or remarried lay persons are somewhat more liberal concerning homosexuality than those in a first marriage. Residence in a generally conservative area of the country or being in a congregation where most members are perceived as anti-gay inclusion, however, negatively impacted the opinions of men and women, lay or ordained.
This paper examines the emerging public role of religion in Asia—specifically Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Cambodia, and Philippines, and Indonesia, and refers to several varieties of Buddhism and Islam, as well as to Catholicism and Protestantism. The cases were chosen for their importance in emerging public debates within each context. In each, our focus was on religious activities especially associated with emerging Asian middle classes—the people best positioned to have an influential voice in the public sphere. We do not claim that there is a common Asian form of the deprivatization of religion, but taken together, our case studies suggest that different forms of public religious activism have been responses to common political, economic, and cultural challenges that have affected most parts of the Asian region in the past generation, and that an Asian perspective on these challenges gives us a different understanding of the emergence of public religions than we would have if we confined our attention solely to the West.
Value-Free No More?: Ethical, Political, and Epistemological Implications of Doing Sociology of Religions under Imperial Duress
Otto Maduro, Drew University, omaduro@drew.edu
A persistent understanding of “science” in general—and of the social-scientific study of religion in particular—naïvely views science as a rational, neutral, objective, value-free endeavor (and spotting “non-scientific,” irrational, partisan, subjective, value-laden knowledge as an easy task). In the case of sociology, and of the sociology of religions, Max Weber has been cast as champion and legitimator of such an approach. I suggest here that not only such interpretation of Weber is questionable, but that Weber himself provides the foundations for a much humbler, complex, critical, and self-reflexive understanding of 'science,' the social sciences, and the sociology of religions—one which, particularly with the help of Pierre Bourdieu, might help reformulate the task of the social-scientific study of religions under imperial duress as a continuous struggle, both individual and collective, subjective and objective, to (re)orient ourselves in relation to our fellow human beings amid asymmetrical power relations.
Why Must We Sing Their Song?: Sociology as Promoter of the Moral Plebiscite
A given condition of scientific examination, analysis, and discourse is that the phenomenon being studied must have some discoverable underlying universal order. Other-wise, generalization is inherently impossible. This paper proposes that nearly two centuries of positivistic sociology have shifted attention away from the study of morality as flowing from (and fitted to) a universal human nature, as proposed by perennial philosophy and traditional religion in the west. Instead, sociology posits a universal process by which, it argues, societies achieve de facto moral plebiscites producing a situational ethic. This paper (1) examines the validity of this charge; (2) offers supporting evidence from contemporary textbooks; (3) suggests likely consequences; and (4) asks if sociology itself has contributed - as a discipline—to the decline of national moral discourse and consensus.
Correlates of Belief in Reincarnation among Christian Worshipers
John P. Marcum, Research Services, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),
jmarcum@ctr.pcusa.org
A surprising finding from the 2001 U.S. Congregational Life Survey is that 27% of worshipers in Christian congregations believe in reincarnation. Who are the individuals who hold such a heterodox idea? This paper uses a subsample of the USCLS national random sample data (n=1,204) to address this question by looking at how beliefs, practices, and demographic characteristics differ between those who believe in reincarnation and those who don’t. The results show that, on average, those who believe in reincarnation attend worship less frequently, are less involved in church school and other congregational activities, and spend less time in devotional activities. They more likely to view all religions as equally valid paths to truth. They have lower average education levels, relatively fewer of them are married, and relatively more of them are non-white. Also, the percentages who believe in reincarnation are greater among Catholics (31%) than among mainline Protestants (24%) or more conservative Protestants (17%).
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Morality, Meaning, Mystery and Memory: Decoding Audience Perceptions of Television and New Religiosity Wendy K. Martin, University of Ottawa, wendymartin@yahoo.com |
In the field of religion and culture theories which postulate the interpenetrating relationship between religion and television abound. Relatively few have yet had the opportunity to validate their theories through ethnographic methods. Based upon survey and interview data this paper examines the degree to which television functions as a creator and carrier of religious themes. In particular, I focus on the degree to which television functions as platform through which viewers reflexively explore issues of morality, shape systems of meaning, develop concepts of “religion” and construct realms of supernatural belief and disbelief. Building upon the theories of Danièle Hervieu-Léger and Grace Davie, I postulate that television functions within the realm of religious memory. In accordance with preliminary data, I suggest that television is becoming part of a new chain of memory which both mergers with past traditions and beliefs, while at the same time presents “new” traditions.
Research on Contemporary Forms of “Spirituality”: Methodological Issues
Michael Mason, Australian Catholic University, m.mason@patrick.acu.edu.au
An ongoing research project on contemporary forms of spirituality is described, highlighting issues in the history and definition of spirituality, and in development of qualitative methods of investigation. Research on the topic has been bedevilled by difficulties of definition. “Spirit” and “spirituality” have a long history in both philosophy and religion; and surviving senses of the terms include both religious and non-religious meanings. “Lexical” definitions based on usage prove unwieldy because of wildly varying and conflicting contents. Only a “stipulative” definition will serve to provide a research project with a clear focus, and a definition of spirituality as “a conscious way of life based on a transcendent referent” is explained and defended. Interview method is described – particularly techniques for exploring the elusive “pre-rational” dimension of spirituality, consisting of powerful intuitions not amenable to discursive description, but expressible in symbolic forms.
Cultural Revolutions: The Unintended Consequences of Communism in China
Richard McCarthy, University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh, r.mc.carthy@worldnet.att.net
For a millennium and a half, the West attempted to Christianize China. All of these attempts failed. Yet today, Christianity is growing by leaps and bounds in the People’s Republic. This paper will attempt to provide some reasons for the contemporary success of Christianity.
Elaine McDuff, Truman State University, emcduff@truman.edu
When the terms harassment and abuse are used is association with the clergy, the common assumption is that it is sexual abuse by the clergy which is being discussed. This assumption tends to obscure another serious issue that has received little scholarly attention – increasing levels of clergy harassment by church members and colleagues in ministry. Since harassment and abuse have been found in many studies to reduce worker satisfaction and attachment and to increase stress and turnover, it is important to have an understanding of the role that they play in the local church. This study therefore investigates the harassment of clergy, relying on organizational and sociology of work research for a theoretical framework. It is suggested that features of modern organizational structures, which are known to increase satisfaction and reduce stress and intent to leave, will help to create a supportive climate in the workplace that will reduce the likelihood of incidents of harassment and abuse. Support is found for the value of organizational context as a means of explaining both the causes and outcomes of clergy experiences of abuse and harassment.
Music and Moral Boundaries: Extending Michel Lamont’s work on Symbolic
Boundaries to the Study of Religion
Bringing together literatures describing congregations as moral communities and recent work by Michel Lamont on symbolic boundaries, this paper suggests new directions for understanding how moral categories are maintained and made to operate as boundaries markers for congregations within the same local community, and sometimes within the same tradition. Following Lamont, I explore the continuing importance of race and class for understanding differences in how people draw moral boundaries around their communities, and point to religious practices as a fruitful site for further exploring these processes. I argue one way moral boundary maintenance can be analyzed is by looking at how boundaries are embodied in the practices of a faith. As music only seems to grow in importance for contemporary Christian worship services, one such practice of particular interest is music making. I conclude by considering how we might understand the practice of making music as embodying moral boundaries for those within a faith community.
Self
and Desire: Radical Partiality as a Path to Moral Virtue
Barbara A. McGraw, Saint Mary's College of California, bmcgraw9@mac.com
Kantian ethics attempts to move one beyond self-centered wants and desires to an objective impartiality in making ethical decisions. The ideal “moral point of view” is based on the idea that we are most moral when we are most detached and disinterested. However, members of a Dianic community interviewed by the presenter hold that it is only through self-celebration and self-nurturance that one can be rescued from the self-abstraction to which an emotionless, desireless, objective impartiality leads. These Dianics say that it is through feeling connections that one gains an embodied moral point of view—not of impartiality, but a moral point of view that one might term “radical partiality.” Thus, while Kantians reject ethics based on human satisfactions, these Dianics embrace satisfaction and then universalize it, not through detachment, but by following desire to what they see as its natural conclusion—the desire to make a better world.
Tricia Mein, University of California, Santa Barbara, mein@umail.ucsb.edu
The Second Vatican Council stands as arguably the most influential Catholic moment in the twentieth century, having spurred a variety of movements for internal, structural reform. While Vatican II invited a new level of lay involvement, its promises remain yet unfilled in the eyes of numerous Catholic lay groups. The continued absence of a lay voice and clerical accountability has been magnified and critiqued in the wake of widely publicized sexual abuses within the church. This paper examines the ways in which Vatican II both empowered and constrained Catholic lay initiatives for structural change. Findings illustrate patterns of emergence, adaptation, and limitation as experienced by lay organizations seeking change in a postconciliar Catholic environment. This research provides a necessary backdrop for understanding current lay movements initiating structural reform while holding steadfast to a shared Catholic belief.
Differing Perceptions of Local Clergy As Public Figures: How Community
Residents’ View Clergy And How Clergy View Themselves
William A. Mirola, Marian College, mirola@marian.edu
People of faith often feel strongly that one barometer of America’s moral health is the visible presence of clergy in the public arena attempting to maintain the religious foundations of community life and public policy. But studies typically assess these issues at the denomina-tional or national level with the clergy themselves assessing the degree to which they are both active and effective in politics with little to no effort at establishing the reporting reliability of their responses. Researchers also implicitly assume that the political issues clergy think important and are active in are similar to what issues their congregations and residents in their communities believe are important and want to see clergy working on. This paper explores how a random sample of 800 community residents and a sample of clergy in a small Mid-western city view clergy engagement in local neighborhoods, the broader role of clergy in politics, and what issues in which local congregations should be politically active.
What has become of American Civil Religion? It has now been nearly forty years since Robert Bellah’s seminal article on American Civil Religion. That theme brought together a dizzying amount of interdisciplinary scholarship but then a sense of quiet, as though after 1980 there was little more to be said and less importance to the theme and its function in sociology. This paper reviews the conception of American civil religion, examines contemporary challenges and critiques from Marvin and Ingle and other postmodern theorists and renews the importance of a renewed sense of civil religion in America for both society and sociology.
Sexual Orientation and Strange Bedfellows Anglican-style: A Sociology of
Theological Ethics
The Anglican Communion has undergone a series of crises involving gender and sexual orientation over the past 35 years. While scholars have drawn linkages between these two issues, the latter has threatened to restructure the Anglican Communion itself, as well as constituent churches such as the Episcopal Church USA. This paper sets forth a sociological means for analyzing the Anglican Communion’s sexual orientation dilemma and its common theological and ethical arguments. Using worldview analysis, standpoint theory, and adaptations from moral development theory, it seeks to show that while theological ethics provide the reasoning power to legitimate various courses of action, the latter are set within networks of social relations having distinct sociological as well as ethical outcomes. The discussion concludes with an analysis of the Anglican Communion as a moral stage for playing out different social strategies legitimated through moral reasoning, with implications for organizational viability.
“Acts of Faith” in China: Christianity and Local Religions in Tai-an Region, PRC.
In their book Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion, Rodney Stark and Roger Finke have demonstrated the vividness of applying “religious economy theory” and the rational choice approach to the study of religion in modern societies. A case in China has been studied and similar lines of thought are attempted. The present paper will attempt to reveal some of the understandings of “religious choice” and “conversion” as seen among the Chinese people in Tai-an region and will proceed to discuss what possible meanings of “choice” and “capital” could be when they are applied to the study of religions, especially Christianity, in China today.
Places of Worship in China: The Case of Christianity in Tai-an Region of
Shandong Province
Peter Tze Ming Ng, Chinese University of Hong Kong, peterng@cuhk.edu.hk
“Christian Fever” came to China since Deng Xiao-ping’s open-door policy two decades ago. Researchers are interested to study the religious phenomena, especially the scenes of Christianity in contemporary China, both in the village and rural areas. The present paper is to report the findings and study from three different locations the present researcher visited in the Taian region of Shandong Province, China. The study will focus on how and why Chinese Christians are worshipping the ways they are found in these three different locations under study.
This paper examines data on the distribution of centers of Christian worship in contemporary China. A distinction is made between Protestant and Catholic centers. A number of questions will be addressed. How do we explain the regional variation in the number of centers of worship? To what extent can variation in the number of places of worship be explained by economic or historical factors? Are the patterns and explanations similar for the Catholic and Protestant denominations?
A New Map of Social Distance and Religious Competition Among U.S.
Denominations
A major stumbling block for research testing the religious economies model has been the lack of a clear definition, and means of measuring, religious competition. Defining religious competition as the presence of nearby substitute congregations, this paper uses the cumulative GSS to examine the patterns of intermarriage, switching, and friendship formation within and between U.S. denominations to estimate the extent to which congregations of different denominations offer each other competition for a common pool of potential adherents. The result is four-fold. First, a more refined categorization scheme that can be used to map all denominations in both the GSS and the Glenmary-ASARB data into 36 internally homogeneous denominational categories, second, an index measuring social similarity-competition between all pairs of the 36 denominational groups, third, a new map of U.S. denominational similarities and differences, and fourth a new tool for measuring the potential for religious competition among congregations in U.S. counties.
Cults, New Religious Movements, and New Christian Churches:
A Study of the Importance of Terminology in the Sociology of Religion
Paul Olson, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, pjolson@unlserve.unl.edu
The term “cult” has attracted much criticism in the sociology of religion in recent years, and many scholars have advocated dropping the word for less pejorative terms like “new religious movement.” This paper seeks to determine if simply substituting an alternative term for “cult” changes people’s attitudes toward a religious group. To this end, 1800 randomly selected Nebraskans were asked about their feelings toward “cults,” “new religious movements,” and “new Christian churches.” The survey results reveal the remarkably negative view Nebraskans have of “cults,” their ambivalence toward “new religious movements,” and their support for “new Christian churches.” Based on these findings and in concurrence with Christiano, Swatos, and Kivisto, the argument is made that use of the term “cult” by social scientists should be considered an “ethical breach,” and more neutral terminology, such as “new religious movement,” should be employed.
The Politics of the Martyrdom in Muslim World
According to the seminal study by Farhad Khosrokhavar, Les nouveaux martyres d’Allah, we are facing a new type of shahid (witness/martyr) in contemporary Muslim world: on one hand, s/he represents a modern form of political and religious mobilization and, on the other, a new hermeneutic of the sacred sources (Qur’an, Hadith and Shari‛ah) on the traditional martyr’s figure. A comparative analysis of the various types of martyr—in Iran, during the first Gulf War (1980-88), in Lebanon, in Palestine and in the case of the transnational organization al-Qa‛ida—beyond the different context (sunni/shi‘a background and type of wars and conflicts)—points out two relevant elements: martyrdom is a symbolic repertoire of social and political mobilization in order to legitimate the suicide in religious terms, as an extreme form of military violence (how to transform a simple believer into a obedient soldier); the politics of the martyrdom comes up and works with the idea of purification of the Land from the Impure enemy (how to transform the suicide into an act of morality).
Joking Apart—The Serious Purposes of Humor in the Quest for Unity:
Anglicanism as “Comedy”
Relatively little scholarly attention is given to the function of humor within churches. In this paper, and following the work of Jim Hopewell, I explore the serious sociological function of humor within the Anglican Communion. I argue that an appeal to a certain genre of comedy has been part of the identity and praxis of Anglicanism in modern times, and has thereby partially enabled its relational sociocultural unity. However, and more recently, the “comic” genre has begun to be eclipsed by conservative theological and “tragic” worldviews, which espouse clearer forms of moral interdiction. In turn, this has led to the rapid “cultural unraveling” of the Anglican Communion, even as it has sought to maintain its unity in the midst of moral disputes centered on sexuality and gender. The paper poses a concluding question: will the Anglican Communion end in tragic farce, or continue in comic pacts?
How Many Hispanics are Catholic? Reviewing the Evidence
Paul Perl and Jennifer Z. Greely, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, jenzanini@yahoo.com
The growth in the Hispanic population in the United States has sparked an interesting debate in religious circles over the share of this population that is Catholic. It has become a source of contention among Church leaders, activists, and academics, with recent surveys producing widely varying estimates. Studies have published estimates of the proportion of U.S. adult Hispanics who identify as Catholic that range from about half (51 percent) to more than three-quarters (78 percent). This paper reviews the available evidence. It explores and evaluates previous survey instruments and their methodologies and attempts to narrow the range in estimates of the proportion Catholic of U.S. Hispanics, while suggesting specific data and methods that are best suited for the topic. Initial findings indicate that bilingual survey instruments produce higher estimates of the proportion Catholic among Hispanics. Additionally, country of origin is correlated with the proportion of Hispanics who are Catholic. Conducting a survey only in select geographic areas will affect the proportion of Hispanics who identify as Catholic by reflecting the particular county-of-origin Hispanic populations located there. Using data from a recent Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate telephone survey, other potential sources of sampling bias are explored as they relate to the Hispanic population. This includes an indirect examination of exclusion of households without telephone service from RDD telephone polls. Finally, availability of data permitting, the paper will provide an in-depth exploration of Hispanics in the 2001 Canadian Census, which gathers data on religion, thus offering the best “hard evidence” on the proportion of Hispanics outside of Spanish-speaking countries who identify as Catholic.
Rewards and Rational Choice: Examining the Potentially Undermining Effects of
Reward Structures at Church-affiliated Colleges and Universities
Rational choice explanations of religious conversion and commitment have been vilified in some Christian circles because, its critics charge, they undermine and debunk the most central faith assumptions of the Christian religion. Since the believer is merely acting in self-interest the personal transformation and sacrificial elements of commitment are discounted. This paper argues, however, that rational choice theory is neither anti-religious nor anti-Christian. On the contrary, an understanding of rational choice theory may help us recognize some of the potential problems confronted by contemporary religious institutions, and may help them to become stronger. This paper focuses specifically on the potential consequences to Christian churches when church-affiliated colleges and universities implicitly or explicitly reward religious participation. Several common practices at church-affiliated institutions are discussed, including hiring decisions, promotion and tenure decisions, and ministerial tax advantages for faculty members. Such practices, it is argued, run the risk of reducing the average level of commitment to other worldly rewards, thus devaluing the compensators that are so central to the religious enterprise.
Long and Short Term Values: The Different Functions of Long-term Church
Relationships and One-off Experiences
Per Pettersson, Karlstad University, per.pettersson@kau.se
Main line churches are characterized by a life-long relationship with the church and a strong acceptance of the rites of passage (baptism and funerals). What happens – what logic comes into play – when people belong to this kind of church, but at the same time accept a variety of religious products from other providers? In a qualitative study of members of the Church of Sweden, two different sets of values emerged with respect to the life-long relationship on the one hand and occasional religious experiences on the other. Church belonging and participation in the rites of passage were motivated by long term collective values, while participation in worship and other one-off activities reflected rather more short term and individual values. This paper considers these differences from a theoretical perspective in order to understand increasing levels of religious choice alongside continuing acceptance of and adherence to the collective rites of passage.
New Religious Movement Leaders on Fictional Network Television
Brooke Pillifant, Xavier University of Louisiana, brookeandmatthew@yahoo.com
Leaders of New Religious Movements (NRMs) receive constant attention in the media. A distinct and generally negative image of these leaders has emerged in television programming. This negative image is reinforced through programs on fictional network television and tends to exaggerate characteristics of the leaders. These programs represent the dominant ideology in society and are used to enforce mainstream norms. A content analysis of thirty fictional network television episodes was conducted. The results indicate in all but one of the episodes, leaders of NRMs are portrayed as young to middle aged males. The leaders that are depicted as human are always white. The perpetuation of these stereotypes instills fear in the public by magnifying shocking traits of these leaders. The images create false perceptions that all NRMs are merely a variation of these negative characteristics, while an accurate representation would reflect the diversity and depth of the leadership.
Basic elements of Niklas Luhmann’s theory of religion and secularization
Detlef Pollack, University of Frankfurt (Oder), dp72@nyu.edu
Niklas Luhmann’s theory of religion combines systems theory and phenomenology, while at the same time rejecting micro-sociological and anthropological approaches. Religion is not only functionally defined as in the tradition of Parsons’ systems theory but it is also substantive. Religion refers to problems of meaning and contingency (i.e. functionally) and at the same time uses the distinction between immanence and transcendence to deal with them (i.e. substantively). According to Luhmann the consequences of modernization on religion are not only negative, but also positive. Functional differentiation grants religion more indepen-dence from other social subsystems and consequently the opportunity for more merely religion-based performances. This presentation will give a basic introduction to the assumptions of Luhmann’s theory of religion and secularization and show how his theory can be related to other approaches in the sociology of religion.
The Role of the Intellectual in the Study of Religion: Conflict, Competition and
Cooperation
Adam Possamai, University of Western Sydney, a.possamai@uws.edu.au
The role of intellectuals in social life as been widely studied and theorized. However, little application has been made on the involvement of the intellectual in the study of religions. This paper analyses the different types of intellectuals, e.g. Bauman’s legislators and interpreters, and how their role would contribute to sources of conflict, competition and cooperation in the field of religion. Case studies such as that of the ‘cult wars’ will be illustrated.
Moral Values In Post-Communist Slovenia
Empirical data of moral standards and values places the post-communist Middle-European Slovenia among the most morally liberal countries. The moral development of this kind, in the mostly Catholic country, which, in addition was regulated by non-democratic, totalitarian political and ideological system, has been rather surprising. The paper highlights the connection between the existing true bearings of values to socialist moral. It seems that the Communist Party Program, with its determination that “nothing is sacred,” was the source of moral relativism. Because “the moral,” both public and private, was mostly religiously based in the past, analyzes cannot avoid the question of the moral secularization, strongly supported by the Communist fight against religion. Antireligious battle was taking place, mostly, as the fight against conservative Catholic moral, (for modernization of public moral). After the Communism collapsed, the moral pluralism, in this conflicted atmosphere, has been enforced.
Singing, Sewing and Dancing Worship: Multicultural Catholics and New Filipino
Immigrants in a Chicago Parish
This paper is a case study of how interest and emphasis on “multi-cultural’” worship by non-Filipino Catholics drew new immigrant Filipina/os in one suburban parish out from private and peripheral positions of ritual practice into new roles of worship leadership. Preparation and celebrations for annual Saints’ Feasts will be analyzed to demonstrate how public performances of ethnic pageantry simultaneously serve to further multi-cultural projects of Catholic hierarchies while allowing Filipina/os to elaborate self-consciously essentialized Filipina/o identities as American Catholics. This qualitative grounded research contributes to a small but growing literature on Filipino Americans–and more specifically–gives voice to new immigrants who vigorously assert: “We are Catholic Filipinos!”
Martyrdom and Morality: The Islamic concept of Self-Sacrifice and its Moral
Implications
Babak Rahimi, European University Institute, Florence, brahimi77@hotmail.com
This paper considers the relationship between acts of martyrdom, as the most potent expression of religious faith, and Islamic morality. In the first section of the paper, I consider the dogmatic problems involved with regard to the concept and a brief historical sociology of the phenomenon in the course of Islamic history. While the Islamic terms of “martyr” (shahīd) and “witness” are terminological identical, I argue, however, that the concept of “martyrdom” in the Muslim faith has had numerous, overlapping and at times conflicting, definitions, varying according to each Shi’a and Sunni theological school. The second section of the paper deals with the moral eschatology of the phenomenon, arguing that the Islamic notion of martyrdom is essentially linked to the theological paradigm of redemptive suffering, in which pain and the experience of mourning embodies sacred quality of transcendental dimensions. In conclusion, I apply the Durkheimian notion of collective ecstasy as a possible sociological explanation for the phenomenon, connecting the Islamic moral discourse of martyrdom with the sociological need to shape a collectivity through ecstatic experience of empowerment in terms of self- sacrifice.
Judging From and For the Dominant: Religious Objects as Legal Subjects
Frank S. Ravitch, Michigan State University, fravitch@law.msu.edu
Recent events involving the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court reminded the nation about the sharp disputes that still arise when judges or other government officials expressly use religion or religious objects to impose their religious or moral views on the public. On one side many view such actions as representative of the founding values of our society and as central to a good and just society. Yet, to many people such actions represent exclusion and domination by majority religious views through those with political power. Such actions may also be perceived as demonstrations of the failure to live up to the values of pluralism and inclusion. While Judge Moore’s behavior is an especially egregious example of government imposing religious objects and messages on a sometimes unwilling public, it is part of a larger dispute; a dispute over what religious objects mean when they become legal subjects. This dispute is part of the broader culture wars that come very much into play when religion and government action intersect. This paper will explore the various ways in which religious objects are viewed, and the variety of ways such objects are framed when they become legal subjects. The paper will suggest that religious objects are readily subject to different meanings, but that judges often interpret those objects in a manner that facilitates the religious beliefs and traditions of those perceived to be in the majority in the relevant area.
Ethnic and Religious Components of Arab-American Family Role Attitudes
Jen’nan Ghazal Read, University of California, Irvine, jennan@uci.edu
Using data from a national survey of Arab-American women, this paper examines the extent to which family behavior mediates the influence of religion on women’s labor force activity. Prior research on the family has largely overlooked the role of religion in influencing women’s labor force decisions, particularly at different stages of the life cycle. The analysis begins to address this gap by examining whether religious affiliation and religiosity have direct relationships with women’s work behaviors, or if they primarily operate through family behaviors at different phases of the life course. The results find that religiosity exerts a negative influence on women’s labor force participation but only when children are present in the home. Among women with no children, religiosity has an insignificant impact on employment.
The Sociology of Religious Freedom
James T. Richardson, University of Nevada, Reno, jtr@unr.edu
This paper examines the structural and historical conditions that foster religious freedom in modern societies. Included are examinations of major variables from the sociology of religion such as pluralism and secularization, as well as important theories and concepts from the sociology of law, including Blacks’ “behavior of law” approach as well as Chambliss’ “dialectic” approach. Ideal conditions for development of religious freedom will be described, as will the converse involving situation antithetical to religious freedom.
Almost Heaven: The Decline of New Vrindaban as a Religious Community
E. Burke Rochford, Jr. and Kendra Bailey, Middlebury College,
rochford@middlebury.edu
New Vrindaban is a community that has undergone radical change over the past 15 years. Once a shining light of the Hare Krishna movement the community has faced dramatic declines in residents and resources. Today the community is fragmented and struggling to survive. The paper provides a social history of New Vrindaban and accounts for its ongoing demise as a religious community. Findings from a 2003 survey of community residents are presented to account for how residents view the community’s past and future prospects.
The Childhood of an Abuser: Examining Childhood Experiences of Men in a
Faith-Based Batterer Intervention Program
Lanette Ruff, Nancy Nason-Clark , Barbara Fisher-Townsend, University of New
Brunswick, and Nancy Murphy, Mars Hill Graduate School, lanette_ruff@rogers.com
Experts in the field argue that domestic violence has a detrimental impact on all family members. While short-term dangers are in need of immediate address, children from abusive families are also argued to have an increased likelihood of being violent as adults, impacting their future families. This paper will shed light on the childhood experiences of over 1000 men who have enrolled in a faith-based batterer intervention program. By focusing on documented accounts in the case files of men’s relationships with their parents during childhood and adolescence, the form of discipline, and witnessing or experiencing abuse within their home, this paper will detail the reported childhood experiences of men who enroll in a faith-based batterer intervention program.
Dress and Discipline: A Foucauldian Analysis of the Hijab Controversy
Christine Soriea Sheikh, University of Arizona, sheikh@email.arizona.edu
Much Western discussion of hijab argues that Muslim women are oppressed by religious dress and that they need to be liberated from it. I will argue, using a Foucauldian framework, that much of the political discourse opposing the use of hijab by Muslim women living in the West actually constitutes a discourse of domination in which Muslim women are rendered into “docile bodies” rather than agentic beings. Instead of liberating Muslim women from bodily control, as is the ostensible intent, much discourse on hijab functions to control Muslim women’s gender identities and sexualities. Analysis of the ways in which this control is accomplished will utilize Foucault’s description of hierarchal observation, normalizing judgment, and examination as the instruments enabling discipline. The central argument in this paper is that in Western culture the religiously dressed woman is not asexual; rather, she is rendered into a sexual deviant requiring Foucauldian discipline.
The Religious Participation of U.S. Immigrants:
Integrating Explanations from Ethnic Community and Rational Actor Theories
This study derives hypotheses from ethnic community and rational actor perspectives to explain variations in religious participation among US immigrants. Using data from the General Social Surveys and aggregate data from 30 nations using the World Values Survey and the World Christian Encyclopedia, we compare the rates of religious participation of first and second generation immigrants to GSS respondents of more distant immigrant waves. We also compare the predictors of religious participation, and examine the influence of demographic, denominational, and religious market factors on immigrants’ religious participation. We find that immigrant religious participation is no higher than that of other Americans, and that first generation immigrants are the least active. Immigrants with ties to sectarian Christian groups or to the Catholic Church are the most active. The religious market of the country of origin is influential only in that immigrants from nations with high rates of apostasy have lower rates of participation.
Moral Values and Moral Density: A Postmodern Durkheimian Perspective
Swati Shirwadkar, University of Pune, Robert F. Szafran, and Tom Segady, Stephen F. Austin State University, tsegady@sfasu.edu
Durkheim recognized the challenge of moral development in the face of rapid modernization. In traditional societies, he saw religion as unifying, forming the basis for collective representations. With the transition to modernity, as a result of the changes brought on by population growth—which he often termed “moral density”—the centrality of religious beliefs declined. As a result, the foundations on which societies were organized shifted dramatically. In postmodern societies, with declining populations and rapidly-evolving technological capabilities, the relationship between moral development, religious organization and religious beliefs become less clear. As the organizing principle for social order shifts from religion to technical rationality, religious beliefs become altered in two essential respects. At the individual level, religions become more privatized; at the social level, they increasingly merge with secular institutions. As a result, postmodern modalities of moral development, rather than producing social cohesion, may produce new moral ambiguities.
Pre-Post 2002 Boston Scandal Effects on Financial Support for Religious
Ministries
Anson Shupe, Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, Susan E.Darnell
Portage, Indiana, shupe@ipfw.edu
This paper attempts to compare data from two previously published studies on the “fall out” effects of awareness of clergy misconduct on financial contributions to religious groups by rank-and-file members. The two samples are not perfect comparable but analogous. One is the FADICA (Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities, Inc.)-Gallup-Zech study (with a national sample of 1001 respondents, Catholics only, and parish/diocesan/national church giving). The other study is from a Texas sample gathered by the University of Texas at Arlington’s Center for Social Research of 1067 Protestants and Catholics and giving patterns to radio and television ministries. The key dimension in examining the different samples is that the Texas data were collected in 1996 (when there had already been exposed clergy misconduct in Protestant, Catholic, and televangelist ministries) whereas the 2002 FADICA et al. study followed in the wake of the heavily publicized single Boston case. The findings show that such scandals do affect membership financial giving, though not always in expected ways.
Western modernity underwrites instrumental achievement and expressive fulfillment and provides differentiated, complex systems for their enactment. These systems exist in mutual tension and also in tension with the demand for benevolence that has its own systemic expression. The tension laden processes of instrumental, expressive, and benevolent action involve choices embedded in the constructed media of power, money and love/sex, the “fuels” that enable the maintenance and reproduction of the systems of modernity. The matter of conscience arises where conflicted choices are referred to the internal forum of the self and its sense of judgment. The complexity of the systems of modern societies ensures that choices are made in a context of relative ignorance where both the information that informs a choice is incomplete and the consequences of a choice are not fully understood. The argument is applied to choices regarding globalization, the war in Iraq, the political economy of health care, and the debate in North America about gay and lesbian marriage.
Framework
Jill Witmer Sinha, Amy Hillier, and Charlene C. McGrew, University of Pennsylvania, jwsinha@ssw.upenn.edu
In an era of devolution and Charitable Choice, awareness of the role of congregations in responding to neighborhood needs has been heightened. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are only beginning to understand how neighborhoods and religious congregations interact. Combining data from the Philadelphia Congregation Census, the U.S. Census, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), we examined patterns of congregation and neighborhood characteristics and saw some trends emerge. We developed a typology of congregations based on the distribution of their members: neighborhood, city commuter, and suburban commuter. We discussed characteristic traits of the different types, giving attention to such variables as denomination, income composition, congregation size, ethnic composition, and age of the congregations. We also utilized the framework of neighborhood ecology, including neighborhood demographic information for each congregation. This combination of congregational and neighborhood-ecological data has important implications for faith-based social services.
The Limits of Instrumentality: The Logic of Gift Exchange in Venezuelan
Pentecostalism
David Smilde, University of Georgia, dsmilde@uga.edu
I examine when and how Venezuelan Pentecostals reject a strategic attitude towards religious participation. I take Pentecostal interview respondents through a sequence of questions regarding the legitimacy of a person’s converting in order to change his life, his family, or his finances. I also take respondents through a series of questions portraying the success of Christians vs. the failure of non-Christians, and then vice versa. I analyze their responses using the theory of gift exchange. Gift logic is the logic of an indefinite and therefore not reversible causal sequence. If A only sometimes leads to B, we cannot infer A from the presence of B and we cannot infer ~A from ~B. It's being indefinite means that the actions of each part must come from other more enduring motivations--normally conceptualized as love, good will, altruism, or eternal life. The causal chain’s indefiniteness also underlines the involved parties’, but especially, God’s, autonomy.
Monastic Spirituality Beyond the Cloister: A Preliminary Look at Lay Cistercians
Lay Cistercian groups in the United States were surveyed to determine why members have pursued monastic spirituality and to assess how they incorporate monastic values and practices into their lives. Members who grew up religious were asked to discuss what that experience meant for them and in what ways it influenced their choice of monastic spirituality. Members who did not grow up religious were asked what influenced them to seek out monastic spirituality.
Escape From Morality
From Plato to Marsilius of Padua, Western political philosophers searched for the common good. The myth of the common good grounded legitimate authority in a moral order that transcended politics. At the beginning of the modern era the myth of the common good began to be replaced by the myth of the self-interested, rational individual. First articulated in the work of political theorists such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau and economic theorists such as Mandeville and Smith, this myth has become the only story we tell today about politics and economics. The resulting alienation has undermined that freedom which was the basis of the myth.
“Preacher’s Kids are the Worst”: Results of a Survey among Sons and Daughters
of Dutch Protestant Ministers
Hijme Stoffels, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, stoffels@tiscali.nl
Preacher’s kids are a special breed, or at least they think they are. In 2002, a survey was held amongst sons and daughters of Dutch Protestant ministers. The research project tried to answer questions such as: how were they raised? Did they experience the parsonage as a ‘glass house’, where everything was visible for the outside world? Did they have to live up to higher standards than others? Which values were important at home and how were they confronted with church and belief? How does their upbringing affect their contemporary life? What are their contemporary religious and moral values? Do they look back in anger? The response to a few calls in national newspapers was overwhelming. More than 2.000 preacher’s kids, ranging in age from 16 to 96 years, took the time to answer a lengthy questionnaire. Results of this survey will be presented.
Understanding
Church Growth and Decline: A Test of the Market Based Approach
Laurie Cooper Stoll and Larry R. Petersen, University of Memphis,
lcstoll@aol.com
In recent years, a major concern of scholars who have applied rational choice theory to the study of religion has been to understand church growth and decline. According to some versions of this theory, churches in higher tension with society produce more committed members than those in lower tension. The more committed members are to their church, the more willing they are to provide their church with time and money resources. Since higher tension churches have more of these resources, they are better able to attract, recruit, and retain members and, therefore, are more likely to grow. The purpose of our research is to bring evidence to bear on these ideas by testing several hypotheses that implicate time and money resources as intervening variables between church tension and church growth. Data for this study was gathered by surveying pastors from a stratified random sample of churches in Shelby County, Tennessee.
How Did Confucianism Become a World Religion: The Legacy of British
Colonialism and the Rise of Comparative Religion as a Discipline
This paper gives a critical examination of the formation of the controversial concept of “Confucianism as a world religion,” which is one of the key terms in several related disciplines such as sociology of religion, comparative study of religions, and the study of Chinese religions. More specifically, this research analyzes the British conception of Confucianism in the late 19th and early 20th century, where the question of whether Confucianism was a religion was heatedly debated and eventually settled. By conceptualizing Confucianism as a world religion that was compatible with Christianity, scholars involved in world religious discourse essentialized a non-Western religion in a framework that was based on a Christianized definition of religions, partly for serving evangelical purposes.
The Fruits of Persitent Localism: How Global Anglicanism Came to Play Peoria
With particular attention to the local-cosmopolitan distinction and “persistent localism” characterizing various sectors of U.S. cultural history, I will focus on the Diocese of Quincy within the Episcopal Church to show how specific factors in both ecclesiastical and secular history interacted to create a set of institutional relationships that unwittingly positioned one of the smallest dioceses within the Episcopal Church as a central player in the actions that immediately preceded and resulted from the election and subsequent consecration ceremony of Gene Robinson in the Diocese of New Hampshire in 2003. Structural dynamics create contexts through which specific local cultures express themselves with ironic outcomes as denomina-tions move from national to global settings; thus, if a comprehensive structural Anglicanism (epitomized, e.g., by the Lambeth Conference) survives it will most likely be through global networks of faith communities rather than historic national structures.
Observing Religion Without Foundations: Distinguishing Communication and
Consciousness in the Sociology of Religion
Günter Thomas, University of Heidelberg, guenter.thomas@urz.uni-heidelberg.de
Niklas Luhmann's sociology of religion is located within the larger setting of an encompassing theory of society. This theory is first of all a theory of social differentiation and social evolution (like Parsons'). However, it is also a complex and subtle theory of communication that strictly distinguishes consciousness from emergent communication: The raw materials of social reality or events are communications, not actions—even though they can be attributed as actions through processes of self-description. The presentation explores the far reaching consequences of this shift from action to communication for the sociological study of religion. Society, based on communication, creates problems that can only be resolved by specifically encoded communications—that means, among others, by religious communi-cation. However, due to the loose coupling between perception and communication, the sociological observation of religion can only observe religious communications, not the corresponding perceptions.
Indoctrination: Mind Control Without Brainwashing in Religious Sects and Cults
William Torry, West Virginia University, torry@iolinc.net
The literature on methods of brainwashing for holding onto members of religious cults (NRMs) and sects and the legitimacy of brainwashing rhetoric stand as matters of importance to students of these groups. What writing on the subject loses sight of is, more fundamentally, the nature of indoctrination. While brainwashing presupposes indoctrination, no general sociological theory of indoctrination exists. Consequently, sociologists have difficulty specifying the mechanics and developing indicators of mind control, which limits their grasp of the moral, legal, and social theoretical arguments attached to concerns about individual autonomy loss within these religious communities. I propose a battery of tests, prerequisite for building a comprehensive theory of indoctrination, that can satisfy friends and foes of the brainwashing thesis, meanwhile giving indoctrination the prominence it currently lacks in the field of religious sociology.
Women of Value and the Devaluation of Women
Nancy Ramsey Tosh, University of Phoenix, nancytosh@juno.com
Emile Durkheim said religion is the main creator and legitimator of societal concepts of gender and gendered power. Western religions substantially conceive of deity as a patriarch legitimating a patriarchal culture. This paradigm results in the devaluing and disen-franchisement of women. In response, women may remain silent, leave, confront or embrace the patriarchy. The first and most common choice offers women little power. Women who leave may choose a counter-cultural religion. Faithful dissidents comprise a majority of contem-porary female theologians. Research reveals that women show stronger support of traditional, patriarchal gender roles than do men. Anti-feminists point to the devaluation, objectification and victimization of women evident in secular culture and maintain that women find respect as persons within traditional gender roles. This paper explores the experience of women along this continuum of feminism to anti-feminism and what this means to men, women, religion, morality and the future of the family.
Although most researchers would conclude that recruiting new members for unofficial organizations is impossible in a closed polity, the dramatic growth of the Chinese church in China proves otherwise. Innovative ways of reaching non-believers has sparked an incredible growth of 1200% in twenty years among the Chinese Protestant population. This paper will sketch a variety of novel organizational forms that have appeared as Chinese Christian communities have reached out to the society. It seeks to explain how these novel forms of church have gained new members, matching the diversity of social positions with a diversity of organizational forms. Peasants, university students, migrant workers, and unemployed workers have all joined these new Christian organizations. The paper draws on grassroots fieldwork carried out from October 2002 to December 2003 in several regions of China.
Truth Commissions and Moral Globalization: Theologies of Reconciliation in the
Transnational Public Sphere
Jonathan VanAntwerpen, University of California, Berkeley,
jdva@socrates.berkeley.edu
When South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set out to assess the politically motivated crimes of that nation’s past, “truth” was rendered as “the road to reconciliation.” Linked to notions of confession and forgiveness, cathartic testimony, redeemed suffering and healing truth, religious discourses of “reconciliation” were conjoined with those of “human rights” to produce an innovative model of transitional justice, and one that has since become an internationally heralded archetype. Through the work of subsequent truth commissions, promoted worldwide by global moral entrepreneurs, the language of “reconciliation,” if not its reality, has proliferated. This paper traces key historical struggles over, and transformations of, the political theologies of reconciliation associated with the work of truth commissions. In particular, it analyzes the relationship between earlier South African theologies of reconciliation and the political theories of reconciliation and “restorative justice” that have attended the transnational proliferation of truth and reconciliation.
Religion as a Paradigm of Conflict, Competition and Cooperation
Ivan Varga, Queens University, vargai@post.queensu.ca
All monotheistic religions claim to be the depositories and representations of Truth writ large. This creates conditions for competition as well as cooperation. Even different currents within the same religion compete or are in conflict with one another. Being part of the this-worldly social structure and claiming to be representatives of God’s message, their doctrines include moral tenets as well. Religions influence individuals’ values, behaviour and ideas. This has repercussions in politics and culture, and creates tensions within the churches or in the community of believers They want to influence societal institutions and legislation as well as people’s morals. Therefore, they influence both the political and civic sphere of society. The fight against social injustice, defining the dignity of human beings and, lately, concern for the environment can, and do, lead to cooperation.
Psychiatrists’ and Psychologists’ Professional Practice and Religious and
Spiritual Beliefs
Through semi-structured qualitative interviews with fourteen psychiatrists and sixteen psychologists of Judeo-Christian faiths, this study explored how their medical and scientific training interfaced with their religious values and beliefs in their professional work. Therapists integrated their medical-scientific and religious and spiritual paradigms into their practice through: (1) citing and following the professional norm to follow the client’s lead and to talk about what is of importance to them, which often included religion or spirituality, (2) using their own theological knowledge to inform their work, but not necessarily impose this on the client, and (3) praying either silently or with the client. At the same time, participants reported that they served a professional versus spiritual function in their work. As such, they followed professional guidelines such as diagnosis schema and maintaining professional boundaries.
Xiao-qing Wang, University of Notre Dame, wang.64@nd.edu
This paper investigates relationships between inter-group conflicts and the incul-turation of Catholicism in a northern Chinese village. The Christian revival in China since the early 1980s has often been attributed to political, social, economic, geographical, and religious factors. This paper stresses inter-group conflicts. This research uses historical and ethnographic methods. The field research has been conducted on a Catholic village and a non-Catholic village. Based on inter-group conflict theories and results from field research I find that intergroup conflicts are an underlying factor in the continuation of Catholicism in the Catholic village. This paper illustrates how intergroup conflicts reinforce the togetherness among Catholics, and force Catholics to maintain their Catholic identity and belief. Moreover, the conflicts have been still lingering in minds of both Catholics and non-Catholics. Since northern China has hundreds of Catholic villages, this case study offers policy implications to solve conflicts between Catholics and non-Catholics.
Religious Conversion to Christianity Among Students from the People’s Republic of China: A Comparative Study
Yuting Wang, University of Notre Dame, ywang7@nd.edu
Sociologists have not addressed the increasing phenomenon of religious conversion to Christianity among Chinese immigrants until very recently. Studies on Chinese Christians have found that dominant theories of religious conversion fall short when extend to the Chinese case. Fenggang Yang proposed a social-cultural-institutional model to explain the uniqueness of Chinese conversion to Christianity, which emphasizes the social and cultural changes in China and places institutional context in the secondary position. Drawing from previous studies, the purpose of this study is twofold. Based on in-depth interviews on two university campuses, this study first tests the generalizability of Yang’s model on religious conversion among current students from China on college campuses; second, by comparing the different patterns of religious conversion to Christianity between the two Chinese student communities, this study discusses the validity of his model when taking into consideration the characteristics of Chinese community, which has been ignored in previous studies.
The Globalized Beginnings of Evangelical Understandings of Morality on Post-
Communist Transitions
Immigrants of evangelical faith from the Russian Empire to the U.S. who returned to their homeland to missionize played a critical role in the spread of Pentecostalism and Baptism in the Russian Empire. With the creation of the Soviet Union, sharp repressive measures ensued for all believers in keeping with the state’s avowedly atheistic ideology. Evangelical communities grew during the Soviet period, although many led an underground, illegal existence and advocated an alternative sense of morality and agency in direct contradiction to Soviet ideology. Ongoing interactions and appeals for help to Western evangelicals during the Soviet period paved the way for the massive interventions by Western missionary organizations after 1991. This paper compares the alternative moral order Evangelical communities advocated under the Soviet regime with what it became after 1991 and the role of ideology in shaping moral visions.
Homophobia, Hypermasculinity and the Black Church
Elijah Ward, University of Illinois at Chicago, elijahal@uic.edu
The black church holds a central and uniquely influential position within black culture and society in the United States. Literalist interpretations of Judeo-Christian scripture are pivotal to the theological orientations of the vast majority of black churches. Many black churches foment homophobia, having the lion's share in the genesis, legitimation and weekly reinforcement of this fear in black communities. A wealth of analyses by scriptural scholars has emerged during the past several years which throw into question the underpinnings of traditional homophobic interpretations of the Bible. Yet, conservative religious moralisms persist in most black churches and communities. Theologically-driven homophobia helps shape an ideal of hypermasculinity within black congregations and communities that takes a significant and generally unexamined psychic toll upon many black individuals. It adversely shapes the lives of black men who have sex with other men, but also the lives of heterosexual males, black women and our children.
A New Method of Outreach in Chinese Buddhism: The Example of the Bailin
Temple Chan Summer Camp
As one of the new methods of outreach in Mainland Chinese Buddhism over the past two decades, summer camp attracted some attention of social scientists. In the present study, I shall refer to an empirical survey of the Bailin Temple Chan Summer Camp (BTCSC), which is the model of many Buddhism camps today. The article analyzed the developments of its ideas, organizations, activities, and influences, examined the changes of number, age, gender, and education of the members, and discuss the impact of BTCSC to the moral life of its members. The main finding is that most of the temples have a marginal role in the established system, have young and well educated leaders, and their main members are college students and graduates. The paper ends with a discussion of the role of BTCSC in the moral upbringings of young Buddhists in China today.
Queer Seekers: Religion and Identity Negotiation in Los Angeles
This year’s call for papers suggests that the connections between religion, morality, and politics are weakening in the U.S. While this may be true in some contexts, at least one case challenges this argument: the ongoing religio-political debates over same-sex relationships. In such discussions politics, morality, and religion are closely intertwined, producing a powerful regulatory discourse. This paper explores acceptance of and resistance to the regulatory discourses of religion, politics, and community by examining the strategies for identity negotiation employed by lesbian and bisexual women and transgender people in the Los Angeles area. Reporting on a project partially funded by a 2001 Fichter grant, this paper will explore the complex interactions between religious, sexual, gender, ethnic, and other identities in the lives of the project’s participants, arguing that such analyses offer a way into theorizing the relationships between identity negotiation, social power, internalized oppression, and oppositional consciousness.
The Shaping Power of American Culture: Liberalism, Religion, and Non-Christian Immigrants
Rhys H. Williams, University of Cincinnati, rhys.williams@uc.edu
Noted American political scholar Louis Hartz claimed that “liberalism” was the only real ideology legitimately available in U.S. politics. Robert Bellah and his colleagues modified that view only slightly by calling Lockean individualism the “first language of American culture.” And many theorists of imperialism or capitalist globalization allot to American cultural forms an almost irresistible tidal force. Yet, scholars of immigration have rejected the term “assimilation,” as it fails to appreciate the myriad ways in which immigrants adapt without assimilating, and change their host societies even as they themselves change. This debate takes place as large numbers of non-Christian immigrants are arriving here, producing a religious pluralism previously unknown. How will these newer arrivals affect our national self-definition? Will they be absorbed into American public life as ethnic Catholics and Jews were in the 20th century? Or will the U.S. have to re-configure the extent to which religious pluralism can be accommodated within one polity structure?
History and Metaphor, Spirituality and Feminism in the Formation of Peace and
Justice Activists
Celia Winkler, University of Montana, Lynne Isaacson, Concordia College, and
Kristeen Black, University of Montana, celia/winkler@montana.edu
The purpose of this study is to determine to what sort of “moral understandings” inform the work of “peace and justice” activists in a college community, and the origins of this understanding. This research attempts to parse out the interrelationship between the interest in peace and social justice work and the performance of that work, and the development of “moral understandings” based on religion, feminisms, or other frames. In this early phase of the research, we interview twenty individuals who have been engaged in some sort of peace and/or social justice activism for at least ten years in two separate college communities in the northern United States. Subsequent research will investigate both younger activists and indi-viduals engaged in socially conservative political activity.
Niklas Luhmann’s Theory of Religion and Empirical Research on Religion
Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, University of Leipzig, wohlrab@rz.uni-leipzig.de
For a long time Niklas Luhmann has been of interest especially for specialists in social theory and in theory of religion. Whereas Luhmann’s concept of functional differentiation has been widely accepted in sociology, his theory of religion was considered being too abstract and of no use for empirical operationalization. The paper discusses actual and possible attempts to make use of Luhmann’s theory in empirical investigations in terms of (a) developing a broader, but concise concept of religion based on the distinction of immanence and transcendence, (b) discussing the relationship between the religious system and religious organizations and (c) relating the concept of world society to the field of sociology of religion.
Responsive Congregational Identity: Identity Strength and Diversity as
Correlates of Vitality
Congregational identity, the sense of “who we are and what are we about,” varies from congregation to congregation. While identity stems from a number of factors, this paper explores constructed identity based on theology, worldview, values, future directions, areas of competence, and demographics. The paper describes patterns of identity within and between congregations. Further, the analyses address the question of how dominant and dissonant views of congregational identity relate to attendee participation rates, involvement in community outreach, numerical growth, and clergy leadership style. The U.S. Congregational Life Survey, a national random sample of congregations provides a unique opportunity to explore these issues. Attendee forms, aggregated to the congregational level and weighted to compensate for size and non-response biases, allowed for the development of congregational identity measures, capturing both clarity and diversity.
Competing Moralities in Shanghai’s Taoist Economy
Der-Ruey Yang, National University of Singapore, yang_der_ruey@hotmail.com
Following the idea of “religious economy” by Stark and Finke, this paper proposes to view Shanghai’s Taoism as a “market” whose supply side mainly consists of three types of “suppliers.” Each of them represents a well-known mode of exchange and implies a specific range of ethics and moral hazard. Therefore, the competition between these suppliers can be seen as a rivalry between different economic moral/ethics prevailing in today’s China. By examining the process in which these suppliers compete, imitate, and negotiate with each other under the influence of “consumers”, this paper attempts to suggest that Shanghai’s Taoism is still struggling for striking a balance between rival economic moral/ethics. However, it seems that a peculiar mode of economic and moral pluralism, in which the role of political and intellectual authority will be stressed rather than slashed, holds the future of Taoism in Shanghai.
The Octagon Model of Volunteer Motivation: Results of a Phenomenological
Analysis
Anne Yeung, Helsinki University, anne.yeung@helsinki.fi
Individual motivation is the core of activity and continuity in voluntary work both from the standpoint of theoretical research and of practical volunteerism. The motivation of volunteers also provides an excellent research area for the exploration of the wider sociological theme of late-modern participation. This study, based on the data from 18 interviews with church volunteers, explores their motivation utilizing a phenomenological approach to individual experience and the meaning of volunteerism. Research using the phenomenological approach illuminates the nature of motivation from a holistic perspective. My research includes 767 motivational elements in 47 themes and develops an innovative four-dimensional octagon model of volunteer motivation, the theoretical and practical applications of which are then discussed.
Identity through Religious Narratives: Being Mennonite in a Global Era
Kendra Yoder, University of Missouri, klyd29@mizzou.edu
This paper informs the study of religious identities by analyzing how Mennonite religious narratives are being constructed and remade by Mennonite youth in global/local contexts. What common threads make Mennonite youth claim a distinctly Anabaptist identity, even across cultural, national, and historical differences? Based on interviews conducted with youth attending the Mennonite World Conference, I explore the intersectionality of Mennonite religious identities emerging out of their located religious and secular experiences. The Mennonite World Conference, held in Zimbabwe, 2003, hosted the first Global Youth Summit in response to youth requests for a forum where they could voice and share their experiences. The Summit, representing over 220 Mennonite and Brethren in Christ youth (ages 18-25) from 28 countries, created an arena in which young Mennonites could gather and share similarities and differences in their experiences of being Mennonite in the ‘global’ church.
The Ethical Implications of Idolatry
Michael York, Bath Spa University College, a.ekrek@bathspa.ac.uk
This paper will discuss the ethical consequences of idolatry for the contemporary Western Pagan: what is the debate, what are the rationales, and how does idolatry justify ethical behavior?
The Aging of Disciple Relationships
The disciple relationship is at the heart of many new religious movements. As religious movements persist over time, their members and their leaders age but so do the relationships that connect them. Using panel data on religious movements that have persisted for a quarter of a century or more, this paper will examine patterns of both strain and maturation that enter into disciple relationships as the relationships themselves grow older.
The Impact of Institutional Factors on Chinese Conversion to Evangelical Protestantism in the United States
Xuefeng Zhang, University of Minnesota, zhan0127@umn.edu
This paper examines the impact of institutional factors on Chinese immigrants’ conversion to evangelical Protestantism. Using data collected through my ethnographic field-work in a Chinese Christian community in a major metropolitan area in the Midwest from 1998 to 2003, I will argue that religious institutions play a crucial role in converting Chinese immigrants to evangelical Protestantism. Specifically, I will examine the role played by Chinese Christian churches and “parachurch” groups, such as China Outreach Ministry, and the cooperation between Chinese Christian churches and “parachurch” groups in the process of evangelizing Chinese in the area. In addition, I will show how American churches also involved in the practice of converting Chinese through their support of Christian outreach groups.
Inventing Morality: Christianity and Local Religions in Modern Fuzhou Region
Religion adds an important dimension to the study of modern Chinese society. Sometimes, religious conversion becomes a means of abandoning stigmatized national cultural identity. But other times the adoption of a new religion can bring forth a new “morality” and even increase the group cohesion of national cultural identity. The present research will choose Fuzhou region as a case for micro study and look into the interplay between Christianity and the different religions there. More important, I will attempt to tell why and how Christianity can bring forth a new “morality” and a new “tradition” in modern China. I will attempt to interpret the “inventing process” of religious tradition with historical investigation. Attention will be made to study especially on Christian lineage, Christian community and inter-religious relationships among Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism and other popular reli-gions found in modern Fuzhou region.
Why, At All, We Need Religion? Religion and Morality in Post-Communist Europe
Siniša Zrinščak, University of Zagreb, sinisa.zrinscak@zg.htnet.hr
The title of the paper is provoked by a study by Rodney Stark in which he found out that the relationship between religion and morality is particularly weak in post-communist Europe. In this paper I want to test Stark’s findings by using European Values Surveys 1999/2000 data in which 33 European countries participated, 14 of them post-communist. I am testing correlation between church attendance and importance of God with large scale of moral items. Results suggest that correlations between religion and morality are generally lower in post-Communist countries than in Western Europe, but there are also many other differences that should be noted and further discussed, which also question Stark’s explanation about reasons for particularly weak correlation in post-communist countries (repression, collaboration, and a more distant image of God).