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