Showing papers on "Religious organization published in 1977"

The urban distribution of voluntary organizations

Abstract: Despite of tions, individuals relatively the existence associated little of research a with voluminous participation has addressed literature in voluntary the distribution on the organizatraits of of individuals associated with participation in voluntary organizations, relativ y litt e res arch has addressed the distribution of these units in larger collectivities There have been a few efforts to consider societal properties shaping the capacity to support voluntary organizations (see Smith, 1973), but the urban communitythe focus of this paperhas been largely ignored, this despite much that has been written on the consequences of community voluntary organizations for local levels of welfare and cohesion The present paper reports on an analysis of metropolitan characteristics which are hypothesized to be related to the prevalence of six kinds of voluntary organizations in 93 SMSAs My hypotheses point to two kinds of community-level concomitants of prevalence: (1) population characteristics known to affect participation at the individual level, and (2) more global properties of the community as a whole As regards (1), socioeconomic status and race stand out as important, first, because of the attention they have received in the social participation literature and, second, because they are known to be dimensions on which entire communities differ The hypothesis regarding SES is clear: metropolitan areas with high status populations should prove to contain large numbers of voluntary organizations given the well-documented tendency for organization joining to rise with the SES of individuals The individual-level data regarding race are less clear: while zero-order correlations tend to show nonwhites participating less than whites, controls for SES tend to eliminate or even reverse this pattern ( Olsen, 1970 ) I would argue that the relation between race and organizational activity, on the individual and community levels, probably interacts with organizational type For example, one might argue that employee or labor associations would be less prevalent in heavily nonwhite urban areas given the historical tendency of unions (especially craft unions) to exclude black workers However, the importance of religion in the social life of blacks points to the opposite pattern with respect to religious organizations such as churches Thus, both SES and race will be treated here as compositional features of SMSAs having implications for the metropolitan distribution of voluntary organizations But an argument which treats city-level variance in organizational activity as merely the aggregation of individual-level processes hardly testifies to the value of treating communities as units Another theme which appears in social participation research lends itself better to an analysis of the impact of certain global community traits Wirth (1938) is only the best known of a long line of writers who have held that the integra-

Religious Forces and "Morality" Policies in the American States:

Abstract: A NUMBER of studies have identified religious forces as having an important influence in state politics. Highly controversial areas of state policy such as parochial school aid or regulation of moral conduct often involve church groups as major political actors.1 Despite the evidence that church groups are politically influential in some states, little effort has been made to determine if there is any systematic relationship between church strength and public policy in the American states. Some research has been done attempting to relate the strength of fundamentalist Protestant groups to taxing and education policies. Hutcheson and Taylor calculated the percentage of population in each state affiliated "with Protestant religious organizations which believe in the literal inspiration of the Bible"2 and found that these state percentages vary more closely with taxing and education policy indicators than do several common economic indicators. The authors conclude "that fundamentalist Protestantism and the values espoused by fundamentalist denominations represent a sub-culture influential in state politics."3 If the size of a fundamentalist sub-culture is an important factor in state politics, its influence should be most noticeable in those areas where policy questions directly affect fundamentalist concerns. Two policy areas in which fundamentalist groups traditionally have been concerned are liquor and gambling regulations. Support for strict liquor and gambling controls reflects a set of values stemming jointly from Protestantism's Puritan heritage with its emphasis on industry and productivity and from Protestant revivalism of the nineteenth century with its emphasis on piety and asceticism.4 Protestant denominations of both the Calvinist and pietistic traditions found drinking and gambling to be activities likely to bring God's wrath on man and his society. Descriptive analyses of the enactment of liquor and gambling prohibitions suggest that these denominations were responsible, either directly or working under umbrella organizations such as the Anti-Saloon League, for the passage of restrictive laws.5 Several state policy studies have explored interstate variations in gambling and liquor policies on a systematic basis but have attempted to account for differences on the basis of differences in the economic environment. Dye found statistically significant relationships between gambling policy (measured as the percent of state revenue derived from gambling operations) and measures of urbanization, in-

The efficacy of lay CPR instruction: an evaluation.

Abstract: More than 325,000 Americans die each year from cardiac arrest outside the hospital, usually within two hours after the onset of symptoms.1 Regardless of the specific cause, effective heart contraction and breathing cease. Without resuscitation, cardiac arrest almost always results in death.2 Yet a reduction in the mortality rate could be achieved if more persons in the general community were trained to recognize the signs of cardiac arrest and to give immediate lifesaving assistance by administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).2 3 Several CPR training programs conducted under the auspices of the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Red Cross, as well as the community-wide efforts of the Medic I and II programs in Seattle4' 5 have indicated that medical professionals and paraprofessionals can train lay persons in CPR techniques. However, many communities do not have sufficient numbers of volunteer medical professionals and paraprofessionals to conduct CPR instruction programs. As a result, communities and organizations are recruiting lay individuals to teach CPR to the general public. As the utilization of lay, volunteer instructors increases with public demand for CPR training programs, it becomes important to evaluate the effectiveness of such instructors in teaching volunteer adults to perform CPR. Although studies have been conducted among captive audiences (i.e. secondary school students),4'6 little is known about the effectiveness of lay volunteer instructors in providing CPR training to non-captive audiences (i.e. adults from the general community). During the six-month study, 772 adults from business, civic, and religious organizations and the general community participated in the standard AHA Basic Life Support course offered by the Junior League of Houston volunteer instructors.t One principal and six assistant instructors conducted each class of 15-20 trainees.**

Analyzing Religious Sects: An Empirical Examination of Wilson's Sect Typology

Abstract: In an effort to test the empirical accuracy of concepts used to describe religious sects and to generate new insights into sect organization and development, Wilson's (1969) sect typology was examined through a comparison with an empirically-derived, scaled configuration of religious sects. Measures of unit (sect) similarity were calculated for a sample of twenty-one American Protestant sects and a nonmetric multidimensional scaling (MDS) was performed on the resulting similarity matrix. A two-dimensional solution was obtained, with axes representing sectarian retreatism from the secular world and level of organizational precariousness. In addition, doctrinal and organizational features were discovered which differentiated among classes of religious sects. Differences between the scaled configuration of sects and Wilson's typology, together with other interesting patterns observed in the data, point out the utility of MDS approaches for the analysis of religious organizations.

The SPCTEW and Western Colleges: Religion and Higher Education in Mid-Nineteenth Century America.

Abstract: create a new society in the vast hinterland of America. (1) Although the work of the Society has been known to students of nineteenth century American culture, the recent availability of the organization's letter files encourages a thorough re-examination of the SPCTEW's activities. (2) The results fall roughly into a two-part sequence: first an analysis of the special set of religious attitudes and assumptions which motivated the Society and shaped its activities, and second, a description of the development and eventual decline of the organization itself, including discussion of some of the key events and forces which determined that development. Hopefully these twin concerns properly delineated will provide a better understanding of the significance of the SPCTEW in nineteenth century American religious and educational history. From the beginning the "Western College Society" (frequently socalled by its supporters) reflected many of the basic characteristics and spirit of the evangelical movement in this country. The SPCTEW was a "benevolent society," part of the larger array of organizations created by the evangelicals in the nineteenth century to "Christianize" American culture-to provide a special moral fibre, a particular worldview, and a means to action for the entire nation. Members of the Beecher family, in many ways quintessential representatives of the evangelical movement throughout its history, played prominent roles both in the founding of

Planning prosthetic and orthotic programmes to aid developing countries.

Abstract: At present there is a profusion of agencies and governments which send missions of prosthetics and orthotics experts into developing countries. Included are the UN, the World Rehabilitation Fund, the World Health Organization, the Social and Rehabilitation Service of HEW, Public Health Service, certain religious organizations, HOPE ship, and perhaps others. These agencies send experts to developing countries with the b t intentions but sometimes without regard to each other’s work. These efforts should avoid duplication, programmes should not overlap, one mission should not be critical of another, and agencies should not compete for the limited talent available to man the missions.

Pentecostal Youth Organizations and the Bulgarian Komsomol

Abstract: (1977). Pentecostal Youth Organizations and the Bulgarian Komsomol. Comparative Education: Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 243-248.

Continuity and Change in a Religious Organization: Some Aspects of the Australian Catholic Church

Abstract: Caporale's contention, which holds that susceptibility to change within the Catholic Church is a function of the interplay of the power structure, the ethico-dogmatic system, and the characteristics of church membership, is tested by examining the Australian Catholic Church in relation to Catholic immigration. The Australian Church is analysed in terms of a model, consisting of 'Rome,' 'the Australian hierarchy,' and 'the parish.' Its organizational nature is examined, not only in terms of migration policy and official accounts of implementation, but also in terms of the actual responses to the immediate situations involving migrants. The data confirm Caporale's contention and provide some confirmation of macro theory as applied to organizations.

The Congregationalists and American Education.

Abstract: THE CONGREGATIONAL LIBRARY, located in downtown Boston, possesses an important collection of papers related to the history of American education in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which deserves the attention of historians. The Library has long served as a principal repository for the historical records of American Congregationalists, well known for their broad support of education. In 1965, as a result of the earlier merger of Congregational-Christian and Evangelical Reformed churches into the United Church of Christ, the files of the Congregational Board of Homeland Missions were deposited at the denominational library in Boston. These materials included the manuscript records of all the national educational societies of the denomination. (1) Included are the records of the American Education Society, founded in 1815 in cooperation with the Presbyterians and maintained throughout much of the rest of the century to support indigent college students intending to enter the ministry; the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West, a benevolent society founded in 1843, again supported jointly by Presbyterians and Congregationalists in order to provide direct financial aid to struggling colleges in the midwest and west; the American Education and College Society, the replacement for AES and the SPCTEW when they merged in 1874, now controlled exclusively by the Congregationalists; the New West Education Commission, a Congregational organization founded in Chicago in 1879, which sought to represent evangelical Christianity in Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona through primary and secondary academies; and the Congregational Education Society, established in

Islam in the Soviet Union

Abstract: The Tsarist Russian Empire had the third largest Muslim population in the world, being surpassed only by the British empire, especially India, and the Ottoman empire. After the Orthodox Church, the Muslims were the largest religious group in Russia, with a population of between 15 and 18 millions. This Muslim population was found in all parts of Russia: the Volga-Ural region, Siberia, Central Asia (Turkistān), the Crimea, and the Caucasus. In the main cities of European Russia there had always been large groups of Muslims, especially Kazan Tatars, who, like the people of Āzarbāyjān were advanced materially and culturally, and were to some extent westernized. The Religious Council of the Muslims of Russia in Ufa had been established in 1788 by an edict of Catherine II. The head of this organization, which was attached to the Ministry of the Interior, was a muftī appointed by the Russian government. There also was a board of qādīs. The Kazakh Turks eventually passed under the control of the Religious Council in Ufa in religious and cultural matters. After the Russian occupation and annexation of Turkistān (1865-84), the muftī of Ufa wanted to subject the Muslims in Central Asia to his administration, but the Russian government did not approve of this, and no central religious organization was founded following the annexation of the Crimea, Āzarbāyjān and the northern Caucasus. So, by the time of the Revolution in 1917 the only organization of the Muslims, which was officially recognized and had its expenses paid by the government, was the Religious Council in Ufa.

Jesse Jackson and the Urban Social Reform Movement

Abstract: A different force in the schools.