Showing papers on "Secularization published in 1981"

Secularization and Cult Formation in the Jazz Age

Abstract: Johnson, Martin A. 1973 "Family life and religious commitment." Review of Religious Research 14: 144-50. Josselson, Ruthellen 1980 "Ego development in adolescence." Pp. 188-210 in Joseph Adelson (ed.), Handbook of Adolescent Psychology. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Kelman, Herbert C. 1961 "Processes of opinion change." Public Opinion Quarterly 25: 57-78. Maccoby, Eleanor Emmons and Carol Nagy Jacklin 1974 The Psychology of Sex Differences. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Missionaries, Miners, and Indians: Spanish Contact with the Yaqui Nation of Northwestern New Spain, 1533-1820

Abstract: Missionaries, Miners, and Indians documents the history of the Jesuit missions during a period of encroaching secularization, including the advance of mining interests, and analyzes in detail the Yaqui Indian rebellion of 1740. Through their own perseverance, the Yaqui were able to bring their culture intact into the nineteenth century.

Fictive Religion: Rhetoric and Play

Abstract: T hat the very shape of religion in modern society is undergoing radical change is widely acknowledged by scientists, historians, and philosophers of religion. Institutionally specialized and socially objectivated forms of religion which establish and impose an "official" sacred cosmos are passing away. The monopoly on reality definition and personality formation long enjoyed by the official models of religion in Western culture has been broken up by the far-reaching changes in modern thought and life that are summed up in the umbrella terms "secularization" and "pluralization."/1/ The redistribution of the sources of human meaning and obligation among a variety of institutions and outlooks, some religious and some not, is altering both the form and the content of modern religion. In this transitional situation, a variety of responses to the "official" models of religion are detectable. At the extremes are unreflective affirmation and thoroughgoing rejection of the traditional sacred cosmos with its "objective" hierarchy of significance and "subjective" system of relevance. There are those individuals, particularly in marginal psychological and social groups, who still internalize the official model seriously and more or less successfully. There are others, particularly in educated and advantaged circles, who have abandoned all religious roles and representations in favor of a purely secular value system. But most people neither uncritically accept nor categorically reject the interpretive schemes and behavioral recipes of traditional religion. They search for ways of recombining religious and secular sensibilities. One move is to restrict the relevance of religious roles to domains that are free from secular jurisdiction. Another move is to loosen the connection between religious representations and domains of secular explanation. But finally these delimiting and deliteralizing strategies save traditional religious roles and representations at the price of their systematic coherence and social authority. They finally reduce modern religiosity to private and fragmented systems of ultimate meaning (Luckmann:69-106).

Kulturkampf: The Relationship of Church and State and the Failure of German Political Reform

Abstract: Following on the heels of the wars of unification, the decade of the 1870s proved to be a critical era in the history of the modern German state. The peculiar character of the German political sys tem, which was established in that first decade of the new Empire, must be seen as one of the contributing factors to the troubled history of Germany in the twentieth century. This peculiarity came from a political development in Germany which was curiously out of step both with the process of economic modernization that was going on within Germany and with the course of political develop ment in neighboring countries. Germany's failure to develop pro gressive political institutions is remarkable in that there were defi nite currents at work in the 1870s which seemed to augur well for their establishment. The process of unification had brought to the forefront of German political life liberal sentiment which favored the establishment of responsible, parliamentary government. At the same time, there arose an opportunity to disentangle the institutions of church and state and move toward a secularized political order. The three elements of modern political development (national unification, parliamentary government, and secularization) were brought together in the 1870s by a phenomenon known as the Kulturkampf or "battle for civilization." The purpose of this essay is to examine the roles of the factions which were engaged in the struggle and to explore the reasons how and why the causes of political liberalism and secularization came to be at cross-purposes with one another and, in the end, why neither was able to effect a genuine reform of the traditional political system. The kulturkampf is difficult to define because it involved many

The Cultural Impact of the Printed Word A Review Article

Abstract: Historians usually study the invention and not the long-run impact of printing. This monumental synthesis, in contrast, attempts to demonstrate that Gutenberg's invention, after about a century of uncertain effects, produced nothing less than revolutionary changes in literate European culture. Putting writing into print, according to Eisenstein, had unintended consequences so momentous yet so uniformly overlooked that their consideration requires one to reconceive the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of science in the early modem period. The story told here involves the profound shift in western European cultural history from decline to rise, from decay to progressive enlightenment, from gradual inexorable corruption despite temporary revivals (in the Carolingian period and in the twelfth century) to permanent incremental improvement (from the sixteenth century to the present). That deep changes took place between 1450 and 1700 few would deny. Disputes instead have raged around vexed questions of what changed, when, how abruptly, and why. Yet one could suppose that all relevant factors have received their due in the myriad debates on the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the declining aristocracy and the rising middle class, and broader trends toward secularization and rationalization. Any remaining items surely have received full attention in battles over the views of particular thinkers, including (to mention only three prominent fall guys in this book) Jacob Burckhardt, Max Weber, and Thomas Kuhn. Can anything basic have escaped untouched in this scarred field where major figures have so long and so fiercely contested the central issues? Electing to tilt with the giants, Eisenstein answers in the affirmative. Most modem investigators, she says, flatly ignore the protracted communications revolution ushered in by the printed word. In large measure blame should be cast upon historians' conventional division of labor which allows

The Influence of Assimilation on American Protestant Ministers' Beliefs, 1928-1978

Abstract: A survey of Chicago Protestant ministers done in 1928 was replicated in 1978. A total of 54 questions about religious beliefs were asked in six denominations. The overall change was a shift of about 7 percentage points in the liberal direction. Beliefs on some theological topics changed, while others did not change. The topics changing most were the nature and authority of the Bible, the place of the church in Christian life, the afterlife, and the meaning of pain and suffering. Of the six denominations, the Lutherans changed most since 1928, when they were clearly the most conservative. The trends portray not a general secularization but a series of selective changes reflecting the forces of assimilation and accommodation.

Sacrifice among the Lodagaa and elsewhere. A comparative comment on implicit questions and explicit rejections

Abstract: For the persons involved, sacrifice is a formal act of communication with spiritual agencies. As the LoDagaa (Dagiri) myth of the Bagre shows, implicit questions are — even from this emic viewpoint — asked about the ways available to people for establishing this communication. A comparison of traditional rites in northern Ghana is made with how Islam, Christianity and Hinduism conceive of this communication. In the latter, which are “literate” religions, there is not only avoidance of blood sacrifice but also rejection of meat altogether, at least in holy contexts. In effect, an increase of asceticism, a rejection of the more concrete aspects of god-man communication, occurred long before the recent process of secularization.

The Church Renewal Movement in Sociological Perspective

Abstract: Four theoretical interpretations of the movement to bring about change in American churches (both Roman Catholic and Protestant) in the period 1950-69 are presented. Data from a content analysis of 50 church renewal books and from a survey of the authors of the renewal literature are used to test the validity of the four interpretations. Two interpretations are supported. One suggests people entered the movement because of a personal crisis of meaning. The second suggests the movement was essentially an attempt to reformulate and reinterpret Christianity to a nation undergoing secularization. However, the interpretation that views this movement as an accommodation to secular society is rejected.

‘Verzuiling’: A Confessional Road to Secularization. Emancipation and the Decline of Political Catholicism, 1920-1970.

Abstract: THE term verzuiling is widely used by sociologists and political scientists to describe the division of Dutch society and political life into vertical sections or zuilen (literally pillars). It therefore seems legitimate to adopt the term in this essay and so acquaint the reader with a key concept in Dutch sociology.

The Moral Education of Emile

Abstract: One of the seminal works in the history of educational thought is Rousseau's Emile. This article seeks to examine Rousseau's advocacy of a secular approach to morality and its particular implications for the moral education of the young Emile. A keyword in Rousseau's thinking is nature and an attempt is made to examine critically the naturalistic ethics from which so many of his moral prescriptions were derived. It then proceeds to outline some of the central aspects of his recommendations for the moral education of Emile and incorporates his reflections upon home life, habit‐training, punishment, the importance of reason, needs and the value of history as a moral educator. The remainder of the article seeks to show the influence of Rousseau's ideas upon the secularization of moral education, a process which began just after the French Revolution, gathered momentum in the nineteenth century (particularly with the triumph of republicanism and the added impetus given by the influential writings of ...

Sacred and Profane in Sociology and Social Policy: Comparative Notes on Britain and the U.S

Abstract: To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, British and American sociology are divided by a common discipline. While similarities exist, the differences are instructive, particularly from the perspective of a sociology of sociology informed by concepts drawn from religion. It is argued that British sociology is suspended between the sacred and the profane, as these terms are broadly defined in the British social and academic context. The metaphor illuminates not only the intellectual development of the field but also its persistent marginality within both the world of the university and the world of government. While there is some prospect of secularization, major changes are difficult to foresee. Comparisons with the American case are not intended as invidious. After all, who is to say that it is better for afield to be suspended between the secular and the profane?