Showing papers on "Secularization published in 1988"

Putting Asunder: A History of Divorce in Western Society

Abstract: The Roman Catholic background the Protestants and divorce - theory and practice 17th century England - divorce frustrated divorce in America - the 17th and 18th centuries 18th century France - enlightenment and revolution the secularization of divorce, 1600-1800 the use of the early divorce laws - England, America and France the alternatives to divorce the meaning of marriage breakdown in the past the social context of marriage breakdown 19th century divorce law - liberalization and reaction 1815-1914) the 20th century - the rise of mass divorce explaining the rise of divorce - 1870s-1980s.

Religion and the Persistence of Identity

Abstract: Because general theories of secularization assume the disappearance of the church, its disappearance is also assumed as a factor in the creation and maintenance of people's identities. Even though the church persists, however, the role it plays in people's identities may nevertheless change with secularization. This paper explores how. It suggests that: 1) persons are differentially involved in both primary and secondary groups; 2) these involvements influence the meaning the church can have; and 3) thus influence the kind of religious identity available. A research project is proposed, and some tentative empirical support for these ideas is offered.

Cults, Converts and Charisma: The Sociology of New Religious Movements

Abstract: Recent decades have seen an apparent increase in the number and vitality of new religious movements throughout the world. They have also been marked by evident social conflict over the activities of 'cults'. These developments have been met by growing interest among social scientists in the significance of new religious movements and a proliferation of research into their activities and their social impact. In this wide-ranging survey Tom Robbins assesses the state of the art in sociological and related work on new religious movements. Concentrating on research on movements in the USA and Western Europe, he analyses theories relating the growth of new religions to sociocultural changes, the dynamics of conversion to and defection from movements, patterns of organization and institutionalization, and social controversies over cults. He also examines the impact of the study of new and deviant movements on the sociology of religion in general, and the implications of recent spiritual ferment for previous models of secularization and sect-church theory. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography. This text will be essential reading for students and researchers in the sociology of religion and in religious studies. Cults, Converts and Charisma is a university edition of the author's trend report in Current Sociology Volume 36.1.

Scientific management, socialist discipline, and Soviet power

Abstract: Introduction Part I The First Cycle From Revolution to Rationalization Early Encounters Adults and Children First Steps How Not to Work A Cheka for Organization The Agitator Stopwatch 2 Scientific Management at the He m The Politics of Technocracy Education or Training The Commissariat of Organization The Bureaucratic Economy 3 Stalinism as Antibureaucracy Wreckers and Rationalizers Cultural Revolutions A Fatal Reform From Rationalization to Coercion 4 The Triumph of Violence The Revolt against Rationality "Cadres Decide Everything" The School of Life 5The Rebirth of Managerialism "Harebrained Schemes" and Administrative Secularization The "Idealists" and the "Practical Men" Complex Approaches 6 The Science of Victory The Politics of Executive Training Pink and Not Quite Expert The Case Study and the Business Game Professionalization from Above 7 The Irrational Rationalizers The Classroom and the Factory Clients and Experts The Wheel of the Treadmill The Abacus and the Computer 8 Discipline and Reform The Indulgency Pattern Rationalization and Responsibility Discipline or Decentralization

Religious Change and Secularization: The Transmission of Religious Values in Australia

Abstract: More individuals currently eschew a religion than at any time in this century. In Australia, more than one in ten do not have a religious affiliation. Three explanations have been put forward to account for this trend toward secularization: (1) continued socioeconomic development and a consequent undermining of religious explanations; (2) life cycle effects and the differing approaches to it; and (3) generational change. This paper systematically tests these three explanations by applying multivariate analysis to survey data collected in 1979. The results show that the socioeconomic development and life cycle explanations have significant, though limited, validity. By contrast, much of the trend towards secularization can be accounted for by generational change and, more specifically, to different religious socialization across generations. The findings also suggest that the growth in the proportion with no religion has been substantially at the expense of Anglicans, rather than Catholics. This emphasizes the argument that when the social climate is unfavorable to religion, groups which demand more commitment from their adherents fare better than those that demand less commitment.

Old and New Gods in the Modern World: Toward a Theory of Religious Transformation

Abstract: Both in the popular mind and in the social sciences, images of the modern world and the forces that brought it into existence frequently incorporate some notion of secularization as an essential process. Challenging the secularization thesis is the focal concern of this essay; claims of diminishing religious significance are reinterpreted as evidence of religious transformation. The argument unfolds initially by outlining the secularization thesis and identifying its principal weaknesses. Next, the contributions of key sociological theorists (Durkheim and Marx, in particular). serve as a basis for extracting some useful elements of the transformation thesis. Finally, the hypothesis of religious transformation is presented with special reference to the relation between the evolution of sacred symbols and the market and polity dimensions of sovereign organization in the modern world. Theologically conservative Christians denounce the threat of "secular humanism" in the United States and actively oppose their perceived enemy in the political arena. Latin American priests and Catholic laity struggle to reconcile the deeply entrenched antagonisms of Christian theology and Marxist praxis. Shi'ite mullahs in Iran establish a theocracy in the wake of the crumbling influence of Western capitalism. The most recent phase of sectarian hostility in Ulster is about to enter its third decade. One needs only to mention the Middle East, and thoughts quickly turn to a bewildering complex of religiopolitical strife. Across the globe, traditional faith wages intense ideological struggle against competing sacred conceptions of individual dignity and national identity. This warfare between the old

Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition

Abstract: The Celts. Part 1 Early Ireland: Ireland in prehistoric times (before AD 500) political development in early Irish times. Part 2 Ireland in the first part of the Middle Ages (AD 500-1100): the beginnings of Christianity in Ireland the formation of the early Irish Church Christian Ireland in the 7th and 8th centuries secularization and reform in the 8th century the age of the Vikings. Part 3 Ireland in the second part of the Middle Ages (AD 1100-1500): Ireland under foreign influence - the 12th century Ireland from the reign of John to the Statutes of Kilkenny the end of the Middle Ages the enduring tradition.

Religious Diversity and Social Change: American Cities, 1890-1906

Abstract: List of tables and figures Preface 1. 'As slavery never did': American religion and the rise of the city 2. 'Numbering Israel': United States census data on religion 3. 'An infinite variety of religions': the meaning and measurement of religious diversity 4. 'A motley of peoples and cultures': urban populations and religious diversity 5. 'A new society': industrialization and religious diversity 6. 'No fast friend to policy or religion': literacy and religious diversity 7. 'God's Bible at the Devil's girdle': religious diversity and urban secularization 8. 'If the religion of Rome becomes ours': religious diversity, subcultural conflict and denominational realignment 9. 'Matters merely indifferent': religious diversity and American denominationalism' Appendixes Notes References Index.

The Transformative Impact of the Study of New Religions on the Sociology of Religion

Abstract: This paper evaluates the impact of the explosion of research on new religious movements in the 1970's and 80's in the sociology of religion. The encounter with NRMs has been highly provocative in terms of an impetus to comparative analysis; a heightening of theoretical and epistemological ferment; the identification of interfaces between the sociology of religion and other areas of sociology such as social movements, deviance, social psychology, and medical sociology; the reconsideration of the secularization thesis and sect-church theory; and the reevaluation of the role of the sociologist of religion in terms of issues of objectivity and partisanship. The present heightened controversiality of religion renders its "scientific study" more precarious.

Christianity, Social Class, and the Catholic Bishops' Economic Policy*

Abstract: The recent American Catholic bishops' pastoral letter on the economy made clear that significant changes have occurred in the way Christianity views the economy. At the present time Catholic and liberal Protestant leaders are calling for basic economic changes, while some Fundamentalist leaders are actively defending capitalism. The question studied is whether these religious traditions and their spokespersons are affecting popular opinion on economic matters. Data came from a random sample of Middletown residents (N=3 79). A factor analysis of items based on the pastoral letter resulted in five factors being extracted. This study focused on the two factors accounting for the greatest amount of variance. One factor contained items relating to economic restructuring. 7he other seemed to express the classical view that a community should aid the poor and helpless. Social class indicators were positively related to the Classical Scale and negatively related to the Economic Restructuring Scale. The relations among these scales, religious affiliation, and Fundamentalism were complex. A noteworthy finding is that support for economic restructuring may be found among non-Fundamentalist Catholics and Fundamentalist Protestants. This and other findings are discussed in the paper. The nineteen-eighties may be a watershed in the development of Christianity. Although by the seventies the thesis that modernization meant secularization had come under increasingly critical analysis, the privatization argument, to wit, that in modern societies religion may retain some influence mainly in private life (Luckmann, 1967; Berger, 1969), remained a standard argument. Indeed, there is empirical support for the privatization appraisal of modern religion (Tarnney and Johnson, 1985a). It is obvious, however, that some contemporary religious leaders have decided to make an extraordinary effort to negate the privatization process by attempting to influence events in public life. Leaders as different as Jerry Falwell and the Catholic bishops are making serious efforts to influence government policies. Prompted by the Catholic bishops' pastoral letter on the economy (National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1986), this paper is concerned with the relation between Christianity and economic policy. Max Weber's classic argument about the Protestant Ethic suggested that religious change was partially responsible for the emergence of capitalism. It is possible that current changes in Christianity are part of a process that will result in the establishment of another form of economy in the Western world. In this paper, we first discuss the changes that have occurred in Christian economic thought and the current controversy within Christianity concerning the economy. Second, we report a study of the relation between Christian beliefs and economic values.

Therapeutic and prophetic narratives in worship : a hermeneutic study of testimonies and visions, their potential significance for Christian worship and secular society

Abstract: Contents: Introduction - Part I: Theoretical Clarifications. Theological Relevance of Narrative: From Narrative to Myth in Theology - Philosophical Clarifications: Religious Meaning Disclosed in Narrative Language and Common Time - On the Phenomenon of Secularization: The Relationship between Secular Biography and Religious Testimony - Part II: A Hermeneutic of Therapeutic and Porphetic Narratives. Toward a Practical Hermeneutic of Testimony: Morphology, Metaphor, Metamorphosis - On the Value of Visionary Narratives in Pluralist Communities: Structure, Reception and Intentionality - Accessible Liturgy: Theological and Liturgical Consequences - Postlude.

The Transforming Power of the Machine: Popular Religion, Ideology, and Secularization among Polish Immigrant Workers in the United States, 1880–1940

Abstract: In the last fifteen years or so, a generation of European social historians, armed with an integrated understanding of society, class, culture, and politics, has demystified the history of religion. In particular, they have probed the complicated relationship between institutional and popular belief in the time when Roman Catholicism formed the ideological mainstay of landed power in the precapitalist European countryside. Even apart from the Reformation, they have shown that orthodox religion faced a raft of powerful popular challenges. Superstition, magic, and other "pagan"-or folk carryovers still survived. Even when accepted, orthodox religion often underwent subversive transmutation at the hands of supposedly docile and devout underclasses who reinvested its practices with new meanings, reappropriated its symbols for their own ends, and sometimes thereby used it as a resource against the pr dations of society's rulers. In the process, they transformed the Church's own religion from a theology of subjugation into an arena for popular struggle, resistance, expression, and assertion.1 The mass migration that brought rural Europeans to urban, industrial America in the late nineteenth century did not eliminate religion as a theater of conflict. Yet while historians of nineteenth-century Europe have examined the tensions between ortho doxy and popular religion that often punctuated rural Europe's passage to commercial and industrial capitalism,2 American social historians have largely ignored this conflict, especially insofar as it involved working-class immigrants who experienced that passage while coming to America.3 This may not be surprising, given that a penchant for institutional history and a predilection for functionalist sociological models generally have colored scholarly treatments of immigrant religion in America. But the immigrants' extrainstitutional popular religious beliefs found no ready place in immigration historiography also because, like most histories, the history of immigrant religion has focused not on the losers but on the winners. In America, religious orthodoxy largely triumphed in its battle against popular religion. Despite this outcome, it is the contention of this article that the struggle between popular belief and orthodoxy nonetheless represents an important moment in immi grant social history as it opens a window on class and power relations within the immigrant world and also between that world and the larger American society, which immigrants entered or, at least, abraded against. Accordingly the article will explore

Contradictory Demands on the First Amendment Religion Clauses: Having it Both Ways

Abstract: During the decade of the sixties, mainline religion was on the defensive on numerous fronts, among them constitutional interpretation. Typical of this era were assaults on traditional church state associations, such as the successful attacks on prayers and Bible readings in public schools as violations of the Establishment Clause.1 Similarly, the Free Exercise Clause was expanded to be more solicitous of the interests of religious minorities; for example, U.S. Selective Service statutes were interpreted to accord conscientious objector status to persons holding nontheistic religious or philosophical beliefs.2 By the mid-1970s, except for the perpetually thorny and doctrinally uninspiring area of aid to parochial schools,3 it seemed that nothing much more remained to be said about the separation of church and state. The 1980s have reversed that trend. Increasingly, traditional religion has been on the offensive, challenging the secularization which emerged in the previous decade, and demanding new kinds of accommodations for expanded religious activities. In general, the new demands are for a broader understanding of the Free Exercise Clause in order to free religious institutions and religiously motivated activities from burdensome government regulation, and for a more constricted interpretation of the Establishment Clause in order to permit increased

Nouveaux mouvements religieux et conflits de société (1965-1985)

Abstract: New religious movements and conflicts of society (1965-1685), Francoise Champion ; Already well-known for its diversity, the American religious landscape has been enriched since the 1960s by the proliferation of that complex phenomenon, the « new religious movements ». Revelatory of the questioning and the unease of the American society, these movements pose many questions : What needs do they answer ? How much continuity and how much rupture do they represent in relation to American traditions ? To what extent do they challenge the idea of a progressive secularization of individual and collective behavior ? Through a wide survey of sociological research, the author provides elements of response and paths for further reflexion.

The Christian Essence of Spanish Literature: An Historical Study

Abstract: Surveys Spanish literature from 1100 to the present, aiming to reveal the subtle nuances of the Christian ingredient in the literature of various epochs of Spanish history. This text seeks to show how the literature reflects powerful, conflicting forces of secularization and supernaturalization.

Cycles of Faith: The Development of the World's Religions

Abstract: 1 Religion Past and Present 2 Religious Origins and Meanings 3 Religion and the Discovery of History 4 The Development of the World's Religions 5 Beginnings: The Apostolic Stage 6 Empire and Wisdom 7 Medieval Devotionalism 8 Reformation 9 Folk Religion 10 The Modern World and Secularization 11 Religion and the Clash of Faith-Civilization 12 Summation and a Look Ahead

Religion in the Public Arena: A Paradox of Secularization

Abstract: It is no exaggeration to refer to the social science understanding of secularization as a paradigm.1 A good deal of the "normal science" conducted in sociology has assumed the suitability of this model for interpreting the modern world. Whether secularization is seen primarily in terms of privatization of belief, development of denominational pluralism, the decline of what people consider sacred, or some other dimension of the process, the assumptions are the same. In the secular world, faith and daily life are increasingly divorced for modern people. Recently, however, considerable attention has been turned to the anomalous situations in which religion plays an active role in everyday social and political life. One need look no further than campaigns to reelect the president in 1984 to see numerous instances of this phenomenon. Various explanations exist to account for such recent developments as the rise of the New Christian Right (NCR) and the popular appeal of evangelical religion. The political power of religions of the right in North America could scarcely have been expected given operating assumptions about the course of secularization.2 Some would argue that circumstance and personality combined in the late 1970s to create a bizarre contradiction to the paradigm that had come to be accepted. In such a view, the New Christian Right stands as the exception that proves the rule. Others suggest that the survival of evangelicalism is attributed to the peripheral cultural location of the evangelicals.3

A New Generation: Missionary Education and Changes in Women’s Roles in Traditional Northern Thai Society

Abstract: Nineteenth-century American Presbyterian missionaries introduced new women's roles into northern Thai society through their churches and institutions. While appreciating northern Thai women's social freedom, the missionaries, influenced by an ideal of "true womanhood", found women's low religious status in Buddhism and lack of educational opportunities repugnant They sought to change women's roles by educating convert women, thus creating the first corps of women professionals in northern Siam. The missionaries unintentionally secularized education and thereby expanded the social roles available to northern Thai women. In doing so, they repeated in northern Siam a pattern of the Protestant role in social change and secularization common in American social history

Aspects of secularized religion within the tradition of New South Wales Methodism since 1930

Abstract: Secularized religion within the Christian tradition is a response to an holistic theological interpretation and to a perceived need to be socially significant. Although it tends to reflect social progress rather than promote social change, there have been instances of social responses and social change which were actually initiated by ministers within the New South Wales Methodist tradition who were committed to the presentation of secularized religion. There is an increasing tendency to differentiate secularization from secularism. Historically, secularism denies belief in God and spiritual values, especially in relation to the Christian faith. Secularization, however, is a process which derives its meaning from the Latin, saecularis, meaning belonging to the particular time or age. It has come to denote involvement with 'this present age' or 'this world, as opposed to the emphasis on a supernatural 'other world'. Although Warren Wagar acknowledged the potential of secularization to threaten religion, he also claimed that logically it can signify bringing religion itself into the world. Religion which is intrinsically involved with the world qualifies as authentic secularized religion. Belief in the intrinsic involvement of religion with the world has its basis in an holistic theological interpretation which views God as immanent in the whole