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Transformations within religious institutions and traditions often occur via conflict and internal social movements. Yet previous research on such phenomena has missed some important sociological insights because it has not incorporated methodological and theoretical resources from other sociological literatures dealing with social movements and organizational change and conflict. This paper presents a comprehensive critical review of extant research on intradenominational conflict and identifies and describes five shortcomings in this literature. As a corrective, we suggest that analysts focus on organizations and conflict events as units of analysis, pay more attention to ideal factors in conflict, examine relationships between internal and external variables, and compare conflicts across organizations and across time. These alternative methodological recommendations are related to three new theoretical directions in other sociological subfields: resource mobilization theory's focus on intermediate levels of social life, the "new institutionalist" emphasis on how organizational actors respond to their environments, and the recent work on the interplay of "schema? and "resources" in social structure. Such new directions address questions that were not accessible via earlier approaches. They also begin to build important bridges between the sociology of religion and other sociological subfields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research on fundamentalist and evangelical Christians has used these labels interchangeably, despite differences between the two groups This paper compares and contrasts the political attitudes and behaviors of the fundamentalists and evangelicals within the Ohio Moral Majority. The fundamentalists are consistently more conservative, and the difference is significant after controls for denomination and demographics. The fundamentalists are more likely than the evangelicals to perceive a strong connection between their religious and political beliefs. The strength of this connection is associated with domestic conservatism among the fundamentalists, and with domestic liberalism among the evangelicals. Evangelicals are more politically active and sophisticated, and are more likely to be active in other political groups The study suggests the utility of differentiating between fundamentalists and evangelicals in future research.
This paper will compare the political beliefs and behaviors of fundamentalists and evangelicals within an activist organization of the New Christian Right. The data comes from a mail survey of the membership of the Ohio Moral Majority. In the summer of 1982, a mail survey was conducted of the membership mailing list of the Ohio Moral Majority. The membership list of the organization contained some 285 names. 59% of the surveys were returned, yielding 149 respondents who considered themselves members of or supporters of the Moral Majority. The membership list was composed of political activists. To appear on the list the individual must have attended a rally, signed a petition, contributed money, or been active in some other way. Evangelicals and fundamentalists were distinguished by the use of a serf-identification item. This item asked respondents to classify themselves as evangelicals, fundamentalists, both, or neither. The utility of a serf-identity item has been hinted at by other researchers (Hunter, 1982; Smidt, 1983), but... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the rationales of antiabortion activists, or "rescuers," in the pro-life movement in a large Midwestern city, and we attempt to explain variation in the unconventional protest activities of such people. We find no differences between rescuers with either pragmatic or purist orientations, but we find that conviction experiences help predict the number of rescuers in which an individual activist will engage. We also find that protesters who give instrumental meanings to their activism are much more likely to participate in frequent sit-ins than those who attach a primarily symbolic meaning to their protests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists often assume that individuals and societies orient themselves with respect to overarching symbolic frames of reference, sometimes called "meaning systems" But until the recent publication of Robert Wuthnow's analysis of San Francisco area survey data, evidence in favor of this key theoretical proposition has been lacking This paper respects both a new network survey of 1439 respondents and the original data in search of the four competing meaning systems reported by Wuthnow. We find strong evidence demonstrating that traditional religion remains an influential meaning system, producing conventional attitudes and preventing experimentation with radical Lifestyles and occult practices But the three alleged secular meaning systems failed to emerge, even in the original data. These findings undercut the assumption that most persons possess meaning systems, and they support our view that a meaning system is easiest to sustain if it is based on supernatural beliefs and promulgated by formal church organizations and religious social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article examines one of the most sensitive forms of transnational activism—the money and services foreign advocacy groups provide to empower locals—and explores the reasons why some aid groups have been allowed to work in certain locations when conventional wisdom and experience would indicate otherwise. In a careful comparison of four Chinese cities with similar geographic, political, and economic conditions, we find that only one particular form of religious activist network has been tolerated and its rule‐breaking nature has created a persistent activism of “everyday resistance.” Thus, decoding the mechanisms of its success, named “backdoor listing” and “minority‐majority alliance,” can help to expand our knowledge about not only the possibility of religious freedom in China, but also our theoretical understanding of the transnational activism strategies that are being widely debated and employed to improve human rights worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using survey data collected on African Methodist Episcopal and Church of God in Christ clergy, this article finds that black clergy are strongly supportive of their roles as community leaders. However, there are differences along denominational lines in terms of how they interpret their role, in their policy preferences, and in their activities both in and out of the pulpit. In total, this study reveals that there is diversity in black clergy attitudes and activities and that there is a need to examine further how these differences affect black political attitudes and activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since January 20, 1994, the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, a church located near the Pearson International Airport, has become the center of a global revival. Although similar revival fires are under- way at other centers (in various parts of North America as well as on other continents), TACF is an important institutional source for the dissemination of the experience, ideology, and structural form of this religious social movement. Using a Weberian theoretical framework based on Thomas O'Dea's "institutional dilemmas," this descriptive account of the "Toronto Blessing" provides a first-hand portrayal of the process through which charisma becomes routinized. Each of O'Dea's five dilemmas is discussed, noting the balance between charismatic manifestations and institutional features set into place by TACF leadership. The dynamic interplay between charisma and institutions is illustrated through teachings, testimonies, and observations made during 22 months of field research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there has been some controversy about the role of religion in the black community, this research found that religion was an important source of collective and political action among blacks in Washington, D.C. Those who frequently attended churches where pastors attempted to politicize their flock, and those who identified as pentecostals or who reported a pentecostal experience, were more supportive of collective action, reported higher rates of political participation, and showed more support for Jesse Jackson. These results suggest that the black church is a positive force in black political mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]