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Abortion continues to be a highly contentious issue in the United States, with few signs of abatement. The god of this paper is to specify how variable positions about abortion across religious traditions have led to differential shifts in attitudes among their members. Based on culturally relevant events, position papers, and other religious media, the guiding hypotheses propose that Evangelicals have become increasingly opposed to abortion for elective reasons; yet changes in attitudes regarding abortion for traumatic reasons are due primarily to cohort shifts. Data from the cumulative General Social Surveys (1972–2002) are used to test the hypotheses. The first hypothesis is supported: Opposition to elective abortions among Evangelicals has increased relative to other religious traditions. However, contrary to the second hypothesis, they have also become more opposed to abortion for traumatic reasons. This increasing opposition is most prominent among Evangelicals born in the last 40 years or so. Implications for understanding Evangelical distinctiveness and the cultural context of abortion attitudes are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A theory of religious activity based on principles of supply-side economics has generated considerable controversy in the sociology of religion. This theory posits that religious pluralism increases rates of religious activity by promoting competition between churches. This paper tests "supply-side theory" with data describing US Mormons. Results uncover patterns in Mormon church activity that refute the theory. The paper outlines several characteristics of Mormonism that explain its deviance from the theorized outcome, and suggests a scope condition for supply-side theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Workplace decision-making is shaped by institutionally delimited and individually appropriated logics of action. Since 1997, when President Clinton issued a White House directive that protected religious expression in the workplace, religious rhetoric and symbolism have played a more significant role in the semiotic codes through which these logics are expressed. While a growing literature has attended to the interplay between the domains of faith and work, relatively little attention has been paid to the ways elite actors negotiate the sometimes competing demands of religious convictions and workplace responsibilities. In this paper, we examine how evangelicals in positions of public leadership account for the role of faith in workplace decision-making. On the basis of our analysis of interview transcripts of 360 national leaders, we construct a taxonomy of dispositions toward faith at work along two primary axes—the expression of faith in workplace decision-making and the reception of it in various situations or by particular reference groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, a sample of nearly 3,924 students at 28 of the most selective college and universities in the United States, this paper tests hypotheses about religion, academic performance, and satisfaction at college. Two measures of religiosity—attending religious services every week or more and a 1 to 10 scale of observance of one's religious traditions and customs—increase the amount of hours students report spending on academic work and extracurricular activities, as well as reduce the hours students report going to parties. Even when controlling for time spent partying, studying and in extracurricular activities, regular attendance at religious services increases academic achievement. Finally, students who attend religious services weekly and those who are more observant of their religious traditions also report being more satisfied at college. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Why did some Americans volunteer to provide relief to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack victims, their families, or workers? This paper uses data from the 2002 Religion and Public Activism Survey, a nationally representative sample of adult Americans, which show that 10 percent of Americans volunteered to help victims of the terrorist attacks in some way to address this question. We argue that the act of volunteering in response to September 11 depended on levels of identification with victims of the tragedy. One of the strongest factors was personal identification with victims, which was built through personal networks such as knowing someone who was killed or in danger during the attacks, and through personal feelings of responsibility to help others in need. Identification was also constructed through involvement in social events such as community candlelight vigils that reflected on, framed, and reinforced the significance of the disaster in a communal setting. In addition, identification: with victims was built through a patriotic response to the tragedy, which, we argue, motivated Americans to defend the society with which they were emotionally identified and to see victims as part of the American family to which they were obligated to help in times of need. We argue that emotions matter for disaster relief but that sorrow rather than anger is important for generating identification with victims and thus volunteering for 9/11 relief efforts. These arguments are used to explain gender and political party differences in 9/11 volunteering. Finally, embeddedness in religious congregations promoted volunteering for 9/11 relief efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From Tom Cruise's wedding to South Park's scathing cartoon parody, the Church of Scientology has emerged as one of the wealthiest, most powerful but also most controversial new religious movements of the last fifty years. Remarkably, however, it has rarely been subjected to serious, critical study by historians of religions, in large part because of the intense secrecy that has surrounded the movement from its origins. This paper examines the role of secrecy in the early Church of Scientology, placing it in the historical and cultural context in which it emerged: Cold War America of the 1950s and 60s. Far from a strange aberration, Scientology in fact embodies many of the obsessive concerns with secrecy, information-control, and surveillance that ran throughout Cold War America. Indeed, with its policies of ‘security checks’ and ‘fair game,’ Scientology developed an apparatus of secrecy and surveillance that rivaled and in fact mirrored that of the FBI. As such, Scientology raises profound questions for the study of religion today, particularly in a post-9/11 context, where the questions of religious privacy and government surveillance have re-emerged in ways that eerily echo the height of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is there a difference between the social capital developed in faith-based and secular poverty-to-work programs? Comparative field research investigating five faith-based and secular poverty-to-work programs in southeastern America finds that values expressed by a secular non-profit organization and two faith-based programs correspond with more activities that develop social capital than the programs run by a for-profit organization and a reinvented government agency. In all the programs this social capital is both 'bridging,' by crossing barriers of race, gender, and class, and 'bonding' by tying participants and staff into at least a temporary supportive community. The programs see that this social capital is effective in supporting low-income persons through the transition to full-time employment. In addition, the faith-based programs seek to extend the social capital by developing long-term ties between clients and local religious congregations. This paper also specifies how social capital is developed in these programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current models of change in immigrant churches posit that ethnic congregations become more acculturated in response to inter-generational conflicts. As second and third generation church members attempt to meet their own unique social needs, ethnic churches are forced to revise their goals and structures in order to ensure the survival of their organization. Recent studies, however, cast doubt on whether generational changes are the only catalyst of evolution in ethnic churches. This paper develops an alternative explanation by arguing that religious culture can also exert pressure for change. it does so by showing how a strong emphasis on inter-ethnic evangelism lead to the adoption of English-language services in a Ghanaian Pentecostal church in Chicago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses pragmatism, religion and John Foster Dulles's embrace of Christian internationalism in the 1930s. It looks at Dulles's engagement with Christian ecumenism and the way that it affected his thinking. It argues that the key to Dulles's engagement with religion is to draw out his engagement with the methods and ideals of American pragmatism. It explores Dulles's attempts to tackle the problem of peace, and the impact of the idea that people could affect government actions on Dulles.

This article examines the notion of Christendom and its influence on United States foreign policy during the Cold War. Much of Christian thought during this time period centered around Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr, along with Francis Pickens Miller, John Coleman Bennett, and Henry Pitney Van Dusen, placed American nationalism and exceptionalism in a religious context. They advocated a liberal notion of responsibility that justified interference in other nations. Collectively their ideas became known as Christian Realism.

The article reports on the controversy surrounding a question proposed for the 1960 United States census and the two year debate over it. In 1956 the Bureau of the Census brought up the ideas of whether or not the 1960 survey would record the religion of respondents, the first time history that the census had sought such information. In the United States of the 1950s religion was a powerful social signifier, almost as important to social standing as race. In proposing to classify Americans by religion, the Census Bureau aroused the ire of American Jews, while the proposal had the strong support of the Catholic Church. For American Catholics their numbers would indicate that their religion had been absorbed into the social fabric of the United States. America Jews, with memories of the Holocaust still fresh, felt that codifying their numbers and their socio-economic status would lead to a resurgence of the anti-Semitism experienced in the 1930s and 1940s. Protestant sects had long dominated the American mainstream and were largely indifferent to the matter. Ultimately, the question was not on the 1960 census nor on any that followed.

Explores how religion served as a vessel for one particular crucial to racial segregation in the South of the U.S., the language of miscegenation. Effort of religion to explain segregation from a theological point of view; Arguments used by religion to explain that God allegedly supports segregation; Underestimation by historians on the role of religion in the U.S. in supporting segregation as well as in dismantling it.

Previous research demonstrates the role of religious beliefs, practices, and people in a wide variety of social movement struggles. In most cases, religious resource mobilization seems to occur in a relatively straightforward, uncomplicated manner and with positive outcomes for the movement in question. Little attention has been paid to the challenges that exist to mobilizing religious resources and building coalitions with religious supporters. This essay examines the problematic nature of religious resource mobilization as part of union strategies to win a strike/lockout against Detroit's two newspapers, the News and the Free Press, between 1995-2000. Intensive interviews with strikers, union spokespersons, and religious activists, illustrate how religious resources contributed to union strength during the strike. However, these contributions were limited by the internal dynamics in the relationship between the unions and religious supporters as well as by the power disparities between these local coalitions and the multinational corporations they struggled against. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the current religious mood in the tinned States and reflects upon its manifestations in the mid-1990s. It is argued that the religious mood has shifted -- away from the cognitive and fixed beliefs and toward the experiential arid expressive. It is further argued that given this change it is difficult to assess the current religious situation, especially given sociology-of-religion's reliance upon institutional categories and empirical indicators. Religious capital, like social capital, is not easily gauged without attention to new forms of community allowing individuals opportunity to express themselves as whole persons. A plea is made for a sociology of religion more attuned to body, mind, and self and thus to the dynamic and experiential qualities of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this last decade of the twentieth century, taxpayers and politicians seem united in their disdain for the system of "public welfare" in the United States. At the same time, the idea of "private charity" is held in high regard; some observers argue that public welfare should he dismantled and replaced with private charity. A simple question leads this paper: How are the moralities of "private charity" discursively formed? Here I examine how the moralities of charity and its clients are produced through the texts of the New York Times "Neediest Cases" charity appeals from 1912 through 1992. I read these campaigns as producing multiple moralities: Charity is formed as a sacred morality of religion, an all but sacred morality of democratic community, an economic morality of individualistic capitalism, and a human morality of compassion. I argue that this multiplicity of moralities gives the idea of charity its political and rhetorical power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Religious institutions are identified as important in maintaining a mastery-over-nature orientation in Western culture. This orientation has presumably influenced environmental attitudes in a negative manner. Despite widespread discussion, little empirical research has been undertaken to examine these relationships. This paper identifies three alternative approaches to examining the link between religious identification and commitment, mastery-over-nature orientation, and concern for environmental problems: (1) White' s model, (2) a denominational diversity model, and (3) a "no difference" model. These approaches are examined empirically using data front a mail survey of Washington State residents. The results indicate support for the view that Judeo-Christians are generally more committed to the mastery-over-nature orientation than non-Judeo-Christians, but that this commitment varies considerably among denominations. Furthermore, commitment to the mastery-over-nature orientation is instumental in shaping concern for environmental problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Findings by Campbell et al. in The Quality of American Life suggesting that religious people tend to be somewhat less satisfied with their lives than the nonreligious are reexamined in this paper. Using the same data source and variables it is shown that their interpretation is in error, and that to the contrary, religion functions more as a resource than as compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania professes to be politically neutral, concerned not with secular affairs, political ideology or worldly authority, but only with Jehovah's divine plan. This article examines one explicitly political state of affairs that featured prominently in the literature produced by the Society from 1946 until 1991: the Cold War. During the Cold War years, the dominant narrative of superpower relations was of the two kings in the Book of Daniel. According to the Society, their historic rivalry would only end with the onset of Armageddon. The demise of Soviet Communism necessitated an entirely new interpretation of the rival kings. The subsequent attempt to reconcile the spiritual and the secular in the modern world indicates that the organization is adept at recasting (and resurrecting) failed narratives and adapting contemporary events to reaffirm Charles Taze Russell's interpretations of biblical chronology, first expounded in the 1880s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We ask how scientists understand spirituality and its relation to religion and to science. Analyses are based on in-depth interviews with 275 natural and social scientists at 21 top U.S. research universities who were part of the Religion among Academic Scientists survey. We find that this subset of scientists have several distinct conceptual or categorical strategies for framing the connection spirituality has with science. Such distinct framings are instantiated in spiritual beliefs more congruent with science than religion, as manifested in the possibility of “spiritual atheism,” those who see themselves as spiritual yet do not believe in God or a god. Scientists stress a pursuit of truth that is individualized (but not characterized by therapeutic aims) as well as voluntary engagement both inside and outside the university. Results add complexity to existing thinking about spirituality in contemporary American life, indicating that conceptions of spirituality may be bundled with characteristics of particular master identity statuses such as occupational groups. Such understandings also enrich and inform existing theories of religious change, particularly those related to secularization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents an examination of baby books created in the United States from the late 19th-century to the end of the 20th, mapping the changing formats and content of the books as well as their implications on the larger social shifts in American society regarding infancy over the period. Comments are given describing common features of baby books as well as noting their research potential. Subjects illustrated through the author's survey include infant psychology, religion and consumerism, noting how each has changed U.S. child rearing practices.

For more than a century most U.S. colleges and universities have functioned as secular institutions. But how religious are American college and university faculty in their personal lives? We answer this question by analyzing data from a new, nationally representative survey of the American professoriate. Contrary to the view that religious skepticism predominates in the academy, we find that the majority of professors, even at elite research institutions, are religious believers. We go on to examine the distribution of faculty religiosity across institutions, fields, and other variables, and identify a number of issues that future research--sensitive to the fact that religious faith and academic life, at least in the American context, are by no means mutually exclusive--should take up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I examine the intersection between sexuality and spirit-filled bodies in American Evangelicalism. I am interested in investigating two issues: the sexual body as a site of spiritual battle and the use of popular science, especially the domain of genetics, as material evidence for this spiritual warfare. Specifically, I trace the increasingly spiritualized framing of marital intercourse in evangelical literature. To follow this trajectory, I highlight the spiritualized dangers of transgressive sexuality as well as the sexualizing of spirituality in evangelical sex manuals and deliverance manuals. This article centers around one text, Holy Sex: God's Purpose and Plan for Our Sexuality, whose authors' contend that sexually transmitted diseases are, in fact, demons lodged in genetic material that can be transferred through body fluids and bloodlines. The assertions about biology and demonic affliction made throughout the book are extreme and would be rejected by most readers of mainstream evangelical sex manuals. I argue that this book, though marginal, is not an irrelevant text. It reflects deep-seated anxieties about sexual bodies, spiritual concerns, and disease. Idiosyncratic though it may seem, Holy Sex taps into wider uncertainties about the spiritual vulnerability of the physical body found in contemporary evangelical literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I analyze support for religiously orthodox teachings among U.S. Catholic laity. I find orthodoxy to be positively correlated with religious experience. While most Catholics disagree with official teachings regarding contraception and the celibate priesthood, a significant minority endorse these orthodox positions. In analyses of a national sample of U.S. Catholics, orthodox attitudes are found to be more common among those who have been on a religious pilgrimage. The finding is interpreted using concepts from Durkheim's sociology of religion, Stark and Finke's claims about the relationship between religious ritual and acceptance of religious explanations, and Wildavsky's theory that preferences are endogenous to institutions. Building on these analyses, I address a question about the structural consequences of pilgrimage, and conclude with a call for further quantitative research about pilgrims' experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the belief in divine control associated with the generalized sense of personal control? Using data from a 2005 nationally representative survey of 1, 800 adults in the United States, I test two competing views: the relinquished control versus the personal empowerment hypotheses. Results support the relinquished control hypothesis. Individuals who believe in divine control tend to report significantly lower levels of personal control--but that association is contingent upon other dimensions of the religious role. Specifically, I observe a significantly stronger negative association between belief in divine control and personal control among individuals who report lower levels of subjective religiosity and less frequent praying and attendance activities. Moreover, the interrelationships among these four dimensions of the religious role reveal important suppression effects in their influence on personal control. I discuss the ways that these observations contribute to theoretical views about the complex interactions among religious precepts, practices, and generalized expectancies of personal control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several scholars reviewing studies of contemporary Asian American religion have criticized the field and have called for increased attention to the analysis of race. However, they have not extensively discussed what this analysis should look like. This article puts forward a framework for analyzing race in congregations that combines the ecology, culture, process, and resources frames from Ammerman, et al.'s Studying Congregations: A New Handbook with concepts drawn from racial formation theory. I discuss how this approach can increase the comprehensiveness and sophistication of racial analysis of Asian American congregations, and I give examples of previous empirical studies that illustrate different aspects of this approach. Finally, I suggest fruitful areas for future research on Asian American religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on how European religious traditions were transformed in the nineteenth century in the U.S. and how unique American religious communities were created. It discusses various factors that fuel the emergence of new religious sectors, including the Statute for Religious Freedom by Thomas Jefferson and the Second Great Awakening. The author reveals that the religious freedom in the early republic was the major cause of religious diversity, competition, conflict, and compromise. The major religious movements, such as the evangelical Protestants, traditionalists Christians, non-Trinitarian monotheists, and the American originals, were discussed.

The article focuses on the state of Islam in 2007, as well as the social and political significance of Muslim women who chose to wear face veils. Particular attention is given to the international awareness and interest in Muslim populations after the U.S. terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The author reports that a rapid growth of Muslim populations has taken place in major cities around the world due to immigration, conversion to Islam, and natural population growth. Article topics include the struggle of Western countries to incorporate Muslim communities into secular societies, due to conflicting values that are often at odds with Islamic beliefs and hostile members.

The author analyzes the role of culture in the history of U.S. interventionism from 1937 to 1941 and demonstrates the significance of religion in the construction of U.S. foreign policy. He particularly analyzes the role of culture in U.S. foreign policy and in having a better understanding of foreign policy's structuring power in domestic relations as well as in uncovering the constitutive power of foreign relations in the ongoing construction of national identity.

The religiosity of scientists is a persistent topic of interest and debate among both popular and academic commentators. Researchers look to this population as a case study for understanding the intellectual tensions between religion and science and the possible secularizing effects of education. There is little systematic study, however, of religious belief and identity among academic scientists at elite institutions, leaving a lacuna of knowledge in this area. This absence of data exists at a time when the intersection between religion and science is reaching heightened public attention. Especially with increased tensions surrounding teaching evolution in the public schools, understanding what kind of resources scientists have (particularly in terms of their own religious beliefs and practices) to transmit science to a broader religiously-motivated public is crucial. Using data from a recent survey of academic scientists at twenty-one elite U.S. research universities, we compare the religious beliefs and practices of natural and social scientists within seven disciplines as well as academic scientists to the general population. We find that field-specific and interdisciplinary differences are not as significant in predicting religiosity as other research suggests. Instead, demographic factors such as age, marital status, and presence of children in the household are the strongest predictors of religious difference among scientists. In particular, religiosity in the home as a child is the most important predictor of present religiosity among this group of scientists. We discuss the relevance these findings have for understanding issues related to current theory and public debate about the intersection between religion and science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing consensus exists regarding the importance of spiritual assessment. For instance, the largest health care accrediting body in the United States, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), now requires the administration of a spiritual assessment. Although most practitioners endorse the concept of spiritual assessment, studies suggest that social workers have received little training in spiritual assessment. To address this gap, the current article reviews the JCAHO requirements for conducting a spiritual assessment and provides practitioners with guidelines for its proper implementation. In addition to helping equip practitioners in JCAHO-accredited settings who may be required to perform such an assessment, the spiritual assessment template profiled in this article may also be of use to practitioners in other settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The events of the early twenty-first century have led to a resurgence of interest in the public and private expression of religion and the role of secrecy in religious traditions. In modern incarnations and throughout history, claims to secret knowledge, the limitations of knowledge of the divine, and private or secrete religious activities have existed in all types of religious traditions. From long-standing mystical traditions in Abrahamic faiths to smaller groups such as Theosophists, secrecy touches on many aspects of religious experience. Sociologists, anthropologists, political theorists, historians, and theologians have undertaken studies of religion and secrecy in general and in reference to particular traditions and localities. What follows is an attempt to highlight major themes of religion and secrecy in history and theory, as well as the implications of September 11, 2001, the ‘War on Terror’ and the Patriot Act for religious practice and privacy in the United States of America and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using American religious traditions as measures of bonding and bridging social capital in communities, we empirically test how these different forms of social capital affect crime rates in 3,157 U.S. counties in 2000. Our results suggest that the bonding networks evangelical Protestants promote in communities explain why counties with a greater percentage of residents affiliated with this tradition consistently have higher crime rates. Conversely, our results suggest that the bridging networks that mainline Protestants and Catholics foster in communities explain why counties with a greater percentage of residents affiliated with these traditions generally have lower crime rates. This article thus provides empirical corroboration for recent theoretical discussions that focus on how the social capital that groups cultivate in communities need not always benefit communities as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although traditional explanations of the historic slave manumission movement during the early Republic have stressed religion, rival ones have emphasized broader environmental forces. However, the literature has offered non-systematic conceptualizations of religion and impressionistic empirical analyses of the facilitators of liberations. In response, I examine the Methodist church's efforts to convince the faithful to free their slaves in Brunswick County, Virginia, from 1782 to 1808. Analyzing the entire population of freedom documents, I report that evangelical ideology motivated masters to make the initial decision to release chattels and that Methodist organizational and social environmental factors influenced masters' decisions regarding when manumissions were written, how many slaves were freed, and whether willed or deeded liberations were awarded. Masters' traits also influenced when willed (moderate) and deeded (radical) manumissions were issued. I end by discussing the role played by economic self-interest in masters' decisions to free bondspeople. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faith-based human services initiatives present numerous challenges to professional social work. This article explores ways a theoretical integration of ecosystems and structuration perspectives may help social workers navigate complex ideological and practical implications of changing service delivery policies. The article highlights diversity among faith-related providers, with presentation of a services typology relevant to social work and ethical guidelines to inform decision making regarding referrals and collaborations. Examples from a qualitative study of faith-related services, values, and practices illustrate the typology and related practice issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the Edwardsean tradition on African slavery and its contribution to the histories of the antislavery debate and of religion in the U.S. from 1740 to 1865. Jonathan Edwards was the greatest religious thinker in the U.S. A letter draft written by Edwards was discovered which contained his confrontation of the moral issue of slavery. In 1741, he wrote down his thoughts on slavery and the slave trade in defense of a fellow clergyman who was criticized for owning a slave. His followers include Edwards Amasa Park, a professor at Andover Theological Seminary in Massachusetts and Moses Stuart, Park's colleague at Andover.

This article aims to situate Orthodox Christianity within the context of American religious pluralism in the twenty-first century. It explores the role of Orthodox Christianity, as both subject and object, in the evolution of American religious identity, with particular focus on the domestic, international, and transnational factors that account for the locus of Orthodox Christianity in debates about the religious dimensions of collective identity in America. The article concludes that internal pluralization is redefining the identity and mission of Orthodox Christianity in America, such that the consolidation of a distinct type of American Orthodoxy may allow for a renegotiation of the place of Orthodox Christianity in the American public sphere in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the religion problem in modern U.S. history. Influence of Puritans on nineteenth-century historians and novelists; Information on books depicting the influence of religion on U.S. history; Importance of religion to U.S. children and teenagers since 1870.

Scholars around the country are engaged in studying the "new religious pluralism." However, this scholarship to date has been conducted without much theoretical guidance. While there is general acknowledgement that the old assimilation model is inadequate for understanding the dynamics of contemporary religious pluralism, alternative models have not been forthcoming. This essay is an attempt to move the study of religious pluralism forward by charting out the theoretical dimensions of the research problem. Then, using secularization theory and the idea of an American civil religion as theoretical guides, two models for understanding contemporary pluralism are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Television, film, and other forms of narrative fiction have often been understood as direct competitors to the traditional beliefs and values of organized religion. Not all people experience the media in this way, however. This article analyzes several cases in which stories of the afterlife, supernatural, and paranormal in the entertainment media become an important context through which contemporary teens understand religious beliefs. The study employed research from a multiyear ethnographic study to examine narratives of young people with various backgrounds and levels of interest in religion. The article discusses five different ways in which stories from the entertainment media are either rejected or incorporated into what young people claim are their religious beliefs. Building upon cultural studies perspectives, the article demonstrates that entertainment media are one element of a culture that shapes and constrains religious identity construction for contemporary teens and an especially important one for those with few ties to formal religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promise Keepers are a fascinating phenomenon in contemporary life in the U.S. as of March 2000. It strikes right at the cultural intersection of religion, gender and racial relations, public life, and national identity--an intersection in such flux that any movement confronting it will garner attention, criticism, and support. Promise Keepers are a reactionary reassertion of patriarchal authority; they are a pawn of Christian Right political operatives; they are another sign of the evangelical religious revival. Promise Keepers is a new phenomenon; it is another example of that old-time religion; it is political; it is religious. Promise Keepers does have the strong culture of evangelical Protestantism as a backdrop that helps foster solidarity, but again, that culture is as likely to lead men away from engagement with the larger public sphere as to politicize them. Prison Keepers seem actively to avoid other steps that might increase its national and political presence. Its haphazard and on-again, of-again organizational structure not a recipe for political effectiveness in current polity. And perhaps even more crucially, it lacks ideological agreement and unity of purpose within the movement to do too much politically. The motivations that bring men to Prison Keepers are too wrapped up with participants' private lives, there is too much suspicion of politics and government action among evangelicals, the men come with too many different agendas, and they vary enough in their material and cultural interests to allow anything more that the most general moral exhortation.

This article comments on the Visions of the Good Society and the Religious Roots of American Political Culture article by Rhys Williams. In his article, Williams provides an insight into the rhetorical models that are used in the search for community in the U.S. He also presents evidence that weds the search for community to religion even though those involved in the search may be unaware that they are, in fact, proceeding within religious frames of reference. From the daily flow of words in the U.S. public arena, he has distilled three models or visions of the good society, which are covenantal, contractual and stewardship. The stewardship model specifies an action goal. Stewardship as a form of action can be differentiated from stewardship as a goal of action. The covenantal model underlies the notion of a society as a social system. The contractual model underlies the notion of a society as an association of actors. The religious center of the tension in U.S. society between systemic needs and individual interests is found within U.S. Roman Catholicism where the high progressive road on social issues is taken in company with strictures on the control and expression of the body.

Discusses the border between the United States and Mexico as a metaphor where Chicano religions emerge through patterns of border crossings. Crossing of symbolic and physical borders to produce variations on religious formations; Characterization of religious production in the borderlands; Healing across the borders by Teresa Urrea and Fidencio Constantino.

We propose an approach for analysing trends in the contributions of social groups to electoral coalitions, and apply this approach to an analysis of the impact of changes in the race, religion, class, and gender cleavages on coalitions in U.S. Presidential elections between 1960 and 1992. We improve on existing studies of party coalitions by developing a multivariate model that measures group-specific political alignments while also correcting for changes in group size and turnout rates. Our analyses show that there have been significant changes in the contributions of different social groups to major party coalitions: the Democrats now receive more votes from professionals (and to a lesser extent, managers), blacks, and non-religious persons, and fewer votes from working-class voters; the Republican coalition has gained among managers (and to a lesser extent, professionals), while losing out significantly among liberal Protestants, blacks, and non-working voters. The analyses provide evidence of a slight convergence amidst a larger pattern of enduring group-based differences within the Democratic and Republican coalitions. The approach developed here can readily be extended to study electoral coalitions in other national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the role of wine in shaping American religious life. Wine's association with the worship of God in the `Protestant-Catholic-Jew' triad; Different interpretations of the Lord's Supper; Amana colonies' use of wine to affirm communal commitments; Wine's role in providing Mormons with a personal experience of religious ecstasy.

This article explores the interrelationships of religion, income, and family behaviors to evaluate culture "war" and "toolkit" theories. In analyzing a 1965-82 panel study of early U.S. baby boomers, analyses revealed that (1) while religious beliefs did not affect involvement in children's education, contact with parents, or incidence of divorce, regular worship attendance clustered with greater involvement in children's education, frequent parent contact, and staying married; (2) possessing an upper income, and rising to one especially, is associated with a doubled to quadrupled likelihood of divorce; (3) religion and income demonstrate significant associations with family behavior, even in controlled multivariate analyses. Results imply the culture war model is overstated, while the cultural toolkit model offers a more plausible explanation for simultaneous ideological contestation and behavioral conformity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies have examined the relationships between religious factors and aggregate suicide rates, with inconsistent findings. We extend research on this topic by focusing on an overlooked variable: religious homogeneity, or the extent to which community residents adhere to a single religion or a small number of faiths. After developing a series of arguments linking religious homogeneity with lower suicide rates, we investigate this relationship using 1980 data on 296 SMSAs. As hypothesized, religious homogeneity is inversely associated with suicide rates; its estimated effects are greater than those of the other religious variables that are widely used in studies of suicide -percent Catholic and church member rates and they persist despite controls for established covariates of suicide rates. On closer inspection, we find regional differences in the apparent influence of religious homogeneity. Protective effects are strongest in the SMSAs of the Northeast and they also surface in the South, while they are weaker in other areas of the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An institution is taken for granted when it is enveloped within. a cultural and moral framework that is not contested. The usual account of the institution of high culture that emerged in the U.S. in the late nineteenth century relates to the growing importance of elites and the uncertainties of modernization. This raises an important puzzle: how did the visual arts that had been so dominated by the morality of popular religion acquire secular worth? Weber's writings provide a point of departure for analyzing institutional transformation involving art, religion, and the emergence of the avant-garde. A framework for understanding institutional change is sketched out. It includes the importance of ideology, social and economic interests, and intellectuals who articulate emerging new views. The metaphor of the "toggle switch," adapted from Weber's term, switchmen, captures the idea that transformation occurs when there are underlying cultural contradictions and the resolution of these contradictions depend on the investments and prospects of competing interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a case study of the immigrant church in the U.S. Centrality of religion in the evolution of the immigrant communities; Presence of ethnic conflict focused around the church; Religious conflict within immigrant communities.

Explores the impact of the evangelical movement on American political culture during the period of the second party system, from approximately 1830 to approximately 1860. Northern United State's interaction with economic development to polarize population; Democracy, discipline, and evangelical reform; Ecumenicism versus confessionalism; Conception of political culture.

Presents the cultural and social history of personal cleanliness in the U.S. Early advocates of personal hygiene; Eighteenth-century method of bathing; Contribution of religion to the renewed interest in cleanliness.