SUNY series in Religion, Culture, and Society – serie

This book examines the highly politicized religious groups and movements that have surfaced since the late 1970s in the United States, Central America, South Africa, the Philippines, India, and the Middle East. Sahliyeh and others analyze this trend toward the politicization of religious conservatism and question a number of assumptions central to concepts of modernization. For example, it has been assumed by development theorists that the interrelated components of modernization would enhance the trend toward secularization of societies. This book shows that in many societies today religious revivalism and fundamentalism seem to be direct products of modernization. A global, comparative approach is utilized to formulate general explanations for religious revivalism and its implications for modernization, development, and politics.

Sanford Kessler offers a provocative and timely analysis of Alexis de Tocqueville's views on the relationship between Christianity and American democracy. These views are central to Tocqueville's discussions of the moral requirements of freedom and the tasks of democratic statesmanship.Tocqueville's thinking about American religion is highly relevant to contemporary debates regarding America's origins, the current strength of American Christianity, and the proper role of religion in American public life. Kessler skillfully demonstrates how Tocqueville incorporates his ideas into an analysis of the American character, a factor in American politics that he considered more important than the Constitution. This book will challenge the thinking of all Americans concerned with religious-political issues and with the prospects for freedom.

This analysis of the crises in church-state relations in Argentina over the last 100 years shows that the constitutionally-established Catholic Church was progressively disenfranchised by various governments and responded by struggling to maintain the institution's historic rights and privileges and to speak as the moral conscience of ArgentinaThis study of Argentine Catholicism offers an important perspective to the country's turbulent political history. Church-state relations show a number of crisis points whereby the constitutionally-established Catholic Church underwent progressive disenfranchisement by various governments. In response, church elites struggled to maintain the institution's historic rights and privileges and to speak as the moral conscience of the nation.Three critical periods in church-state relations are examined: the anticlerical period of the 1880s; the rise of Perónism in the 1940s; and the series of events beginning with the upsurge of the revolutionary left in the 1960s. These events shaped the Argentine Church, while at the same time Catholicism, often imbued with a fervent nationalism, provided many groups competing for power the myths, symbols, and language necessary to articulate a vision for a new Argentina

Liberation theologians either argue for the liberating character of popular religion or they vilify it as alienating and otherworldly. This book takes a comprehensive and in- depth look at the issues, questions, and problems that emerge from the debate among liberation theologians in Latin America. The heart of the book consists of a comparative analysis of two prominent theologians, Juan Carlos Scannone from Argentina, and Juan Luis Segundo from Uruguay, who take opposite positions. Scannone sees popular religion as essentially liberating because it is from the people. Segundo disparages popular religion as a mass phenomenon incapable of revolutionary change and looks forward to its demise.Candelaria synthesizes these contrary positions into a new paradigm for examining the question of popular religion and liberation. On the basis of this synthesis, he formulates a principle for articulating the relationship between popular religion and liberation and with special reference to the situation of Hispanics in the United States.

This book looks at religion from a global perspective and examines how religion is shaped by the larger set of political and economic relationships that make up today's world. Focusing mainly on Western religion and on the changing role of the United States in world affairs, the authors show how shifts in the hegemony of the United States is affecting religious and ideological trends. Attention is given particularly to the United States in relation to Latin America, South Africa, and the post-colonial world of China, Japan, and the Islamic states. This volume highlights the impact of greater global connectedness on the rise of new religious movements and changing patterns of establishment religion in the United States.

For this study of American religion, the author surveyed over 2000 Catholic high school seniors during a fourteen-year period, exploring changes in religiosity and attitudes toward the recent teachings of the Church. Fifty-four of these people were resurveyed eight and nine years after graduation, probing whether and in what direction their viewpoints had shifted.

This book develops a theoretical framework for understanding the popularity of religion in its particular social contexts. The author provides analyses of examples of "religious renaissance," such as the relation of the Catholic Church to Poland's Solidarity Movement, and the counterculture and Protestant theology. He appraises the appeal of the Christian Right in contemporary American culture and the relationship between the Political Right and the Christian Right.

Protestantism has undergone a shift in its relationship with American culture and politics. This book analyzes and evaluates that shift. The author shows how Protestantism began in America as a vibrant civil religion and how it developed so that, by the 1970s, its relationship with American culture and politics had changed radically. He shows how Evangelical Protestantism came into being and remains resilient.Hammond also discusses religious culture as it dealt with the courts-the separation of church and state, and the changing meaning of this doctrine.

In this book, Lehman compares the ministry styles of women and men focussing on clergy of Protestant Congregations (ministers, clerics, preachers, and parsons). He offers strong statistical support for the trend toward increasing numbers of women in clerical roles. His book is the first to make direct comparisons between men and women on several dimensions of ministry style (using a national sample): interpersonal style, theology, career goals, thought forms, power and authority, and ethics.

Sanford Kessler offers a provocative and timely analysis of Alexis de Tocqueville's views on the relationship between Christianity and American democracy. These views are central to Tocqueville's discussions of the moral requirements of freedom and the tasks of democratic statesmanship.Tocqueville's thinking about American religion is highly relevant to contemporary debates regarding America's origins, the current strength of American Christianity, and the proper role of religion in American public life. Kessler skillfully demonstrates how Tocqueville incorporates his ideas into an analysis of the American character, a factor in American politics that he considered more important than the Constitution. This book will challenge the thinking of all Americans concerned with religious-political issues and with the prospects for freedom.

What happens when a centuries-old religious movement begins to disappear?In this sociological study, Patricia Wittberg, S.C. confronts one of the most consequential yet understudied transformations within modern Catholicism: the dramatic rise—and startling decline—of Catholic religious orders.Drawing on historical depth and rigorous theoretical analysis, Wittberg explores religious orders as intentional communities powered by what she calls "religious virtuosity." Why did thousands dedicate their lives to these communities? What ideological frameworks sustained them? And why have those same structures weakened so dramatically in recent decades?Blending sociological theory with rich historical research, The Rise and Fall of Catholic Religious Orders:· Examines the ideological foundations of Roman Catholic religious life· Analyzes personal incentives and institutional resource mobilization· Investigates earlier cycles of growth and decline· Interprets contemporary collapse through the lens of movement theory· Situates religious orders within the broader study of intentional communitiesFar from offering a simple narrative of decline, Wittberg provides a sophisticated model for understanding how religious movements mobilize, sustain commitment, and ultimately lose cultural power. Her work opens new pathways for research into ideology, institutional change, and the dynamics of faith-based communities.

What happens when a centuries-old religious movement begins to disappear?In this sociological study, Patricia Wittberg, S.C. confronts one of the most consequential yet understudied transformations within modern Catholicism: the dramatic rise—and startling decline—of Catholic religious orders.Drawing on historical depth and rigorous theoretical analysis, Wittberg explores religious orders as intentional communities powered by what she calls "religious virtuosity." Why did thousands dedicate their lives to these communities? What ideological frameworks sustained them? And why have those same structures weakened so dramatically in recent decades?Blending sociological theory with rich historical research, The Rise and Fall of Catholic Religious Orders:· Examines the ideological foundations of Roman Catholic religious life· Analyzes personal incentives and institutional resource mobilization· Investigates earlier cycles of growth and decline· Interprets contemporary collapse through the lens of movement theory· Situates religious orders within the broader study of intentional communitiesFar from offering a simple narrative of decline, Wittberg provides a sophisticated model for understanding how religious movements mobilize, sustain commitment, and ultimately lose cultural power. Her work opens new pathways for research into ideology, institutional change, and the dynamics of faith-based communities.

Examines the relationship between grassroots Catholic Church groups (base Christian communities) and the mobilization of peasant farmers in the fight for control of Amazon lands.Using information gathered from more than one hundred interviews with farmers, activists, and church people in northern Brazil, the author shows how the present conflicts over land in the Amazon, as well as the destruction of the rainforest, are rooted in specific policies of the Military Government that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, and how the effects of those policies continue to be felt. Presented here are six present-day case studies that not only give evidence of the direct links between peasant farmers' participation in grassroots church groups and their activism for land reform, but also, through rich local detail and quotes from the interviews, give a human face to sociological data.