The Churching of America 1776-1990
Kelly, James R.
another defects, and the group goes into and fanatics. Man is diminished if he lives lar. They assume that most students of re- hiding, traveling in stolen cars, eating without...
...And out against the war to a campus antiwar ment...
...MICR...
...Because intellectuals assured premises theory (the Chicago style of unregulated begin with the wrong question and reliThe Churching of competition...
...But Vatican II brought a decrease that it is not any guiding theory but their time (Roger Williams, John Stuart Mill, in product differentiation, an accommo- own post factum judgment which they use George Simmel, John Courtney Murray), dation to secular society, and reduced re- to sort out the inventory of sacrifice...
...Product improve- er who at this point thinks about all those ly, it's not hard to apply these free-market ment, it seems, doesn't work on religion...
...Simply put, when Cath- church's hierarchical structure, the eu- longer wanted it or they found what they olicism grew (till Vatican II) it behaved charistic miracle, the evangelical vows of think is a better way to get what they want...
...Methodists and the Baptists, nicely dis- f Faith needs its metaphors and, at least plays this "capitalist" theory applied to since the 1960s, many sociologists realreligion (figure 3.1, chapter 1...
...heroic to the most savage-in pursuit of a cause they could neither win nor idenMurray Polner tify nor embrace...
...might be curious about how the authors' contraception, abortion, the social teach- I mean, if something declines we can later economic model applies to American ing of the church, the pastoral letters, the pronounce that it was because people no Catholicism...
...As with economic theory generalters of scholarship...
...Finke and Stark that the reader with some general inter- the name of faith...
...without ligion think that traditional societies with stolen food, racing, with several narrow hope of a future he becomes a beast...
...ers had all served in the military...
...Commentators, especially those tional sample has the percentage answering conservatives who use "liberal" as a syn- "none" when asked about religion reached onym for selling out, will find it easy to 10 percent...
...comfortable, and more established...
...Thus, with more rationaltistically checked by Finke's model for Good revisionists, however, must first ity (presumably like their own), there translating pew numbers into membership persuade us that what they revise is what should be less religion...
...Finke and Stark estimates) allow them to make "major re- we believe...
...religious "monopolies" were pervasively escapes, away from the dreaded Council Because James is known as a writer of religious and that secular and pluralistic and toward the woodshed...
...Appy's conclusion is that Vietnam what are we to make of the group, a neatly dressed student approached was a class war which drew its troopers- early Christian conviction that, about 80 percent of them-from the poor- following his execution by the me...
...Arguments for the miliarity and acceptance to American- firms lose membership as they lessen the congruence between pluralism and reliborn Catholics still insecure in a suspicious demands for membership, we notice here gious vitality have been around for some culture...
...professional biblical scholarship sweep-and-destroy missions, with a Purple Appy argues as well that this antagonism yet assuming no prior knowledge Heart, he was unable to comprehend the lay behind much of the fury that was ever- of the subject, Wright's Who Was Jesus...
...The idea was a ligious monopolies can appeal to diverse that there will be a future, for the nation, good one, but like so many of P.D...
...Regarding the high dea religion that is capable of miracles and mid-1960s caution to those Catholic in- mands contained in Humanae vitae, they that imports order and sanity to the human tellectuals urging the church to "slough off simply cite the economist Lawrence condition...
...We can (and economists do) look evident that the secularization of religion at marriages, or anything, the same way...
...bitter veteran saying, "It was a case of busiWhat did I know...
...today, about 62 percent claim Rutgers University Press, $22.95, 328 pp...
...I'm sure we and church leaders the troublesome suggestion that "it seems eternal truths...
...Committed secular intel- gious leaders confuse their faith with the America is sociolo- lectuals seeking a nonthreatening ex- market, say Finke and Stark...
...much religious competition...
...By 1906, slightly more Economy This book is smartly written, the graphs than 50 percent of Americans were Roger Finke and Rodney Stark and statistics are easy to read, and the anal- churched...
...PUBLISHING CQ 2 5 JEFFERSON AVE...
...With fair warrant, Finke and adopt a contrary hypothesis which provides visions in the history of American religion" Stark assume we think that Americans were the motive power underlying their theoand to "challenge the received wisdom" once religious and are now pretty secu- ry explaining the success and failure of difCommonweal 23 April 1993: 27 ferent religious "firms" in a potentially ever wards for buying Catholic...
...I remember him saying, the tension Romans, Jesus physically rose evident in his tightly drawn lips, that he er and blue-collar classes...
...These arguments 28: 23 April 1993 Commonweal have the virtue of drawing attention to is- some added weight to some plausible but sues of conscience and religious truth...
...Catholicism's not even mention abortion, the ordination Furthermore, I'm not convinced that entrepreneurship resulted in a distinctive of women, the social teachings of the church/sect theory benefits much by being institutional system (schools, colleges, church, the sacraments...
...class distinction" and not their support for Paper, $8.99 That "something," writes Appy, an as- a war they could barely understand that sistant professor of history at the Massa- aroused blue-collar disgust...
...Unfortunately, the unfolding story, arate religious organizations in America, James summarizes: "You [Theo] know buried in a mountain of detail, holds lit- each considering itself more true than the what evils have been perpetrated through tle suspense, the chase little excitement...
...Thus, like IBM and the book by whether or not they share its General Motors, "the mainline bodies authors' primary aspiration: The authors are always headed for the sidelines...
...When the question is claim that newly retrieved late-nineteenth- est in religion and some specific alle- posed in this way, "they have been virtuand early-twentieth-century Bureau of giances will at different times and in ally forced to frame answers that postuCensus statistics on religious bodies based different moods find the book insightful, late personal flaws in those who believe on denominational self-reports (and sta- tendentious, and reductive...
...objected to my remarks about the war...
...Under "with the increasing size and affluence of Regarding the decline in vocations to repressure from their laity, the clergy begin Catholic universities and the reforms of ligious orders, they simply remark "it is to preach theology rather than faith, sup- Vatican II, Catholic higher education be- no longer a good bargain except for those port respectability rather than enthusiasm, came quite secularized...
...The highly contestable personal judgments chief utility of redescribing them in terms about contemporary American religion of supply-and- demand principles is to give and its future...
...What did City...
...Finke and give high grades to the older discipline of expanding religious market: "People seek Stark approvingly cite Will Herberg's meatless Fridays...
...offering the rewards of fa- portant part of their theory is that religious tentious economics...
...I remember At your bookstore, or call 800-253-7521 chusetts Institute of Technology who also one veteran, a self-described prowar vet, FAX 616-4596540 attended a weekly Vietnam-veteran rap once shouting at me, "Where were the sons 338 WM...
...gy of the kind that used to be written be- planation of why secularization hasn't The typical social scientist asks, "How fore the ideologically tumultuous 1960s happened in America and elsewhere can people possibly believe in supernatwhen blacks, women, and others humbled might especially find the authors' eco- ural beings and forces, and whatever drives the universalizing theory that conceptu- nomic analysis persuasive...
...They assume that most students of rehiding, traveling in stolen cars, eating without knowledge of his past...
...Just nine- lege rather than basic training, and who Written from the standpoint of ty days away from free-fire zones and eventually had better life chances than they...
...He quotes one from the dead...
...For example, on the eve of the American THE RELIGIOUS-FUTURES MARKET Revolution, probably about 17 percent of Americans were churched...
...finds its fullest expression in seminaries to halt its transformation from an energetic But this is in our less interesting mowhenever they define themselves as cen- sect into a sedate mainline body...
...the numerous mitted allegiance...
...it became clear that, as Christian G. Appy proposition that Andrew Levinson wrote This is a book to engage skeptic and believer alike...
...In the ize they also need them...
...others, how can any one of them lay claim 'the ages to ensure the survival of nations, The framework of the book, all too plain to binding religious truths worthy of comsects, religions, even of individual fami- to see, is never richly clothed...
...The religious organizations that its old ways and bring itself up to date by lannoccone's remark that "the Catholic maximize these aspects of religion, how- adjusting itself to the spirit of the age...
...El Who Was BLUE COLLARS & PURPLE HEARTS Jesus ?. WORKING-CLASS WAR lethal military machine and "committed Christian G. Appy acts and took risks they never imagined University of North Carolina Press, $39.95, themselves capable of-from the most 363 pp...
...He had been there and ness as usual...
...11 markets are better than state-controlled monopolies in rousing and then satisfying consumer wants...
...One day, after I had spoken from an unforgiving public and govern- Jesus actually stand for...
...often do...
...Aren't there any other "sure...
...The authors' theoretical framework about secularization from both intellectuals sis, bold claims, and is a hybrid of church/sect and economic and religious leaders...
...Although an im- subsumed under a more theoretically prehospitals, etc...
...The authors do their chapter on Catholicism shows...
...That hope has mysteries, this novel makes you wonder mand for religion, just as unregulated finally gone except in the mind of fools what makes her the queen...
...If there are more than 256 sepof the five members of Xan's Council, P.D...
...with a remarkable personal ability to transand soon the group suffers the fate of all Finke and Stark think it "unlikely that mute sacrifice into powerful religious fulcomplacent monopolies as it loses out to the American Catholic church will be able fillments...
...My own reaction chapter "Methodists Transformed, to viewing churches as business firms is Baptists Triumphant," the authors offer "Buy low, sell high...
...S. E. I GRAND RAPIDS...
...ting drafted, people who could go to N. T. Wright considers these and many other questions From that moment on we talked regu- college often did...
...It is too dif- better support their counterargument that has been formed by history, that his life- ficult to believe a redeemer will rise from religious pluralism, which better than respan is brief, uncertain, insubstantial, but the bed in the woodshed...
...They if not always appreciated...
...The read- ments...
...it was those who couldn't raised by the latest wave of larly...
...considerable points of actual and potential principles backward into history and find At this point Commonweal readers tension between American Catholicism- that religious behavior conforms to them...
...What makes Working-Class War so worthwhile is that it looks into the so- N. T. WRIGHT met my first Vietnam War com- cioeconomic backgrounds of combat vetbat veteran in the mid- 1960s while erans as a way of making sense of their teaching in a community college military and postwar experiences, in- D id the historical person Jesus really regard himself some sixty miles from New York cluding the frigid welcome they received as the Son of God...
...like a sect, energetically marketing itself poverty, chastity, obedience, etc.-will es- But this is mostly tautological, as the to immigrants from native lands charac- pecially notice a disappointingly ad hoc heavy ad hoc and post factum quality of terized by a complacent clergy without quality to their argument...
...tell us that "the primary value of analyzMuch as Detroit complains about the un- 1 ing American religious history through a fair market techniques of Japan, the cor- market-oriented lens is that in this way porate leadership of declining religious tr some well-established deductions from firms complain about secularization...
...book...
...He came from an Italian-American their profound resentment of people who Barbara Thiering's Jesus the Man, A. N. Wilson's Jesus, and John working-class family, and his older broth- lived in suburbs, whose kids went to col- Shelby Spong's Born o f a Woman...
...shows convincingly that world he left behind in 1965 when he was present when workers flew "Love It or much can be gained from a drafted or the horrors he witnessed at war...
...My guess is them to make such irrational sacrifices in ally marginalized them...
...The data contradict lies.Whatever man has done for good or characters wander over a skillfully depicted each point of this conventional wisdom and ill has been done in the knowledge that he landscape like so many sticks...
...religious entrepreneurs with less to lose Readers can best evaluate the worth of and more to gain...
...B. FFRDMA_NS group for six years, was that many of of all the big shots who supported the war...
...Then why do we hear so much IN ith its big hypothe- quote...
...writes in this definitive and engrossing about in Working Class Majority (1975), study of combat veterans and their economic that it was more often than not "class and ISBN 0-8028-0694-5 class, something was eating at his soul...
...On no naJames R. Kelly about it...
...Leave It" banners or shouted down and rigorous historical assessment of He was neither hawk nor dove, but in time beat up protesting college students, a what the Gospels say about Jesus...
...against the world, against the age, against in the areas of liturgy, theology, and But while "magic" and "sacrifice" ini- the spirit of the age-because the world lifestyle, while at the same time maintially attract believers, in time they and and the age are always, to an important taining the very demands that its members their leaders become more affluent, more degree, in rebellion against God...
...were in church...
...4950 these men-impotent in civilian life as sons Much of this is by now reasonably faof the lower-middle and working class- miliar, thanks in part to Lawrence Baskir had become cogs in the world's most and William Strauss's classic accounting Commonweal 23 April 1993: 29...
...James's religious tastes, increases the aggregate defor the race, for the tribe...
...Instead of everybody get- In this book noted scholar I hadn't...
...But and clergy are least willing to accept...
...In the course murder mysteries, readers might expect societies inevitably make religion inof this adventure, Theo learns to feel not that the plot, the suspense of the unfold- significant and, indeed, that pluralism in only pain but also love...
...One the principles of supply and demand can graph shows how the Congregationalists illuminate what might otherwise seem a and Episcopalians lose out to the very disorderly landscape...
...This sort of controversial books about the by his anger, his intensity, his bewilder- comment, widely expressed, reflected historical Jesus, including ment...
...And even nonments about religion and those who write members show a brand loyalty...
...ing story, the excitement of the chase religion is itself a primary agent of secuPlacing the words in the mouth of one would provide the main interest of this larization...
...yses are enlivened with pungent com- active church membership...
...I church has managed to arrive at a reever, demand the highest price in terms say just the opposite: in all that is impor- markable `worst of both worlds' posiof what the individual must do to qualify tant, the church must stand firm in its stand tion-discarding cherished distinctiveness for these rewards...
...and sacrifice...
...On any given Sunday morning," Finke and Stark drolly note, "there were at least as many people recovering from late Saturday nights THE CHURCHING OF AMERICA 1776-1990 about why churches grow and why they in the taverns of these seaport towns as Winners and Losers in Our Religious decline...
...As I wrote at the time, "I was struck who went into the military...
Vol. 120 • April 1993 • No. 8
