Benton Johnson

Determinants of Church Involvement of Young Adults Who Grew up in Presbyterian Churches

An interview study of 500 young adults from 33 to 42 years old who grew up in Presbyterian churches provided data for testing the importance of specific determinants of church involvement. We posited a general theory of plausibility structures. We found influence of early religious socialization to be weak. The influence of cultural broadening during the college-age years was also weak, except that it liberalized beliefs. The strongest determinant of church involvement today was religious beliefs: Persons with conservative beliefs are more committed. Second strongest was recent adult experiences, especially regarding family. We propose here a two-step model, with belief formation most important and recent family experiences second most important

Do Holiness Sects Socialize in Dominant Values

Exception is taken to the adequacy of the prevailing sociological view that the function of Holiness religion is to offer underprivileged groups an emotional and other-worldly escape from the realities that beset them. This article presents evidence for the view that Holiness religion may also function as an agency of the socialization of the lower class in the dominant values of American society.

Types of Denominational Switching among Protestant Young Adults

Using a survey of young adults who grew up Presbyterian, we identified four motivations of people who switched denominations: (1) switch due to interfaith marriage; (2) switch after moving to a different town or neighborhood; (3) switch due to dissatisfaction with ones church; and (4) switch due to personal ties and influences. The third motivation was often associated with a conversion or renewal of commitment. Switches for the first two reasons tended to be within mainline Protestant denominations; switches for the third reason tended to pull a person outside the mainline. Afterward, switchers are more church-involved than nonswitchers, especially type 3.

Ascetic Protestantism and Political Preference in the Deep South

Using survey data from a Pacific Northwest city, the author demonstrated in a previous paper that even when occupational class is controlled, Protestants who attend fundamentalist churches are more likely to be Republicans than are Protestants who attend liberal churches. The present paper reports an attempt to replicate these findings in a sample from a city in the Deep South. The southern findings duplicate the previously reported relationships in almost every respect. Owing, however, to differences in the distribution of liberalism and fundamentalism in these two citie, the over-all political consequences of these relationships are probably quite distinct in the two cities and in their surrounding regions.

Taking Stock: Reflections on the End of Another Era

The mainline Protestant churches are in the throes of a second great depression, a depression far worse than the one they experienced 50 years ago. Reinhold Niebuhrs criticism of liberalism and his program for theological and political renewal helped the churches recover from the first depression. But Niebuhrs program proved unworkable in the long run and it has left a legacy of pessimism and guilt that impede recovery from the current depression. The churches now need to renew those elements of their liberal heritage that encourage optimism and a more positive approach to the cure of souls.

The Remnant SpiritThe Remnant Spirit: Conservative Reform in Mainline Protestantism, by CowanDouglas E.. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. 234 pp.

institutions “from above” both respond to globalization and shape global processes. Based on a close reading of writings by John Paul II, the authors argue that the pope offers a “hybrid” worldview that is simultaneously premodern, modern, and postmodern, as he attempts to “reposition the church in the context of globalization” (p. 171). The book’s final case study features the Christian Broadcasting Network’s Proyecto Luz (Project Light), a media blitz conducted in Guatemala by a transnational religious broadcasting company based in the United States. The authors argue that even with the unequal power relations between the United States and Guatemala, Project Light actually showed that globalized religions do not always succeed in imposing their messages given the selective appropriation of messages by local actors and the creation of hybrid religious forms. The strengths of Globalizing the Sacred are too numerous to detail in a brief review. Vásquez and Marquardt offer us sophisticated theory grounded in engaging case studies. They challenge social scientists and globalization theorists to think of religion in more nuanced ways. The book is sophisticated methodologically, drawing as it does from numerous disciplines. It challenges sociologists of religion to rethink how we study religion in the context of globalization. My only (slight) criticism of the book is the overreliance on notions of hybridity and borderlands. Although the authors do not want to romanticize hybridity, they also want to make the “hybrid subject central.” I worry that if the pope, Salvadoran gangs, evangelical Protestants, pilgrims to Our Lady of San Juan del Valle National Shrine, Latino Lutheran and Catholic congregations, and Guatemalan recipients of religious broadcasting are all framed as hybrid subjects, the concept loses some of its explanatory power. I am curious how the authors would engage the debate about hybridity and border metaphors that has been initiated by Pablo Vila, Debra A. Castillo, María Socorro Tabuenca Córdoba, and other border researchers. Vásquez and Marquardt aimed to bring religious studies into dialogue with theories of globalization, transnational migration, identity, postcolonialism, media, and modernity. They have more than achieved their aim in this masterful, sophisticated, nuanced work that sets a new standard for religious studies scholars and globalization theorists. Globalizing the Sacred is sociology of religion at its best.

64.95 cloth. ISBN: 0-275-97449-9.: Conservative Reform in Mainline Protestantism

This in-depth survey provides a vivid overview of the religious world of the Baby Boomers. The authors worked with a national sample of persons confirmed in the Presbyterian Church, examining the religious faith of Baby Boomers and exploring the reasons they gave for leaving or staying in the church. The authors identify eight types of young adults--half of them churched and the other half unchurched. Their findings provide some unexpected results.