David A. Nock

Differential Ecological Receptivity of Conversionist and Revolutionist Sects: A Reconsideration of Stark and Bainbridge

Stark and Bainbridge suggest that cults and sects will draw strength from different ecological regions. Cults will be found at greatest strength in regions where conventional Christianity is weak; sects will be found strongest in regions where conventional Christianity flourishes. In their initial studies on the United States and Canada, these propositions were either not tested sufficiently (Canada) or were tested with rather inadequate data (United States). In their own later studies dealing with Europe, it was found that revolutionist sects did fare better than expected in areas of high cult receptivity. This finding is duplicated for Canada revolutionist sects are stronger in areas of cult, rather than conversionist sect, receptivity. This finding is explained by a discussion of religious social distance, with revolutionist sects commonly perceived as nearer to cults in terms of social acceptance.

Anglican bishops and indigenity: John Porter revisited

David Nock is Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario. In 1965, John Porter made certain comments in The Vertical Mosaic characterizing Roman Catholic bishops as ’indigenous’ and Anglican bishops as ‘non-indigenous.’1 These comments have been quoted several times since in sociology textbooks and monographs, and the ‘indigenity’ of Roman Catholic bishops as opposed to the ’foreignness’ or ’Britishness’ of Anglican bishops has become a matter of common knowledge in the field of Canadian studies.

Religion in the Ranks: Belief and Religious Experience in the Canadian Forces

A comedian might ask how such a book could exist. Over the past fifty years religiosity in Canada has plummeted to low European levels, and the Canadian Forces have dwindled in numbers and expenditure devoted to it. Certainly the decades before the 1960s had exhibited very high levels of traditional religiosity and involvement in armed conflicts of the Anglo-American World (World Wars I and II, Korea). This pre-1960s background explains the institutionalized presence of religion in the Canadian Forces. The presence of chaplains started in World War I, was abolished between the wars, but was revived and institutionalized in World War II. If the chaplaincy exists because of the religiosity of previous generations, an interesting sociological question is to explain how it continues to exist in the post-1960s era, or if in fact it is moribund. More than America, this era in Canada has been marked by a Quiet Revolution in the realm of cultural and social values. Religion for many Canadians has become a kind of ‘‘four-letter’’ word, two of them actually! The Canadian Forces too went through a rough period in which its high repute in the armed combats of 1914–1953 plummeted in the post-1960s era when Canadians looked for a ‘‘peace dividend’’ even before the end of the Cold War. Where Canadians did support their Forces was in relatively low-danger United Nations missions as peacekeepers. More recently, Canada has seen the Forces deployed in more agonistic engagements such as in Afghanistan where 158 personnel died. Such deployments seem naturally to engender the ‘‘‘big issues’ of human existence’’ (p. 109). . . and religion. Thus instead of a disappearance or decay, the chaplaincy has shown surprising signs of vitality and ‘‘continuing relevance’’ (p. 161). Author Joanne Benham Rennick is to be congratulated for an outstanding investigation into a difficult subject. In contemporary Canada, religion has been removed from ‘‘the public square’’ and is regarded as a privatized personal issue. Until the mid-1990s the CF did collect data on religious affiliation but this was deleted when it was removed from forms as ‘‘irrelevant’’ (p. 95). As a result of this and ‘‘restrictions placed on the study,’’ the author’s ‘‘initial objective’’ changed from a primary focus on the troops to greater emphasis on chaplains (p. 7). Eventually Benham Rennick gained the support of several key military sponsors. She ended up with 32 interviews evenly divided between chaplains and troops, and she supplemented these interviews with a creative array of data collection techniques (pp. 7– 8). As she wished, however, the longest single chapter focuses on ‘‘the rank and file’’ troops. Consequentially, the author refers to her work as an ‘‘exploratory study’’ and suggests ‘‘there is virtually no research on the role religion plays in the secular, late modern institution of Canada’s military forces’’ (p. 17). Given the privatization, demotion, and sensitivity of religion in Canada, follow-up studies may be rare. If further studies do ensue, they may stem from concerns in modern-day Canada to ensure that the nation’s fast-growing ethnic, multicultural, and consequent religious diversity is respected: recognition of multiculturalism has been a Canadian state policy since 1971 and Canada’s immigration pool has changed from primarily European to non-European sources. Although still very much minorities, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, and others have already become a recognized presence in the CF and even more so in the associated Reserves (pp. 139–140). After an introduction about the study’s premise, religious and military context, and methods, the follow-up chapters focus on ‘‘A Historical Overview of the CF Chaplaincy,’’ ‘‘Unusual Officers’’ (an apt designation for chaplains who are exempt from certain regulations governing other officers), and the religious, spiritual, and personal needs of ‘‘The Rank and File.’’ Chapter Five acts as a conclusion and raises issues such as the need for but lack of religious knowledge among troops despite its importance for achieving CF goals. The author also recapitulates how religion plays an important role in alleviating feelings of stigma and anomie in Reviews 67

An Introduction to Sociology

The Goals  Explore fundamental sociological theories and to demonstrate how sociology differs from other social sciences  Gain an appreciation for the contributions made by classical and contemporary sociologists  Determine the relationship between sociological theory and our everyday experiences and observations, or to define the sociological imagination  Consider the past, present, and future of sociology  Help students confidently pursue further studies in the science of sociology

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: Marx and Mead: Contributions to a Sociology of Knowledge Tom W. Goff London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980. Pp. viii + 166

Tom Goff, a sociology professor at Mount Allison University, starts with a paradox. The sociology of knowledge has as its task to show the social factors affecting knowledge production, that the (social) scientific process is not carried out free from particularistic considerations. Despite the implied critique of a positivistic conception of knowledge, sociologists of knowledge themselves have frequently relied on the assumptions and tools of positivistic social science. If this is true, then the insights of sociology of knowledge are also suspect since one can apply the same critique to this field as it has to substantive research. Goff wants to get around this paradox by rejecting the entire baggage of positivistic science. I suspect that this is a project that might well be looked upon favourably by scholars of religion because of the implied or stated critique of positivism towards religious phenomena. To advance his argument that the sociology of knowledge must liberate itself from positivism, Goff turns to Marx and Mead as materials for a synthesis which relies on mind, consciousness, and intentionality. Goff relies on new readings of Marx by such scholars as Avineri, Dupre, Ollman, Petrovic, and Kolakowski. Their view is that Marx’s key concept was ’praxis.’ The guilt for the positivistic readings of Marx current till recently is laid squarely on Marx’s St. Paul, Friedrich Engels. Mead’s position has been criticized both for its possible positivism (his approach was called ’social behaviorism’) and for its idealism (he is regarded as one of the fathers of phenomenological sociology especially in its symbolic interaction format). Mead strongly took exception to John Watson’s positivistic programme in psychology. His own work was an attempt to keep mind as a factor in the social

The failure of the CMS native church policy in southwestern Ontario and Algoma

Ojibway lasted only three years, from 1868 to 1871. He spent another year under the Society’s auspices in Sault Ste. Marie. By 1873, however, all support for Wilson’s mission was severed, and Wilson began his career which lasted until 1893 as a freelance missionary and teacher. Under Henry Venn, the long-time honorable secretary of the cms, exciting experiments in the process of indigenizing the Christian church among the natives were attempted. The times were wrong for such experiments to succeed. In non-settler colonies, success came to his plans only when decolonization was under way. In settler colonies such as Ontario, Henry Venn’s ambitious plans were likely to fail since the British settlers, including Bishop Cronyn and eventually E. F. Wilson himself, had grave doubts about the appropriateness or possibility of creating an indigenous church among the Indians. The desire of the cms that Wilson institute an indigenous native church among the Indians of southwestern Ontario failed, but the reasons for that failure tell us much about the missionary and imperial forces at work in the nineteenth century, and about the process of colonization itself.

Book Review: The Decolinization Of Quebec: Sheilagh Hodgins Milner and Henry Milner The Decolonization of Quebec; An Analysis of Left-Wing Nationalism, Toronto, 1973. McClelland and Stewart Limited, ix+pp. 257.

Turnbull to lay the blame for the breakdown of American society not upon its technology, but instead upon the nature of capitalistic utilization of technology made all that more oppressive in America today by corporate capitalism, imperialism, and political manife s tations of totalitarian fascism. As for the Ik, Turnbull fails to recognize that the attempted transformation of their culture is a case of capitalistic development of an &dquo;under :developed&dquo; people , and that the reason for the social engineering failure in this case was directly due to the Uganda government’s inability (or lack of desire?) to utilize technological tools to inable the Ik to achieve

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Quebec, P. U. L , pp. 252. Collection of essays on power in French Canada. 14 Dumont, Fernand and Falardeau, Jean-C. , eds. , 1964 Litterature et societe canadiennes-francaises Quebec, P. U. L , pp. 272. ’Literature as a social phenomenon in French Canada. 15 Dumont, Montminy, and Hamelin, eds. Ideologies 1971 au Canada francais, 1850-1900 Quebec, P. U. L. , pp. 327. A most interesting account of the ideologies of this period, a period when &dquo;altramontanism, &dquo; on obscurantist