David Yamane

Secularization on trial : In defense of a neosecularization paradigm

According to its critics, the old secularization paradigm has been tried, convicted, and executed by recent scholarship in the social sciences of religion, and is being replaced by a new (poatsecularizafion) paradigm which highlights the continued vitality of religion in modern societies. This paper argues that claims to have definitively refuted secularization theory are exaggerated. It mounts a defense of neosecularization paradigm which retains the core insights of the old paradigm while incorporating criticisms leveled against the hubris and laziness of some deployments of the concept of secularization. Following Chaves (1994), this paper argues that the core of neosecularization theory is the proposition that secularization means not the decline of religion but the declining scope of religious authority at the individual, organizational, and societal levels of analysis. Three exemplars of this perspective in the area of religion and politics are highlighted: the work of Hertzke (1988), Demerath and Williams (1992), and Casanova (1994).

Surviving diversity : religion and democratic citizenship

While liberal advocates of multiculturalism frequently call for tolerance of those with diverse views, this tolerance is often not extended to members of religious groups. This lack is perhaps not surprising, since the liberal ideals of autonomy, equality, and inclusiveness are the very ones that many religious groups-particularly the more conservative ones-reject. Yet, as Jeff Spinner-Halev argues in Surviving Diversity, any theory of multiculturalism that fails to take religious groups into account is incomplete. Spinner-Halev proposes three principles on which accommodation of exclusive religious groups should be based. First, they must provide their children with a basic education and allow adults to leave the community if they wish. Second, with some exceptions they should be welcomed to participate in the public sphere, since such participation often bolsters citizenship. Third, they should be free to exclude others from their institutions, except when doing so substantially harms the citizenship of others. While not condoning such extremist groups as the Branch Davidians or the Christian Identity movement, Spinner-Halev stresses that most religious conservatives have chosen to live a life that, in a permissive Western democracy, requires considerable restraint and thought. He concludes by demonstrating how the ideals of multiculturalism can be extended to such citizens, creating a society tolerant of even greater diversity.

Goodbye father : the celibate male priesthood and the future of the Catholic Church

In the last half-century, the number of Catholic priests has plummeted by 40% while the number of Catholics has skyrocketed, up 65%. The specter of a faith defined by full pews and empty altars hangs heavy over the church. The root cause of this priest shortage is the churchs insistence on mandatory celibacy. Given the potential recruitment advantages of abandoning the celibacy requirement, why, Richard A. Schoenherr asks, is the conservative Catholic coalition-headed by the pope-so adamantly opposed to a married clergy? The answer, he argues, is that accepting married priests would be but the first step toward ordaining women and thus forever altering the demographics of a resolutely male religious order. Yet Schoenherr believes that such change is not only necessary but unavoidable if the church is to thrive. The churchs current stop-gap approach of enlisting laypeople to perform all but the central element of the mass only further serves to undermine the power of the celibate priesthood. Perhaps most importantly, doctrinal changes, a growing pluralism in the church, and the feminist movement among nuns and laywomen are exerting a growing influence on Catholicism. Concluding that the collapse of celibate exclusivity is all but inevitable, Goodbye Father presents an urgent and compelling portrait of the future of organized Catholicism.

Religion in the Legislative Arena: Affiliation, Salience, Advocacy, and Public Policymaking

Religion is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that informs politics in various ways. This article examines the effects of religious affiliation, religious salience, and religious group advocacy on roll-call voting in the Wisconsin state legislature. Various studies have demonstrated the impact of religious affiliation on legislative politics, but our use of additional religious indicators allows us to model the religious effect in a more accurate and nuanced manner. Using data from an original survey of state legislators, we utilized structural equation modeling to measure the direct and indirect effects of these religious factors on both the general pattern of roll-call voting and voting on a high-salience issue, abortion. Ultimately, the findings indicate that, even when we control for political party affiliation, which is a dominant influence on roll-call voting, conservative Protestant religious affiliation and high religious salience influence legislative voting. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for future studies of religion in the legislative arena.

COURSE PREPARATION ASSIGNMENTS: A STRATEGY FOR CREATING DISCUSSION-BASED COURSES*

Although many of us would like to get beyond lecturing, we often lack concrete strategies for doing so, particularly in our larger classes. This paper suggests one such strategy for creating a discussion-based course. The success of such a course is predicated on students reading and thinking about the course material (receiving “first exposure”) prior to attending class so that class time can be devoted to more substantively engaging activities grounded in guided discussion. The vehicle I propose for achieving this first exposure to the course material is the “Course Preparation Assignment” (CPA). This article explains the rationale for discussion-based courses, describes the development and use of CPAs, and assesses a discussion-based course by comparing it to a traditional lecture course on several outcomes. The assessment reveals that the use of these assignments to create a discussion-based course has been a great success, allowing me to foster student engagement with the course material by spending the majority of class time coordinating, facilitating, and leading discussions, rather than constantly lecturing at the students.

Book Review: Imprisoned religion: Transformations of religion during and after imprisonment in Eastern GermanyBecciI. (2012). Imprisoned religion: Transformations of religion during and after imprisonment in Eastern Germany. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. xi, 199 pp.

numbers to back his case. In Chapter 5, the author jumps to computer crimes, a contemporary concern in Hong Kong society. Since Hong Kong is a capitalist economy, cybercrimes related to monetary issues as well as other crimes like gambling and piracy have boomed with the advent of the Internet. Dr. Wong mainly details two aspects of this issue, the one related to government affairs and the one the Hong Kong society is concerned. He again fills the gap in the literature by concentrating on a contemporary matter. In Chapter 6, the author deals with the police power to intercept communications with a closer look on the Interception of Communications and Surveillance Ordinance (ICO). However, he fails to display the same elaboration that he did in Chapter 4 when he discussed the patrol issues. He brings three important conventional Chinese concepts Qing (compassion), Li (Rite), and Fa (Law) to the forefront and analyzes them critically to question the legitimacy of ICO. He argues that ‘‘the ICO legislative process and statuary content did not satisfy QLF . . . ’’ (p. 276). Finally, in the last chapter, the author makes a comparison of police reforms between Hong Kong and China (between HKP and Public Security Bureau [PSB], respectively) and sheds light on the challenges and the difficulties that the reunification brought for policing in Hong Kong. When comparing both HKP and PSB, Dr. Wong examines the reforms with their beginnings and results along with the processes in between. Overall, Dr. Wong is very competent in his field, thanks to his background on the issues of policing and law as well as his service as an inspector at HKG. His scholarly and cultural competency is visible throughout the pages when tackling with the issues from several perspectives. Yet his extensive knowledge also makes the book a little disorganized, because the author seems to have tried to convey everything he knows without any specific order. His order of the chapters seems arbitrary and his excessive use of footnotes and their length sometimes makes the following of the ideas a bit complicated. Although it is hard not to admire his knowledge and research, the presentation of this knowledge causes problems in terms of coherency. Dr. Wong fails to summarize his research at the end of the book which gives the impression of incompleteness to the reader. This sense of incompleteness diminishes the value and the contribution of the book to the literature. Nonetheless, this book could be useful for students and scholars who are interested in policing as well as for police practitioners. With some arrangements, it could be used as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students as well.