Robert Wuthnow

Acts of Compassion: Caring for Others and Helping Ourselves

Robert Wuthnow finds that those who are most involved in acts of compassion are no less individualistic than anyone else--and that those who are the most intensely individualistic are no less involved in caring for others.

Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural Analysis

List of Tables Preface 1. A Puzzle: The Question of Religious Vitality 2. Contemporary Spirituality: Seeking the Sacred in an Era of Uncertainty 3. A Blending of Cultures: The Arts and Spirituality 4. Personal Spirituality: Art and the Practice of Spiritual Discipline 5. The Joy of Worship: Expression and Tradition in Congregational Life 6. Redeeming the Imagination: The Arts and Spiritual Virtue 7. The Morality Problem: Why Churches and Artists Disagree 8. The Artist in Everyone: Faithful Living in a Spiritual Democracy Appendix: Methodology Notes Index

Religious Involvement and Status-Bridging Social Capital

Is religious involvement positively associated with having influential friends or is religious involvement unrelated to this kind of social capital? Building on the distinction between the “bonding” and “bridging” aspects of social capital, I distinguish two kinds of bridging social capital—identity-bridging and status-bridging—that have been a source of terminological confusion. I examine the relationship between religious involvement and status-bridging social capital by analyzing data from a large nationally representative survey of the U.S. adult population that included questions about friendships with elected public officials, corporation executives, scientists, and persons of wealth. The data show that membership in a religious congregation and holding a congregational leadership position are most consistently associated with greater likelihood of having these kinds of friendships. The data also show that frequency of religious attendance is largely unrelated to these measures of social capital and that there are some significant variations among religious traditions and size of congregation.

How Religious Groups Promote Forgiving: A National Study

A nationally representative survey was conducted of adult Americans who were currently involved in prayer groups, Bible studies, or other religiously oriented small groups. The purpose of the study was to determine if these respondents had engaged in forgiving behavior as a result of being in their group and, if so, to ascertain which group activities were most likely to facilitate this behavior. Of the 1,379 respondents, 61 percent said their group had helped them to forgive someone, 71 percent said they had experienced healings of relationships as a result of their group, and 43 percent said they had worked on improving a broken relationship in recent months. Group activities generating “social capital” or “cultural capital” were mostly unrelated to these responses, while activities involving “emotional capital” and “spiritual capital” showed strong positive relationships. Further analysis suggests that forgiving behavior is especially facilitated by groups that emphasize prayer, sharing, and learning about forgiveness. The study also suggests that forgiving behavior may have such consequences as encouraging prosocial involvement, helping to overcome addictions,and promoting emotional well-being.

The New Christian Right: Mobilization and Legitimation

This book of original essays provides an objective and enlightening analysis of the emergence and changing forms of the New Christian Right. The subject is in itself important in contemporary American life, but in addition The New Christian Right reexamines standard theories of social movements and the relationship between religion and politics in America today. The book presents findings from original research, including surveys, personal interviews with elites, analysis of financial documents, reanalysis of existing data, and analysis of direct-mail solicitations and other primary literature. The New Christian Right is balanced and objective rather than partisan and evaluative. Using non-technical and non-jargonistic language, the authors raise questions concerning the nature of religion, the role of status groups, and contemporary directions in American culture.

All in Sync: How Music and Art Are Revitalizing American Religion

List of Tables Preface 1. A Puzzle: The Question of Religious Vitality 2. Contemporary Spirituality: Seeking the Sacred in an Era of Uncertainty 3. A Blending of Cultures: The Arts and Spirituality 4. Personal Spirituality: Art and the Practice of Spiritual Discipline 5. The Joy of Worship: Expression and Tradition in Congregational Life 6. Redeeming the Imagination: The Arts and Spiritual Virtue 7. The Morality Problem: Why Churches and Artists Disagree 8. The Artist in Everyone: Faithful Living in a Spiritual Democracy Appendix: Methodology Notes Index

Poor Richard's Principle: Recovering the American Dream through the Moral Dimension of Work, Business, and Money

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Question of Moral Restraint3Ch. 1Having It All - and Wanting More: The Social Symptoms of Cultural Distress17Ch. 2Making Choices: From Short-Term Adjustments to Principled Lives37Ch. 3Moral Tradition: The Lost Ambivalence in American Culture59Ch. 4Shifting Perspectives: The Decoupling of Work and Money85Ch. 5Accounts: The Changing Meanings of White-Collar Work105Ch. 6(Not) Talking about Money: The Social Sources and Personal Consequences of Subjectivization138Ch. 7Getting and Spending: The Maintenance and Violation of Symbolic Boundaries169Ch. 8The Working Class: Changing Conditions and Converging Perspectives206Ch. 9Family LIfe: The New Challenges of Balancing Multiple Commitments241Ch. 10Rediscovering Community: The Cultural Potential of Caring Behavior and Voluntary Service265Ch. 11The Quest for Spirituality: Ambiguous Voices from Americas Religious Communities292Ch. 12Materialism and Moral Restraint: The Role of Ascetic and Expressive Values331Ch. 13The Possibilities of Moral Discourse: Limitations, Pathologies, and Challenges357Methodology375Notes377Index427

Overcoming Status Distinctions? Religious Involvement, Social Class, Race, and Ethnicity in Friendship Patterns

Two competing hypotheses are derived about the possible relationships between religions trlvement and friendships that overcome status barriers with people of lower social status or who have been socially marginalized. Drawing on data from a large national survey, I examine the relationships between saying that one has a personal friend who is a manual worker, on welfare, an African American, or Hispanic and frequency of attendance at religous services, taking into account ones religious preference, gender, race and ethnicity, education, income, and overall number of friends. The results suggest that regular attendance at religious services does little to promote these kinds of friendships, controlling for other factors, but that these friendships do remain influenced by religious tradition. Religious involvement may encourage status-bridging friendships by motivating people to become involved in volunteer work.

Religious Loyalty, Defection, and Experimentation Among College Youth*

Recent data from polls suggest a trend away from conventional religion among college youth and impressionistic evidence indicates some stirrings of new forms of religion. A survey of Berkeley students provides an opportunity to examine the nature and sources of religious loyalty, defection and experimentation. The analysis shows that religious experimentation is not an isolated phenomenon but is rooted in broader cultural disaffection and is closely associated with other kinds of countercultural behavior. Among the sources of religious defection examined, cognitive sophistication and several types of psychological stress seem to be the most significant factors. Considerable interest has been generated of late by the so-called counterculture among youth. Growing up amidst unprecedented abundance, young people have had the opportunity to experiment with new life styles as never before. At the present time it is possible to find significant numbers of young people committed to radical political life styles, introspective life styles informed by Eastern religions, communal life styles experimenting with alternative social arrangements, as well as a wide range of other nonconventional behavior. But, even though the current youth culture has generated a flurry of investigation, surprisingly little attention has been directed toward its religious dimension. This omission is particularly unfortunate since many youth seem to be raising questions about universal life problems in ways which challenge the authority of conventional religious commitments. The extent of this challenge can be seen both in

Exploring the Social Sources of Denominationalism: Schisms in American Protestant Denominations, 1890-1980

Schisms are a major source of new religious denominations in America, but have received little attention in the sociological literature. This study is critical of the conventional assumption that schisms arise primarily from internal doctrinal disputes. Drawing on the resource mobilization literature, we offer an alternative argument that vulnerability to schism is related to the organizational characteristics of denominations. We apply dynamic quantitative techniques to longitudinal data on Protestant denominations in the U.S. to test hypotheses about denominational centralization, linkages to the wider environment, and demographic characteristics. Findings suggest that the larger the denomination, the greater the tendency to schism; the size effect is inhibited, however, when denominations are linked to interorganizational federations.