Sociology of Religion: Week Ten
II. Chapter 5, CSK: "Social Class, Religion and Power"
A. "Classic theorists" --why work them into all the textbooks? --contrast with chemistry, physics, biology
1. Marx: work and alienation under capitalism, particularly for the working class but really also for the bourgeoisie
With socialism/communism would come the end of the need for religious consolation
Empirical question: In the United States, who attends "church" more regularly? GSS2006 class vs attendr2
a. working class organizations and the church
1) the IWW in competition with the Salvation Army
vs.
2) Saul Alinsky and the Back of the Yards organization
2. Weber
a. classic challenges faced by religious worldviews
1) Theodicy (the problem of evil): 5 options (how many can class members name?)... see p. 128
2). Soteriology: how can we achieve salvation, insofar as those beliefs produce consequences for practical behavior... a much bigger theme in Weber (the whole of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, probably his best known work.. a good brief explanation on CSK, 131-132)
b. Material and ideal interests... this is the part of Weber that gets very relevant when we turn to conflicts among Christianity, Judaism, and Islam
c. Classes and status groups
B. Religion and the U.S. class structure
1. Richard Niebuhr... why the lower classes are inclined to join sects, which are more demanding and more adversarial to secular society
a. This thesis held up well in the milltown described by Lester Pope (Millhands and Preachers)
b. More generally, Mainline churches have a higher class membership than Evangelical and Pentecostal churches
c. Also a class hierarchy within mainline churches, though it shouldn't be exaggerated
d. Role of the church in perpetuating upper class power (Marx: upper class the most universally class conscious)
White Anglo Saxon Protestant elite... elite boarding schools, elite colleges... cultural differences as well (photo of massive pipe organ on p. 138) ... way of keeping Catholics and Jews out of the elite: work of E.Digby Baltzell... Weberian concept of status group seems a good fit
Notice date of much of the research supporting this view: Baltzell, 1966; Lenski, 1961; Greeley, 1964; McLelland, 1961
Notice controversy over what's happened since that time and the authors' contention that "the mainline denominations rooted in the colonial era--Episcopal, Presbyterian, UCC--are still disproportionately represented in the ranks of the elite (Joan's father's odyssey from Anoka Baptist to Hopkins Lutheran to Deep Haven Episcopal)
III. Religious change: the case of Catholicism (chapter 8 of CSK): the largest American denomination, with 70 million members
A. Loyalty but not obedience... National survey in 1969: even among the priests, only a minority(40%) that endorsed the official church policy on birth control
B. 1963: 70% of American Catholics agreed that Jesus handed over leadership of his church to Peter and the Popes; ten years later, only 42%.
C. Effects of Vatican II
1. Institution of mass in English (or whatever the indigenous language... in many current parishes, in Spanish)
2. By 1990s, majority of American Catholics wanting more democracy in their parishes, in their dioceses, and even at the highest levels in Rome... effects of culture (remember Alan Wolfe thesis)
D. Sexual abuse scandals: a crisis of authority and accountability(National Catholic Reporter)
a. No wholesale exodus from Catholic Church in the U.S.
b. CSK assert no more common among Catholic clergy than among ordained ministers of other faiths (citing Shupe, 1970)
c. Why then viewed as such a scandal... just the latest version of the anti-Catholicism which became a strong cultural force in the United States as Catholic immigration peaked in the late 19th and early 20th century????
E. Catholicism and stratification
a. Working class during three major periods of Catholic immigration
1)Irish: 1840s and 1850s
2) Eastern European: 1890-1915
3) Hispanic: since immigration reform in 1965
b. 5-10% of African Americans are Catholic
1) higher "class" and preference for more staid worship style
2) role of Catholic schools, first in relation to European immigrants and more recently in relation to Blacks (and Hispanics)
c. Hispanic immigration and the Church... around 70% of Hispanic in the United States are Catholic but Protestantism, especially Pentecostalism, a substantial minority (also making headway in Mexico and Central and South America)... Hispanics the main source of Catholic growth in the United States, disguising some loss of membership among traditional Catholics
d. Women's role in the Catholic church
1) substantial complaints by women, including nuns and ex-nuns, but tend to stay in the church
2) Ethnographic studies of Catholic women: "the Catholic tradition is so robust and vital on a personal level, and sufficiently variegated and flexible as an ideology, that its many followers... can appropriate its symbols and stories for ends that are relevant to them"
Hirschman: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty
video clip from "Sisters"
F. Shortage of priests in the United States: only a priest can preside at Eucharist... the aging of the American priesthood
1946: one seminarian per 3918 Catholics
1961: one seminarian per 4,965 CAtholics
1981: one seminarian per 13,210 Catholics
Now: one seminarian per 21,000 Catholics
Protestant clergy, on the other hand, are in a surplus situation (I'd like to see the data on what percent are now women, compared with earlier periods)... why the decline in Catholic clergy?
G. Decline of giving to the church as a percent of income among Catholics but not among Protestants
H. "Roman Catholic parishes are often eight times as large as their Protestant counterparts in a community"(p. 240).....
Question from instructor: Are there Catholic megachurches in the United States, of the sort we saw in "Sister Aimee" or in "Mine Eyes: Willow Creek Church?" (My impressions from fieldwork in Chicago: e.g., St. Hyacinth's)