Bellah and The New Orthodoxy

Fenn, Richard K.

doi:10.2307/3709690

Cited by 15 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…(1959:17) Elaboration of the Hypothesis with Implications for Method LOCATING INSTRUMENTAL FAMiT AND THE PARADOX The task of elaborating and justifying this hypothesis as well as bringing empirical data to bear on it begins with locating phenomena and deciding what may count as relevant empirical evidence. The debate surrounding the attempt to establish the reality of Bellah's concept of civil religion as religion (Wilson 1971:20;1974:131-32;Michaelson 1974;Thomas & Flippen 1972;Garrett, summarized in Bourg 1976;Fenn 1976) suggests that a theoretical perspective on what counts as empirical evidence is needed to apply complex concepts or hypotheses. There are two possible levels at which the instrumental paradox hypothesis may operate.…”

Section: Antecedents Of the Instrumental Paradox Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 98%

Paradox in Popular Religion: The Limits of Instrumental Faith

Althauser

1990

Social Forces

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Forces. AbstractHow dependent are the alleged benefits of religious faith on one's orientation to religion? How well do believers more focused on faith as an instrument for achieving these benefits succeed by their own account, compared to those more focused on ultimate religious truth and content? Recalling past theoretical work by Merton, Kolb, and Schneider, as well as the classic survey of popular religious literature by Schneider and Dornbuschi, the hiypothesis that instrumental approaches to religion are self-defeating is developed, tested, and sustained using a sample of Methodist-church members. Implications for court cases related to religion in the public schools are explored.

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Section: Antecedents Of the Instrumental Paradox Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 98%

Paradox in Popular Religion: The Limits of Instrumental Faith

Althauser

1990

Social Forces

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“…Civil religion upholds society by transposing its values as expressed in rituals, texts (spoken or read) and symbols to the value system of the individual, thereby creating a set of basic common values in the population. Jay Demerath and Rhys H. Williams have suggested that civil religion is losing its place in the value system of the individual (Demerath and Williams, 1985: 163) and Richard K. Fenn has gone as far as to claim that civil religion is no longer needed, nor in fact possible (Fenn, 1972(Fenn, , 1974(Fenn, , 1976. It has on the other hand been possible to find civil religious values at the individual level (Wimberley et al, 1976) but only in the United States.…”

Section: Civil Religionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Contextualized Concept of Civil Religion

Lüchau

2009

Social Compass

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A new definition of civil religion is needed because there are almost as many definitions as there are writers on the subject. By combining two existing concepts it can be shown that most existing definitions of civil religion are related. The two concepts are religious pluralism versus monoculture and public versus private religion. The first takes into consideration that civil religion will look different in a mono-religious country than in a multi-religious country. The second makes a distinction between civil religion at a rhetorical level (e.g. speeches) and at a personal level (individual religiosity). Although there are many different definitions of civil religion, the differences can be reconciled if the religious situation and the analytical level are taken into consideration. Hopefully this will make future discussions and analyses of civil religion more comparable.

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“…Bellah (1998), for instance, interpreted civil religion in the United States within a functionalist perspective as a phenomenon of an organic and spontaneous nature. Fenn (1976) and Cristi (2001) have asserted the idea that such a “religion” is basically constructed by actors and may be complex within a society; it may also be instrumentally constructed to fit the purposes of these actors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Operationalizing the Civil Religion Concept at a Cross‐Cultural Level

Flere

Lavrič

2007

Scientific Study of Religion

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This study represents an attempt to operationalize and validate the civil religion concept on four different national samples. The cultural heritage of these countries varies greatly, and according to Samuel Huntington's (1994) classification, they belong to three different civilizations. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to confirm the statistical adequacy of a proposed civil religion scale at the national and at the cross-cultural level. Civil religion proved to be a separate dimension from general religiosity, as well as from traditionalism, both at the cross-cultural and at the national level, although closely linked to these. Of the latter two background variables, civil religion proved to be linked more to traditionalism.

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Bellah and The New Orthodoxy

Cited by 15 publications

References 7 publications

Paradox in Popular Religion: The Limits of Instrumental Faith

Paradox in Popular Religion: The Limits of Instrumental Faith

Toward a Contextualized Concept of Civil Religion

Operationalizing the Civil Religion Concept at a Cross‐Cultural Level

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