Religion on the Edge: De-centering and Re-centering the Sociology of Religion

316 Pages·2012·17.583 MB·English

by  Courtney Bender, Wendy Cadge, Peggy Levitt, David Smilde

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Religion on the Edge

Religion on the Edge
De-Centering and Re-Centering
the Sociology of Religion
ED ee bog
COURITN B yer BIND ERG WV EINa y 3a ate
PEGGY LEVITT, AN DoD AVI Dea Neli io?
OXFORD
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Religion on the edge : de-centering and re-centering the sociology of religion / edited by
Courtney Bender... [et al.].
p. cm.
(pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-19-993864-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)—
ISBN 978-0-19-993862-9
1. Religion and sociology. I. Bender, Courtney.
BL60.R36 2013
306.6—dc23
2012012103
ISBN 978-0-19-993862-9
ISBN 978-0-19-993864-3
ih S 7 SORE 4.
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
CONAENES
Acknowledgments | vii
About the Contributors — ix
Introduction: Religion on the Edge: De-centering and Re-centering 1
COURTNEY BENDER, WENDY CADGE,*PEGGY LEVITT, AND
DAVID SMILDE
PART ONE “RETHINKING ‘CATEGORIES: THEORERICAL APPROACHES
Bu
1. Grappling with the Legacy of Modernity: Implications
for the Sociology of Religion 23
MANUEL A. VASQUEZ
2. Beyond the Strong Program in the Sociology of Religion 43
DAVID SMILDE
3. Toward a Comparative-Historical Sociology of Religious Politics:
The Case for Cross-Religious and Cross-Regional Comparisons 67
ATES ALTINORDU
4. Religious Self-Constitution: A Relational Perspective 92
MICHAL PAGIS
5. Studying Public Religion: Beyond the Beliefs-Driven Actor 115
PAUL LICHTERMAN
6. Pluralism and Secularism 137
COURTNEY BENDER
7. Religion on the Move: Mapping Global Cultural Production and
Consumption 159
PEGGY LEVITT
vi Contents
PART TWO EXEMPLARY CASES: EMPIRICAL EXAMINATIONS
8. Difficult Dialogues: The Technologies and Limits of Reconciliation 179
DAWNE MOON
9. Negotiating Religious Differences in Secular Organizations: The Case
of Hospital Chapels — 200
WENDY CADGE
10. Negotiating Pluralism in Québec: Identity, Religion, and Secularism in
the Debate over “Reasonable Accommodation’ 215
GENEVIEVE ZUBRZYCKI
11. Revisiting Religious Power: The Korean Evangelical Church as a
Disciplinary Institution 238
KEY Sree LONG
12. Crossing Borders: Transnational Sanctuary, Social Justice, and the
Church — 263
JACQUELINE MARIA HAGAN
Conclusion: Working the Edges 284
COURTNEY BENDER, WENDY CADGE,
PEGGY LEVITT, AND DAVID SMILDE
Index 293
ACKN OW LED GNGEINTE S
The idea for this volume was hatched in a series of conversations between the
editors, over email, in the gardens of the Museum of Modern Art during the
2007 meetings of the American Sociological Association, and over dinners
and coffees at Princeton, Columbia, and Brandeis. Conversations on their own
rarely result in edited volumes, however, and ‘with that in mind we are happy
to thank the many institutions and individuals whose investments of intellect,
time, and money helped make this book—and the conversations that have cir-
culated around it—take shape in this form.
Our primary and enduring thanks go to Robert Wuthnow and the Princeton
University Center for the Study of Religion, where, in October 2008, over
twenty-five early-career sociologists gathered to discuss the issues at the core
of this volume. Our meeting did not have a volume as a goal (indeed, we were
eager to engage in a range of discussions that might prompt a variety of dif-
ferent goals—both textual and social, scholarly and institutional). Likewise,
it did not include at the time any who had achieved the ranks of full professor:
it was a lively meeting of younger scholars, and we were quite grateful to Bob
Wuthnow for his trust and enthusiasm in making it possible.
The participants at the Princeton meeting included, in addition to the
volume’s contributors, Richard Wood, Nazli Kibria, Prema Kurien, Elaine
Howard Ecklund, Nathan Wright, Rachel Rinaldo, Alison Denton Jones, John
Evans, Ruth Braunstein, Phillip Connor, Eric B. Johnson, Alicia Juskewycz,
Carol Ann MacGregor, Rebekah Massengill, Cecilia Menjivar, Steve Offutt,
Jen’nan Ghazal Read, Amy Reynolds, Allison Youatt Schnable, and Liza Steele.
Together, our conversations and arguments about the position of the study of
religion within sociology were brisk and lively. We gratefully acknowledge each
of the participants at this conference for their strong investment in the issues
that we brought collectively to the table and for the wealth of experiences and
intellectual insights they shared. We also gratefully acknowledge their enthu-
siasm and support for a variety of projects including, as it turns out, this edited
vii
viii Acknowledgments
volume—one of several tangible outcomes of that weekend’s meetings. In addi-
tion to Bob Wuthnow’s making possible this gathering, Center for the Study
of Religion staff Jennifer Legath, Anita Kline, and Barbara Bermel tracked
numerous details and made everything go smoothly.
As we began to consider what a volume would look like, Mark Chaves, then
president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, generously made
space in the SSSR’s annual program for an author’s workshop and conference,
where several of the contributors of this volume were joined by Michael Young
to present drafts of chapters in progress. Mark’s support furthered progress on
the volume.
Simultaneously, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) supported
David Smilde and Matthew May’s research into recent developments in the lit-
erature in the sociology of religion, which resulted in the 2010 working paper
cited in this volume, and which helped us collectively to gain a stronger sense
of where our concerns about the trajectories of the disciplines were correct or
misguided—and which raised some surprising new issues for us to consider.
Jonathan VanAntwerpen at the SSRC deserves particular thanks for support-
ing this initiative and for soliciting a range of excellent interlocutors in an
online discussion of Smilde and May’s research on The Immanent Frame (blogs.
ssrc.org/tif). Generous and pointed interchanges on The Immanent Frame
by John Evans, Penny Edgell, Michelle Dillon, John Torpey, Bryan S. Turner,
Slavica Jakelic, Rhys Williams, Stephen Poulson, Grace Yukich, and Ruth
Braunstein expanded the conversations of our conference and took them in
new directions—while making it clear to us that there really are stakes in this
game that we play. We likewise are deeply grateful for the invitation by Marie
Cornwall, editor of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, for the invita-
tion to craft an article for the fiftieth-anniversary issue of the journal, and to
the reviewers who offered generous comments.
As the idea of the volume turned into an actual manuscript, we were grate-
ful for the guiding eye and enthusiasm of Theo Calderara at Oxford University
Press, and to the intelligent and critical advice of several anonymous review-
ers, whose perspicuous comments strengthened the volume. We thank Casey
Clevenger, PhD candidate in Sociology at Brandeis University, for her assis-
tance with manuscript preparation, and the Theodore and Jane Norman Fund
for Faculty Research and Creative Projects for support of her work. We thank
Matthew May for compiling the index.
This book was a fully collaborative effort and we have ordered our names
alphabetically to indicate equal authorship.