01: In Reflections of an Accidental Sociologist (Prometheus Books, $26), prominent sociologist of religion Peter Berger recounts his long and varied career, in the process providing readers with an interesting and often humorous look at religious developments in the last 50 years.
Writing about one’s graduate education, professorial appointments and research projects can make for dull reading, but in Berger’s hands such recollections often reveal intriguing insights about religion and society. Using humorous anecdotes about his travels around the world (what he calls “sociological tourism”), Berger traces how his thinking changed abut two key themes in his work: the secularization thesis and how he came to reject it, and the importance of “democratic capitalism” in global development.
As in one section entitled “Max Weber Is Alive and Well and Living in Guatemala,” Berger ties these two themes together, particularly in the establishment and ongoing research of his Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs (CURA). Berger’s review of the many CURA research projects—ranging from a pioneering study of Pentecostalism in Latin America, to Russian Orthodoxy and democracy, to individualism in Japan—should be of interest to RW readers. Along the way, Berger provides colorful accounts of his exile from mainstream sociology during the late 1960s, his involvement and subsequent disenchantment with neoconservatism, and his role as a consultant to a tobacco company.
02: The new book Southern Baptists, Evangelicals, and the Future of Denominationalism (B&H Publishing Group, $24.99) seeks to grapple with the rise of non-denominational Christianity and what it will mean for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
The book, edited by David S. Dockery, is a mixture of sociology, theology and mission strategizing, but a key concern uniting its various chapters addresses the dilemma of how to retain the positive values of denominations while becoming more flexible in structure and outreach. The watchword for the SBC has been cooperation, meaning that, more than many other evangelical denominations, Southern Baptists contribute to programs for missions and other causes and have nurtured a broad range of institutions to carry out such work.
Ed Stetzer of Lifeway Research writes that Southern Baptists are far from exempt from the post-denominational trend; where once denominational meetings were the place to connect and receive training, today non-denominational conferences sponsored by congregations receive the most attendees. But Stetzer argues that the SBC can fare better in a post-denominational age than many other denominations because it is moving away from a franchise model to allow for “methodological diversity,” or a variety of worship styles and congregational structures, while holding firm on doctrinal unity.
His surveys suggest that younger evangelicals value the roots provided by denominations even as they opt out of traditional structures. In another chapter, sociologist Michael Lindsay defends the importance of denominations and institutions, particularly the networks and “convening power” they generate to bring people together. Other chapters discuss emerging churches and the SBC, and the denomination’s relation to the rest of evangelicalism, coming to the general conclusion that the fading of “cultural Christianity,” even in the Bible belt, will likely bring about increased cooperation with fellow conservative Christians and a de-centralizing of its structure.
03: Edward Cleary’s new book, The Rise of Charismatic Catholicism in Latin America (University Press of Florida, $74.95), has been long overdue, as it presents an impressive overview of the “other” charismatic revival that is transforming Latin American churches.
Cleary notes in his introduction that the numbers of charismatic Catholics are greater than those for Protestant charismatics and Pentecostals in Latin America and that there are more of such Catholics in this region than in any other part of the world. Cleary, a priest, social scientist and longtime observer of the Catholic charismatic movement, adds that while there was American charismatic Catholic influence in the spread of the movement to Latin America, both movements started roughly around 1970, first in Bolivia, based around a mega-parish called La Mansion.
This parish introduced (and continues to introduce) innovations in lay leadership (given the shortage of priests), religious education (providing extensive training in the faith and greater literacy where there was previously very little), music and preaching (including street preaching), which spread through the rest of Latin America.In Colombia, there are Catholic charismatic small groups, often originating with the “base communities” associated with liberation theology, each with their own ethos and programs (such as radio stations), but recently mirroring the more otherworldly nature of Protestant Pentecostals.
But these small groups and covenant communities often play strong social roles, such as in providing health-care services. The Colombian movement has also pioneered national charismatic festivals that are becoming globalized, as well as the Latin American charismatic associations that lack the bureaucracy of bishops’ conferences and have utilized the practice of itinerant preachers who spread charismatic Catholicism to new areas. Cleary argues that charismatic “entrepreneurs” have been effective because they tend to occupy the mid-level of the church, separate from the control of the hierarchy and the limitations of parishes and dioceses (such entrepreneurialism has not been encouraged in the structures of the declining mainline Protestant churches).
The powerhouse of Brazil’s charismatic Catholic movement illustrates Cleary’s view that the renewal is offering effective competition to Protestant Pentecostalism. Brazilian charismatic Catholicism has its own “superstar” priests and televangelists holding mass crusades, popular and contemporary music that spills beyond the walls of churches, and even a film company. The author reports on how both lay leadership and religious vocations have sharply grown in those countries experiencing the strongest currents of the renewal.
Other noteworthy chapters in this book include ones on the ways Mexican and Haitian charismatics are exporting their charismatic fervor back to the U.S. (where the renewal had stalled by the 1990s), and the variations of the renewal in countries such as Argentina (known for its ecumenical initiatives), Chile and Guatemala (presenting “red-hot” competition with Protestants), although Catholics in Central American countries tend to be less active in the renewal than their neighbors to the south.
04: Secularizing Islamists (University of Chicago Press, $40) by Humeira Iqtida examines two prominent Islamist movements in Pakistan and finds that through their competition with each other and other Islamic parties they are paradoxically contributing to a secularized public sphere.
Iqtida conducts ethnographic research on Jamat’at-e-Islami (JI) and Jama’at-ud-Da’wa (JD), two movements that have stressed political contestation for Islam as a primary religious duty. JI has been particularly in-fluential in South Asia and a major player in the politics of Pakistan, while JD has taken a more militant stance, being implicated in various terrorist attacks, although the organization is said to be moving toward greater political engagement. Iqtida argues that even as these Islamist organizations work to oppose secularism in Pakistan’s politics, they facilitate secularization (which, for her, is closely tied to pluralization) in that this competition creates an environment of choice, questioning and debate that bypasses the traditionalist mediators of Islam.
Iqtida makes it clear that this does not mean a loss of transcendence, but rather a critical engagement with Islamic teachings. In a concluding chapter, she suggests that the entry of women into Islamist organizations and their involvement in social service programs and activism further bring about the diversification of Islam.