About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

527 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 8 (1993)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0527 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE Anyone trying to figure out what is happening religiously in the United States in the 1990s is struck by a mix of disparate and sometimes confusing trends: declining institutions yet continuing religious vitality, a weak public religious presence yet strong personal and spiritual energies, dissolution of older cultures and support structures yet rediscoveries of mythical unities. It is a time not of celebrated establishments but of reformulations and grass-roots ferment. It is a time when, in fact, we may appreciate anew what Tocqueville observed 150 years ago, that in a country where the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom march together in common cause, religious life tends to be in flux, ever changing and taking on new forms. But some times are more in flux than others, and the 1990s stand out in this respect. Martin E. Marty's lead article captures the flavor of the period. Drawing off William James's notion of habitual centres of energy, Marty writes of energies flowing as follows: the personal, private, and autonomous at the expense of the communal, the public, and the derivative; emphasis on meaning rather than on inherited patterns of belonging; attention to the local rather than the cosmopolitan; concern for the practical and affective life instead of the devotional and intellectual; the feminist as opposed to the male dominated; commitment to separate causes rather than to larger, encompass- ing purposes. He points out that these shifts in the centers of energy have been under way for some time in this country, and he challenges us (see his footnote 3) to look at these broader historical changes by comparing trends as reported in special issues on religion by The Annals in 1948, 1960, 1985, and 1993. Those who take up Marty's challenge should find the articles in the present volume helpful. Several themes surface in the collection that give us a clearer sense of the direction of religious changes. Without any prodding on my part as special editor in shaping the content of what people wrote-beyond assigning general topics-it is remarkable how well the articles dovetail with one another in pointing to current trends and in their characterization of the American religious context in these waning years of the twentieth century. In what follows, I shall comment briefly on what I take to be the more important themes. One theme is the source of religion's continuing vitality. Roger Finke and Laurence R. Iannaccone point to the importance of supply-side factors histor- ically in America's religious life: innovative religious leaders, popular forms of organizations, and how judicial and governmental regulations affect the religious marketplace. Colonial revivalists, Asian cult leaders, and contem- porary televangelists, they observe, all flourished when regulatory changes gave them freer access to the American people. In the 1960s and 1970s, a time 8

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most