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Religion, Society, and Politics: A Classification of American Religious Groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Philip R. Vandermeer
Philip R. Vandermeer*
Affiliation:
Purdue University
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Extract

In the last two decades historians have begun to examine the political role and importance of religion. Many have concluded that religion provided a broad social perspective and served as the main basis for partisan identification and political activity (as summarized in Swierenga, 1971; McSeveney, 1973; VanderMeer, 1977; Silbey et al., 1978: 253-56). This position has by no means been universally accepted. Some of the criticism involves how the strength of that relationship has been evaluated and measured (Bogue et al., 1977; Wright, 1973; McCormick, 1974; Kousser, 1976). Other objections, focusing particularly on use of the pietist-liturgical (or ritualist) typology to analyze the late nineteenth century (notably Jensen, 1971; Kleppner, 1970), concern a prior and more significant problem: providing a consistent and coherent explanation of why religion was politically important (McCormick, 1974; Wright, 1973). It is argued that the pietist-liturgical typology cannot account for the opposition by some pietists to using government to enforce behavioral standards. The typology also fails to explain why the liturgical perspective was politically salient except when under pietist attack. Finally, there is the paradoxical situation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in which pietist churches were becoming less pietistic—adopting more elaborate worship services and deemphasizing revivalism—but at the same time were increasing and winning their demands for government regulation of morality. Taken as a whole, these criticisms suggest a fundamental weakness in the pietist-liturgical typology and indicate the need to reexamine the entire question of how religion has related to politics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , Winter 1981 , pp. 3 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1981 

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