Research On Religion » Roger Finke

Christopher Scheitle’s Religious Road Trip

tonygill — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:00:06 +0000

What do you get when you take a seasoned sociologist and a senior research associate, put them in a rented Dodge Charger for six weeks, and tell them to discover what America’s spiritual landscape is all about? You get a religious road trip with Christopher P. Scheitle and Roger Finke .. and you learn a whole lot about what it is like to be religious in the US! Chris Scheitle, a senior research associate in the Department of Sociology at Penn State University and adjunct assistant professor at the College of St. Benedict – St. John’s University in Minnessota, tells us how this unique research project came about. He reveals how he suggested this offbeat idea to Roger Finke over a few beers and that Roger came back with some research funding and his wife’s permission a few days later and off they went (after a bit of preparation). Their first stop took them to Memphis, TN to investigate the experience and influence of an African American church headed up by Robert Cole. Chris details how the black church experience has permeated the broader American culture and what this means for religion in America. It is then off to Houston, TX to pop into Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church, a megachurch that serves roughly 40,000 congregants on any given Sunday. We discuss the role of megachurches in America and how they represent the adaptability and creativity of the American religious spirit. We then stop at a local Houston Yerberia and a cowboy church just out of Amarillo to find out what these entities bring to the national experience. Travelling up to Colorado Springs, often called the “Vatican of evangelical Christianity,” we then find out about the role played by parachurch organizations such as Focus on the Family and Global Mapping International. And then it is off to San Francisco to peak into various Asian immigrant religious groups such as the Buddhist Churches of America and even a Hare Krishna group. We finish up the trip with an exploration of Muslims in Detroit and Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn. All along the way, Tony peppers Chris with questions about what it is like to drive around the country with a full professor and what kind of music Roger Finke likes to listen to. We end with Chris’s thoughts on what he learned from this trip and find out that although the American religious landscape is defined by its pluralism and diversity, in reality many religious folks of different faith traditions often share the same concerns with one another; Chris ends up impressed with the similarities that arise from our national diversity. Recorded: February 17, 2012.

Allen Hertzke on Religious Liberty

tonygill — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 09:00:37 +0000

One of the recurring themes of the Research on Religion podcast series is religious liberty — including the causes for, consequences of, and threats to such freedom. Prof. Allen Hertzke — Presidential Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma — joins us to give his overview of this topic based on his research conducted both in the United States and globally. Prof. Hertzke recounts how his interest in religion and politics developed, and how he became increasingly involved in studying religious freedom on a global scale. We talk about what impact academic scholarship might have on promoting religious freedom as well as offer some speculations as to why intellectual and policy elites have often been dismissive, or outright hostile, to this basic civil liberty. We then dissect the importance of religious freedom examining it on the theoretical dimensions of equal worth, dignity, reason and community. We then move on to some of the more empirical examples of how religious freedom has promoted positive developments in the world, and how and why we’ve seen some backtracking on its spread over the past decade. Recorded: November 3, 2011.

Larry Witham on the Economics of Religion

tonygill — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:00:39 +0000

Author and former journalist Larry Witham joins Tony to talk about his recent book Marketplace of the Gods: How Economics Explains Religion. Just as the title says, Larry Witham investigates a new and growing field within the social scientific study of religion that is often refered to as the “religious economies” perspective. Dating back to insights from Adam Smith, more recent scholars such as Rodney Stark, Roger Finke and Laurence Iannaccone have begun using insights from microeconomic (or “rational choice”) theory to explain a wide variety of religious behavior and institutional organization. Larry details the history of this field and how he came to be interested in it. We then discuss some of the basic premises of this approach and how economic theories of religion explain behavior at the household, group and market level. Contrary to popular images, we talk about how this approach is not necessarily “all about money,” but rather it deals with how religious actors (worshippers or clergy) try to achieve their goals in a world of scarcity and have to make difficult decisions that maximize the best possible outcomes. We turn to the various critiques of this approach and note that it may have complimentarities with other theories of religion. This is an excellent podcast to listen to in conjuction with a number of the previous episodes featuring economists (see below). Finally, as a special treat, Larry gives us a peek at his next book project about attending art school. Recorded: December 27, 2010.