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Religion and the Individual RELIGION AND THE INDIVIDUAL This volume brings together a significant set of reflections on the meaning of religion for the individual as well as society. In doing so it makes a timely and valuable contribution to our understanding both of individualizing tendencies within religion, and of appropriate theoretical and methodological responses to that shift. Professor Linda Woodhead, Director AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme, Lancaster University, UK What does religion mean to the individual? How are people religious and what do their beliefs, practices and identities mean to them? The individual’s place within studies of religion has tended to be overlooked recently in favour of macro analyses. Religion and the Individual draws together authors from around the world to explore belief, practice and identity. Using original case studies and other work firmly placed in the empirical, contributors discuss what religious belief means to the individual. They examine how people embody what religion means to them through practice, considering the different meanings that people attach to religion and the social expressions of their personal understandings and the ways in which religion shapes how people see themselves in relation to others. This work is cross-cultural, with contributions from Asia, Europe and North America. THEOLOGY AND RELIGION IN INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE SERIES IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE BSA SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION STUDY GROUP BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group Series editor: Pink Dandelion and the publications committee Theology and Religion in Interdisciplinary Perspective Series editors: Douglas Davies and Richard Fenn The British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Study Group began in 1975 and provides the primary forum in Britain for scholarship in the sociology of religion. The nature of religion remains of key academic interest and this series draws on the latest worldwide scholarship in compelling and coherent collections on critical themes. Secularisation and the future of religion; gender; the negotiation and presentation of religious identities, beliefs and values; and the interplay between group and individual in religious settings are some of the areas addressed. Ultimately, these books reflect not just on religious life but on how wider society is affected by the enduring religious framing of human relationships, morality and the nature of society itself. This series is part of the broader Theology and Religion in Interdisciplinary Perspective Series edited by Douglas Davies and Richard Fenn. Other titles published in the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group Series A Sociology of Spirituality Edited by Kieran Flanagan and Peter C. Jupp ISBN 978-0-7546-5458-2 (HBK) Materializing Religion Expression, Performance and Ritual Edited by Elisabeth Arweck and William Keenan ISBN 978-0-7546-5094-2 (HBK) Reading Religion in Text and Context Reflections of Faith and Practice in Religious Materials Edited by Elisabeth Arweck and Peter Collins ISBN 978-0-7546-5482-7 (HBK) Religion, Identity and Change Perspectives on Global Transformations Edited by Simon Coleman and Peter Collins ISBN 978-0-7546-0450-1 (HBK) Religion and the Individual Belief, Practice, Identity Edited by ABBY DAY University of Sussex, UK © Abby Day 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Abby Day has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Gower House Suite 420 Croft Road 101 Cherry Street Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405 Hampshire GU11 3HR USA England Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Religion and the individual : belief, practice, identity. – (Theology and religion in interdisciplinary perspectives) 1. Religion and sociology – Congresses 2. Faith – Congresses 3. Rites and ceremonies – Congresses I. Day, Abby II. British Sociological Association. Sociology of Religion Study Group 306.6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Day, Abby, 1956– Religion and the individual : belief, practice, identity / Abby Day. p. cm.—(Theology and religion in interdisciplinary perspective series) (BSA sociology of religion study group) ISBN 978-0-7546-6122-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Experience (Religion)— Congresses. 2. Spirituality—Congresses. I. Title. BL53.D39 2007 204—dc22 2007036262 ISBN 978-0-7546-6122-1 Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall. Contents List of Figures and Tables vii List of Contributors ix Introduction 1 Abby Day Part I: Belief 1 Cultural Intensification: A Theory for Religion 7 Douglas Davies 2 Speaking Personally: Women Making Meaning through Subjectivised Belief 19 Janet Eccles 3 Young People’s Spirituality and the Meaning of Prayer 33 Sylvia Collins-Mayo 4 Who are the Believers in Religion in China? 47 Xiaowen Lu, Richard O’Leary and Yaojun Li Part II: Practice 5 New Paradigm Christianity and Commitment-formation: The Case of Hope Filipino (Singapore) 65 Jayeel Serrano Cornelio 6 A Peaceable Common: Gathered Wisdom from Exemplar Muslim and Christian Peacemakers 79 Kevin S. Reimer, Alvin C. Dueck, Joshua P. Morgan and Deborah E. Kessel 7 Autonomous Conformism – the Paradox of Entrepreneurial Protestantism. Spring Harvest: A Case Study 95 Rob Warner vi Religion and the Individual 8 Social vs. Spiritual Capital in Explaining Philanthropic Giving in a Muslim Setting: The Case of Turkey 111 Ali Çarkoğlu Part III: Identity 9 Development of the Religious Self: A Theoretical Foundation for Measuring Religious Identity 127 David M. Bell 10 Accommodating the Individual and the Social, the Religious and the Secular: Modelling the Parameters of Discourse in ‘Religious’ Contexts 143 Peter Collins 11 Religion and the Individual: A Socio-legal Perspective 157 Russell Sandberg 12 Freedom in Chains: Religion as Enabler and Constraint in the Lives of Gay Male Anglican Clergy 169 Michael Keenan 13 Religious Identity and Millenarian Belief in Santo Daime 183 Andrew Dawson Index 197 List of Figures and Tables Figures 6.1 Multidimensional scaling dimensions and hierarchical cluster analysis clusters for Muslim and Christian narrative themes 86 9.1 Religious Identity Status Measure 135 9.2 Taxonomy of Religious Identity Salience 139 10.1 A two-dimensional model of Quaker discourse 149 10.2 A three-dimensional model of Quaker discourse 153 Tables 4.1 Believing in religion by socio-cultural-demographic factors 53 4.2 Logit regression coefficients on ‘believe in religion’ by socio-cultural-demographic factors 56 This page intentionally left blank List of Contributors David M. Bell (Emory University) Ali Çarkoğlu (Sabanci University) Peter Collins (Durham University) Sylvia Collins-Mayo (Kingston University) Jayeel Serrano Cornelio (National University of Singapore) Douglas Davies (Durham University) Andrew Dawson (Lancaster University) Abby Day (University of Sussex) Alvin C. Dueck (Fuller Theological Seminary) Janet Eccles (Lancaster University) Michael Keenan (Nottingham Trent University) Deborah E. Kessel (Fuller Theological Seminary) Yaojun Li (University of Manchester) Xiaowen Lu (Shanghai Social Science Academy) Richard O’Leary (Queen’s University, Belfast) Joshua P. Morgan (Azusa Pacific University) Kevin S. Reimer (Azusa Pacific University) Russell Sandberg (Cardiff University) Rob Warner (University of Wales) This page intentionally left blank Introduction Abby Day As with other books in the series, this collection was inspired by an international gathering of scholars discussing an important theme within the sociology of religion. The focus of the conference of the Sociology of Religion Study Group of the British Sociological Association (BSA) held at the University of Manchester in 2006 was ‘Religion and the Individual’, a theme chosen to provoke dialogue between psychologists and sociologists of religion. Eleven of the papers in this volume were commissioned from scholars who presented at that conference; a further two were commissioned from presenters at the 2007 BSA conference who contributed to a specially designed stream, Religious Identity in Contemporary Contexts. Contributors to this volume shaped their work to reflect a common theme: how do individuals engage with religion to create and express meaning? Although it is a commonplace within the sociology of religion that the individual’s religious beliefs, practices and identities are influenced by social contexts, the question for individuals is often ‘what does this mean to me’? The work published here discusses that question from a variety of disciplinary perspectives: sociology, psychology, anthropology, and theology. Much of the work is empirical, drawn from international contexts, but some is expressly theoretical. Methods vary according to the questions being explored: we have large-scale quantitative studies and micro qualitative work. What matters here is not epistemological preference, but rather how in fact people are religious and what their beliefs, practices and identities mean to them. Accordingly, the collection has been organised into three parts. The first explores ‘belief’ in terms of what belief means to the individual. Douglas Davies begins by exploring why the individual became sidelined in sociology
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