Religious Enterprise Research Articles

Enterprise in Religious-Based Organizations

Personal interviews of representatives of selected Jewish and Christian religious organizations yielded data on 105 commercial enterprises. Four case studies illustrate the types of religious enterprise that were identified. The sacred and secular dimensions of the assets and constraints that affect management in religious enterprise are also discussed. Sacred assets identified include committed leadership and staff, committed constituents, volunteers, working environment/spiritual vision, and spiritual tools. Tax exemption was identified as a secular asset. Sacred constraints identified were religious laws and imperatives, mission conflict, and refusal to exploit supporters. Secular constraints include staff compensation, limited busi ness experience, and threatened loss of tax exemption.

Religious Studies: The Shaping of a Field and a Guide to Reference Resources

As with most modern academic disciplines, religious studies emerged in the latter part of the nineteenth century as a discrete area of inquiry. Prior to that time, most scholarly literature on religion had an apologetic purpose; that is, it was designed to promote the beliefs and practices of a particular religion or reli gious style. Many writers took as their task advancing religious faith and assumed that readers were members of religious groups espousing their own creeds or dogmas. Few were interested in ! examining the phenomenon of reli gion itself or the ways in which religion and culture were intertwined in virtually every human society. In Euro-American society, much writ ing on religion took for granted the superiority of the Christian or per haps the Western biblical tradition, and when other religious traditions came under scrutiny and were con trasted with Christianity especially, they were generally seen as inferior and somehow less worthy. In the latter decades of the nineteenth century, some scholars began to realize that religious expression and experience cut across cultural lines, that in their own context all religions had internal integrity, and that religion manifested itself in simi lar patterns wherever it occurred. Most scholars agreed that human beings in all places and all times sought to endow their experience with meaning and that the pro cess of doing so was the basic religious enterprise. Such realization gave birth to the modern academic study of religion or the discipline of religious studies. This essay will first look at religion or religious studies as an academic discipline by identifying selected key figures whose theories and interpretations continue to shape the field of religious studies. Then it will briefly annotate selected reference works that provide basic information about

Theology and Sociology

IN THIS PAPER I propose to outline my efforts to find empirical validation for David Tracy's theory of the Analogical Imagination and then to engage in some speculation on the nature of the religious enterprise and its relationship to theological classics. To summarize my findings, I was indeed able to find that hypotheses derived from the Tracy theory were sustained by social science data in two multi-nation studies involving ten countries (UK, BRD, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Canada, Hungary, the Netherlands, and the United States). On the basis of these findings I will suggest that religious sensibilities generate theological classics and not vice versa and that theology, even the theology of the classics, is merely part of the superstructure of a religious heritage.' I must outline as a prelude my sociological theory of religion as imagination, which parallels Tracy's theological theory. Religion, I am convinced, is imaginative before it is propositional. It begins in (1) experiences which renew hope, is encoded in (2) images or symbols which become templates for action, is shared with others through (3) stories which are told in (4) communities and celebrated in (5) rituals. This model is a circle, not a straight line, and hence permits stories, communities and rituals in their turn to influence hope renewal experiences. Because we are reflective creatures we must reflect on our imaginative religion. Because we are creatures who belong to communities that

Unity and Separation: Contrasting Elements in the Thought and Practice of Robert and James Alexander Haldane

In June 1799 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland issued a Pastoral Admonition to its congregations denouncing the missionaries of the newly formed Society for Propagating the Gospel at Home (SPGH). They were, it alleged, ‘a set of men whose proceedings threatened] no small disorder to the country’. In issuing this warning the Assembly brought to public attention for the first time the work of two of the most prominent Scottish leaders of the Evangelical Revival, Robert and James Alexander Haldane. The Haldane brothers, two of the moving spirits behind the offending organization, were wealthy Presbyterian converts to an undenominational activism already much in evidence south of the border. For a decade spanning the turn of the century their religious enterprise challenged Scottish ecclesiastical conventions, provoking strong contemporary reactions and leading to a marked divergence in subsequent historical assessment. From ‘the Wesley and Whitefield of Scotland’, at one extreme, they have been described less fulsomely as the source of a movement which, though it alarmed all the Presbyterian churches, proved to be short-lived, dying away ‘among its own domestic quarrels’, ‘marred by bitterness of speech, obscurantism and fanaticism’. Contemporaries seem to have found it little easier to agree on the leaders’ personal qualities. In 1796 Thomas Jones, the minister of Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel in Edinburgh, commended Robert Haldane to William Wilberforce as ‘a man of strickt honour integrity religion prudence and virtue’, who being ‘possessed of a fortune from £50,000 to £60,000 … thinks it is his duty… to employ a considerable portion of it in promoting the cause of God’. By 1809 Haldane’s former friend and colleague, Greville Ewing, had become so disenchanted with his methods that, having referred to him scornfully as ‘the POPE of independents’, he accused him bitterly of ‘the greatest effort [he had ever seen] from any motive whatsoever, to ruin the comfort, and the usefulness, of a minister of the gospel’. Though his brother, James, appears to have inspired a more universal affection, the forcefulness of both personalities ensured that mere neutrality would never be easy.

Salvation and Survival on Skid Row: A Comment on Rooney

The article by James F. Rooney (b) last year on skid row makes an important contribution on a little-known subject in a major journal of our discipline. While it is not the first article on the subject in a prominent social science journal, it broadens the theoretical context suggested in earlier work by extending the distinctions between formal and informal goals (Blau), or official and operative goals (Perrow), to cover a logical extremity of such classical ideas in organization theory: namely, the organization that succeeds by failing.' The skid row rescue mission, as Rooney demonstrates, is a clear example of this phenomenon, but by no means the only one. One cannot fault him for his theoretical interpretation, or for any of the data offered in the lengthy ethnographic description leading up to the theoretical discussion and justification in the final third of the article. I do respectfully suggest, however, that Rooney has needlessly encumbered his article, particularly the descriptive portion of it, with an underlying theme of power inequity and superior-inferior relationships. The effect, I think, is to exaggerate greatly the perniciousness of the hapless mission leaders and preachers, while underestimating both the resourcefulness and the guile of many skid row denizens.2 Much of this unintentional distortion derives, I think, from a lack of reference in the article to any natural comparison groups in the description of the missions and their typical modus operandi. By natural comparison groups here I mean other religious enterprises (including regular churches) and other agencies dealing with a skid row clientele. The comparison Rooney does make, at the end of the article, between missions and other kinds of organizations that succeed through failure, is appropriate enough for theoretical purposes; but it has the effect also of lifting the missions out of their natural contexts to a level of abstraction that reveals only part of the existential reality. The characterizations offered under these circumstances, about what the men have too little of, or about what the missions do too much of, leaves the reader to wonder about the implied but unanswered question, Compared to what? Where the mission as religious organization is concerned, for exam-

Rhetorical enterprise in the ministry of “reverend Ike”

Current evangelical efforts at synthesizing spiritual and secular problem‐solving represent religious manifestations of “rhetorical enterprise—a shrewd combination of content and delivery which fosters a symbiotic relationship between source and receiver (ministry and follower). This essay suggests a critical methodology for assessing the goals, methods, and precedents of rhetorical enterprise. A case study of the Reverend Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II (“Reverend Ike”) and his Science of Living ministry illustrates the dynamics of a prominent religious enterprise.

The World’s Living Religions by Robert Ernest Hume

524 BOOK REVIEWS with regard to it is to point out whatever is contrary to God. Sociopolitical problems usually do not require some one clear particular solution but are open to several possibilities, so that most political activity is concerned with options rather than with one obligatory solution. People who are religious must also be interested and involved in political processes. Nevertheless, since all Christians should be one in love and community, and since the Eucharist and preaching of the word are the principal means of achieving and promoting this unity, and since the priest is primarily the minister of the Eucharist and of the word, he should not become involved in political action that promotes one of several options. By coming out strongly for one among several possible solutions, he may find himself a cause of disunity instead of unity. The author does not advocate for priests " estrangement from politics " but rather an "avoidance of a militant political commitment." (p. 111) The priest should rather teach religious and moral doctrine but leave it to the laity to work out the political actions to achieve justice. The author is speaking about political activity by a priest as a citizen, not about a priest's actually becoming a candidate for political office. However, what he says seems to apply to such a case a fortiori. Much of what he says about the priest's function as a unifier of many and the consequent need to be somewhat at a" distance from the world" (p. 106) might also be applied to a support of priestly celibacy, although he does not mention this application. The final chapter is well worth reading. Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley Berkeley, California JosEPH J. FARRAHER, S.J. The World's Living Religions. By RoBERT ERNEST HuME. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, Revised Edition, 1959. Pp. 335. $3.95. This is a new printing of a revised edition of Robert Hume's pioneer work in comparative religions written in 19!i!4. The revision was undertaken by Charles S. Braden thirteen years ago who updated the work in historical accuracy as a result of more recent scholarship and developments within contemporary religion. Although the editor states that he does not concur with Hume in many of his value judgments, he has made no change in the evaluations posited by Hume preferring to let his understanding of the religions stand as he knew them. Thus this could hardly be considered a complete revision as indicated on the title page. A twenty-page bibliography , moreover, shows little updating and has limited usefulness. Hume's work is a mere outline of the origins, scriptures, historical BOOK REVIEWS 59l5 nature, and values of the eleven religions in the world today. The most positive character of the study is the ample use of the sacred books of the great religions which are used to elucidate the historical and doctrinal development of the religions. The negative aspects of this work, however, far outweigh this single contribution. Value judgments, both positive and negative, extend for pages following each treatment of a particular religion. Although these judgments are basically sketchy and simplistic, Hume goes to great length to use Christianity as the norm and exemplar from which he draws comparisons and contrasts. The questions which he asks of other religions are taken from the Christian world view and problematic. Judging, evaluating, and comparing from within the faith of the scholar is a position avoided by comparative religionists in the last twenty years. This type of study could be used for reference but better works are available; it may be a contribution to the history of methodology in comparative religion in its early stages. Hume's book will not give one an appreciation for the spiritual heritage of mankind but it will leave the reader with a highly fragmented and relativistic view of the whole religious enterprise. The Catholic University of America Washington, D. C. WILLIAM CENKNER, 0. P. Morality in Evolution. The Moral Philosophy of Henri Bergson. By !DELLA J. GALLAGHER. The Hague: Matinus Nijhoff, 1971. Pp. 112 Guilders 18,lt would be rather difficult to summarize a book which is already an intelligent...

Russian Interests in Palestine, 1882-1914. A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise

Russian Interests in Palestine, 1882-1914. A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise

Russian Interests in Palestine, 1882-1914: A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise

Russian Interests in Palestine, 1882-1914: A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise

Religion and Politics in Japan: The Case of the Sōka Gakkai

Japan has never known the domination of any single religio-philosophical tradition. Historically, different religions have flourished side by side in Japanese society. In addition, the tendency to form sects appears to be characteristic of Japan's religious enterprise, both past and present. Despite extensive governmental pressures, sects continued to proliferate in post-Meiji Japan. Those sects which were not branches of established, recognized religions, existed precariously indeed before 1945, and were often harassed by the police if their policies were believed to be in opposition to State Shinto and then-acknowledged standards of patriotism. Today, religious freedom, guaranteed by Japan's post-1945 Constitution, has allowed religious groups to emerge and has also made it possible for pre-war schismatic bodies, numbering more than one hundred, to become independent from their parent organizations.' According to the latest available statistics in the 1962 Religious Year Book (Shzuky5 Nenkan) of the Ministry of Education, there are currently in Japan some 400 denominations, operating more or less on a national level; there are some 229,000 local organizations, i.e., shrines, temples, and churches, which have nearly 352,000 religious workers, ordained or unordained, promoting the different faiths. Religious organizations in Japan report the number of their adherents as approximately 140 million, and the total may even be as large as 150 million, out of a total population of less than 95 million. Obviously, a very large number of Japanese are listed as adherents of two or more religious bodies, which may often be of very different traditions such as Buddhism and Shinto, or perhaps even Christianity. This official tabulation does not include such groups as the Practical Morality and Pureness of Heart Association (Jissen Rinri Koseikai), whose believers, by rising daily at 4:15 A.M., attempt to eliminate the three wastes-things, time, and mind-in order to live a new life.

The Terra Australis–A Franciscan Quest

The Story of the Franciscan friars who sailed with the Mendaña (1567) and Quirós (1605) expeditions from Callao, Port of Lima in Peru, in search of the Unknown Southland, finds a place in the vast missionary enterprise of the Spanish Friars of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: as maritime expeditions they form important links in the chain of discoveries that eventually led to the finding of Australia; as religious enterprises they are part of the world-wide missionary apostolate of the Franciscan Order of that period.

The Terra Australis–A Franciscan Quest

The Story of the Franciscan friars who sailed with the Mendaña (1567) and Quirós (1605) expeditions from Callao, Port of Lima in Peru, in search of the Unknown Southland, finds a place in the vast missionary enterprise of the Spanish Friars of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: as maritime expeditions they form important links in the chain of discoveries that eventually led to the finding of Australia; as religious enterprises they are part of the world-wide missionary apostolate of the Franciscan Order of that period.

Preaching and Evangelism

Preaching is the act or practice of delivering public discourses or addresses on moral and religious subjects, the delivery of sermons. Evangelism is the telling of the good news or the promulgation of the gospel. By definition, preaching may include evangelism; it does include much more. Why are these two words linked together in a subject for discussion ? Do we not know that the promulgation of the gospel is a religious enterprise ? Do we not know that one of the greatest of the moral and religious subjects man has been discussing for nineteen hundred years is evangelism? We may find argument for linking preaching and evangelism in the Scriptures; in the life and example of each of three New Testament workers, Christ, Paul, and Peter; in the charter of the church. Let us take up these three sources seriatim. In the Scriptures.-After making a fundamental statement Paul raised a