Sociology 370

Study Guide for Exam #2

Spring 2017

Some of the following questions will comprise your second exam. Answers will come from
lectures, text readings, and documentaries. ​8 Questions will be on the Exam

1. The term “denomination” was first employed by Ministers in England who

considered themselves loyal to the King but who dissented from the Church of
England. What were their reasons for dissention, what name did they give to
themselves, and which denominations did they establish?
● In 1702, the Presbyterians, Baptists, and Congregationalists (these are the
denominations they established) formed “the body of the Dissenting
Ministers of the Three Denominations in and about the City of London”
term intro’d to counter the term sect because it had the sense of deviant or
undesirable practices. Dissented from the Church of England because they
no longer wanted the church to have a religious monopoly on society. The
Church of England did not allow religious tolerance other than that of the
Church of England’s religious beliefs. These dissenting denominations fought
against the laws that were imposed on them that did not allow religious
tolerance. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, in alliance with the Baptists, as well as
the other denominations that broke away from the Church of England
(James Finley Presbyterian, Moore Baptist, Congregationalists) got his bill
calling for religious liberty passed. Later, the 1st Amendment to the
Constitution allowed for complete religious freedom and practice.

2. Discuss what Weber meant by Church-Sect Theory. Discuss the differences between
church and sect with regard to their membership among European immigrants to
the U.S.
● Church-Sect Theory: conceptualizations of church and sect serve to enable 2
or more religious organizations to be compared to each other; church-sect
theory was not a standard TO which religious organizations were compared
but one BY which they were compared. The critical differentiating variable
for Weber was “mode of membership: --that is, whether the normal method
of membership recruitment of the organization ws by birth (church) or
decision (sect) (THIS IS FROM THE BOOK)
● Churches are the status quo or traditional type of religious organization.
They gain new members through reproduction of already existing members
and socialization of children. Church members can be from any class. Claims
 universality. Strong connection to government and strictly hierarchical.
Churches employ full time clergy with formal education. For example, a
Catholic priest must have certain education before becoming ordained. A
sect, on the other hand, forms because people are dissatisfied with the
church. They are newly formed religious groups that formed in protest of
their religion (parent church) usually because of accusations of heresy and
hypocrisy. Sects usually draw people from the lower socioeconomic status
and gain members mainly by conversion.

3. From the 1870s to the 1950s (Industrial and post-Industrial age), distinct
socio-economic classes reflected religious participation and choice of denomination
in the United States. How did social class influence religious participation? Be
specific and give examples.
● Upper class consisted of about 3% of the population, and can be broken down into
old money (generational money or inheritance) and nouveaux riche, or new rich
(people who acquired wealth through their hard work; businessmen) but they did
not have as much power as old money. Middle class was about 40% of the
population and were primarily college educated.They were small business owners,
lawyers, doctors, accountants, etc. The lower class made up about 57% of the
population. These were blue-collar workers, underemployed or unemployed.
Religious affiliations were consistent with where people fell within their class
schema.
○ Upper class: Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and United Church of Christ,
even Jewish.
■ newest forms of religious group
■ wealthy stayed with traditional, old church (Aristocracy-had political
influence)
○ Middle Class: Lutherans and Methodists
○ Middle/Lower Class: Baptists, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Roman
Catholics were divided between middle and lower class members
○ Lower Class: Pentecostal, Jehovah’s Witnesses, small fundamentalist sects
were populated by lower classes
■ Poorest people belonged to the least traditional type churches.
○ Lower class religions offered defense for the workers because they saw them
as disinherited and oppressed.
○ Part of the Christian community promoted order, stability, and
conservatism, and in so doing proved to be a powerful source of legitimation
of the accepted ways and of existing disparities in the distribution of wealth
 and power. Another part advocated change intended to advance the cause of
justice and fairness. WASPs ruled religion and country

4. Define “ethnic groups” and discuss their characteristics.

● Ethnic groups are characterized by its involuntary nature and by the
emotional bond that links individuals in the group together. They share
ethnic history as well as a common set of cultural attributes such as language,
food, music, dialect and religion. (can include race, language, values,
symbols, literature, internal & external sense of uniqueness). Some attributes
include common geographic area, migratory status, ties that transcend
kinship, neighborhood, community boundaries, folklore and music,
settlement and employment patterns, special interests in regard to politics,
institutions that specifically serve and maintain the group, an internal sense
of distinctiveness, and an external perception of distinctiveness.

5. Discuss the “science” of eugenics and its consequences for non-whites. How and by
whom was eugenics discredited?
● Eugenics was an effort to use simplistic genetics or outer features to place
people in certain groups and determine who were the desirable and
undesirable races. Franz Boas and his student Ruth Benedict were able to
discredit this theory by seeing race as cultural and ethnic, not biological.
● Eugenics was created by Sir Francis Dalton. Created ethnocentric bias
Human Genome Project debunked theory of racial superiority, everyone has
biological, ancestral ties to Africa.

6. Abramson identified four variations in the relationship between religion and

ethnicity: ethnic fusion, ethnic religion, religious ethnicity, and ethnic autonomy.
Discuss each and give examples to amplify your answer.
● ​Ethnic Fusion: when ethnicity is major foundation of religion tend to
separate themselves from larger society, for example Hasidic jews or
members of nation of islam. Associate only with members of their sect or
society (sectarian tend to be dissonant in the way the way they separate
themselves from larger society).
● Ethnic Religion: religion is linked to language and identity. Examples are the
Dutch Reform Church, Greek Orthodox, and Scottish Presbyterians
● Religious Ethnicity: most common in the US more than one ethnic group
shares this religion. Examples are the Irish, Polish, Italians, and French
 share Catholicism. Tibetan, Vietnamese share Buddhism.
● Ethnic Autonomy: Least frequently found. Religion plays a very minimal or
marginal role in defining ethnic identity. An example would be Gypsies

7. We know that during the 17​th​-19​th​ centuries (formative years of U. S. history), most
of the population were practicing Protestants from northwestern Europe.
Immigrants from the British Isles played a hegemonic role in constructing what
would later be known as WASP culture and polity. Yet, these colonists were
heterogeneous, with four distinct groups having an impact on nation building.
Discuss the origins of these 4 groups, where they settled and when, and the
Protestant denominations they practiced.
● The ​Puritans​ ​were the first wave of immigrants, originating from eastern
England. These religious dissenters departed England in a quest for religious
freedom from the existing state church, and in their “errand into the
wilderness” sought to fuse religion and politics into a theocracy. Given this
goal, they were inclined to be unreceptive to religious dissent.
● The second group was not so much true cavaliers as adventurers of merchant
capitalism, originated in southern England.​ Elitist ​and traditionalist, this
group became a central force among the slaveholding class in Virginia and
served to give the Church of England a toehold in the colonies.
● The third group was the​ ​Society of Friends, or Quakers, ​who came from the
English Midlands and Wales. This dissenting body of religious pacifists
settled in what is today Pennsylvania and western New Jersey, where—in
stark contrast to the Virginia establishment—they promoted egalitarian and
democratic ideals. Their religious convictions led them to found the first
antislavery society in the Western world.
● The fourth​ ​group was the​ ​Scots-Irish​ ​arrived and settled on the Appalachian
frontier. Among the ranks of these later arrivals was found considerable
antipathy toward English domination of Scotland. This group provided the
basis for the growth of Presbyterianism in the United States.

8. While a few Catholics settled in Maryland during colonial times, the largest waves
of Catholic immigrants, the Irish, arrived in the U.S. during the 19​th​ century, many
before the Civil War. What were the religious and social reasons for nativist
hostility toward these Catholics? How did Catholics respond to this hatred and
bigotry?
● What is clear in the Catholic case is that ethnic animosity became intimately
intertwined with anti-Catholicism with the arrival of Irish immigrants in the
 first half of the nineteenth century. The first Catholics in the United States
were of English origin. They accommodated to a religiously hostile
environment by settling in Maryland, but their English ethnicity served to
take some of the edge off the Protestant-Catholic tension. Exemplified by the
Carroll family of Maryland, the earliest Catholics in the British colonies (and
later the new nation) were small in number, relatively affluent, and rather
subdued in their exertion of religious particularity. As such, they attracted
little negative attention.
● However, with the mass migration of desperately poor Irish Catholics, all
this changed. Especially after the disastrous potato blight, which was a
principal cause of the Great Famine (1845–1852), nativist hostility toward
Catholics intensified. The Irish entered the Protestant empire and quickly
dominated the development of U.S. Catholicism. They were the chief
contributors to the leadership of the Church, and large numbers of priests
and nuns emigrated from Ireland to establish and maintain parishes and
related religious institutions. Soon the Irish constituted an absolute majority
of the Catholic population, and due to their presence the size of the Catholic
community rose fourfold in the three decades before the Civil War. Though
other groups, most notably Germans, played a role in the expansion of a
Catholic institutional presence, none was as powerful as the Irish proved to
be. Theirs was a grassroots movement. The Irish entered the American
church at the bottom, but by the latter part of the nineteenth century they
led its hierarchy. This hegemonic position meant that Catholics arriving
from southern and eastern Europe from 1880 to 1924, during the period of
the Great Migration, were forced to confront an Irish-dominated institution.
● At the same time, the Irish had to contend with the forces of Protestantism’s
“righteous empire.” Overlaying this situation was a history of political and
economic conflict pitting the English against the Irish. In order to prevent
their offspring from losing their attachment to their heritage, Irish
immigrants created parochial schools at great financial cost as necessary
alternatives to public schools. Public schools were viewed as potent forces
promoting Americanization, which in the eyes of Irish Catholics meant a
view of national identity determined by English Protestant elites. The Irish
feared that the future of their religion and culture was at stake, and
parochial schools could provide them with a bulwark against a forced
assimilation into the Protestant empire. Catholics likewise founded numerous
colleges and universities, including flagship institutions such as Georgetown
University (1789), the University of Notre Dame (1842), and the Catholic
University of America (1887), as their way of, in the words of historian Philip
 Gleason, Contending with Modernity (1995). The Third Plenary Council of
Baltimore in 1884 not only created the Baltimore Catechism, which all young
Catholics were expected to learn, but also set as an ideal that all Catholic
children should be educated in Catholic schools.
● Nativist hostility to Catholic immigrants wove negative stereotypes of the
particular ethnic groups making up the Church with critiques of the Catholic
Church as an anti-democratic and authoritarian institution antithetical to
key national values. This hostility took organizational form in such groups as
the American Patriotic League, the American Protective Association, the Ku
Klux Klan, the Native American Party, and the Order of United Americans.
Anti-immigration sentiment was translated into the Immigration and
Naturalization Act mentioned earlier, which effectively ended mass
immigration for the next four decades. During this time, ethnic Catholics
fought a defensive battle for acceptance, while simultaneously seeking to
carve out social space for the maintenance of a distinctive Catholic milieu.

9. Prior to 1965, three waves of Jewish immigrants came to the U.S. from Europe.
Discuss the differences among these immigrant groups with respect to origin,
socio-economics, level of assimilation to American culture, and religious practice.
● Wave 1 (Sephardic Jews)
○ Spain and Portugal -> Holland and England -> North America
○ Upper class merchants
● Wave 2 (Ashkenazic Jews)
○ Germany, Poland (Eastern Europe)
○ Set up in Cincinnati
○ Were being oppressed and marginalized
● Wave 3 (Ashkenazic Jews) Largest group
○ Various countries in central and eastern Europe, with Poland and
Russia
○ Settled in New York
○ Working class
○ Orthodox Jews (stayed to themselves)
● Many Jews wanted to assimilate to American culture, so they Americanized
their religious practices
● Conservative Movement: Blended reformed Judaism with Orthodox;
preserve Jewish traditions, but participate in larger society

10. In recent decades two distinct approaches to Christianity among African Americans
 have emerged and gained popularity. Franklin Frazer and WEB Dubois (in 1903)
espoused one view and Eugene Genovese another. Discuss the differences between
these two views of the function of African American Christianity.
● WEB Dubois and Frazer’s view was that Christianity to A.A. was an
invisible institution. Christianity provided another worldly religion; which
compensated for A.A. powerlessness being a slave, believing that “The next
life would be better”. Religion provided an outlet to suffering.
● Genovese believed the complete opposite and says that Christianity has been
an important resource that has challenged injustice and oppression and was
the most important resource for the slaves in resisting servitude. Found a
sense of freedom when it was meant to do the opposite. Although it was
forced on them by slaveholders in order to subdue them (taking away of
culture and identity), they found ways to use religion to free themselves.

11. Discuss the socio-economic reasons for the rise of the Nation of Islam in the U.S.
beginning with Wallace Fard in Detroit. What caused Malcolm X’s later break with
Elijah Poole.
● Wallace Fard began to preach to the inner cities a messianic based form of
black nationalism. He believed the blacks were being oppressed by whites
using Christianity as the main tool, so he insisted on the African Americans
going back to the religion of their ancestors. During the time of his teachings
was the Great Depression; people living in poverty (thought it was the right
time to deliver a new kind of message) Elijah Poole emphasized economic
independence and the creation of black mainstream African American
institutions. He stressed that blacks should remove themselves from
economic dependence under whites and support themselves. He was able to
encourage Malcolm X to convert during his teachings in the prisons about
letting go of the “white religion”. Malcolm X later broke away from Poole
because he went to Mecca and realized how much Poole diverted from
Orthodox Islam. (Allah Incarnate: Poole believed that Fard was this, quite
radical view)

12. Early in his career, Rabbi Isaac Wise, A German immigrant, settled in New York.
His concerns over the loss of tradition and practice among Jews led him to develop
what became known as Reform Judaism. How did this new form of American
Judaism allow for Jews to both assimilate and practice their religion?
● Wise introduced co-ed churches and conducted mass not in traditional
Hebrew, but in English and German. Wise also founded a college for
teachers and Rabbis in America. He felt that Judaism would not survive
 unless there was a reform. Reform Judaism influential because of the
comparatively higher socioeconomic status of its adherents. Modeled after
Protestant Christians, established a system of Sunday schools for religious
instruction and started a seminary college for rabbinical training.
Encouraged to send their children to public schools and universities, seeking
accommodation with the outside world rather than self-imposed segregation
from it. Still held traditional aspects of Orthodox Judaism but embraced
modernity at the same time.

13. What was the impact of “Origin of Species” and the Scopes Monkey Trial (1925) on
American religious belief?
● Monkey Trial - John Thomas Scopes vs Tennessee State - Mr. Scope was
accused of teaching evolution, Origin of Species, in which was violating the
law. The law was made to protect what was taught in the Bible. This can be
called The Fundamental. The Fundamental is considered to be the outline of
the bedrock truths that all Christians should believe. Fundamentalists
believed about going “back to basics” and they did not interpret the Bible
but it was God words that was revealed. Fundamentalists were usually
against evolution. William Jennings Bryan was the one that turned
fundamentalism into political movement. Bryan campaigned across america
for laws against the teaching of Darwin’s theory. Bryan went to Dayton, TN
to prosecute John S. Clarence Darrow was John S. attorney. Darrow argued
that academic freedom was being violated and claimed that the legislature
had indicated a religious preference, violating the separation of church and
state. He also maintained that the evolutionary theory was consistent with
certain interpretations of the Bible, and in an especially dramatic session he
sharply questioned Bryan on the latter's literal interpretation. Scopes was
convicted, partly because of the defense, which refused to plead any of the
technical defenses available, fearing an acquittal on a technical rather than a
constitutional basis. Teaching evolution was still illegal in southern states,
but people began to realize that the Fundamentalist logic was severely flawed
and steeped in stupidity.