Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 10 Book

Various articles are presented covering psychological, sociological and cross-cultural topics or relevance to religious/spiritual researchers and academics.

This exciting collection of papers opens with Founding Editor David O. Moberg's salute to the millennium, as he asks What Most Needs the Attention of Religion Researchers in the Twenty-first Century? A revision and expansion of an earlier oral presentation on "Passing the Torch" to a new generation of researchers, this paper reflects Moberg's more than fifty years of experience in religious research from 1947 to the present.

Next the reader will find three related papers on religious change. Carlo Prandi offers a reflective view of The Reciprocal Relationship of Syncretism and Fundamentalism from the Early History of Religion to Modernity. A related paper explores a concrete manifestation of these two processes in Africa; Cornel du Toit discusses Issues in the Reconstruction of African Theology: African Hermeneutics as Key to Understanding the Dynamics of African Theology. Yet another perspective on religious change in response to historical events is found in Religious Minorities during Russia's Transition from Atheism to Secularism by Alexander Agadjanian.

Next we see a grouping of three papers on psychometrics in religious research. Judith V. Kehe reports An Empirical Assessment of the Wagner-Modified Houts Questionnaire: A Spiritual Gifts Inventory. Leslie J. Francis and Stephen H. Louden report the development and validation of a new mysticism measure in The Francis-Louden Mystical Orientation Scale (MOS): A Study among Roman Catholic Priests. Finally, the issue of what religious measures add over and above personality measures is addressed in An Evaluationof the Incremental Validity of the Spiritual Experience Index-Revised, by Richard J. Csarny, Ralph Piedmont, William J. Sneck, S.J., and Sharon E. Cheston. Piu-Yan Lam and Thomas Rotolo examine a different aspect of the interrelationship of religious and nonreligious variables in their empirical study Re-examining the Relationship between Religiosity and Life Satisfaction. In his paper, Moral Boundaries in Christian Discourse on Popular Music, Andreas Häger focuses on the process by which religious institutions react to secular stimuli siuch as "rock" music.

Finally, four papers look at various aspects of the organizational structure of relgious institutions and movements. Leslie J. Francis and Christopher J.F. Rutledge explore the question Are Rural Clergy in the Church of England under Greater Stress? William Smith surveys the aging cohort of Contemporary Irish Priests in America for their recollections of their American ministries and their mixed identifications as Irishmen and as Americans.

Amy Schindler and Jennifer Carroll Lena apply a process model to the study of Promise Keepers in Perspective: Organizational Characteristics of a Men's Movement. The volume concludes with Part II of Julia Day Howell and Peter L. Nelson's research on Demographic Change and Secularization in an Asian New Religious Movement: The Brahma Kumaris in the Western World