Bye Bye Benny

I've already received one invitation to speak with the press about Pope Benedict's resignation so just a few thought here about that in the way of back-of-the-envelope preparation.

The election of Cardinal Ratzinger to become Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 was a decided turn to the right for the Roman Catholic Church. With the Second Vatican Council (a/k/a Vatican II) (1962–1965), the Church seemed to have signaled a re-engagement with mainstream society. (Vatican II was in part about a temporary cultural coup by progressive bishops within the otherwise very hierarchical system, though. See Wilde 2004.) As the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, what used to be the Roman Inquisitor, Ratzinger developed a reputation as a very conservative theologian. While Benedict did not quite live up to many's fears, his reign as Pope has not been without controversy. In some very calculated ways, Benedict re-entrenched Catholicism against the (post)modern world and the other world religions.

Irrespective of the theological, social, or political implications, such a contentious posture brings with it some sociological strength. As we've seen in the U.S. over the last 60 years or so, a religion's resiliency is counterintuitively tied to its relationship to the mainstream culture (See Smith 1998). Mainline Protestantism is in serious ruin today essentially because it is indistinguishable from the mainstream culture. Evangelical Protestantism, on the other hand, has done quite well because it has become a subcultural identity that is engaged with the broader culture (think: Great Commission) but that is distinct from the broader culture (think: socially conservative). Roman Catholicism under B16 has looked a lot more like Evangelical than Mainline Protestantism. The Church is likely a lot more sustainable as such.

I haven't heard about any frontrunners yet for successors to B16, but Benedict certainly leaves a Church hierarchy that is more conservative than he entered it, having appointed many like-minded colleagues to the College of Cardinals, which means that it seems unlikely that the next Pope will be a progressive. What will be interesting to follow is the possibility of a Pope from the global South, which could mean a Pope of color.

One interesting thing I noted looked at some stock photos of the Pope is that he is often treated with a lot of deference. Part of that could be more of a function of his age than his position. His immobility means that people must approach him and cater to him in a way that looks a lot like worship. However, there is likely a feedback effect. People are treating him with kid gloves, which looks like pietistic respect to others who feel compelled to show increased respect to the office themselves. I wonder if a (relatively) young pope would interact differently.

Meaning > Joy

I recently assigned the Contexts article The Joys of Parenthood, Reconsidered (Simon 2008) to my frosh Social Problems course as part of our unit on gender inequalities. As I've thought more about it, I wanted to take a second to point out an issue with the author's claim. Here is the major finding:

Sociologists find that as a group, parents in the United States experience depression and emotional distress more often than their childless adult counterparts. Parents of young children report far more depression, emotional distress, and other negative emotions than non-parents, and parents of grown children have no better well-being than adults who never had children.

Later, Simon adds,

...[P]arents derive more purpose and meaning in life than adults who never had children.

In the very next sentence, however, Simon dismisses this, writing,

At the same time, the emotional benefits of having children are often overshadowed by the onerous demands and stressors associated with the role.

This emotional arithmetic seems problematic for a couple reasons to me. First, it's not clear whether this is based on the data or is a theoretical evaluation that the author offers. My guess is that Simon is saying that even though parents derive more meaning, their emotional measures are still low. Second, perhaps meaning and purpose are mutually exclusive to emotions as they are measured here, and perhaps meaning and purpose offer psychic rewards that trump emotional considerations. Religion, after all, is full of such examples. Being a religious conservative comes with great costs for adherents but offers (at least) equally great rewards. Think about young Evangelical adults who are taught to abstain from sex until marriage. There is a huge emotional burden to this kind of sacrifice given the social and biological pressures to be sexually active, but the social rewards in the form of group cohesion are enormous for those who are able to live up to these standards.

Chris Smith uses subcultural identity theory to explain such phenomenon, and I think it plays a part in possibly explaining why people keep having children. As we've learned from Eric Klinenberg's new research, solo living is exploding, becoming less stigmatized, and may well be better socially for individuals than cohabitation, a practice usually associated with marriage. Essentially, even though we keep telling ourselves that marriage and parenthood are beneficial, fewer of us are doing either/both. I think it might be that parents are setting themselves off as a strong subculture that is clearly embedded within mainstream society but that is increasingly in tension with it for a number of reasons. I digress, though.

I think we need to be careful to dismiss the meaning/purpose generating role that parenthood plays in people's lives. Emotional well-being is important but so is having a sense of meaning.

Random Thoughts on the Subcultural Identity of Evangelcials

Can 26% of the population (an unchallenged plurality) be embattled in any real sense or are such feelings rooted in self-benefiting delusion?

I got an idea on how to test this listening to Jim Martin, a former Georgia legislator, speak earlier this week as part of our campus Constitution Week celebration. He noted that late-18th century Baptists were vocal proponents of the Bill of Rights because they feared that the Church of England would be adopted by the fledgling United States as its official religion. Today, as Evangelicals, (Southern) Baptists are often proponents for the (re)insertion of religion into the political process. Could church-state opinions serve as a proxy for perceptions of cultural embattledness? In other words, does feeling that one's religious beliefs are in contention with mainstream culture predict believing in a limited or nonexistent separation between church and state?

Is there an ironic, inverse relationship between opinions about the role of religion in politics and an actual challenge to one's religion? Since Southern Baptists today (as Evangelicals) are relatively powerful, does this explain their abandonment of the Second Amendment?