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Religion and Culture in Tension: The Abortion Discourses of the U.S. Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Michele Dillon
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Extract

Sociologists increasingly emphasize the systemic openness of religious organizations to their environment. Mark Kowalewski argues that the Catholic church, for example, engages in a “limited accommodation” with the broader culture in order to “rein in the forces of change and to keep modernizing elements under the control of the existing power elite.” Others suggest that the church manages its multiple identities across diverse audiences by articulating culturally adaptive discourses. Nancy Ammerman documents the responsiveness of religious organizations to political currents by demonstrating how doctrinal and ideological upheavals within the Southern Baptist Convention during the 1980's resulted in a conservative resurgence within the organization and a new administration committed to taking an activist public stance on various sociomoral issues, including abortion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , Summer 1995 , pp. 159 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 1995

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References

Notes

1. See Paul DiMaggio, “The Relevance of Organization Theory to the Study of Religion,” PONPO Working Paper No. 174/ISPS Working Paper No. 2174 (Program on Non-Profit Organizations, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, 1992).

2. Kowalewski, Mark, “Firmness and Accommodation: Impression Management in Instititutional Roman Catholicism,” Sociology of Religion 54, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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11. See Ammerman, , Baptist Battles, 100–103.Google Scholar

12. Paige, Connie, The Right to Lifers: Who They Are, How They Operate, Where They Get Their Money (New York: Summit Books, 1983), 51.Google Scholar

13. Jim Smith, Director of the SBC Public Affairs Office, Washington, D.C., personal communication with author, September 21, 1993.

14. Valentine, Foy, “Abortion: A Christian Perspective,” in Applying the Gospel in the Local Church (Fort Worth, Tex.: Christian Life Commission Seminar Proceedings, 1985), 35.Google Scholar

15. Resolution No. 5, SBC Convention, Annual Proceedings (1974).

16. Resolution No. 10, SBC Convention, Annual Proceedings (1980).

17. Amici curiae, Supreme Court of the United States, October Term 1991, No.s 91-744 and 91-902.

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25. See, for example, Burns, , Frontiers of Catholicism, 201.Google Scholar

26. “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” para. 2, 200; para. 16, 214.

27. Ahlstrom, Sydney E., A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 170-71.Google Scholar

28. See Richards, , Winds of Doctrine, 213.Google Scholar See also the discussion in Garrett, James Leo Jr., Hinson, E. Glenn, and Tull, James E., Are Southern Baptists “Evangelicals”? (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

29. See Ammerman, , Baptist Battles, 45.Google Scholar

30. See, for example, Resolution No. 3, SBC Convention, Annual Proceedings (1991).

31. See Ammerman, Baptist Battles, 5, 99-100, 102.

32. See Greeley, Andrew M., Religious Change in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

33. See the discussion in Budde, Michael, “The Changing Face of American Catholic Nationalism,” Sociological Analysis 53, no. 3 (Fall 1992): 245-55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ebaugh, Helen Rose, “The Revitalization Movement in the Catholic Church: The Institutional Dilemma of Power,” Sociological Analysis 52, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. See Roach, John, “The Need for Public Dialogue on Religion and Politics,” Origins 11, no. 25 (December 3, 1981): 389-93Google Scholar; and Weakland, Rembert, “Catholics as Social Insiders,” Origins 22, no. 3 (May 28, 1992): 33–39.Google Scholar

35. O'Brien, David, Public Catholicism (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 6 Google Scholar. See also Dolan, Jay P., The Immigrant Church: New York's Irish and German Catholics, 1815-1865 (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983).Google Scholar

36. See Harper, Charles and LeBeau, Bryan, “The Social Adaptation of Marginal Religious Movements in America,” Sociology of Religion 54, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 171-92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37. See Vallier, Ivan, “The Roman Catholic Church: A Transnational Actor,” in Transnational Relations and World Politics, ed. Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Jr. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972).Google Scholar

38. See Dolan, Jay P., The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1985).Google Scholar

39. See Ammerman, , Baptist Battles, 18–43.Google Scholar

40. See Bellah, Robert N. and others, The Good Society (New York: Knopf, 1991), 187.Google Scholar

41. Ammerman, , Baptist Battles, 30.Google Scholar

42. See ibid., 12.

43. Rosenberg, Ellen M., The Southern Baptists: A Subculture in Transition (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), 1, 5.Google Scholar

44. Burns, , Frontiers of Catholicism, 16–17.Google Scholar

45. SBC Convention, Annual Proceedings (1988).

46. See Ammerman, Baptist Battles, 176-77.

47. See Rosenberg, The Southern Baptists, 175.

48. See Burns, Frontiers of Catholicism, 193; Budde, , Two Churches, 88.Google Scholar

49. For each of the NCCB Statement categories, the following materials were used: (1) Public Statements: January/February 1973 in response to the U.S. Supreme Court Roe decisions; November 1973 (winter meeting); July 1976 in response to the U.S. Supreme Court Planned Parenthood decision; October 1985 issued in conjunction with Respect Life Sunday; November 1989 (winter meeting) Resolution on abortion. (2) Pastoral Plans: “A Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities,” November 1975; “Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities: A Reaffirmation,” November 1985. (3) Congressional testimony: “Submission to the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments,” March 1974; “Submission to the House Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights,” March 1976; “Submission to the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution,” November 1981; “Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, opposing the ‘Freedom of Choice Act,” March 1992. (4) Amicus curiae brief: Arguments in the 1989 Webster v Reproductive Health Services case. All the Statements are available in Origins, Catholic News Service documentary service.

50. For each of the SBC Statement categories, the following materials were used: (1) Resolutions on abortion: 1980, 1982, 1984, 1987-1989, 1991. (2) Organizational antiabortion literature: “Is Life a Right?”; “What the Bible Teaches about Abortion”; “Abortion and the Law”; “Alternatives to Abortion”; “Teenage Pregnancy”; “Operation Rescue: Right or Wrong?”; “First Annual Sanctity of Human Life Guide, 1991”; and “Human Life Sunday” leaflets. (3) Amicus curiae brief filed by the SBC/CLC in the U.S. Supreme Court case, Webster v Reproductive Health Services. The SBC/CLC literature is available from the Christian Life Commission of the SBC, Nashville, Tennessee. The resolutions on abortion were taken from the Annual Proceedings of each year's Southern Baptist Convention. The amicus curiae brief in the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court Webster v Reproductive Health Services case was filed jointly with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the National Association of Evangelicals (Amici Curiae, United States Supreme Court, October Term 1988, No. 88-605), henceforth referred to as Amicus brief (1988).

51. NCCB, Public Statement, January 1973, 505; Congressional testimony (1974): 621.

52. NCCB, Public Statement, February 1973, 554; Congressional testimony (1974): 620.

53. Resolution on abortion (1989): 395.

54. NCCB, Congressional testimony (1981): 362.

55. SBC/SLC, Amicus brief (1988): 21

56. CLC, “What the Bible teaches about Abortion,” 1; CLC, “Is Life a right?”, 1-2; CLC, “What the Bible teaches about Abortion,” 7.

57. CLC, “Human Life Sunday” pamphlets; CLC, “Alternatives to Abortion,” 10; CLC, “Is Life a Right?”, 4.

58. NCCB, Congressional testimony (1974): 625; NCCB, Public Statement, February 1973, 554; NCCB, Public Statement, January 1973, 505. See also NCCB, Congressional testimony (1976): 666; (1981): 361-62; (1992): 694; Pastoral Plans (1975): 372; (1985): 402-3.

59. NCCB, Congressional testimony (1981): 368. For evidence of the NCCB's use of social science data, see especially Congressional testimony (1974): 625; (1976): 663; (1981): 365-67; (1992): 694-95; Resolution on abortion (1989); and Amicus brief, (1989): 650-52.

60. Resolution on abortion, SBC Convention, Annual Proceedings (1980 and 1982); CLC, “What the Bible teaches about Abortion,” 8; SBC/CLC, Amicus brief (1988): 15.

61. NCCB, Public Statement, February 1973, 555. For evidence of the NCCB's recourse to American political culture, see also Public Statement, January 1973; Resolution on abortion, 1989; Congressional testimony (1974): 621; (1976): 666-67; (1981): 360, 362; Pastoral Plans, (1975): 373; (1985): 405.

62. NCCB, Congressional testimony (1974): 624; NCCB, Public Statement, November 1973, 260.

63. CLC, “What the Bible teaches,” 12; CLC, “Abortion and the Law,” 12; CLC, Operation Rescue,” 8.

64. See CLC, “What the Bible teaches,” 13.

65. SBC/CLC, Amicus brief (1988): 6.

66. CLC, “What the Bible teaches about Abortion.”

67. Using a national sample, Andrew Greeley finds that 58 percent of Southern Baptists, compared to 43 percent of other Protestants and 22 percent of Catholics, are “bible literalists.” See Andrew Greeley, “The Continuing Reformation: Catholics and Southern Baptists in the United States” (Unpublished paper, National Opinion Research Center, Chicago, 1993), 33.

68. See Cox, Harvey, “Baptist Faith and Public Discourse,” in Christian Citizenship, 1984 (Washington, D.C.: Christian Life Commission Seminar Proceedings, 1984).Google Scholar

69. See Dillon, Debating Divorce.

70. See Bellah, Robert, The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time of Trial (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), 25.Google Scholar See also Wuthnow, Robert, The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since World War II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 242.Google Scholar

71. See Bellah, Broken Covenant, 13-16, for a discussion of the centrality of the deuteronomic command to the foundation of American culture and the notion that the U.S. was the “promised land” for the newly arriving Puritans.

72. See Tribe, Laurence H., Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990).Google Scholar

73. Gallup Report, “Attitudes on Abortion Little Changed Since Supreme Court's 1973 Ruling,” 281 (February 1989): 16-17.