Atlanta experiences

The presentation I made on behalf of my colleagues Joelle and Ida and me at the Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR) Annual Meeting earlier this month in Atlanta went OK. Not a lot of feedback until I talked with fellow panelists and others afterwards – who gave advice on an alternative tactic – using hierarchical logistic regression, as a form of multi-level modeling. (So far some web materials almost make it sound like multiple regression – as well as SPSS - is out in academic circles.) There were a few other religion presentations that looked at community involvement/civic skills issues also. We may explore these (other methodological approaches) for our upcoming Religious Research Assiciation Annual Meeting presentation. (Pictured above is the Hyatt Regency hotel, site for the ASR meeting. Pictured below is another of the scholars on Friday morning panel, presenting.)

Rhys Williams’ ASR presidential address on the development of Muslim American identity also dealt with the controversy over the “Ground Zero” mosque, as did at least one other ASR presentation. I thought his speech was good.

The Census Bureau director (pictured below) continued (what he’d started talking about at the American Association for Public Opinion Research Annual Meeting, which I attended last May) to talk about ways the census might shift to using some administrative records, like Social Security files, and some public pressure to do so (don’t you guys already have this info in several other federal government databases?). He also talked about public outcry about various things, including a number of steps that they were sure would enhance response rates (and ultimately save money), including the controversial Super Bowl ad.

The American Sociological Association (ASA) presidential address dealt with efforts to get undocumented non-citizens able to take classes at state universities and colleges and eligible for federal financial aid. Some of the introduction dealt with school segregation for Asian Americans, Latinos/as, and Native Americans, some of which I didn’t know about (“Oriental schools” in California, for example). There were a number of other presentations I heard vaguely related to the Arizona law: administrative, political, and social-movement opposition to immigration, etc.

Another ASR theme was unconventional worship and congregational activity (particularly centered around young adults) including a panel discussion mainly among Emerging church movement practitioners. Most of them also tried to be amateur sociologists, but the most interesting presentation was PowerPoint slides and stories from a PC(USA) NCD organizing pastor of a emergent church ministry in SW Atlanta. The pastor talked about an Ash Wednesday event in which folks had burned their own (something?) and then they texted everyone and asked that everyone meet at dinner time at a MARTA (Atlanta subway) stop and they combined their ashes and played music in the subway station. It’s not clear if this was an alternative to conventional worship. He also talked about lunching with the pastor of a black Pentecostal church in the neighborhood and generating ideas for how to help the local neighborhood tackle the problem of child sex work in the neighborhood. Here’s a web presence (though I find the website confusing): http://churchasart.com/blog/neighborsabbeyhome/about/

Afterwards I asked the pastor if he found helping coming up with new ideas for activities all the time both liberating and exhausting. He said - not at all – that’s my personality, as it is for most of the creative class that we’re partly angling towards. These folks control many of the messages that we receive from the culture industry – why wouldn’t we want them in our churches?

Keep in mind that the ASR meeting program coordinator’s books are both studies of congregations catering to young adults: http://praxishabitus.blogspot.com/2009/12/hollywood-faith-holiness-prosperity-and.html).

Monday I had lunch with two friends, including one who formerly worked here (Columbia seminary prof Martha Moore Keish) and her husband, a pastor at Atlanta’s First Presbyterian Church, and we had an interesting conversation, including about the future of the denomination.

-- Perry