Sociology and public theology: a case study of pro-choice/ profile common ground - 1998 Presidential Address

Sociology of Religion, Summer, 1999 by James R. Kelly

Why should there be an Association for the Sociology of Religion? The reason used to be clear. ASR's parent association was the American Catholic Sociological Society, which began its organizational life in 1938 and ended it in 1971 as it transformed itself into the Association for the Sociology of Religion. The first American Catholic sociologists experienced the center of professional sociology - then called the American Sociological Society - as intellectually flawed. To them, ASS evaded the central concern of all intellectually worthy empirical inquiry, that is, to concretely expand our intuition of justice and illuminate our collective path to a good society. To outsiders, the ACSS seemed a combined anachronism, masked apologetics, and haven. Until the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), its membership experienced ACSS as intellectually liberating.(1)

The very first document produced by the Second Vatican Council entitled "The Message To Humanity," released 20 October 1962, just nine days after the Council opened, announced "We want to fix a steady gaze on those who still lack the opportune help to achieve a way of life worthy of human beings.... As we undertake our work, therefore, we would emphasize whatever concerns the dignity of persons, whatever contributes to a genuine community of peoples." And the Council spoke humbly, acknowledging that it teaches "without always having on hand the solution to particular problems"(2) and that "In pastoral care, appropriate use must be made not only of theological principles, but also of the findings of the secular sciences, especially of psychology and sociology."(3)

ACSS's ending was as honorable as its origin. After the Council what had been experienced as liberating felt restrictive and unworthy. The ACSS evolved into the Association for the Sociology of Religion as Catholic understanding of mission and identity evolved. Does ASR's mission evolve along with American sociology?

THE EMERGING(4) EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

Religion is among the thirty-nine sections listed in the American Sociological Society's 1998 preliminary convention program. The 1997 ASA Convention theme was "Bridges For Sociology." The program note lamented that sociology's fragmentation and specialization had separated it from other disciplines and from important areas of human concern. Session Two of the theory section last year was entitled "Engaging With Ethical Issues." This year's convention theme is "Inequality and Social Policy: A Challenge for Sociology." In her program note President Jill Quadagno writes that sociology faces a "final challenge" which "is to confront once more an old question. What is the good society and how can sociology help create it?" If asked at the 1938 American Sociological Society's convention, there would have been no principled reason for a separatist American Catholic Sociological Society and so no evolution into the Association for the Sociology of Religion.

Quadagno acknowledged that sociology's final challenge was not new. In the West, questions about justice and the good society are commonly traced to 4th century B.C.E. Greece and especially to Aristotle. These ASA trends represent a neo-Aristotelian retrieval of social science.(5) We might consider "neo-Aristotelian" as something deeper than this-year's phrase. Recall that August Comte, the coiner of the term sociology and its first positivist proselytizer, designated himself the new Aristotle.(6)

Aristotle taught that neither first principles nor revelation from the gods could alone instruct men on how to achieve the good society. For reflection and action, systematically analyzed experience was needed - that is, comparative data about the successes and, more often, the failures of human beings seeking personal and collective goods. Aristotle's seminal sociology aimed at phronesis, that is, good judgment or, in the scholastic tradition, prudence, the most cardinal of the four cardinal virtues. Prudence aims at achieving the good society ruled by justice. Sociology's neo-Aristotelian retrieval should affect how we practice a sociology of religion.

ASR and the Responsibilities for Public Theologies

Because it experiences Enlightenment notions of rationality as simply another form of tribal logic, a post-modern mood simultaneously enables and subverts a neo-Aristotelian retrieval. To me, the sane appropriation of a post-modernist mood is the acknowledgment that each scholar must choose by whom, by what traditions, by what aspirations, and by what criteria she will be guided; even deeper, he must decide whose expectations he will honor and what pressures he will resist.(7) The sociology of religion needs a crystallizing term that is as invitingly empirical, open, critical, universal, and dialogic as neo-Aristotelian. Our 1998 ASR program note recalls that our founding scholars implicitly agreed with Troeltsch's earlier observation that

with regard to the complicated social, political, and moral energies which it presupposes, "sociology" cannot create ultimate values and standards from within and therefore is obliged to use institutions outside the borders of its own special faculty.