Community, Boundaries, and Covenants:
Bibliography

Here is an annotated bibliography for my students in the study of Commmunity, Boundaries, and Covenants, a course on civility and pluralism. Pertinent links on this subject are also included. You may return to the main Community, Boundaries, and Covenants page or visit the Schedule page for this course.

Print Resources for Community, Boundaries, and Covenants

• The first textbook for the course is Stephen L. Carter, Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy. New York: Basic Books, 1998. This is an enjoyable, insightful, lucid argument in support of responsibility, courtesy, mutual helpfulness, and civilized living. This is a textbook worth keeping; no need to run to the bookstore after the semester to sell it back to the bookstore for the next set of students.
• The second textbook is Richard E. Wentz, The Culture of Religious Pluralism. Boulder: Westview Press, 1998. This book may not be as fun to read as the one by Prof. Carter, but Prof. Wentz has some valuable insights to share on the threats to pluralism in American society. The pluralistic hopes of the framers of the constitution, including such bold thinkers as James Madison, need not be surrendered.
• I acknowledge an important intellectual debt to the explorations of the sociology of knowledge by Peter L. Berger, author of such works as The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1967) and A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural (New York: Anchor Books, 1990). The latter work is much easier to read. Both are highly insightful.
• A prolific and lucid sociological researcher is Robert Wuthnow, whose Christianity and Civil Society: The Contemporary Debate, Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1996, makes good use of survey data and sociological insights to urge commitment to civility as a crucial element in our pluralism.
• Another lucid and insightful analysis of American cultural conditions that shares Wuthnow's irenic tone is by Gertrude Himmelfarb, One Nation, Two Cultures. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Prof. Himmelfarb is well-read and provides lots of interesting information that might otherwise be overlooked. She writes as a professional historian rather than as a sociologist.
• An earlier very significant contribution by sociologist Robert Wuthnow is his The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. This work is highly informative and thought-provoking. He has sifted through a lot of survey data and sociological interpretation; his sensitive and skillful analysis of this material is impressive.
• The transformation of freedom as a moral value into vacuous consumer choice as well as the imperialistic intrusion of marketplace modes of thought into all areas of social life (including religion) are well researched, documented and described by two journalists with sociology training in Richard Cimino and Don Lattin, Shopping for Faith: American Religion in the New Millennium, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1998. A CD-ROM is included supplying an electronic version of the book.

Online Resources for Community, Boundaries, and Covenants

• Adherents.com represents an excellent and extensive organized resource on the numerical strength of religious groups in the United States and around the world. The focus is on the statistical aspect of the world's religions based on currently available data on the subject.
• Gallup Religion Data presents numerous examples of recent survey results on U.S. religious and cultural matters and also portrays trends that can be discerned in comparing survey data over a number of years.
• The Pew Charitable Trusts conducts and publishes various informative public opinion polls. Many interesting findings appear in their surveys about What Americans Think.
• Prof. Bryan S. Rennie of Westminster College presents a quick tour of religion in an introduction to his course on Understanding Religious Experience and Expression. He takes you on a fast dash through numerous definitions and reflections on the academic study of religion. Prof. Rennie operates in the intellectual tradition of Mircea Eliade.
• The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance make a good presentation in support of pluralism and civility in their page on Tolerance and Intolerance. Although the authors border on the politically correct in some details, their general analysis of the issues deserves thoughtful attention and reflection.
• Access Supreme Court decisions at the Legal Information Institute's Supreme Court Collection or at the Supreme Court's own site.
• The subjects of civility and community are also of great interest to Johns Hopkins University professor, Dr. Pier Massimo Forni, co-founder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project. Check out the bibliography of his essays and speeches and sample his book on civility.

You can find a few hints about writing style and a list of common writing errors to avoid at my help page on Good Composition You may return to the Community, Boundaries and Covenants main page or visit the Schedule page for this course.

Return to the Lecture Hall. Thanks for the visit! This page was edited on 30 August 2002. Email is welcomed by John R. Mitchell, Part-time Instructor in Religion. © 2000-2002 Erasmus Compositor, P.O. Box 25958, Baltimore, MD 21224. For an introduction to life at the center of the world forty centuries ago, visit an old Sumerian scribe at the Nippur Quay. You can also visit Villa Julie College.