From Dahrendorf to Mills, from Parsons to Daniel Bell, Poloma's book is a clearly written, to-the-point, review book, if you know about these persons beforehand but did not study some of them in detail.The book achieves being analytical about main trends in mid-1900s American sociological theory. Chapters focus on chosen sociologists and summarize their work shortly, discuss their contribution, and put them into perspective. Overall, Contemporary Sociological Theory gives good hints about how sociological currents (structuralism, functionalism, social constructionism, subjective knowledge on the rise, reflexive sociology...) in the world interacted with American sociology.

Contemporary sociological theory

Politics & Social Sciences

Poloma, Margaret M.

Social Sciences

Macmillan

Beneath our culture's obsession with wealth and power, status and celebrity, millions of Americans are quietly engaged in a deeply religious struggle to free themselves from petty selfishness and to embrace a life of benevolence and compassion. Drawing on an extensive random survey of 1,200 men and women across the United States, Matthew Lee, Margaret Poloma, and Stephen Post here shed new light on how Americans wake up to the reality of divine love and how that transformative experience expresses itself in concrete acts of benevolence. The authors find that the vast majority of Americans (eight out of ten) report that they have felt God's love increasing their compassion for others, one of many important revelations uncovered by the survey. In order to more fully flesh out the meaning of the survey's results, the authors also conducted 120 in-depth interviews with Christian women and men from all walks of life and from across the country who are engaged in benevolent service. Their stories offer compelling examples of how receiving God's love, loving God, and expressing this love to others has made a difference in the world and given their lives deeper significance. As a result, some provide community service, others strive for social justice, still others seek to redefine religion and the meaning of "church" in America. Interviewees who may have grown up with judgmental images of God tended to trade them in for a loving and accepting God more consistent with their own emotionally powerful personal experiences. Based on equal measures of scholarly research and human insight, The Heart of Religion offers an unprecedented level of detail about the experience and expression of divine love.

The Heart of Religion: Spiritual Empowerment, Benevolence, and the Experience of God's Love

Post, Stephen G.

Lee, Matthew T.

Sociology

Oxford University Press

Based on analysis of 560 telephone interviews with randomly selected adults from the Akron, OH area, the results of this survey clearly demonstrate the importance of religion in accounting for the differences in quality of life, and the need to include multiple religiosity measures in assessing the impact of religion on well-being. [SPR 7*] $89.95 226pp. 1991

Exploring Neglected Dimensions of Religion in Quality of Life Research (Studies in the Psychology of Religion)

Pendleton, Brian F.

Religion & Spirituality

Edwin Mellen Pr

Describes the recent growth of the charismatic movement, discusses their ideology, recruitment techniques, and organization, and assesses the movement's influence on mainline Christian churches, the media, and American politics

Charismatic Movement: Is There a New Pentecost?

Twayne Pub

Describes the recent growth of the charismatic movement, discusses their ideology, recruitment techniques, and organization, and assesses the movement's influence on mainline Christian churches, the media, and American politics

The Charismatic Movement: Is There a New Pentecost (Social Movements Past and Present)

What does it mean to live out the theology presented in the Great Commandment to “love God above all and to love your neighbor as yourself”? In Blood and Fire, Poloma and Hood explore how understandings of godly love function to empower believers. Though godly love may begin as a perceived relationship between God and a person, it is made manifest as social behavior among people.
Blood and Fire offers a deep ethnographic portrait of a charismatic church and its faith-based ministry, illuminating how religiously motivated social service makes use of beliefs about the nature of God's love. It traces the triumphs and travails associated with living a set of rigorous religious ideals, providing a richly textured analysis of a faith community affiliated with the “emerging church” movement in Pentecostalism, one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic religious movements of our day.
Based on more than four years of interviews and surveys with people from all levels of the organization, from the leader to core and marginal members to the poor and addicts they are seeking to serve, Blood and Fire sheds light on the differing worldviews and religious perceptions between those who served in as well as those who were served by this ministry.
Blood and Fire argues that godly love— the relationship between perceived divine love and human response— is at the heart of the vision of emerging churches, and that it is essential to understand this dynamic if one is to understand the ongoing reinvention of American Protestantism in the twenty-first century.

Blood and Fire: Godly Love in a Pentecostal Emerging Church

History

Hood Jr., Ralph W.

World

NYU Press

The Assemblies of God (AG) is the ninth largest American and the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination, with over 50 million followers worldwide. The AG embraces a worldview of miracles and mystery that makes“supernatural” experiences, such as speaking in tongues, healing, and prophecy, normal for Christian believers. Ever since it first organized in 1916, however, the “charismata” or “gifts of the Holy Spirit” have felt tension from institutional forces. Over the decades, vital charismatic experiences have been increasingly tamed by rituals, doctrine, and denominational structure. Yet the path towards institutionalization has not been clear-cut. New revivals and direct personal experience of God—the hallmarks of Pentecostalism—continue as an important part of the AG tradition, particularly in the growing number of ethnic congregations in the United States.
The Assemblies of God draws on fresh, up-to-date research including quantitative surveys and interviews from twenty-two diverse Assemblies of God congregations to offer a new sociological portrait of the AG for the new millennium. The authors suggest that there is indeed a potential revitalization of the movement in the works within the context of the larger global Pentecostal upswing, and that this revitalization may be spurred by what the authors call “godly love:” the dynamic interaction between divine and human love that enlivens and expands benevolence.
The volume provides a wealth of data about how the second-largest American Pentecostal denomination sees itself today, and suggests trends to illuminate where it is headed in the future.

The Assemblies of God: Godly Love and the Revitalization of American Pentecostalism

Green, John C.

Christian Books & Bibles

The Assemblies of God at the Crossroads: Charisma and Institutional Dilemmas

Univ of Tennessee Pr

Assemblies Of God At Crossroads: Charisma Institutional Dilemmas

Univ Tennessee Press

Varieties of Prayer: A Survey Report

Book by Poloma, Margaret M., Gallup, George H.

Gallup, George H.

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Books by Poloma, Margaret M.