Religion 50, Liberation and 20th Century Christian Thought	
Spring 2011

Reading questions for Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion

For Wednesday, March 23:  chapters 3, 5, and pp. 133-164 of chapter 7

1)	According to Wuthnow, what aspects of the ‘social question’ occupied the public mind during the postwar period?  How would you expect the ‘Social Gospel message’ to be received in postwar America, and why?

2)	In what respects particularly did denominational significance decline during the decades following WWII, according to Wuthnow?  What factors, in his analysis, were responsible for this decline?

3)	In ch. 7 Wuthnow offers a narrative about the fundamentalist-modernist controversy in the 1920s.  What became of the two sides of this controversy during the 1940s and 50s, according to him?

4)	What was it that ‘laid the seeds of division’ within the churches of the 1960s, according to Wuthnow?  What role did recognizably ‘progressive’ ideas and activities play in this process?