Pews, Prayers and Participation: Religion and Civic Responsiblity in America Corwin Smidt, Kevin denDulk, James Penning, Stephen Monsma, Douglas Koopman This book takes a fresh look at the question: does religion really matter in American public life? Drawing from both extensive public surveys and theoretical reflection, the authors argue that religion does indeed foster a sense of

civic responsibility that shapes participation in a range of civic activities, including membership in groups, volunteering and philanthropic giving, the exercise of basic civic skills, and the exhibition of civic virtues. The study is unique in many ways, including its innovative definition of religious experience itself. Rather than examining a citizen's affiliation in a particular religious tradition, the authors focus on a citizen's level of participation in both public and private dimensions of religious life. This approach allows them to assess some key questions: Is a largely private experience of religion counterproductive to engagement in public life? Does the public experience of religion contribute anything distinctive to civic engagement? The analysis is also unique in the breadth and depth of information the authors investigated which includes nearly fifteen surveys gathered over the past two decades. In the end, the authors find that the role of religion in fostering civic responsibility is distinctive, consistent, and consequential over time, but is also remarkably complex and subject to privatizing pressures that lessen religion's public witness.

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Divided by a Common Heritage:
The Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church in America at the Beginning of the New Millennium
Corwin Smidt, Donald Luidens, James Penning, and Roger Nemeth

Like other human associations, religious groups tend to produce distinctive cultures. This is true even when religious

groups have much in common, such as a similar theology and a unique ethnic heritage. When theology and ethnicity are closely tied, religious groups have a powerful potential to shape members' worldviews--including their perspectives on beliefs, work and vocation, and politics--and to forge distinctive social boundaries. In order for these distinctive religious cultures to survive, the particular values, practices, and endeavors of these groups must retain their vitality among the members and be passed on to future generations ...

The Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) and the Reformed Church in America (RCA) are two denominations that are closely related in their theological and ethnic heritages. Although they have existed as separate entities for a century and a half, they continue to exhibit important similarities ... Moreover, both denominations are undergoing major transitions; they are increasingly challenged by forces that threaten to erode their religious distinctiveness and, perhaps endanger their very existence as separate denominations.

Thus, this book is written by Christian scholars, members of the two denomina-tions, who have a love and appreciate for both the CRC and RCA ... [who] hope that this volume will not only serve to provide an important benchmark for the religious life of both bodies, but that it will enable members of each denomination to understand the other better, to recognize their similarities and differences, and to be better equipped to address the challenges they face today.

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Faith, Hope and Jobs:
Welfare to Work in Los Angeles
Stephen V. Monsma and Christopher Soper

A front-burner issue on the public policy agenda today is the increased use of partnerships between government and non-governmental entities, including faith-based social service organizations. In the wake of President Bush's faith-based

initiative, many are still wondering about the effectiveness of these faith-based organizations in providing services to those in need, and whether they provide better outcomes than more traditional government, secular, nonprofit and for-profit organiations. The book studies the effectiveness of 17 different welfare-to-work programs in Los Angeles County (where the U.S. government spends 14% of its entire welfare budget) to provide groundbreaking insight into understanding what works and what does not. The book concludes with three sets of concrete recommendations for public policymakers, social service program managers and researchers.

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Pulpit and Politics: Clergy in American Politics at the Advent of the Millenium
edited by Corwin Smidt

This book is the culmination of an extensive effort to examine and compare the role of clergy in American politics across many denominations and religious faiths, including evangelical, mainline and black Protestant denominations, as well as the

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The Cooperative Clergy Survey Project

Religion as Social Capital:
Producing the Common Good
edited by Corwin Smidt

While Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone (Simon & Schuster 2000) highlighted the notion of social capital and volunteerism, little attention has been paid to religion's role in generating social capital -- an ironic omission since religion constitutes the most common form of voluntary association in America today. Featuring essays by prominent social scientists, this is the first book-length systematic examination of the relationship between religion and social capital and on the effects of religious social capital on democratic life in the United States.

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Evangelicalism: The Next Generation
James Penning and Corwin Smidt

Nearly two decades have passed since James D. Hunter published his groundbreaking book, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation, which deals primarily with the theological, political, and social attitudes of students attending nine evangelical colleges. Hunter's examination of students attending evangelical colleges raised disturbing questions not only about Christian higher education, but about the future of American evangelicalism as well.

Penning and Smidt's book examines the theological, social, and political attitudes and behavior of students attending the same colleges examined by Hunter. To a large extent, the authors used the same questionnaire items and focused on the same issues as did Hunter. In that sense, the study seeks both to replicate and update that of Hunter. However, Penning and Smidt also have a broader goal of examining ways in which a religious subculture, in this case evangelical Protestantism, deals with the challenges of modernity.

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Serving the Claims of Justice,
Paul Henry; Doug Koopman, ed.

Published by the Henry Institute, this book celebrates the life and work of Paul Henry in the words of people who knew him well. Nationally syndicated columnist David S. Broder contributes a foreword, and there are nine other essays by friends of Paul Henry such as Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield; North Carolina congressman David Price; Michigan congressman Fred Upton; Paul Hillegonds, former Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives; and Fuller Seminary president Richard Mouw.

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In God We Trust?
Edited by Corwin Smidt and published by Baker Academic Press, this work is a supplement to the American political story for students interested in exploring the relationship between religion and American politics in greater depth. This volume is uniquely structured to parallel the most commonly used political science textbooks in American politics. Thus, for each standard topic (e.g., "American Political Culture," "Public Opinion," "Congress") there is a corresponding chapter in this volume that focuses on the relationship between religion and that particular topic.

Ted Jelen of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas notes "Corwin Smidt has truly assembled an all-star lineup. The studies in In God We Trust? represent a variety of Christian perspectives, and yet are all balanced, nuanced, and carefully presented. The works contained in this collection will provide first-rate introductions to students approaching these topics for the first time and also contain valuable insights for more advanced scholars."

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