Princeton University Professor Robert Wuthnow received the first-ever Tufts Civic Engagement Research Prize yesterday in Sophia Gordon Hall for his research on the transnational impact of American Christianity.
"I'm delighted to be here and I'm very much honored to be the recipient of this prize," he said before moving into a discussion of his research.
Specifically, he has been working on a project that draws from 15 years of research on the interplay between religion and civil society and has elicited mixed results.
"In conducting these research projects at various times over the past 15 years or so I tried neither to be a cheerleader of religion, nor a despiser of religion, but simply to let the chips fall where they may based on the research," he said.
These mixed results have been evident in his examination of the impact that American congregations have on their members' levels of giving and volunteering.
"Some congregations - in fact many - encourage elevated levels of giving and volunteering, but on the other hand, a lot of [that] is focused on the congregation itself, rather than the wider community," he said.
Wuthnow, who is the Andlinger Professor of Sociology, the chair of the sociology department and the director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton, also addressed the idea of a global civil society.
While he said that this concept has attracted interest in recent years, he would not try to defend it with his research.
"I'm mostly interested in my research project in transnational connections, and I leave open for further consideration whether those connections do or do not promote democracy, or whether they promote human rights, or equality, or some of the other things that we might want to see in a vibrant civil society."
The evidence for a widespread increase in these transnational connections is clear, according to Wuthnow.
"The evidence is simply unassailable that goods, people and information flow more readily and in greater abundance across national boundaries than we've seen in the past," he said.
Wuthnow said that he began his project believing that this process of globalization was connecting American churches with others around the world, but did not find any literature on the subject to support this hypothesis.
"I was completely surprised as I began reading the relevant literature about these possible connections to learn that there was a so-called new paradigm about global Christianity that denies that these connections existed at all," he said.
But Wuthnow thinks these connections are alive and well.
"Trade, communication, politics and migration are bringing the world closer together in all respects, and yet Christianity outside the United States is said by these scholars to be totally disconnected from Christianity inside the United States," he said. "On the surface, that's not a plausible argument, and when we begin considering the evidence, it certainly ceases to be a credible argument."
Yesterday's event, which was sponsored by the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, began with remarks from Tisch Dean Robert Hollister and University Provost Jamshed Bharucha.
"Your civic engagement research is of the highest quality," Hollister told Wuthnow. "It has added so greatly to our collective knowledge of civic engagement, it has deeply influenced the research of other academics in several disciplines that are represented here today, and it has had substantial impact on public decision-making."
