POS 4291
Dr. Wald
Spring 2010
 
Paper #2
Due Date: Tuesday, April 6th
Your second paper provides an opportunity to explore the political beliefs and attitudes of American religious groups.  The assignment is to compare the political views of either (a) two different religious groups or (b) two politically distinct groups from the same religious tradition. Take their positions on political issues and explain how the groups understand the issues and how they explain their positions from a religious perspective. You will also need to place the views of each group in the context of the political behavior of church members from the religious traditions you are studying (according to the relevant chapters in Wald & Calhoun-Brown and Wilson). Do the positions taken by the organizations reflect the viewpoints of rank and file members of the religious group?

In selecting the groups to study, you must first make a choice of two groups to compare. You may either select two different religious denominations--say, Roman Catholicism and Reform Judaism--or take one  denominational organization and an organization from the same religious tradition but an alternative political perspective. For example, you might choose the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. You'll find many such groups in the links for chapters 5-8 but you are not limited to these links. I'm also willing to allow you to study groups not on the links list if they fit the category. Given the uncertainty you may have about what groups go in what category, I encourage you to ask me for guidance.

I anticipate a paper in the 7-12 page range but that is only a guideline, not a requirement. In terms of substance, you will want to compare the groups in the types of issues they stress, the nature of the reasoning they employ, and how they justify their positions in terms of religious values. I want to emphasize that you are not limited to the web-based sources on the links page. In fact, you are strongly encouraged to go beyond these sources by conducting standard library research using various print sources. I expect a list of references at the end of the paper following the same style (the Harvard-Chicago) that was used for the first paper.

The same rules apply as in the first paper with regard to deadlines, what has to be handed in, and so forth. In this case, however, you have to hand in both a hard copy and an electronic copy through the Turn-it-In program. You can get the details about that at the Turnitin website (scroll down to "Student Information"). If you have previously used Turnitin, you will already have a userid (your email address) and a password which can be recovered if you've forgotten it. Don't wait until the end of the month to register or to confirm that you've got an active registration--do it now. I will give you the information you need to register for this class and instructions on how to register if you haven't done that before.

Let me reiterate my willingness to review draft papers ahead of time and provide you with feedback. If you didn't do as well as you would have liked on the first paper, you would be well-advised to take advantage of this opportunity.