An Expansion of the Rational Choice Approach
Social Control in the Children of God during the 1970s and 1980s
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v6i1.20430Keywords:
Rational choice, religion, religious punishments, The Family, Children of God, new religious movementsAbstract
Using primary documents from the Children of God and interviews with current and former members, we argue that commitment to this deviant Christian group during the 1970s must be understood as a complex system of immediate an compensatory rewards and punishments. By arguing in this manner, we critically expand upon the Stark/Bainbridge theory of religion, which underemphasizes or ignores the crucial control functions played by punishment systems. Children of God’s punishment system involved purposive, affective, material, and sensual or bodily restraints, which operated both on immediate and postponed (i.e., otherworldly) levels.
References
Bainbridge, William S. 1997. The Sociology of Religious Movements. London: Routledge.
2012. “Atheism and social cognition.” Religion, Brain & Behavior 2(1): 23–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2012.668396
2013. eGods: Faith Versus Fantasy In Computer Gaming. New York: Oxford University Press.
———. and Rodney Stark. 1979. “Cult formation: Three compatible models.” Sociological Analysis 40: 283–295. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3709958
Berg, David 1971. “Jesus people?—Or revolution!” MO Letter 148 June.
1973. “Shiners?—or Shamers!” MO Letter 241 June.
1976a. “Afflictions!” MO Letter 569 November 25.
1976b. The Basic MO Letters. Geneva: Children of God.
1976b. The MO Letters. Volume I: A-150. Geneva: Children of God.
1976c. The MO Letters. Volume II: 151–300. Geneva: Children of God.
1977. “The FF-er’s Handbook!” MO Letter 559 January.
1978 “7 Supporters!” MO Letter 673 February.
Boeri, Miriam W. 2002. “Women after the utopia: The gendered lives of former cult members.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 31(3): 323–360.
2005. “The Children of God/The Family chapter.” In Sex and Religion, edited by C. Manning and P. Zuckerman, 160–180. Belmont, CA: Thomson and Wadsworth. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891241602031003003
Bruce, Steve. 1993. “Religion and rational choice: A critique of economic explanations of religious behavior.” Sociology of Religion 54(2): 193–205. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3712139
1999. Choice and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bulwer, Perry. 2007 “A Response to James D. Chancellor’s Life in The Family: An Oral History of the Children of God.” Cultic Studies Review 6(2): 101–159.
Chadwick-Jones, John K. 1976. Social Exchange Theory. London: Academic Press.
Chancellor, James D. 2000. Life in The Family: An Oral History of the Children of God. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
Coser, Lewis. 1975. Greedy Institutions: Patterns of Undivided Commitment. New York: The Free Press.
Davis, Rex and James Richardson. 1976. “The organization and functioning of the Children of God.” Sociological Analysis 37: 321–339. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3710021
Family of love. 1978. The Family of Love News 2(5) March.
Freckelton, Ian. 1998. “‘Cults,’ calamities and psychological consequences.” Psychiatry, Psychology, and the Law 5(1): 1–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13218719809524918
Heiss, Jerold. 1981. “Social roles.” In Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives, edited by M. Rosenberg and R. H. Turner, 94–129. New York: Basic Books.
Hopkins, Joseph M. 1977a. “The Children of God: Disciples of deception.” Christianity Today 21: 18–23.
1977b. “Baiting the hook.” Christianity Today 22: 40–41.
1980. “The Children of God: Fewer and far out.” Christianity Today 24: 40–41.
Iannaccone, Laurence R. and William S. Bainbridge. 2010. “Economics of religion.” In The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, edited by J. Hinnells, 461–475. London: Routledge.
Jerolmack, Colin and Douglas Porpora. 2004. “Religion, rationality, and experience: A response to the new rational choice theory of religion.” Sociological Theory 22(1): 140–160. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2004.00208.x
Jones, Kristina, Celeste Jones and Juliana Buhring. 2007. Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed. London: HarperElement.
Kanter, Rosabeth M. 1972. Commitment and Community. Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kent, Stephen A. 1994a. “Lustful prophet: A psychosocial historical study of the Children of God’s leader, David Berg.” Cultic Studies Journal 11(2): 135–188.
1994b. “Misattribution and social control in the Children of God.” Journal of Religion and Health 33(1): 29–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02354497
———. and Charles Hobart. 1994. “Religion and Society.” In Introduction to Sociology, edited by W. Meloff and D. Pierce, 311–339. Scarborough, ON: Nelson Canada.
Kumar, Vikas. 2009. “A rational choice model of secularism.” German Working Papers in Law and Economics 3. http://www.bepress.com/gwp/default/vol2009/iss1/art3
Lavri?, Miran and Sergej Flere. 2010. “Measuring religious costs and rewards in a cross-cultural perspective.” Rationality and Society 22(2): 223–236. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1043463110366227
Lehmann, David. 2010. “Rational choice and the sociology of religion.” In The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, edited by B. Turner, 181–200. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444320787.ch8
Melton, John G. 1986. Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America. New York: Garland Publishing.
1994. “Sexuality and the maturation of The Family.” In Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating The Family/Children of God, edited by J. R. Lewis and J. G. Melton, 71–95. Stanford, CA: Center for Academic Publication.
Miller, Alan S. and Rodney Stake. 2002. “Gender and religiousness: Can socialization explanations be saved?” American Journal of Sociology 107(6): 1399–1423. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/342557
Millikan, David. 1994. “The Children of God: The Family of Love, The Family.” In Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating The Family/Children of God, edited by J. R. Lewis and J. G. Melton, 181–252. Stanford, CA: Center for Academic Publication.
Pritchett, WD. 1985. The Children of God/Family of Love: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing.
Raine, Susan. 2007. “Flirty fishing in the Children of God: The sexual body as a site of proselytization and salvation.” Marburg Journal of Religion 12(1): 1–18.
Richardson, James T. and Rex Davis. 1983. “Experiential fundamentalism: Revisions of orthodoxy in the Jesus Movement.” Journal of American Academy of Religion 51: 397–425. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/LI.3.397
Sherkat, Darren E. 1997. “Embedding religious choices: Integrating preferences and social constraints into rational choice theories of religious behavior.” In Assessing Rational Choice Theories of Religion, edited by L. Young, 65–86. New York: Routledge Press.
Sosis, Richard. 2005. “Does religion promote trust? The role of signaling, reputation, and punishment.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 1(7): 1–30.
Spickard, J. V. 1998. “Rethinking religious social action: What is “rational” about rational-choice theory?” Sociology of Religion 59(2): 99–115. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3712075
Stark, Rodney and William Bainbridge. 1980. “Towards a theory of religion: Religious commitment.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 19: 114–128.
1985. The Future of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1386246
1987. A Theory of Religion. New York: Peter Lange.
———. and Roger Finke. 2000. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press
Strauss, Roger. 1986. “Scientology ‘ethics’: Deviance, identity and control in a cult-like social world.” Symbolic Interaction 9(1): 67–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/si.1986.9.1.67
Van Zandt, David E. 1991. Living in the Children of God. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Wallis, Roy. 1978a. “Fishing for men.” The Humanist (January/February): 14–16
1978b. “Recruiting Christian manpower.” Society (May/June): 72–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02694716
1981. “Yesterday’s children: Cultural and structural change in in a new religious movement.” In The Social Impact of New Religious Movements, B. Wilson, 97–133 New York: The Rose of Sharon Press.
1982. “Charisma, commitment and control in a new religious movement.” In Millennialism and Charisma, edited by R. Wallis, 73–140. Belfast: The Queen’s University.
1983. “Sex, Violence, and Religion.” Update 7(4) December: 3–11.
1985. “The dynamics of change in the human potential movement.” In Religious Movements: Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, edited by R. Start, 129–156. New York: Paragon House.
1987. “Hostages to fortune: Thoughts of the future of scientology and the Children of God.” In The Future of New Religious Movements, edited by D. G. Bromley and P. R. Hammond, 80–90. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
———. and Steve Bruce. 1984. “The Stark-Bainbridge theory of religion: A critical analysis and counter proposals.” Sociological Analysis 45(1): 11–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3711319
Wangerin, Ruth E. 1982. “Make-believe revolution: A study of the Children of God.” Unpublished PhD Thesis, City University of New York.
1984. “Women in the Children of God: ‘Revolutionary women’ or ‘mountin’ maids’?” In Women in Search of Utopia: Mavericks and Mythmakers, edited by R. Rohrlich, 130–139. New York: Schocken Books.
1993. The Children of God: A Make-Believe Revolution? Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
Whitworth J. M. 1975. God’s Blueprints: A Sociological Study of Three Utopian Sects. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Zablocki Benjamin. 1980. Alienation and Charisma: A Study of Contemporary American Communes. New York: The Free Press.
Zald Mayer N. and Roberta Ash. 1966. “Social movement organizations: Growth, decay, and change.” Social Forces 44: 327–340. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sf/44.3.327
2012. “Atheism and social cognition.” Religion, Brain & Behavior 2(1): 23–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2012.668396
2013. eGods: Faith Versus Fantasy In Computer Gaming. New York: Oxford University Press.
———. and Rodney Stark. 1979. “Cult formation: Three compatible models.” Sociological Analysis 40: 283–295. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3709958
Berg, David 1971. “Jesus people?—Or revolution!” MO Letter 148 June.
1973. “Shiners?—or Shamers!” MO Letter 241 June.
1976a. “Afflictions!” MO Letter 569 November 25.
1976b. The Basic MO Letters. Geneva: Children of God.
1976b. The MO Letters. Volume I: A-150. Geneva: Children of God.
1976c. The MO Letters. Volume II: 151–300. Geneva: Children of God.
1977. “The FF-er’s Handbook!” MO Letter 559 January.
1978 “7 Supporters!” MO Letter 673 February.
Boeri, Miriam W. 2002. “Women after the utopia: The gendered lives of former cult members.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 31(3): 323–360.
2005. “The Children of God/The Family chapter.” In Sex and Religion, edited by C. Manning and P. Zuckerman, 160–180. Belmont, CA: Thomson and Wadsworth. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891241602031003003
Bruce, Steve. 1993. “Religion and rational choice: A critique of economic explanations of religious behavior.” Sociology of Religion 54(2): 193–205. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3712139
1999. Choice and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bulwer, Perry. 2007 “A Response to James D. Chancellor’s Life in The Family: An Oral History of the Children of God.” Cultic Studies Review 6(2): 101–159.
Chadwick-Jones, John K. 1976. Social Exchange Theory. London: Academic Press.
Chancellor, James D. 2000. Life in The Family: An Oral History of the Children of God. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
Coser, Lewis. 1975. Greedy Institutions: Patterns of Undivided Commitment. New York: The Free Press.
Davis, Rex and James Richardson. 1976. “The organization and functioning of the Children of God.” Sociological Analysis 37: 321–339. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3710021
Family of love. 1978. The Family of Love News 2(5) March.
Freckelton, Ian. 1998. “‘Cults,’ calamities and psychological consequences.” Psychiatry, Psychology, and the Law 5(1): 1–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13218719809524918
Heiss, Jerold. 1981. “Social roles.” In Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives, edited by M. Rosenberg and R. H. Turner, 94–129. New York: Basic Books.
Hopkins, Joseph M. 1977a. “The Children of God: Disciples of deception.” Christianity Today 21: 18–23.
1977b. “Baiting the hook.” Christianity Today 22: 40–41.
1980. “The Children of God: Fewer and far out.” Christianity Today 24: 40–41.
Iannaccone, Laurence R. and William S. Bainbridge. 2010. “Economics of religion.” In The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, edited by J. Hinnells, 461–475. London: Routledge.
Jerolmack, Colin and Douglas Porpora. 2004. “Religion, rationality, and experience: A response to the new rational choice theory of religion.” Sociological Theory 22(1): 140–160. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9558.2004.00208.x
Jones, Kristina, Celeste Jones and Juliana Buhring. 2007. Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed. London: HarperElement.
Kanter, Rosabeth M. 1972. Commitment and Community. Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kent, Stephen A. 1994a. “Lustful prophet: A psychosocial historical study of the Children of God’s leader, David Berg.” Cultic Studies Journal 11(2): 135–188.
1994b. “Misattribution and social control in the Children of God.” Journal of Religion and Health 33(1): 29–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02354497
———. and Charles Hobart. 1994. “Religion and Society.” In Introduction to Sociology, edited by W. Meloff and D. Pierce, 311–339. Scarborough, ON: Nelson Canada.
Kumar, Vikas. 2009. “A rational choice model of secularism.” German Working Papers in Law and Economics 3. http://www.bepress.com/gwp/default/vol2009/iss1/art3
Lavri?, Miran and Sergej Flere. 2010. “Measuring religious costs and rewards in a cross-cultural perspective.” Rationality and Society 22(2): 223–236. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1043463110366227
Lehmann, David. 2010. “Rational choice and the sociology of religion.” In The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, edited by B. Turner, 181–200. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444320787.ch8
Melton, John G. 1986. Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America. New York: Garland Publishing.
1994. “Sexuality and the maturation of The Family.” In Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating The Family/Children of God, edited by J. R. Lewis and J. G. Melton, 71–95. Stanford, CA: Center for Academic Publication.
Miller, Alan S. and Rodney Stake. 2002. “Gender and religiousness: Can socialization explanations be saved?” American Journal of Sociology 107(6): 1399–1423. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/342557
Millikan, David. 1994. “The Children of God: The Family of Love, The Family.” In Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating The Family/Children of God, edited by J. R. Lewis and J. G. Melton, 181–252. Stanford, CA: Center for Academic Publication.
Pritchett, WD. 1985. The Children of God/Family of Love: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing.
Raine, Susan. 2007. “Flirty fishing in the Children of God: The sexual body as a site of proselytization and salvation.” Marburg Journal of Religion 12(1): 1–18.
Richardson, James T. and Rex Davis. 1983. “Experiential fundamentalism: Revisions of orthodoxy in the Jesus Movement.” Journal of American Academy of Religion 51: 397–425. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/LI.3.397
Sherkat, Darren E. 1997. “Embedding religious choices: Integrating preferences and social constraints into rational choice theories of religious behavior.” In Assessing Rational Choice Theories of Religion, edited by L. Young, 65–86. New York: Routledge Press.
Sosis, Richard. 2005. “Does religion promote trust? The role of signaling, reputation, and punishment.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 1(7): 1–30.
Spickard, J. V. 1998. “Rethinking religious social action: What is “rational” about rational-choice theory?” Sociology of Religion 59(2): 99–115. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3712075
Stark, Rodney and William Bainbridge. 1980. “Towards a theory of religion: Religious commitment.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 19: 114–128.
1985. The Future of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1386246
1987. A Theory of Religion. New York: Peter Lange.
———. and Roger Finke. 2000. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press
Strauss, Roger. 1986. “Scientology ‘ethics’: Deviance, identity and control in a cult-like social world.” Symbolic Interaction 9(1): 67–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/si.1986.9.1.67
Van Zandt, David E. 1991. Living in the Children of God. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Wallis, Roy. 1978a. “Fishing for men.” The Humanist (January/February): 14–16
1978b. “Recruiting Christian manpower.” Society (May/June): 72–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02694716
1981. “Yesterday’s children: Cultural and structural change in in a new religious movement.” In The Social Impact of New Religious Movements, B. Wilson, 97–133 New York: The Rose of Sharon Press.
1982. “Charisma, commitment and control in a new religious movement.” In Millennialism and Charisma, edited by R. Wallis, 73–140. Belfast: The Queen’s University.
1983. “Sex, Violence, and Religion.” Update 7(4) December: 3–11.
1985. “The dynamics of change in the human potential movement.” In Religious Movements: Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, edited by R. Start, 129–156. New York: Paragon House.
1987. “Hostages to fortune: Thoughts of the future of scientology and the Children of God.” In The Future of New Religious Movements, edited by D. G. Bromley and P. R. Hammond, 80–90. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
———. and Steve Bruce. 1984. “The Stark-Bainbridge theory of religion: A critical analysis and counter proposals.” Sociological Analysis 45(1): 11–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3711319
Wangerin, Ruth E. 1982. “Make-believe revolution: A study of the Children of God.” Unpublished PhD Thesis, City University of New York.
1984. “Women in the Children of God: ‘Revolutionary women’ or ‘mountin’ maids’?” In Women in Search of Utopia: Mavericks and Mythmakers, edited by R. Rohrlich, 130–139. New York: Schocken Books.
1993. The Children of God: A Make-Believe Revolution? Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
Whitworth J. M. 1975. God’s Blueprints: A Sociological Study of Three Utopian Sects. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Zablocki Benjamin. 1980. Alienation and Charisma: A Study of Contemporary American Communes. New York: The Free Press.
Zald Mayer N. and Roberta Ash. 1966. “Social movement organizations: Growth, decay, and change.” Social Forces 44: 327–340. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sf/44.3.327
Published
2015-07-30
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Simmons, J. S., & Kent, S. A. (2015). An Expansion of the Rational Choice Approach: Social Control in the Children of God during the 1970s and 1980s. International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 6(1), 27-49. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsnr.v6i1.20430
