The Church: Ideology or Institution

Abstract

I am greatly honored but a bit puzzled to find myself president of the American Society of Church History. Most of my predecessors in this position have been professors within theological faculties or departments of religion. Even those who have been, like me, members of secular departments of history, have generally received some formal instruction in religious studies. But this year you have chosen a president who is entirely secular in both education and career, whose graduate training was in diplomatic history of the Reformation period and whose teaching has been largely limited to secular state universities. I descend, to be sure, from a line of Protestant missionaries, ministers and religious educators, and over the years I have learned a good deal of historical theology from some very gifted students. But neither asset, I fear, places me very securely within the line of succession in which I now find myself.

The significance of roll calls in voting bodies: A model and statistical estimation

“…nificance of roll calls could substantially improve example, Matthews and Stimson (1975) argued simulation "model applied only to a subset, the ions" (see also Chenyholmes and Shapiro, 1969). s the non-routine, often controversial, rancorous mary interest" (see also Kingdon, 1981). Most best to particular types of roll calls--either the t routine, or the most representative.…”

“…(4) Still others eliminate all unanimous or of this relatively subj ctive measure. (6) Some personally select a small number of signifcant roll calls based on in erviews or a close reading of the congressional process; this amounts to replicating the C ngressional Quarterly method, but perhaps with different or more systematic selection rules (see Kingdon, 1981 TI, an intercept term a parameter vector representing the influence of X,. a vector of observed procedural variables that influence the number of legislators participating in roll call t.…”