1. Compare and Contrast the concepts of SECULARIZATION when one's definition of religion is based upon a substantive definition of religion as opposed to when one's definition of religion is based upon a functional definition of religion. Give examples of social phenomena which would support each perspective.
2. Evaluate the evidence for and against the argument that religion is declining in America. Compare "church affiliated" religious decline with "individual religious" decline.
3. Discuss Bellah's theory of religious evolution as an attempt to explain the secularization process as a transformation of religious function. Describe and give examples of each of his five stages of historical patterns of religion--Primitive Religion, Archaic Religion, Historic Religion, Early Modern Religion, and Modern Religion.
4. Discuss Luckmann's theory of secularization and transformation of religious function. Evaluate the functional approach to the process of secularization. Do you agree that religion has been merely transformed in America, or has there been a substantive change in America's religious life?
5. Discuss each of the following social processes as they relate to secularization in America: Institutional Differentiation, Competing Sources of Legitimacy, Rationalization, and Privatization. Describe and give examples of each process. Also discuss the way in which each of these processes are related to each other.
6. Discuss and elaborate upon the meaning for the following statement from Berger: "The pluralistic situation presents the religious institutions with two ideal-typical options. They can either accommodate themselves to the situation, play the pluralistic game of religious free enterprise, and come to terms as best they can with the plausibility problem by modifying their product in accordance with consumer demands. Or they can refuse to accommodate themselves, entrench themselves behind whatever socio-religious structures they can maintain or construct, and continue to profess the old objectivities as much as possible as if nothing had happened."
7. How does the quote above relate the following quote: "We never should have sent you to college. You come home with crazy ideas and have even lost your faith. You would have been better off to have stayed in Greenbush, Minnesota!!"

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