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Man in Community. Edited by Egbert de Vries. New York: Association Press, 1966, 382 pp., $5.50; LondcMi: SCM Press, 45s net. This is the fourth of four books preparatory to the 1966 Conference of the World Council of Churches on "Christians in the Technical and Social Revolutions of Our Time." There is an impTessive array of twenty-one authors economists, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, natural scientists, students of culture and theologians from varied geographic and cultural regions of the world. The declared intent is to reach beyond traditional and unrealistic Christian approaches to science, culture, and history and to technical and social revolutions of our time. It is also hoped that chureh lay groups will use this work as study material. The first intent is admirably met in the case of the majority of authors. However, while this is without doubt a very useful book to the more sophisticated layman, its professional terminologies and complex concepts would not recmnmend it as a study book for the average church layman. The work is divided into five parts. Part I traces the development of society "from tradition to modernity" with Egbert de Vries (Holland) and with Masao Takenaka's (Japan) "Between the Old and the New Worlds." Part n, the largest secticm of the book, analyzes "society and tension" including a commendable work on "Ideological Factors in the West" by Andre Dumas (France). David W. Barry (U.S.A.) has a useful treatment of 'XJrban Revolution in the U.S.A.," as does Monica Wilson (South Africa) on "Urban RevoluticHi in South Africa." Helmut Begemann (Germany) has a discerning essay on the "Changing Family in the West." Daisuke Kitagawa (U.S.A.) discusses "racial man," the most urgent domestic issue. Unfortunately this essay is limited by the apparent time gap between composition and publication. It becomes a reflection of the false security most white Americans have felt in a patient nonviolent Negro, who has now becmne an angry and determined black man pressed beyond patience by the institutionalized and overt violence all around him. The essay oSers no criticism of the lack of substantial support by the white churches to what was a few years ago a momentous opportunity to sustain wholeheartedly the nonviolent approach.

REVIEW OF RELIGIOUS RESEARCH

Part m , "Christian Bases of Man in Community," contains a work of DKtrich Von Oppen (Ml the "Era of the Pers(mal" in which he ably discusses "the organization," and its place in the secular and the religious realms. Part IV c<mtains valuable chapters m science and culture which have implications not only for the churchman but for the sociologist, the physician, for art and literature, and particularly for those concerned with techncdogical revolution and meaning of work and leisure. The authors are Margaret Mead (U.S.A.), Richard Kaufmann (Germany), Ema M. Hoch (Switzerland), Marvin P. Halverson (U.S.A.), and Heinz Flugel (Germany). Part V develops the "secular society" theme and the larger bases of "community." Authors are Arend Th. Van Leeuwen (Holland), C. I. Itty (India), Charles C. West (U.S.A.), and Paul Verghese (India). Marguerite I. Hofer PITTSBURGH PRESBYTERY, UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH USA

Prayer in the Public Schools: Law and Altitude Change. By William K. Muir, Jr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, 170 pp., $5.95. Muir's study is concerned with the possible effect of law upon deep-rooted attitudes. To determine this, structured interviews were conducted among a group of 28 public school officials in a midwestem U.S. industrial city which explored their attitudes towards "schoolhouse religion" (Bible reading and in^yers), both before and after the Supreme Court ban, their role concepts, self-images, political persuasions, educaticmal goals, and their attitudes toward law and lawyers, especially the Supreme Court Muir found a general ambivalence C H ' "equivocation" between the old attitudes and the policies and practices actually followed before the ban, which was found to be reduced during the second round of interviews along with a shift favoring a separatist position. This equivocaticHi led to a dissonance when the ban was implemented. Muir utilized cognitive dissonance theory to explain why the people adopted the following methods of reduction: fought the change ("backlaahers").

BOOK REVIEWS
passive acceptance ("nulist"), positive acceptance ("converts"), or compliance which freed the person from anxiety ("liberated"). The direction was determined by the extent to which the individual was integrated into informal groups of officials in which feelings could be discussed without public exposure, the degree to which they identified with the school system and its leadership, the ability of the person to rationalize the change to his public, and the perceptions of the role of law in society. Muir concludes that, in situations where pro and con forces are about evenly matched and where ambivalence is strong, law can change attitudes. While his case study approach gives a good insight into the situation of each official (rather vivid to this reviewer who was a school official at the time), he does not attempt statistically to support his conclusions, preferring to concentrate on the conceptualization of the variables. His conclusions can be supported by research findings from rural sociology and other innovation studies. The implications of the study for those who are interested in attitude change would seem to lie in the necessity for people to be in contact with groups which can support them while they work through the change and for the support of the legal and power structures in the community for the change. His study would be of interest to those concerned with the effect of innovations or changes in large organizations upon those who represent the organization to the public and to those coocemed with social change, James S. Swift MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

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of misrepresentations, errors of facts, and false analysis of the current religious situation that it is entirely ridiculous." (S, I. Stuber in Trans-action, p. 54, September, 1968), These ungentle refiections on the final chapter of American Piety, which was published as a sei>arate article in the Jime issue of Transaction, suggest that Stark, a research sociologist at the Berkeley Survey Research Center, and Glock, Chairman of the Berkeley Sociology Department, have written either a highly significant and hence controversial book, or else an exceedingly bad one. What did they do? In 1963 three thousand persons randcmily selected from the church member population of four northern California counties completed a questionnaire, which contained nearly 500 items concerning (in part) religious beliefs and practices, political attitudes and behavior, prejudice, and use of leisure time. In 1964, the National Opinion Research Center sampled and interviewed 1, 976 people. The information from these two surveys has provided Glock and Stark with the material for four books, cme of which has already been published. The present book is the first of a trilogy in which the nature, sources, and consequences of religious commitment are examined. This first volume looks at the nature of religious commitment, the ways in which commitment may be and is expressed, and finally "ponders the significance of what has been learned about American religion for the future of the church" (p, 10), The authors begin by describing again their five dimensions of religiousness: belief, practice, knowledge, experience, and consequences (the effect of religious belief in everyday life). Then, they consider those portions of their data that bear on each dimension of religious commitment and devise scales (based on the questionnaire items) to measure these dimensions. In the course of this task, they present a myriad of statistical findings, showing, for example, that "virtually everyone has a denomination but few know even trivial facts about their faith" (p, 112), On many items related to aU five dimensions, they found extremely wide variations between church members of the various denominations (e.g., only 41% of the Congregationalists, but 81% of the Roman Catholics and 99% of the Southern Baptists had no doubt about the existence of

American Piety: The Nature of Religious Commitment. By Rodney Stark and Charles Y. dock, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968, 230 pp., $6.75. "The shameful ignorance, the Pharisaical piety, the illogical and unjustified arguments, and the absurd and obsolete classifications. . . . by Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark are matched only by their excellent academic credentials. . ," (L. Farrant in Trans-action, p. 54, September, 1968). "The article by Glock and Stark is so full