Religion and Child Abuse: Perfect Together

As I look back on the presidential addresses presented during the years of my active membership in the SSSR, my sense is that a number of them have been truly influential, since they alerted our members to issues which many were than inspired to examine in subsequent years. One presidential address that particularly stands out in my mind is Bill D'Antonio's given in 1979 on Family and Religion, subsequently published in the JSSR (D'Antonio 1980:89-104). AsJSSR editor from 1982-88, I know that Bill's address on and was both timely and influential. In the December 1984 issue, I reported that there were more submissions on the topic of religion and the family than on any other single topic, including new religious movements and the New Christian Right. A year later, in the December 1985 issue, I reported that this topic had dropped to second place, behind Catholicism. (Maybe authors were picking up on the subtext of Bill's address, which focused on recent changes in Catholic structures and values.) During the next two years, religion and the family placed fourth and tied for fifth in number of submissions. Its heady years at or near the top were over, but as a topic, it had gained a secure place in our professional journal, and in the society's annual program. In his address, Bill discussed the relationship of love and autonomy in the family. He said that we should pay more attention to the role that love plays in the family, especially in enabling individual members to experience the personal autonomy which was so strongly emphasized in earlier studies of and the by Gerhard Lenski in the 1950s. Bill concluded his address with this invitation: