Congregations in Conflict: Cultural Models of Local Religious Life (Volume 0) - Softcover

Becker, Penny Edgell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521594626 ISBN 13: 9780521594622

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1999

Synopsis

Congregations in Conflict uses the suburbs of Chicago to examine the nature of American congregations as institutions, looking in particular at how they deal with conflict within their ranks, to gain insight into religious culture. In detailed and well documented case studies of conflict in twenty-three congregations including Protestant parishes, Catholic parishes, and Jewish synagogues, Becker examines such factors as organizational processes, the extent and types of ties among church members, their shared understandings about mission and identity, and their level of public commitment. At the local level Becker finds vital "public religion": congregations that provide caring and support for members, service to the local community, and important arenas for moral debate and public activism.

About this title

From the Back Cover

There are more than 300,000 religious congregations in the United States; these communities have more members and generate more participation than any other set of voluntary organizations in American society. This picture of dynamism belies recent, prevailing scholarship that perceives a decline in traditional religious authority, in Americans' commitment to organized religion, and in religious institutions' level of public engagement. Penny Edgell Becker, in this pioneering comparative study of local congregations, argues that the case for declinein community, in commitment, in public engagement - does not stand up to closer scrutiny. Congregations in Conflict: Cultural Models of Local Religious Life examines the nature of American congregations as institutions, looking in particular at how they deal with conflict within their ranks, to gain insight into religious culture, or the moral order of local religious life.

Reviews

Categorizing American religion and religious life as an institutional field rather than a set of like beliefs or highly structured ritual relationships, Becker (sociology, Cornell Univ.) considers the current religious scene with a sociologist's bent toward case study and organizational process. Her dynamic examplesAcase studies of 23 congregations, Protestant, Catholic, and JewishAyield profound insights that challenge the prevailing lament about the muddied American religious scene. Yet Becker warns against easy answers; she decries universalizing these communities as examples of America writ large. Instead, she argues that the particularity of belief in America as well as its current restructuring results from "individual-expressive religion," a vital but limited idea that personal religious choices will ultimately link individuals to broader religious communities in new and exciting ways. Academic and sociological in tone, the book will appeal to scholars of the American religious world.ASandra Collins, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Lib.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521594626
• ISBN 13: 9780521594622
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280