Congregations in Conflict: Cultural Models of Local Religious Life

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.

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.