Religious Vitality in Christian Intentional Communities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study (Ethnographies of Religion)

Killian, Mark

ISBN 10: 1498546609 / ISBN 13: 9781498546607

Published by Lexington Books, 2017

About this Item

Seller Inventory # I-9781498546607

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Religious Vitality in Christian Intentional Communities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study (Ethnographies of Religion)
• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1498546609
• ISBN 13: 9781498546607
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Through ethnographic research, Killian examines vitality in Philadelphia and Berea, two Christian Intentional Communities whose participants live in close proximity with one another to achieve religious values. Pulling from Anthony Giddens’ theory of structuration, Killian argues that the vitality of both communities cannot be reduced to deterministic structural, individual, or organizational causes. Rather, vitality in these communities is affected by all of these causes in relationship to one another. In other words, it’s not that each explanation “matters” (e.g., social structures matter, organizational behaviors matter, individual religious choices matter), but that these explanations matter to each other (e.g., social structures matter to individual choices, individual choices matter to organizational behaviors, and social structures matter to organizational choices, etc.). To make this argument, Killian develops the idea of the vitality nexus―the interconnected relationship between the various explanations of religious vitality.

About the Author

Mark Killian is assistant professor of sociology at Whitworth University.