Self-Selection, Church Attendance, and Local Civic Participation

Prior research has shown that church attendance affects voting participation, but has a negative or no effect on more demanding forms of political participation. I argue that this differential for nonelectoral activity partially results from biases in how scholars conceptualize and analyze church attendance variables. To properly measure the influence of church attendance on nonelectoral participation, scholarship needs to account for self-selection biases that hinder accurate analyses. Consistent with the literature, a selection model finds that once fundamentalism's motivating effect is considered, church attendance plays no role in a respondent's participation in local government meetings. The present work provides a partial explanation for why attendance has no effect on more demanding political activity. These findings demonstrate that scholarship should focus attention on prior factors that influence congregants' attendance decisions.     

The Strategic Practice of “Fiesta” in a Latino Protestant Church: Religious Racialization and the Performance of Ethnic Identity

Founded and led by a U.S.-born white pastor, Amor Poderoso is a nondenominational, evangelical megachurch in El Paso, Texas, almost entirely composed of Mexican-Americans, recent Mexican immigrants, and current Mexican citizens. Ethnographic fieldwork from 2014 to 2017, supplemented with interviews with pastors, worship leaders, and attendees, reveal that much of congregational life orients around intentionally showcasing “Mexican” culture through sounds, images, and artifacts that appropriate an array of idealized ethnic references (e.g., food, dress, mannerisms, clichés) from Northern Mexico. Ongoing ethnic displays do not originate spontaneously or impromptu from membership but rather serve as a form of tactical authenticity derived from U.S. racial schemas mobilized by congregational leaders as a distinctive religious resource. Weekly worship services featuring dialect-inflected Spanish preaching and singing project ethnic signals that elicit connections to both a common ancestral heritage and a common religious identity. In short, church leaders at this southern border Latino church deliberately deploy sounds, images, and artifacts to assert racialized performances of being “Mexican” for distinctly religious purposes, especially evangelization. In the process, the distinctive practices of religious racialization effectively structure church members’ ethnic and religious identities around racial tropes to buttress a cogent corporate identity for enacting institutionalized evangelical narratives and legitimating charismatic authority.     

Emotional expressiveness during worship services and life satisfaction: assessing the influence of race and religious affiliation

The purpose of this study is to see if an emotional expressive worship style is associated with life satisfaction. Our study model contains the following core relationships: (1) blacks are more likely than whites to worship in conservative Protestant congregations; (2) members of conservative congregations and blacks will attend church services more often; (3) blacks and conservative Protestants are more likely than either whites or members of other congregations to openly express their emotions during worship services; (4) individuals who express their emotions during church services will be more likely say they worship in a highly cohesive congregation; (5) people who worship in highly cohesive congregations will generalise this sense of connectedness to people outside their place of worship; and (6) those who feel closely connected with all people will experience a greater sense of life satisfaction. Finding from a nationwide survey provide support for each of these relationships.     

Marginal Musical Spaces at St Aldates,Oxford

St Aldates is a large Charismatic Anglican church in the centre of Oxford. The music of the regular Sunday services stands within the tradition of Contemporary Worship Music and the musical leaders cultivate an intentional sense of consistency. Within this environment, individuals are often expected to set aside existing musical tastes and attachments, adopting an attitude of worship regardless of their relationship to the musical environment. Away from the Sunday services there are a number of more marginal musical spaces in which a wider range of musical forms find expression. In this article I draw on third-space theory and my own ethnographic fieldwork to explore the alternative musical dynamics which two such spaces open up and the different relationships which they enable between individuals’ diverse musical attachments and the musical life of the church. In line with divergent streams in the literature, I suggest that these spaces carry both productive and disruptive potential, both challenging and supporting prevailing musical norms.     

Gay and Lesbian Christians: Homosexual and Religious Identity Integration in the Members and Participants of a Gay-Positive Church

In this study we explore individual 's experiences of identity integration between their sexual orientation and religious beliefs. Using both qualitative and quantitative research methods, we examined identity integration in forty members and participants of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York (MCC/NY), a gay-positive church located in Mid-town Manhattan. The survey and interview data collected showed that: (1)a majority of the research participants reported that they had successfully integrated their homosexual and religious identities, (2) being integrated was related to higher role involvement at MCC/NY, being a member of the church, attending more MCC/NY worship services and activities/ministries, and attending MCC/NY for more years, (3) lesbians were less likely than gay men to report past conflict between their identities, and more likely to report being fully integrated, and (4) MCC/NY played an important role in helping these participants achieve integration between their homosexual and religious identities.     

Grief among near-death experiencers: pathways through religion and meaning

This study has three specific aims. The first is to see if social relationships in the church influence social relationships in the secular world. Data from a longitudinal nationwide survey provide support for this view. The second goal is to see if church-based social relationships are more likely to arise from church teachings at worship services or through informal reinforcement by fellow church members (as assessed by spiritual support). The findings suggest that informal spiritual support is more likely than attendance at worship services to bolster social relationships in the church. The third goal is to explore the influence of race. The results reveal that African Americans and Caucasian Americans get the same amount of support from secular social network members. However, the data further reveal that secular social ties among African Americans can be attributed to the social relationships they maintain in the church, but the same is not true for Caucasian Americans.     

The ordo of care

What is the relationship between practices of care towards people living in marginalized life situations and liturgy? This article addresses this question by exploring the liturgical theology of Gordon Lathrop as the theoretical starting point for analysing a practice that would conventionally not be described as “liturgy”, but “ethical practice”. At the heart of the liturgical theology of Lathrop is the idea that the ordo of the Sunday service is organized by juxtapositions and broken symbols. In this article, Lathrop’s theology is brought into a hermeneutical dialogue with empirical material constructed from the Church of Our Lady, Trondheim, Norway, a Lutheran medieval church located in the middle of the city of Trondheim. Since 2008, the church has been run by the Church City Mission as an open church for all who need an open and hospitable sacred space in the city centre, especially people who live in marginalized life situations. The article demonstrates that when working inductively with an empirical material, Lathrop’s concepts are too narrow and hermeneutically closed. In order to be theoretically sensitive to the experiences of people who live in marginalized life situations and the ethical practices of care, liturgical theology has to reimage its understanding of space.     

Exploring identities between the religious and the secular through the attendees of an ostensibly ‘Atheist Church’

The Sunday Assembly has a complex relationship with atheism and religion. It holds events which look and feel like religious worship, but uses this format to create a ‘godless congregation’. Described as an ‘atheist church’ by the media, members prefer to talk about inclusive communities. If the Sunday Assembly simultaneously embraces and rejects both atheism and religion, then how do attendees identify and describe themselves? We add to the growing literature exploring identities between the religious and the secular, presenting a qualitative study based on interviews with Sunday Assembly attendees. We interrogate three concepts: non-religion, the secular sacred and indifferentism to examine how the identity of Sunday Assembly attendees can be better understood. Our findings show that a significant number of attendees publicly identify as indifferent towards religion, while privately maintaining a more strongly non-religious identity, thus suggesting that for Sunday Assembly attendees, inclusivity is imperative.     

Pentecostal Gift to Christian Unity: Its Possibility in the New Global Context

Church unity has been much discussed, particularly around the centenary of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference. Pentecostalism, as a new player in today's global Christianity, comes with its unique potential toward church unity and corporation. This study identifies three such gifts: numerical growth, spontaneous ecumenicity through worship, and missional cooperation. The study concludes with a self‐critical caution for fellow Pentecostals and the world church so that these gifts would be strengthened.     

Studying Technology and Ecclesiology in Online Multi-Site Worship

This study brings together research approaches from media studies and practical theology in order to study and understand the relationship between online technological features of multi-site worship and the larger offline worshipping community to which it is connected. From the perspective of media studies we reflect on how new media technologies and cultures are allowed to shape online worship spaces and how larger institutional traditions and structures are allowed to shape technologically mediated church events. From the perspective of practical theology we use the notion of inculturation as a lens for a better understanding of the specific ways in which Christian worship practices adapt, change, and respond to the new cultural setting which emerges from the online worship context. Together, these approaches illuminate the interplay between digital technology and ecclesiological tradition in shaping multi-site church worship practices.     

Broadway Musicals and the Christian Sermon: Communicating Moral Reasoning,Church Values,and Prosocial Behaviors

This article considers the influence of Broadway musicals on the spiritual growth, prosocial attitudes, church values, and moral reasoning of adults when used in Christian congregational worship. Can a church structure and use Broadway musicals in sermons to encourage its lay congregation to identify moral reasoning and recognize core church values and prosocial ideas through sermons based on Broadway musical theater? We applied humanistic psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning and development considered along with the church's stated core values and prosocial behavior to test if these themes were reflected in the rhetoric of sermons based on Broadway musicals presented from 2008–2015. Findings indicate that this series was well received by the congregation and leadership. Suggestions for further research and church applications for Christian education are given. This research highlights the importance of church archives and library support for the further development of information about the church and its role in society.     

For the church community after COVID‐19

COVID‐19 is changing everyday life. COVID‐19 is also changing the look of the church. The church is a community of people who gather for worship, fellowship, and sharing. However, due to the coronavirus, the church is no longer able to gather and worship together. Moreover, because of the coronavirus, social distancing with as little as possible face‐to‐face contact has been recommended worldwide. If this situation is prolonged, the church community interactions will have difficulty in surviving. Therefore, this article seeks ways to maintain and strengthen the church community in and after the coronavirus era through insight into speech act theory.     

Lutheran and Russian Orthodox Church Buildings as Symbols of Cultural Identity in the Estonian Parliamentary Elections of 20111

In the 2011 parliamentary election campaign in Estonia, two church buildings fulfilled the function of inclusion by integrating the sentiments and identity of the members of cultural constituencies, and the function of exclusion by drawing symbolic boundaries between the current national government and the opposition and between the Estonian cultural mainstream and the Russophone minority, which cannot be drawn legally. For the parties of the national government St John’s Lutheran Church in St Petersburg was a symbol of Estonian nationalism. For their main political opponents the Orthodox church in the Lasnamäe district of Tallinn symbolised the cultural identity of Estonian Russian-speaking residents and electorate. While this development exemplifies ‘desecularisation’ in the dimension of collective cultural identities, I argue against a too simplistic interpretation of ‘desecularisation’ and for a more nuanced understanding of how religion may play a role even in a very secularised society and polity like Estonia. I theorise ‘desecularisation’ in Estonian politics by distinguishing the types of religion and nationalism that were involved and critically analysing the relationship between religion and nationalism in this process. I argue that the electoral campaign of 2011 testifies to a small shift towards a more religious definition of social identities, which may not re-occur with the same passions and intensity in future. After the accession to the European Union in 2004, the pre-electoral symbolic sacralisation of ethnic identities, however, has become an established practice during the Estonian parliamentary elections.     

Church‐Based Social Relationships and Change in Self‐Esteem Over Time

This study has two goals. The first goal is to see if church‐based social relationships are associated with change in self‐esteem. Emotional support from fellow church members and having a close personal relationship with God serve as measures of church‐based social ties. The second goal is to see whether emotional support from fellow church members is more strongly associated with self‐esteem than emotional support from secular social network members. The data come from an ongoing nationwide survey of older adults. The findings reveal that having a close personal relationship with God is associated with a stronger sense of self‐esteem at the baseline and follow‐up interviews. In contrast, emotional support from fellow church members was not associated with self‐esteem at either point in time. However, emotional support from secular social network members is related to self‐esteem at the baseline but not the follow‐up interview.     

Social Relationships in the Church During Late Life: Assessing Differences Between African Americans,Whites, and Mexican Americans

The purpose of this study is to see if there are differences in the social relationships that older African Americans, older whites, and older Mexican Americans form with the people where they worship. Data from two large surveys are pooled to see if race differences emerge in eleven different measures of church-based social relationships. These measures assess social relationships with rank-and-file church members as well as social relationships with members of the clergy. The findings reveal that older African Americans tend to have more well-developed social relationships in the church than either older whites or older Mexican Americans. This is true with respect to relationships with fellow church members as well as relationships with the clergy. In contrast, relatively few differences emerged between older Americans of European descent and older Mexican Americans. However, when differences emerged in the data, older whites tend to score higher on the support measures than older Mexican Americans.     

The Social Milieu of the Church and Religious Coping Responses: A Longitudinal Investigation of Older Whites and Older Blacks

The purpose of this study is to see if the social environment of the church influences the use of religious coping responses over time. The following theoretical relationships were embedded in the conceptual model that was developed to evaluate this issue: (a) People who go to church more often are more likely to feel their congregation is highly cohesive (e.g., share the same values and beliefs); (b) individuals who worship in highly cohesive congregations are more likely to receive spiritual support (i.e., encouragement to adopt religious teachings and principles) from their fellow church members; and (c) people who receive more spiritual support will be more likely to adopt religious coping responses. In the process of evaluating this model, tests were performed to examine the influence of racial culture. Data from a nationwide longitudinal survey of older adults provide support for each link in the conceptual model. Pervasive racial cultural differences were also found: Older Blacks were more likely to be deeply involved in each facet of religion than older Whites.     

What If the Church Really is the Body of Christ?

Abstract : What does it mean to claim that the church is the body of Christ? Following the lead of the New Testament, Bonhoeffer, Jenson, and Hauerwas, this article articulates how the church becomes the body of Christ through the narrative of Scripture and the practices of worship. As Jesus Christ has a distinctive character, so also the body of Christ has a distinctive character. This character is described through the four classical marks of the church—one, holy, catholic, apostolic. These notae ecclesiae are to be interpreted not only in relation to the inner constitution of the church but ethically in relation to the church's calling to be “shalom church” for the life of the world in peacemaking, doing justice, caring for creation, and defending human dignity. Particular communal practices that embody this character are proposed for the life of the church.     

When Faith,Race, and Hate Collide: Religious Ecology,Local Hate Cultures,and Church Burnings

This study explores the extent to which the spate of church burnings that occurred throughout the South during the 1990s may have been influenced by local religious ecologies, diverse forms of civic engagement, and broader community support for racial animus that we call local hate cultures (e.g., prior hate crime incidents, hate group presence). We use county-level data from a variety of sources to determine the degree to which church arsons were associated with relevant features of local communities. Various congregational factors measuring county-level religious ecology are significantly associated with the number of church burnings in Southern communities, as are several local hate culture indicators. Our study provides empirical confirmation of the linkages between church arsons, the public role of religious institutions, and local hate cultures. It also suggests a number of theoretical refinements for existing community-level approaches to the study of religion and hate crimes.     

The narrative self,distributed memory,and evocative objects

In this article, I outline various ways in which artifacts are interwoven with autobiographical memory systems and conceptualize what this implies for the self. I first sketch the narrative approach to the self, arguing that who we are as persons is essentially our (unfolding) life story, which, in turn, determines our present beliefs and desires, but also directs our future goals and actions. I then argue that our autobiographical memory is partly anchored in our embodied interactions with an ecology of artifacts in our environment. Lifelogs, photos, videos, journals, diaries, souvenirs, jewelry, books, works of art, and many other meaningful objects trigger and sometimes constitute emotionally laden autobiographical memories. Autobiographical memory is thus distributed across embodied agents and various environmental structures. To defend this claim, I draw on and integrate distributed cognition theory and empirical research in human-technology interaction. Based on this, I conclude that the self is neither defined by psychological states realized by the brain nor by biological states realized by the organism, but should be seen as a distributed and relational construct.     

The Architectural Expression of Primitive Christianity: William Beveridge and the Temple of Solomon

Abstract

On the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, a resurgent religious identity in church and state was informed by identifying the English nation with the biblical Israel, and the worship and buildings of the Church of England with those of the Temple in Jerusalem. The dedication of the Church of St Peter, Cornhill (rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666 and designed by Christopher Wren) in 1681 by the Revd William Beveridge was an expression of the Church of England's confidence in its identity with the ‘primitive Church,’ and as the Church of a chosen and favoured people.