Everything in Common: the Strength and Vitality of Two Christian
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Everything in Common: The Strength and Vitality of Two Christian Intentional Communities A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment for the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Sociology of the College of Arts and Sciences by Mark Killian July 2013 M.A.T. Miami University, 2000 Committee Chair: Steven Carlton-Ford, Ph.D. ABSTRACT Although most contemporary religious organizations are experiencing decline in adherence and institutional vitality, Christian Intentional Communities (CICs), a set of Christian organizations in which participants live in close proximity so as to achieve religious values, experience growth. Research using the Fellowship of Intentional Communities’ Online Directory indicates a dramatic increase in the number of CICs that have either been formed or are in formation over the last ten years. Yet researchers have not examined why CICs are growing. Therefore, this research aimed to provide an in-depth exploration of the growth and vitality of CICs. To conduct this exploration I employed a multi-method approach, which included a national survey of contemporary CICs, as well as participant observation and community member interviews in Philadelphia and Berea, two CICs located in a Midwestern City. Based on the National Survey of Contemporary Christian Intentional Communities, CICs generally align with one of two cultural ideologies: freewill individualism or expressive communalism. These cultural ideologies, and their accompanying behaviors, attract individuals who experience various types of alienation from American social institutions, such as the media, economic culture, political system, and, particular to CICs, religion. Once established, factors, including charismatic influence, worship service cultures, and inter-organizational cultures, strengthen CICs in terms of members’ commitments. However, there are other factors that have a greater effect on members’ commitments in some CICs as opposed to others. For example, in Philadelphia, a freewill individualistic community, I observed the use of ingroup- outgroup discursive repertoires, creating a cultural identity that appeared constantly under threat by outside influences. Thus, Philadelphians rallied around their subculture, strengthening i adherence to the community. Furthermore, Philadelphia employed strict theological and behavioral expectations, which, as mediated through commitment mechanisms, demanded that members sacrifice desires, time, energy, and money in order to maintain their membership. Such sacrifices amounted to a substantial personal investment, which was unrecoverable if an individual was to leave Philadelphia. Additionally, although both communities benefited from resource configurations offered in the urban environment, Berea, an expressive communalist community, utilized the religio-cultural ecology of their neighborhood, creating, what I label, a “parish consciousness,” in which members were completely enveloped by a place-based system of thought and action. As a result, Bereans reinforced their commitment to the community by investing their time, energy, money, and desires, particularly through home purchases, to live a life predominately within their urban neighborhood (e.g., their parish). The results of this research are significant for three reasons: (1) the National Survey of Contemporary CICs provides a much needed update to the body of knowledge surrounding intentional communities; (2) ethnographic findings confirm and/or challenge the ways in which sociologists explain the strength and vitality of religious organizations; and (3) the study’s outcomes offer practical information for the growth of religious organizations. ii iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I want to acknowledge the members of Berea and Philadelphia. Without your hospitality this dissertation would not exist. Thank you for allowing me to write about your communities. Second, this work would not have been complete if it were not for several scholars who offered their support, advice, and feedback over the last six years. I would like to thank my dissertation committee members, Drs. Erynn de Casanova and Jeffrey Timberlake for their willingness to entertain a project only tangently related to their own research. This dissertation is better because of their constructive feedback. Third, I would like to thank my dissertation advisor, Dr. Steven Carlton-Ford for his time, energy, and encouragement through this process. I am proud to be his student. Fourth, I would like to thank Dr. James Bielo, who voluntarily crossed disciplinary boundaries (he’s an anthropologist) to mentor me through the writing process and granted me credibility in professional circles. Although he is younger than me in years, I look up to him and hope that, at some point in my career, I can match his intellectual prowess. Fifth, I am indebted to the Kunz Center for Family Research and the Taft Research Center for supplying research grants as well as, in the case of the Taft Research Center, a year-long dissertation fellowship. Sixth, I would like to thank my three research assistants: Aria Fakhar, Lindsey Metz, and Joel Krazl. I appreciated their time, energy, and eager willingness to play a role in this project. Additionally I would also like to thank Cierra Graham for acting as my second coder as well as Katie Cochran and Dr. Neil Ritchey who provided feedback on my national survey instrument. iv Seventh, I want to thank the Baristas at Coffee Emporium (Joe, Emileah, Gretchen, Andrew, Evo, Hal, Ruth, Amy, and Erica) who allowed me to sit in their coffee shop eight hours a day for six months so I could finish the dissertation. Eighth, I am indebted to my wife, Beth, who submitted to my desire to pursue a PhD even as it meant losing a salaried position as a high school teacher. My Love, now that I am done I can’t wait to submit to your aspirations and want you to know that you are my perfect provision. Last, two others who laid the foundation for this dissertation are Mr. Jack Duffy and Dr. Richard Mitchell, my favorite high school teachers. In the former case, Mr. Duffy inspired me to begin reading, serving me well through my graduate school experience. In the latter case, Dr. Mitchell provided me with an understanding of Providence as our class read through the Odyssey, which is the only lesson from high school that daily runs through my mind. This work is dedicated to both of you. Thank you for teaching me. v PREFACE: WHY THIS DISSERTATION? Starting in the late 1950s, secularization theorists determined that religious adherence would decline as modern epistemologies flourish (Swatos and Christiano 1999). Although there are religious organizations that have waned in membership, particularly mainline denominations, research has shown that religious adherence in the United States and the organizations that facilitate that adherence have not declined as expected; rather, in some cases, they have experienced tremendous growth and vitality. I personally witnessed such growth and vitality as a church planter, a term commonly assigned to people who start churches. One church plant, an affiliate of the Vineyard Association (USA), was situated in a suburb of a large Midwestern city. As with many other American suburbs, the plant entered a religious marketplace (Finke and Stark 1989, Hatch 1989) containing multiple churches with similar worship and inter-organizational cultures. Consequently, I was nervous that the plant would not be able to compete with more established congregations for adherents and ultimately fail. However, on launch Sunday, the first Sunday we met as an official church, 400 people attended and within two years the church plant had more than doubled in size. Given that the average congregation has between 100 and 200 regular Sunday morning attendees, the church plant was a tremendous success. On the one hand, I attribute this success to the manner in which the church planting team, which consisted of me and two others, engaged the religious marketplace. For example, we hired a part-time worship leader who came from a locally known musical family, supplying us with a central charismatic figure – magnetic, charming, and appealing to audiences. vi Additionally, despite conventional wisdom our first full-time hire was not the pastor, rather a worship director who produced a multi-media based worship service targeted toward a white suburbanite audience. In other words, using market oriented terms, we turned our church plant into a religio-cultural good that our attendees chose over the myriad of other options available to them in the religious marketplace. I believe, however, that the religio-cultural good we offered was amplified by our location, a popular movie theater (rented to us before Sunday matinees) that was situated in a large commercial development with easy access to a busy interstate highway. In this sense, the church plant successfully utilized resources available in, what Ammerman (1997) labels, the “religious ecology.” Building on religious marketplace theories, religious ecologists stress the importance of market resources available to religious organizations in the place they locate. The essence of this argument lies in the notion that religious organizations must extract resources, such as membership, money, legitimacy, and information, from the local environment in order to thrive (McRoberts 2005). For example, viewing a particular demographic as a religious resource,