“Church” in Black and White: The Organizational Lives of Young Adults
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2016, Vol 7, Issue 7
Abstract
The religious lives of young adults have generally been investigated by examining what young people believe and their self-reported religious practices. Far less is known about young adults’ organizational involvement and its impact on religious identities and ideas about religious commitment. Using data from site visit observations of religious congregations and organizations, and individual and focus group interviews with college-age black and white Christians, we find differences in how black and white students talk about their religious involvement; and with how they are incorporated into the lives of their congregations. White students tended to offer “organizational biographies” chronicling the contours of belonging as well as disengagement, and emphasizing the importance of fulfilling personal needs as a criterion for maintaining involvement. On the other hand, black students used “family” and “home” language and metaphors to describe how their religious involvement, a voluntary choice, was tied to a sense of “calling” and community. We show that this variation is aligned with organizational differences in black and white congregations that situate white youth as separate and black youth as integrated into the larger church community.
Authors and Affiliations
Rhys H. Williams, Courtney Ann Irby and R. Stephen Warner
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25585
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel7070090
- Views 337
- Downloads 6
The Optimal Level of Strictness and Congregational Growth
Beginning with Kelley’s and Iannaccone’s foundational studies, scholars have examined how strictness impacts congregational outcomes. This paper seeks to further develop the strict church thesis by examining Iannaccone...
Possessions and Identity: Job’s Problems and Ours
Recent research undertaken in the fields of anthropology and consumer behavior indicates that possessions play an important role in the construction of identity. While it is tempting to view both the connection between...
Faith, Food and Fettle: Is Individual and Neighborhood Religiosity/Spirituality Associated with a Better Diet?
Diet is an important contributor to many non-communicable diseases. Religion and spirituality (R/S) has a salutary effect on physical health, and one of the possible links between R/S and positive health outcomes is a...
Measures of Spirituality/Religiosity—Description of Concepts and Validation of Instruments
Why do we need some more questionnaires to measure aspects of spirituality/religiosity when we already have so many well-tried instruments in use? One answer is that research in this field is growing and that new resea...
Meditation Based Therapies—A Systematic Review and Some Critical Observations
This article systematically reviews the evidence for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and analyses the conditions around their rising popularity. MBSR, MBCT and M...