Getting to Church: Exploring Narratives of Gender and Joining

ISBN-13: 9780190239671 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 200 str.

Sally K. Gallagher

Opis

Why do people go to church? What about a congregation attracts new members? What is it that draws women and men differently into diverse types of congregations? Getting to Church assesses the deeply personal and gendered narratives around how women and men move toward identifying with three very different Christian congregations one Orthodox, one conservative, and one mainline. Drawing on extensive research and ranging across layers of congregational history, leadership, architecture, new member process, programs, and service ministries, Sally Gallagher explores trajectories of joining, as well as membership loss and change over a seven-year period. By following both those who join a community and those who explore but choose not to, Gallagher avoids the methodological limitations of other studies and assesses the degree to which the spaces, people, programs, and doctrines within distinctive traditions draw women and men toward affiliation and involvement. Getting to Church demonstrates that women are attracted to specific doctrines and ideas, opportunities for individual reflection, experience and expanded personal agency; while men find in these congregations a sense of community within which they experience greater connection with other men, appreciate beauty, and yield to something greater than themselves. Drawing on extensive field work, personal interviews, and focus groups, Getting to Church challenges extant theories of gender and religious involvement.

Recenzje

Getting to Church contributes to the sociology of religion through its subtle and systematic attention to differences in women's and men's experiences of religious engagement. This attention to nuanced narratives offers a helpful corrective to simplistic accounts of gender difference in religious involvement... The comparative framework, longitudinal data, elegant writing, and inclusion of vivid narrative details in Getting to Church help us to see the continued importance of distinct religious traditions for shaping belonging and purpose as the book makes a convincing case that religion in the United States is not going away anytime soon.

O autorze

Sally K. Gallagher is Professor of Sociology in the School of Public Policy at Oregon State University. She is the author of Making Do in Damascus: Navigating a Generation of Change in Family and Work, and Evangelical Identity and Gendered Family Life, as well as other works in the areas of gender, religion, family and caregiving.