Congregations in Conflict uses the suburbs of Chicago to examine the nature of American congregations as institutions, looking in particular at how they deal with conflict within their ranks, to gain insight into religious culture. In detailed and well documented case studies of conflict in twenty-three congregations including Protestant parishes, Catholic parishes, and Jewish synagogues, Becker examines such factors as organizational processes, the extent and types of ties among church members, their shared understandings about mission and identity, and their level of public commitment. At...

No single narrative or theory can describe the varieties of religious experience in North America today. The tidy dichotomies of liberal/ conservative, public/private, local/global, and renewal/secularization make little sense once specific congregations are examined closely. To understand the shifting boundaries of contemporary religious expressions, new tools are needed. Contemporary American Religion collects qualitative, on-the-ground studies of local congregations by up-and-coming religious scholars. Ethnography combined with more traditional sociological methods, help make sense of...