Sacred Companies Organizational Aspects of Religion and Religious Aspects of Organizations

by Demerath, N. J.; Hall, Peter Dobkin; Schmitt, Terry; Williams, Rhys H.

• ISBN13: 9780195113228
• ISBN10: 0195113225
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-02-12
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Religion is intrinsically social, and hence irretrievably organizational, although organization is often seen as the darker side of the religious experience--power, routinization, and bureaucracy. Religion and secular organizations have long received separate scholarly scrutiny, but until now their confluence has been little considered. This interdisciplinary collection of mostly unpublished papers is the first volume to remedy the deficit. The project grew out of a three-year inquiry into religious institutions undertaken by Yale University's Program on Non-Profit Organizations and sponsored by the Lilly Endowment. The scholars who took part in this effort weree challenged to apply new perspectives to the study of religious organizations, especially that strand of contemporary secular organizational theory known as "New Institutionalism." The result was this groundbreaking volume, which includes papers on various aspects of such topics as the historical sources and patterns of U.S. religious organizations, contemporary patterns of denominational authority, the congregation as an organization, and the interface between religious and secular institutions and movements. The contributors include an interdisciplinary mix of scholars from economics, history, law, social administration, and sociology.

Table of Contents

Contributors	xxi
Part I Orienting Perspectives	3	(94)
1 The Relevance of Organization Theory to the Study of Religion	7	(17)
Paul DiMaggio
2 Religious Groups as Crucibles of Social Movements	24	(26)
Mayer N. Zald
John D. McCarthy
3 The Corporation Sole and the Encounter of Law and Church	50	(12)
Perry Dane
4 Institutions and the Story of American Religion: A Sketch of a Synthesis	62	(17)
Harry S. Stout
D. Scott Cormode
5 Identifying Characteristics of "Religious" Organizations: An Exploratory Proposal	79	(18)
Thomas H. Jeavons
Part II Historical Sources and Patterns of U.S. Religious Organizations	97	(76)
6 Religion and the Organizational Revolution in the United States	99	(17)
Peter Dobkin Hall
7 Does Institutional Isomorphism Imply Secularization?: Churches and Secular Voluntary Associations in the Turn-of-the-Century City	116	(16)
D. Scott Cormode
8 Ethnocultural Cleavages and the Growth of Church Membership in the United States, 1860-1930	132	(22)
Judith R. Blau
Kent Redding
Kenneth C. Land
9 Snatching Defeat from Victory in the Decline of Liberal Protestantism: Culture versus Structure in Institutional Analysis	154	(19)
N. J. Demerath III
Part III Recent Dynamics of American Denominations	173	(54)
10 Denominations as Dual Structures: An Organizational Analysis	175	(20)
Mark Chaves
11 The Presbyterian Re-Formation: Pushes and Pulls in an American Mainline Schism	195	(13)
Mark N. Templeton
N. J. Demerath III
12 Organizational Change in Theological Schools: Dilemmas of Ideology and Resources	208	(19)
Rhys H. Williams
Part IV Congregations Reconsidered	227	(94)
13 Congregational Models and Conflict: A Study of How Institutions Shape Organizational Process	231	(25)
Penny Edgell Becker
14 Four Economic Models of Organization Applied to Religious Congregations	256	(13)
Charles E. Zech
15 Why Strict Churches Are Strong	269	(23)
Laurence R. Iannaccone
16 Beyond Mutual and Public Benefits: The Inward and Outward Orientations of Nonprofit Organizations	292	(15)
James D. Davidson
Jerome R. Koch
17 Religious Congregations as Nonprofit Organizations: Four English Case Studies	307	(14)
Margaret Harris
Part V Action at the Sacred-Secular Interface	321	(58)
18 Secularization, Religion, and Isomorphism: A Study of Large Nonprofit Hospital Trustees	323	(17)
David Swartz
19 Church-Agency Relationships and Social Service Networks in the Black Community of New Haven	340	(9)
Patricia M. Y. Chang
David R. Williams
Ezra E. H. Griffith
John L. Young
20 Transformative Movements and Quasi-Religious Corporations: The Case of Amway	349	(15)
David G. Bromley
21 Cultural Power: How Underdog Religious and Nonreligious Movements Triumph Against Structural Odds	364	(15)
Rhys H. Williams
N. J. Demerath III
Epilogue	379	(22)
22 Transcending Sacred and Secular: Mutual Benefits in Analyzing Religious and Nonreligious Organizations	381	(20)
N. J. Demerath III
Terry Schmitt
Index	401