Sacred Companies: Organizational Aspects of Religion and Religious Aspects of Organizations (Religion in America)

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 This interdisciplinary collection of mostly unpublished papers is the first volume to remedy the deficit.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. Contents......Page 18 Contributors......Page 22 Part I: Orienting Perspectives......Page 26 1 The Relevance of Organization Theory to the Study of Religion......Page 30 2 Religions Groups as Crucibles of Social Movements......Page 47 3 The Corporation Sole and the Encounter of Law and Church......Page 73 4 Institutions and the Story of American Religion: A Sketch of a Synthesis......Page 85 5 Identifying Characteristics of "Religious" Organizations: An Exploratory Proposal......Page 102 Part II: Historical Sources and Patterns of U.S. Religious Organizations......Page 120 6 Religion and the Organizational Revolution in the United States......Page 122 7 Does Institutional Isomorphism Imply Secularization?: Churches and Secular Voluntary Associations in the Turn-of-the-Century City......Page 139 8 Ethnocultural Cleavages and the Growth of Church Membership in the United States, 1860–1930......Page 155 9 Snatching Defeat from Victory in the Decline of Liberal Protestantism: Culture versus Structure in Institutional Analysis......Page 177 Part III: Recent Dynamics of American Denominations......Page 196 10 Denominations as Dual Structures: An Organizational Analysis......Page 198 11 The Presbyterian Re-Formation: Pushes and Pulls in an American Mainline Schism......Page 218 12 Organizational Change in Theological Schools: Dilemmas of Ideology and Resources......Page 231 Part IV: Congregations Reconsidered......Page 250 13 Congregational Models and Conflict: A Study of How Institutions Shape Organizational Process......Page 254 14 Four Economic Models of Organization Applied to Religious Congregations......Page 279 15 Why Strict Churches Are Strong......Page 292 16 Beyond Mutual and Public Benefits: The Inward and Outward Orientations of Nonprofit Organizations......Page 315 17 Religious Congregations as Nonprofit Organizations: Four English Case Studies......Page 330 Part V: Action at the Sacred-Secular Interface......Page 344 18 Secularization, Religion, and Isomorphism: A Study of Large Nonprofit Hospital Trustees......Page 346 19 Church-Agency Relationships and Social Service Networks in the Black Community of New Haven......Page 363 20 Transformative Movements and Quasi-Religious Corporations: The Case of Amway......Page 372 21 Cultural Power: How Underdog Religious and Nonreligious Movements Triumph Against Structural Odds......Page 387 Epilogue......Page 402 22 Transcending Sacred and Secular: Mutual Benefits in Analyzing Religious and Nonreligious Organizations......Page 404 B......Page 424 C......Page 425 F......Page 427 J......Page 428 N......Page 429 R......Page 430 S......Page 431 V......Page 432 Z......Page 433 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 were 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 In the RELIGION IN AMERICA series this book addresses the organizational aspects of religion. Topics covered include the historical sources and patterns of US religious institutions, contemporary patterns of denominational authority and the interface between religious and secular institutions