Sacred Companies: Organizational Aspects Of Religion And Religious Aspects Of Organizations (religion In America)

Preparing link to download Please wait... Download

E-Book Overview

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 This interdisciplinary collection of mostly unpublished papers is the first volume to remedy the deficit.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.

E-Book Content

SACRED COMPANIES R E C K N T TITLKS IN THE RELIGION IN AMERICA SERIES Harry S. Stout, General Editor EPISCOPAL WOMEN Gender, Spirituality, and Commitment m an American Mainline Denomination Edited by Catherine Prelinger SUBMITTING TO FREEDOM The Religions Vision of William James Bennett Ramsey STANDING AGAINST THE WHIRLWIND Evangelical Episcopalians in Nineteenth-Century America Diana Hochstedt Butler KEEPERS OF THE COVENANT Frontier Missions and the Decline of Congregationalism, 1774-1818 James R. Rohrer OLD SHIP OF ZION The Afro-Baptist Ritual in the African Diaspora Walter F. Pitts AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM AND ASIAN RELIGIONS Arthur Versluis CHURCH PEOPLE IN THE STRUGGLE The National Council of Churches and the Black Freedom Movement, 1950-1970 James F. Findlay, Jr. EVANGELICALISM Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700-1990 Edited by Mark A. Noll, David W. fiehbington, and George A. Rawlyk RELIGIOUS MELANCHOLY AND PROTESTANT EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA Julius H. Rubin CONJURING CULTURE Biblical Formations in Black America Theophus Smith REIMAG1NING DENOMINATIONALISM Interpretive Essays Edited by Robert Bruce Mullin and Russell E. Rickey SAINTS IN EXILE The Holiness-Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion and Culture Cheryl}. Sanders DEMOCRATIC R E L I G I O N Freedom, Authority, and Church Discipline in the Baptist South, 1785-1900 Gregory A. Wills THE SOUL OF DEVELOPMENT Biblical Christianity and Economic Transformation in Guatemala Am)1 L. Sherman THE VIPER ON THE HEARTH Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy Terry/ E. Givens SACRED COMPANIES Organizational Aspects of Religion and Religious Aspects of Organizations Edited by N.J. Demerath ill, Peter Dohkm Hall, Terry Schmitt, and Rhys U. Williams SACRED COMPANIES Organizational Aspects of Religion and Religious Aspects of Organizations Edited by N.J. Demerath III Peter Dobkin Hall Terry Schmitt Rhys H. Williams New York Oxford • Oxford University Press 1998 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Bombay Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar cs Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo 'loronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1998 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxfo