Information on Sections of the American Church

Today we highlight a few great databases and linkbases that will be helpful toward an understanding of current church (the organized and formalized bits of it) dynamics in the United States of America.

• The Hartford Institute for Religion Research: This vast website contains thousands of resources concerning "religion" (primarily Christian) and contemporary issues. The databases and study reports focus on a good range of subjects and inquiries (objects of study range from individual members to congregation).



• The National Congregations Study: This data is getting a bit old, but it still can be useful. It's a 1998 and 2007 of (mostly Christian) congregations in the United States. I like how the data can be analyzed by hand; using a variable selection interface, I can create my own tables.




• U.S. Congregations Study: This 2001 survey of 300,000 participants from 2,000 U.S. Congregations (again, mostly Christian--avg. size: 150) gives you free access to selected results. I've heard this one quoted a number of times in various reports on NPR.



• The American Religion Data Archive:Find general area-correlated denominational data organized by "adherent" and by "number of congregations" on this site. Displayed in maps and charts (ranging from nation to county). The maps are nice, but the data's a bit vague.



• CARA Publications: A great resource to begin research on the Catholic Church in America. It's nice because it's free.



• The Barna Group: George Barna's hope was (and to some degree, still is) to provide evangelical leaders with the information they would need to get a sobering view of the beliefs and behaviors of the differnt segments of Americans. So he started "The Barna Research Group" about a decade ago. Unfortunately, he's finding that data does very little to produce fruitful action: when people see depressing numbers, they usually just get depressed, blame some amorphous power-block (such as "the Media") and call it a day. Not exactly what Barna hoped for. So now, as you see, he's changed his company name to "The Barna Group," he's writing more "here's-the-steps-you-need-to-take" books, and doing more hands on consulting.
  
  In any case, his research does continue and you can find both new and old data here. One note: Barna pre-defines such terms as "evangelical" and "born again." One does not classify as a born again Christian simply because she answers "yes" to "are you a born again Christian"; rather, Barna would only classify her as born again if she responds in a certain way to two of the questions in his interview. So make sure to read his definitions before you read his data!
  
  The Barna group seems to have taken away the free by-topic research. In my cursory look, I only found Archived Barna Updates going many years back. Less helpful. But that's what you get when you don't pay, I suppose.

These are great places to start a formalized study of Christianity in Contemporary American Culture, if I'm ever interested in starting such a study. In the mean time, they're fun places to hang out.

Demographic Research

Today's samplings give us a quick taste of the demographic and statistical resources out there on the world wide web.

Demographics are dangerous things--their meaning depends on your personal collection of prejudices (pre-judgments as my friend Coye says, but that's another post for another time). However, many structural realities about our current situation come to life when you compare the data from a couple different sources which outlines a couple different variables. Also, keep in mind, all of these resources only help with US research.

Obviously, the first place to start is the Census Fact Finder web page. It's pretty confusing to navigate from the front page (generally, the site does not offer an easy interface). But if you start from the Tables page, you can pretty easily figure out how to get the information your looking for.

For quick snapshots of city demographics, I've found nothing better than the resources at city-data.com. You'll find a well organized data set for nearly every city in the United States on this site.

Short but sweet. Sorry. I'll do more when I have more energy

Building Communities from the Inside Out

Book Distributed Exclusively By: ACTA Publications, 4848 North Clark Street, Chicago: 60640
Phone: 800.397.2282 / Fax: 800.397.0079

---

NOTE: Much of the material from the book I review below can be found here

In the introduction to their book, Building Communities From the Inside Out, John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight contend that, when faced with the problems of dying inner-city communities, “well-intended people [seek] solutions by taking one of two divergent paths. The first, which begins by focusing on a community’s needs, deficiencies and problems, is still by far the most traveled, and commands the fast majority of our financial and human resources.” The second, less traveled path “begins with a clear commitment to discovering a community’s capacities and assets” (1).

The first path, although well traveled, tends only to reinforce the socially oppressive patterns in a community. Here, research reveals the community's “needs” to the specialists who then create the programs that address the needs, then,

“Public, private and non-profit human service systems, often supported by university research and foundation funding, translate the programs into local activities that teach people the nature and extent of their problems, and the value of services as the answer to their problems. As a result, many lower income urban neighborhoods are now environments of service where behaviors are affected because residents come to believe that their well-being depends upon being a client. They begin to see themselves as people with special needs that can only be met by outsiders. . .” (2).

So, basically, the first path unwittingly augments the sick system in these neighborhoods by latently emphasizing the problem/need in every program it generates. This is a reasonable assertion.

The second path begins in the opposite direction: it begins by asking “What capabilities do the people in this neighborhood possess? And it “leads toward the development of policies and activities based on the capacities, skills and assets of lower income people and their neighborhoods” (5). Where needs based programming implants the DNA of NEED into each social activity, assets based programming implants the DNA of ASSET into each activity. This makes a lot of sense to me (I mean, you see it played out all the time in educational settings: kids that get placed in advanced classes have ADVANCED written into their beings, whereas kids who are placed in remedial or “B” or whatever have SLOW written into them).

The practical tools in this book are all about finding and developing your communities assets, and there’s a lot of great tools to use. Here’s a basic outline:

Chapter 1- Releasing Individual Capacities


Mapping Individual Capacities: An Inventory (get online version)

• A Detailed Survey (Capacity Inventory Survey: Skills, Community Skills, Enterprising Interests and Experience; Personal Information)

Examples of Capacity-Based Connections and Programs for

• Youth
• Senoirs
• People with Disabilities
• Welfare Recipients
• Local Artists

Chapter 2- Releasing the Power of Local Associations and Organizations

• Associations
• Religions Institutions
• Cultural Organizations

Chapter 3- Capturing Local Institutions for Community Building

• Parks
• Libraries
• Schools
• Community Colleges
• Police
• Hospitals

Chapter 4- Rebuilding the Community Economy

• The Economic Uses of Non-Economic Institutions
• Alternative Credit Institutions
• Physical Assets (Vacant and Abandoned Space, Waste and Energy)

Chapter 5- Asset-Based Community Development: Mobilizing an Entire Community

Five Steps Toward Whole Community Mobilization

• Mapping Assets
• Building Relationships
• Mobilizing for Economic Development and Information Sharing
• Convening the Community to Develop and Information Sharing
• Leveraging Outside Resources to Support Locally Driven Development

Chapter 6- Providing Support for Asset-Based Development: Policies and Guidelines

• Support from Funders
• Support from Governments
• Final Thoughts on the Limits and Potential of Buildings Communities from the Inside Out

More Church Research

1. Loaded with the typical Christian information sources (namely Gallup, Barna, and John C. Green), Ron Sider delivers his next sweeping indictment of his target audience--Evangelical Christians--in his latest book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience. His main point: when the numbers come rolling out, Evangelicals don't look any different than society at large; most notably, they don't look any different along measures of morals and values. Interesting.
   
   An interview which moves through the major points and themes of the book can be found here.
   
   Related Reading
   PBS: Religion & Ethics intervew with Anna Greenberg and John Green
   
   Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger By Ron Sider
   
   




2. Christian Publishing Information: Here's the first in my searches for the numbers of Christian books sold in a year: Christian Books
   
   2002 sales of books and products through all channels: just under $4.2 billion, up from $4 billion in 2000. $2.4 billion sold through Christian retail outlets; $1.1 billion through general retail; and $725 million through direct-to-consumer ministry channels. First 6 months of 2003: CBA member store sales were down 2%. Books increased 8%, Bibles increased 2% but music and gifts decreased 9%.
   --Christian Booksellers Association reported in Publishers Weekly, August 4, 2003

On How Americans Are Seeking and Forming Relationships

How are Americans seeking and forming relationships today (vis. other times in our relatively short history and perhaps vis. other cultures and time periods in world history)?

And then, more specifically, how are Christians seeking and forming these relationships vis. the rest of the culture generally?

The First Question

A few clues for the first question: Robert Putnam's work, Bowling Alone provides at least a good survey of the important categories and variables we'll need to answer this question. That is, we might not buy his arguments just yet, but he has done some good thinking about how to think about our question.

For example, he's always asking if a trend is producing a "bridging" or a "bonding" network. Bridging networks have sharing built into their DNA; social assets, information, and/or physical capital pass between diverse worlds--"out of the box" progress is made all the time because concepts and techniques are constantly borrowed and adapted from one world of action to another. In contrast, bonding networks undergird specific reciprocity and mobilize solidarity. Conformity to a strong but implicit standard--not innovation--is the underlying grammar of the bonding network.

I don't think any networks are purely bridging or bonding networks; as Putnam points out, "many [--I'd say all--] groups simultaneously bond along some social dimensions and bridge across others. The black church, for example, brings together people of the same race and religion across class lines. The Knights of Columbus was created to bridge cleavages among different ethnic communities while bonding along religious and gender lines. Internet chat groups may bridge across geography, gender, age, and religion, while being tightly homogeneous in education and ideology. In short, bonding and bridging are not "either-or" categories into which social networks can be neatly divided, but "more or less" dimensions along which we can compare different forms of social capital."

Then there's the major categories of inquiry:

• Political Participation


• Civic Participation


• Religious Participation


• Connections in the Workplace


• Informal Social Connections


• Small Groups


• Social Movements


• The Net

These are still unsorted and unrelated; but they are helpful places to start. And of course, they are the areas where Putnam provides tons of data and references for further research.

And his thesis cannot be overlooked, even if it comes off a bit strong: Americans are increasingly loath to join any organization that requires active commitment and altruism; the strong bridging community is dying.

But in his strong thesis, he misses some important trends that seem to paint a picture of restructuring community life rather than a declining one: Robert Wuthnow's book, Sharing the Journey, for example, marks out the emerging trend toward small group involvement as an important restructuring of the modern community. Surprisingly, under Wuthnows analysis, the small group movement carries a strong bridging tendency in its current.

Well, as I said, those are important starting places. I'll see where they take me.

The second Question

Right now I have no idea where to start with this question! I'll have to do some more digging.

Individuals Seeking and Forming Relationships Online

Pew: Internet and American Life: There's lots of info here about Americans seeking and forming relationships over the world wide web.

Selected Highlights:

• General Info
:

• "A decade after browsers came into popular use, the Internet has
  reached into–and, in some cases, reshaped–just about every important realm of modern life. It has changed the way we inform ourselves, amuse ourselves, care for ourselves, educate ourselves, work, shop, bank, pray and stay in touch. . ."


• "On a typical day at the end of 2004, some 70 million American adults logged onto the Internet to use email, get news, access government information, check out health and medical information, participate in auctions, book travel reservations, research their genealogy, gamble, seek out romantic partners, and engage in countless other activities. That represents a 37 percent increase from the 51 million Americans who were online on an average day in 2000 when the Pew Internet & American Life Project began its study of online life. . ."


• There are Five Million Blogs

How Americans Use It

• 63% survey (18+): web-users


• Email still the "killer app" of the Internet: highest usage "Many report their email use increases their communication with key family and friends and enhances their connection to them."

More On How Americans Use It

• "The status of the Internet is shifting from being the dazzling new thing to being a purposeful tool that Americans use to help them with some of life's important tasks. As Internet users gain experience online, they increasingly turn to the Internet to perform work-related tasks, to make purchases and do other financial transactions, to write emails with weighty and urgent content, and to seek information that is important to their everyday lives. Over the course of a year, people's use of the Internet gets more serious and functional. Internet users do more kinds of things online after they gain experience, especially related to their jobs, even as they spend a bit less time online during their typical sessions. These findings come from a survey conducted in March 2001 in which 1,501 people were re-interviewed from a March 2000 survey."

Who's Using the Internet

Online Activity

Online Communities Report

• Rise in online community activity after Sept. 11



• 84% (90 million Americans) internet users have contacted an online community



• 28 million have used the Internet to deepen their ties to their local communities


• 50% of Cyber Groupies say that participation in an online community has helped them get to know people they otherwise would not have met.



• "The Internet helps many people find others who share their interests no matter how distant they are, and it also helps them increase their contact with groups and people they already know and it helps them feel more connected to them."

Faith Online

• "Nearly two-thirds (89 million) of online Americans use the Internet for faith-related reasons. "



• "38% of the nation's 128 million Internet users have sent and received email with spiritual content; 35% have sent or received online greeting cards related to religious holidays; 32% have gone online to read news accounts of religious events and affairs; 21% have sought information about how to celebrate religious holidays; 17% have looked
  for information about where they could attend religious services; 7% have made or responded to online prayer requests; and 7% have made donations to religious organizations or charities."



• "The survey provides clear evidence that the majority of the online faithful are there for personal spiritual reasons, including seeking outside their own traditions, but they are also deeply grounded in those traditions, and this Internet activity supplements their ties to
  traditional institutions, rather than moving them away from church. "



• "Faith-related activity online is a supplement to, rather than a substitute for offline religious life. The survey found thattwo-thirds of those who attend religious services weekly use the Internet for personal religious or spiritual purposes. They are more
  likely to be women, white, middle aged, college educated, and relatively well-to-do. In addition, they are somewhat more active as Internet users than the rest of the Internet population."

Blog Count:Blogcount asks: How big is the blogosphere? What is its shape, color, true nature? Blogcount catalogs efforts to answer these questions. We collect and organize the best reports and analyses on this subject.

Cellphones and Teenage Culture

Percept Data

Percept Data
*
There's a bunch of againg and raw data from Percept's national "Ethos" study that the company has left out for the public on its website; I'm pretty sure it's the data that Mike Regele worked into his book Death of the Church. Not very helpful since there's not follow up studies and since its old data and since its raw data. But now we know it's there.

On Studying Evangelicalism

On Studying Evangelicalism
*
By one of Gallup's definition (see "Further Restrictions on Self-Definitional Criteria") , Black Americans cannot be evangelical. Catholics cannot be evangelical.

Why?

For two contradictory reasons:

Black Americans can't be evangelical because Gallup sees themselves conducting research "for the purposes of analysis involving political variables." Thus, "the presence of blacks in the sample of evangelicals can be confusing. A large percentage of blacks have historically identified with the Democratic Party. Thus, for most analytical purposes, including blacks as part of the sample of evangelicals confounds the analysis, particularly when one discusses the relationship between being evangelical and certain political stances."

The above wording would lead us to conclude that Gallup views the religious world through a strictly political lens. Right?

Well, then we find that that Catholics aren't included in the definition because, "for analytical purposes, Catholics are historically different enough from members of traditionally non-Catholic, Protestant denominations to warrant their exclusion from an evangelical definition. Hence the usual decision to exclude Catholics from the 'evangelical category.'"

Now we've switched lenses; we don't exclude Catholics for any American political reasons (at least that seems to be the gist here), we don't include them for historical (read: internal religious) reasons.

If we were going to exclude Catholics and blacks from "evangelical," we'd have to be consistent: we'd have to either point out that Catholics are, by and large, democrat (ergo, non-evangelical like the blacks) or that blacks are historically religious counterparts to evangelicals (ergo, non-evangelicals like the Catholics).

Anyway, the main point is that Gallup's methodology ends up defining major parts of "evangelicals" instead of doing what it says it would do by analyzing the emergent commonalities of those who say they are "born again" or evangelical.

White Collar Crime

White Collar Crime
*
From The Online Lawyer Source:

Examples of white collar crime include: antitrust fraud, bankruptcy fraud, bribery, computer fraud, credit card fraud, counterfeiting, embezzlement, identity fraud, insider trading, insurance fraud, kickbacks, money laundering, obstruction of justice, perjury and price fixing.

White collar crime is steadily on the rise, thanks to our technologically advancing society, which relies on the increased use of cellular phones and computers to access personal and financial information. The National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), a nonprofit agency that supports state and local police in their efforts to prevent, investigate and prosecute economic and high-tech crime, reports that while arrests for violent crimes have decreased in recent years, arrests for white collar crimes - especially fraud and embezzlement - have increased.

The rise in white collar crime incidents has also contributed to a rise in cost to the nation. According to National Fraud Center statistics, the cost of economic crime has risen from $5 billion in 1970 to $100 billion in 1990, and is only expected to increase as occurrences become more frequent. For example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Economic Crime Unit reports that telemarketing fraud, one of the fastest growing types of white collar crime, has become an increasing problem in recent years, victimizing millions of people at a cost of $40 billion annually.

Statistics from NW3C also approximate that one in three households is the victim of white collar crime, yet of these, only 41 percent report the incident. Of the small number reported, only 21 percent are handled by a law enforcement or consumer protection agency.

Experts believe that many people fail to report white collar crime because they are unaware that they have been victimized. Many of those who are aware of a suspicious incident are unsure of whether or not it is an actual crime, and of those who are knowledgeable, many are either unsure who to contact or believe no resolution will come from reporting the crime. NW3C encourages awareness on the part of both the public and law enforcement agencies as a preventive measure against the future of white collar crime.