Research

Our research will examine congregational closures (endings), spiritual innovation (beginnings), and the changing shape of religious leadership in the United States. Over three years, the research team will conduct original research in four U.S. cities and will synthesize existing research into an edited volume designed to advance the themes in Robert Wuthnow’s classic The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II (Princeton University Press). The research team includes Kraig Beyerlein, Wendy Cadge, Penny Edgell, Amy Lawton, Diane Winston and Bob Wuthnow.

The core questions that guide the Research arm of this project are as follows:

• What does the religious/spiritual ecosystem/infrastructure look like in the United States today?
  • Since 2000, what institutions or systems in the religious/spiritual ecosystem/infrastructure have ended or closed? How did these closures happen and impact the individuals and communities involved? What happened to physical buildings and spaces vacated or transformed by these closures and to the people who used to gather in them?
  • What in the current religious/spiritual ecosystem/infrastructure in the United States is incubating and growing? Where? How? To what ends?
  • What – if any – are the on the ground connections between what is ending and what is emerging spiritually and religiously?
• What does religious/spiritual leadership look like in today’s religious/spiritual ecosystem/infrastructure and how is it nurtured?
• How did today’s spiritual infrastructure grow out of post-World War II changes in American religious life and what does this emergence suggest about the agenda for future research?

This page will be updated as the project’s research is published. Those interested in innovations in American spirituality may wish to read about the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab project “Mapping Spiritual Innovators,” parts of which inform the above work.