Building Traditions: Comparing Space, Ritual, and Community in Three Congregations

Abstract

This article presents initial findings from an ongoing comparative study of religious identity, culture and community. Here, I address the more narrow question of how local congregations embody and reflect particular setsof religious ideals and beliefs. My central concern is to explore how the buildings in which people worship, the ritual movements of the congregation, and the pastors' vision of what it means for the church to be "a body" reflect the broader theological traditions of which these congregations are a part. Based on interviews with pastors, their spouses, and participant observation in multiple services, small groups, and new member classes, I assess the coherent threads of meaning that form the fabric of congregational identity. The analysis extends theories of religious affiliation by focusing on religion as embodied-both in the literal bodies and ritual movement of church goers, notions of religious communities as themselves "bodies, " and the embodiment of religious belief in the spaces in which congregations worship.