Congregation and social structure: An investigation into four Northern Irish memberships

Abstract

The relationship between organised religion and the wider society has been of fundamental concern within the sociology of religion. The author addresses the issue in terms of how material forms of social structure relate to individual congregational memberships. Four contrasting congregations were chosen for study (Baha’i, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Independent Evangelical), all in the author’s home region of Northern Ireland. A range of interviewing methods and tools were used, including tables of indices of dissimilarity, narrative analysis and Multidimensional Scaling. Each congregation was found to be delineated according to a specific set of demographic variables, each forming the profile of a wider community beyond that generated by itself. Additional investigations revealed how the congregations operated at the micro, meso and macro levels of social integration and differentiation.