The External Adaptation of Religious Organizations

Abstract

In this paper, a structural model of organizational activity is developed to explain both the involvement of local churches with social issues and the formation of linkages between churches and other organizations in the community. The local church is seen as a goal directed organization, purposefully interacting with its environment, and limited in that interaction by both internal and external constraints and contingencies. Congregation size, organizational 'differentiation, community size and leadership stability are found to be important variables affecting the activities of 131 congregations from seven denominations in rural Minnesota. During the turmoil of the 1960's and early 1970's, the role of the church in controversial social issues emerged as a topic of sociological inquiry. Much of this research focused on the impact of religion on individual values and attitudes, and thus continued in a long tradition of interest in church and society (Blume, 1970; Quinley, 1974; Winter, 1970; Hadden, 1970). A smaller number of studies differed from this tradition in focusing on the corporate behaviors of denominations and congregations in response to their environment (Wood, 1970; Gibbs and Ewer, 1969; Takayama and Sachs, 1976). The research presented here is likewise addressed to churches as corporate goal directed organizations, interacting with their environment and limited by both internal and external constraints and contingencies. The basic research question concerns the effects of structural characteristics of congregations on their involvement with local decision making and social issues. The unit of analysis is the organization (the parish church) rather than individual church members, and it is assumed that, while corporate church activities may be initiated by individuals, they are not the simple result of interpersonal relationships. This paper closely parallels research by Gibbs and Ewer (1969) concerning the involvement of local churches with controversial social issues. Indeed, while there are variations in measurement between the two studies, the set of independent variables considered is identical in each. The theoretical associations between these variables are however somewhat different, as are the resulting interpretations of empirical findings. Gibbs and Ewer were interested in the relationship between leadership resources and the adaptation of churches to their environment. They conceived of the church as one class of open systems, as defined by Katz and Kahn (1966), and thus used an input-output