Roger Finke > Quotes

“In this book, the history of American religion is the history of human actions and human organizations, not the history of ideas (refined or otherwise). But this is not to say that we regard theology as unimportant. To the contrary, we shall argue repeatedly that religious organizations can thrive only to the extent that they have a theology that can comfort souls and motivate sacrifice. In a sense, then, we are urging an underlying model of religious history that is the exact opposite of one based on progress through theological refinement. We shall present compelling evidence that theological refinement is the kind of progress that results in organizational bankruptcy.”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“evangelical clergy showed growth in giving, attendance, and even membership, for pastors who had served in a congregation three years or longer. But the most dramatic changes were in congregations served by clergy seeking less tension with the culture. Congregations with "officiant" pastors showed sharp drops for all of the measures (Finke and Stark, 2001).”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“light of the two centuries of church statistics we have examined, it is obvious that a group can add members and still fail to keep pace with the growth of the population and of other religious firms.
The mainline denominations do not qualify as rockets that suddenly
ran out of fuel in the sixties-their market shares were falling in the forties and fifties too, and throughout the century”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“during and immediately after the Revolution, a period that Williston Walker (1894, p. 319) described as "the epoch of the lowest spiritual vitality that our churches have ever experienced." Or, to quote Leonard Woolsey Bacon (1897, p. 230): "The closing years of the eighteenth century show the lowest low-water mark of the lowest ebb-tide of spiritual life in the history of the American church.”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“light of the two centuries of church statistics we have examined, it is obvious that a group can add members and still fail to keep pace with the growth of the population and of other religious firms.”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“These series of events placed the conference pastors into two distinct camps: pastors who sided with the ERF and sought more tension, and pastors who supported same-sex marriages and sought less tension-a large additional group included those who did not commit to either side. Once again, when the clergy's congregations were compared, the evangelical clergy showed growth in giving, attendance, and even membership, for pastors who had served in a congregation three years or longer. But the most dramatic changes were in congregations served by clergy seeking less tension with the culture. Congregations with "officiant" pastors showed sharp drops for all of the measures (Finke and Stark, 2001).”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“That is, we will repeatedly suggest that as denominations have modernized their doctrines and embraced temporal values, they have gone into decline.”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“most sect movements have remained small and obscure. Placing high demands on members and maintaining distinctive boundaries with the surrounding culture are not sufficient to explaining the vitality of religious organizations. Yet these are often necessary conditions for vital rcligions.11”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“Thus we see the Methodists as they were transformed from sect to church. Their clergy were increasingly willing to condone the pleasures of this world and to deemphasize sin, hellfire, and damnation; this lenience struck highly responsive chords in an increasingly affluent, influential, and privileged membership.”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“Average giving for an active member in a congregation was $883 in 2002. But the average nearly doubled to $1,680 for Asian congregations. The ratio between average Sunday worship attendance and the number of active members in a congregation is 0.52 for all Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations compared to 0.96 for Asian congregations. Additional research has shown that Asian members also donate more of their time outside of worship services. On every measure available, the level of commitment is far higher for the Asian congregations”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“The concern of Methodist jeremiads in the late nineteenth century (see Chapter 5) was that growing Methodist churches were mimicking the standards of others, seeking to be respectable in their eyes. Finally, professional clergy will be more restrained by the norms of the profession and the larger denomination than lay clergy, because they have more to lose-for”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“Humans want their religion to be sufficiently potent, vivid, and compelling so that it can offer them rewards of great magnitude. People seek a religion that is capable of miracles and that imparts order and sanity to the human condition. The religious organizations that maximize these aspects of religion, however, also demand the highest price in terms of what the individual must do to qualify for these rewards.”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“the decreasing demands in other areas were as important, and probably more so, for reducing the commitment of Catholics. As lannaccone (1994, p. 1204) has commented, the Catholic church "managed to arrive at a remarkable, 'worst of both worlds' position-discarding cherished distinctiveness in the areas of liturgy, theology, and life-style, while at the same time maintaining the very demands that its members and clergy are least willing to accept.”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy

“a majority of American Catholics now agree that one can marry outside the church and still remain a "good Catholic”
― Roger Finke, The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy