Drawing on extensive field work, personal interviews and focus groups in mainline, evangelical, and eastern Orthodox churches, Sally Gallagher examines what it is that draws women and men differently into different types of congregations.
Why do people go to church? What about a congregation attracts new members? What is it that draws women and men differently into diverse types of congregations? Getting to Church assesses the deeply personal and gendered narratives around how women and men move toward identifying with three very different Christian congregations one Orthodox, one conservative, and one mainline. Drawing on extensive research and ranging across layers of congregational history, leadership, architecture, new member process, programs, and service ministries, Sally Gallagher explores trajectories of joining, as well as membership loss and change over a seven-year period. By following both those who join a community and those who explore but choose not to, Gallagher avoids the methodological limitations of other studies and assesses the degree to which the spaces, people, programs, and doctrines within distinctive traditions draw women and men toward affiliation and involvement. Getting to Church demonstrates that women are attracted to specific doctrines and ideas, opportunities for individual reflection, experience and expanded personal agency; while men find in these congregations a sense of community within which they experience greater connection with other men, appreciate beauty, and yield to something greater than themselves. Drawing on extensive field work, personal interviews, and focus groups, Getting to Church challenges extant theories of gender and religious involvement.
Getting to Church contributes to the sociology of religion through its subtle and systematic attention to differences in women's and men's experiences of religious engagement. This attention to nuanced narratives offers a helpful corrective to simplistic accounts of gender difference in religious involvement... The comparative framework, longitudinal data, elegant writing, and inclusion of vivid narrative details in Getting to Church help us to see the continued importance of distinct religious traditions for shaping belonging and purpose as the book makes a convincing case that religion in the United States is not going away anytime soon.
