Diversified Power: The Rise of New Leaders in Bourdieu's Religious Field
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Abstract
Using Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of the religious field, capital, and habitus as theoretical frameworks, this article highlights emerging sources of influence within contemporary religious fields, as well as factors leading to their rise within our current culture. Specifically, the prereflexive nature of the individual agent will be re-considered in light of mass migration, globalization, and digital technology. The increasing influence of lay and digital leaders will also be considered, and their impact on traditional forms of religious authority discussed. What becomes apparent through this analysis is that once privileged religious elites have less control over dispensing spiritual capital.
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Keywords
Bourdieu, religious field, habitus, spiritual capital, social power, authority, religious elites
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Adams, M., and J. Raisborough. 2008. "What Can Sociology Say About Fair Trade? Class, Reflexivity and Ethical Consumption." Sociology 42(6):1165-182.
Archer, M. S. 2003. Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. S. 2007. Making Our Way through the World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility. Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. S. 2010. "Routine, Reflexivity, and Realism." Sociological Theory 28(3):272- 303.
Bean, L., and B.C. Martinez. 2015. "Sunday School Teacher, Culture Warrior: The Politics of Lay Leaders in Three Religious Traditions." Social Science Quarterly 96(1):133-47.
Bird, W., and S. Thumma. 2011. "A New Decade of Megachurches: 2011 Profile of Large Attendance Churches in the United States." Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
Bourdieu, P. 1971. "Cultural and Social Reproduction." Social Science Information 10(2):45-79.
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice, Vol. 16. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. 1986. "The Forms of Capital." Pp. 280-91 in Readings in Economic Sociology, edited by N. W. Biggart. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Bourdieu, P. 1987. "What Makes a Social Class? On the Theoretical and Practical Existence of Groups." Berkeley Journal of Sociology 32:1-17.
Bourdieu, P. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Translated by R. Nice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P., and L.J.D. Wacquant 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Bourdieu, P. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bourdieu, P. 1997. Pascalian Meditations. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Campbell, H. 2007. "Who’s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12(3):1043-62.
Castles, S., H. De Hass, and M.J. Miller. 2013. The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chaves, M. 1994. "Secularization as Declining Religious Authority." Social Forces 72(3):749-74.
Cheong, P.H. 2012. "Authority." Pp. 72-87 in Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds, edited by H. Campbell. New York: Routledge.
Costa, C., and M. Murphy. 2015. "Bourdieu and the Application of Habitus across the Social Sciences." Pp. 3-17 in Bourdieu, Habitus and Social Research: The Art of Application, edited by M. M. C. Costa. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Edgell, P. 2012. "A Cultural Sociology of Religion: New Directions." Annual Review of Sociology 38:247-65. Elder-Vass, D. 2007. "Reconciling Archer and Bourdieu in an Emergentist Theory of Action." Sociological Theory 25(4):325-46.
Elias, N. 2000. The Civilizing Process. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Grace, G. 2010. "Renewing Spiritual Capital: An Urgent Priority for the Future of Catholic Education Internationally." International Studies in Catholic Education 2(2):117-28.
Grusendorf, S. 2016. "Bourdieu’s Field, Capital, and Habitus in Religion." Journal of Sociology and Christianity 6(1):1-13.
Herbert, D.E. 2011. "Theorizing Religion and Media in Contemporary Societies: An Account of Religious ‘Publicization’." European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(6):626-48.
Hilgers, M., and E. Mangez, eds. 2014. Bourdieu’s Theory of Social Fields: Concepts and Applications. Routledge.
Hillier, J., and E. Rooksby, eds. 2005. Habitus: A Sense of Place. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Hjarvard, S. 2016. "Mediatization and the Changing Authority of Religion." Media, Culture & Society 38(1):8-17. Holt-Jensen, A. 2009. Geography: History and Concepts. Sage.
Maqsood, A. 2014. "‘Buying Modern’ Muslim Subjectivity, the West and Patterns of Islamic Consumption in Lahore, Pakistan." Cultural Studies 28(1):84-107.
Margolis, J. 1999. "Pierre Bourdieu: Habitus and the Logic of Practice." Pp. 64-83 in Bourdieu: A Critical Reader, edited by R. Shusterman. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
McClure, P.K. 2016. "Faith and Facebook in a Pluralistic Age: The Effects of Social Networking Sites on the Religious Beliefs of Emerging Adults." Sociological Perspectives 59(4):81834.
McCully, W. 2014. "Gleaning the Fields of Change: Adoption of Information and Communication Technologies in Religious Organizations." Journal of Communication & Religion 37(4):8298.
McNay, L. 2000. Gender and Agency. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mellor, P.A., and C. Shilling. 2014. Sociology of the Sacred: Religion, Embodiment and Social Change: Sage.
Miller, M. 2006. The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools. Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press.
Diversified Power | 84
Nesbitt, P. 2007. "Keepers of the Tradition: Religious Professionals and Their Careers." Pp. 295322 in The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, edited by J. A. Beckford and J. Demerath: SAGE.
Reay, D. 2004. "It’s All Becoming a Habitus: Beyond the Habitual Use of Habitus in Educational Research." British Journal of Sociology of Education 25(4):431-44.
Rey, T. 2004. "Marketing the Goods of Salvation: Bourdieu on Religion." Religion 34(4):331-43. Rey, T. 2007. Bourdieu on Religion: Imposing Faith and Legitimacy. New York: Routledge.
Robertson, R. 2006. "Civilization." Theory, Culture & Society 23(2-3):421-27.
Thumma, S.L. 2001. "Megachurches Today 2000: Summary of Data from the Faith Communities Today 2000 Project." Hartford Institute for Religion Research. (http://hirr.hartsem.edu/org/faith_megachurches_FACTsummary.html).
Thumma, S.L., D. Travis, and W. Bird. 2005. "Megachurches Today 2005." Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
Thumma, S.L., and D. Travis. 2007. Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from America’s Largest Churches. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Thumma, S.L., and W. Bird. 2009. "Not Who You Think They Are: A Profile of the People Who Attend America’s Megachurches." Hartford Institute for Religion Research (http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/National%20Survey% 20of%20 Megachurch%20Attenders%20-final.pdf).
Thumma, S.L., and W. Bird 2015. "Recent Shifts in America’s Largest Protestant Churches: Megachurches 2015 Report." Vol. Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
Turner, B.S. 2007. "Religious Authority and the New Media." Theory, Culture & Society 24(2):117-34.
Whitehead, A.L., and S. Stroope. 2015. "Small Groups, Contexts, and Civic Engagement: A Multilevel Analysis of United States Congregational Survey Data." Social Science Research 52:659-70.
Wuthnow, R. 1994. I Come Away Stronger: How Small Groups Are Shaping American Religion. Grand Rapids, MI: William B Eerdmans.
Zaki, M. 2017. "The Pragmatics of Arabic Religious Posts on Facebook: A Relevance-Theoretic Account." Research in Language 15(1):37-60.
Adams, M., and J. Raisborough. 2008. "What Can Sociology Say About Fair Trade? Class, Reflexivity and Ethical Consumption." Sociology 42(6):1165-182.
Archer, M. S. 2003. Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation: Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. S. 2007. Making Our Way through the World: Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility. Cambridge University Press.
Archer, M. S. 2010. "Routine, Reflexivity, and Realism." Sociological Theory 28(3):272- 303.
Bean, L., and B.C. Martinez. 2015. "Sunday School Teacher, Culture Warrior: The Politics of Lay Leaders in Three Religious Traditions." Social Science Quarterly 96(1):133-47.
Bird, W., and S. Thumma. 2011. "A New Decade of Megachurches: 2011 Profile of Large Attendance Churches in the United States." Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
Bourdieu, P. 1971. "Cultural and Social Reproduction." Social Science Information 10(2):45-79.
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice, Vol. 16. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. 1986. "The Forms of Capital." Pp. 280-91 in Readings in Economic Sociology, edited by N. W. Biggart. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Bourdieu, P. 1987. "What Makes a Social Class? On the Theoretical and Practical Existence of Groups." Berkeley Journal of Sociology 32:1-17.
Bourdieu, P. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Translated by R. Nice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P., and L.J.D. Wacquant 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Bourdieu, P. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bourdieu, P. 1997. Pascalian Meditations. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Campbell, H. 2007. "Who’s Got the Power? Religious Authority and the Internet." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12(3):1043-62.
Castles, S., H. De Hass, and M.J. Miller. 2013. The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chaves, M. 1994. "Secularization as Declining Religious Authority." Social Forces 72(3):749-74.
Cheong, P.H. 2012. "Authority." Pp. 72-87 in Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds, edited by H. Campbell. New York: Routledge.
Costa, C., and M. Murphy. 2015. "Bourdieu and the Application of Habitus across the Social Sciences." Pp. 3-17 in Bourdieu, Habitus and Social Research: The Art of Application, edited by M. M. C. Costa. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Edgell, P. 2012. "A Cultural Sociology of Religion: New Directions." Annual Review of Sociology 38:247-65. Elder-Vass, D. 2007. "Reconciling Archer and Bourdieu in an Emergentist Theory of Action." Sociological Theory 25(4):325-46.
Elias, N. 2000. The Civilizing Process. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Grace, G. 2010. "Renewing Spiritual Capital: An Urgent Priority for the Future of Catholic Education Internationally." International Studies in Catholic Education 2(2):117-28.
Grusendorf, S. 2016. "Bourdieu’s Field, Capital, and Habitus in Religion." Journal of Sociology and Christianity 6(1):1-13.
Herbert, D.E. 2011. "Theorizing Religion and Media in Contemporary Societies: An Account of Religious ‘Publicization’." European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(6):626-48.
Hilgers, M., and E. Mangez, eds. 2014. Bourdieu’s Theory of Social Fields: Concepts and Applications. Routledge.
Hillier, J., and E. Rooksby, eds. 2005. Habitus: A Sense of Place. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Hjarvard, S. 2016. "Mediatization and the Changing Authority of Religion." Media, Culture & Society 38(1):8-17. Holt-Jensen, A. 2009. Geography: History and Concepts. Sage.
Maqsood, A. 2014. "‘Buying Modern’ Muslim Subjectivity, the West and Patterns of Islamic Consumption in Lahore, Pakistan." Cultural Studies 28(1):84-107.
Margolis, J. 1999. "Pierre Bourdieu: Habitus and the Logic of Practice." Pp. 64-83 in Bourdieu: A Critical Reader, edited by R. Shusterman. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
McClure, P.K. 2016. "Faith and Facebook in a Pluralistic Age: The Effects of Social Networking Sites on the Religious Beliefs of Emerging Adults." Sociological Perspectives 59(4):81834.
McCully, W. 2014. "Gleaning the Fields of Change: Adoption of Information and Communication Technologies in Religious Organizations." Journal of Communication & Religion 37(4):8298.
McNay, L. 2000. Gender and Agency. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mellor, P.A., and C. Shilling. 2014. Sociology of the Sacred: Religion, Embodiment and Social Change: Sage.
Miller, M. 2006. The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools. Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute Press.
Diversified Power | 84
Nesbitt, P. 2007. "Keepers of the Tradition: Religious Professionals and Their Careers." Pp. 295322 in The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, edited by J. A. Beckford and J. Demerath: SAGE.
Reay, D. 2004. "It’s All Becoming a Habitus: Beyond the Habitual Use of Habitus in Educational Research." British Journal of Sociology of Education 25(4):431-44.
Rey, T. 2004. "Marketing the Goods of Salvation: Bourdieu on Religion." Religion 34(4):331-43. Rey, T. 2007. Bourdieu on Religion: Imposing Faith and Legitimacy. New York: Routledge.
Robertson, R. 2006. "Civilization." Theory, Culture & Society 23(2-3):421-27.
Thumma, S.L. 2001. "Megachurches Today 2000: Summary of Data from the Faith Communities Today 2000 Project." Hartford Institute for Religion Research. (http://hirr.hartsem.edu/org/faith_megachurches_FACTsummary.html).
Thumma, S.L., D. Travis, and W. Bird. 2005. "Megachurches Today 2005." Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
Thumma, S.L., and D. Travis. 2007. Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from America’s Largest Churches. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Thumma, S.L., and W. Bird. 2009. "Not Who You Think They Are: A Profile of the People Who Attend America’s Megachurches." Hartford Institute for Religion Research (http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/National%20Survey% 20of%20 Megachurch%20Attenders%20-final.pdf).
Thumma, S.L., and W. Bird 2015. "Recent Shifts in America’s Largest Protestant Churches: Megachurches 2015 Report." Vol. Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
Turner, B.S. 2007. "Religious Authority and the New Media." Theory, Culture & Society 24(2):117-34.
Whitehead, A.L., and S. Stroope. 2015. "Small Groups, Contexts, and Civic Engagement: A Multilevel Analysis of United States Congregational Survey Data." Social Science Research 52:659-70.
Wuthnow, R. 1994. I Come Away Stronger: How Small Groups Are Shaping American Religion. Grand Rapids, MI: William B Eerdmans.
Zaki, M. 2017. "The Pragmatics of Arabic Religious Posts on Facebook: A Relevance-Theoretic Account." Research in Language 15(1):37-60.
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Research Articles