Browsing by Author "Holleman, Anna"

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    Changing Worship Practices in American Congregations
    (Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2020-12-11) Roso, Joseph; Holleman, Anna; Chaves, Mark
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    Inequality within Congregations and Congregations’ Response to Inequality: Studies of Gender and Mental Health, Race and Mental Health, and Participation in the Sanctuary Movement
    (2021) Holleman, Anna

    This dissertation aims to address the ways that American religious congregations and religious leaders respond to and are formed within the context of a society marked by inequality. Specifically, I study: (1) the ways that the stress of the pastorate, and the ways that clergy respond to those stressors, is shaped by gender; (2) the ways that the racial make-up of religious congregations relate to the mental health of Black church-goers; and (3) the ways that white liberal religious leaders talk about race and racial inequality during our current period of ferment about race in America. To do so, I use three primary sources of information: (1) the Clergy Health Initiative Statewide Panel Survey of United Methodist Clergy, a longitudinal study of all UMC clergy in North Carolina from 2008-2019; (2) the linked General Social Survey and National Congregations Study dataset, a representative repeated cross-sectional sample of individuals and the religious congregations they attend in 2006, 2012, and 2018; and (3) 41 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with leaders from 41 religious congregations from across the United States that housed an undocumented individual in their congregational space during the Trump era Sanctuary Movement, conducted in 2020. I find that clergywomen are potentially more resilient than their male colleagues at processing occupational stress; that Black individuals who attend predominantly white and liberal congregations report better mental health than Black individuals who attend predominantly non-white congregations; and that, in line with recent quantitative research, white liberals’ rhetoric concerning race seems less colorblind than it used to be but, moving beyond the recent quantitative evidence, it remains complex and continues to perpetuate some features of racist discourse. These findings contribute to the sociology of religion, and they connect to important debates concerning gender, health, occupations, social stratification, and social movements.

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    Pastoral Ministry in Unsettled Times: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences of Clergy During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
    (Review of religious research, 2021-08-06) Johnston, Erin F; Eagle, David E; Headley, Jennifer; Holleman, Anna

    Background

    COVID-19 and its associated restrictions around in-person gatherings have created unprecedented challenges for religious congregations and those who lead them. While several surveys have attempted to describe how pastors and congregations responded to COVID-19, these provide a relatively thin picture of how COVID-19 is impacting religious life. There is scant qualitative data describing the lived reality of religious leaders and communities during the pandemic.

    Purpose and methods

    This paper provides a more detailed look at how pastors and congregations experienced and responded to COVID-19 and its associated restrictions in the early period of the pandemic. To do so, we draw from 26 in-depth interviews with church-appointed United Methodist pastors conducted between June and August 2020. Pastors were asked to describe how their ministry changed as a result of COVID-19 and interviews were analyzed using applied thematic analysis approaches to identify the most common emergent themes.

    Results

    Pastors reported that COVID-19 fundamentally unsettled routine ways of doing ministry. This disruption generated both challenges and opportunities for clergy and their congregations. In the findings, we describe how clergy responded in key areas of ministry-worship and pastoral care-and analyze how the pandemic is (re)shaping the way that clergy understood their role as pastors and envisioned the future of the Church. We argue for the value of examining the pandemic as an "unsettled" cultural period (Swidler 1986) in which religious leaders found creative ways to (re)do ministry in the context of social distancing. Rather than starting from scratch, we found that pastors drew from and modified existing symbolic and practical tools to fit pandemic-related constraints on religious life. Notably, however, we found that "redoing" ministry was easier and more effective in some areas (worship) than others (pastoral care).

    Conclusions and implications

    The impact of COVID-19 on pastors and congregations is complex and not fully captured by survey research. This study provides a baseline for investigating similarities and differences in the responses of pastors within and across denominations and traditions. It also provides a baseline for assessing whether changes in ministry implemented during the early stages of the pandemic remain in place in the post-COVID world.