The Resilience of Conservative Religion: The Case of Popular, Conservative Protestant Congregations

The resurgence and persistent appeal of conservative religion, not just in the United States, but around the world in the past few decades presents a great challenge to sociologists and to modernization theory. The recent growth and popularity of conservative churches contradicts the idea that late-modern societies - with their emphases on the individual, and separation of church and state, and the cultural fragmentation and secularization that they foster - have outgrown the need for such relics of the past as traditionalist religions. In this book Joseph Tamney offers an explanation for this apparent incongruity by looking at the case of growing, popular, conservative Protestant congregations in the United States. His findings represent a synthesis of ideas from supporters of secularization theory and from those who stress the competitive market of churches in America as a factor in church growth.