Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
American Religion Beyond the Synagogue, Church, and Temple

American Religion Beyond the Synagogue, Church, and Temple

Last updated on: October 18, 2021 at 4:59 pm by Melissa Borja

American Religion Beyond the Synagogue, Church, and Temple 2021-10-18T16:59:18-04:00 Melissa Borja

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Eldridge Street Synagogue, May 2011 (LibraryGroover, via Wikimedia Commons)

In her fascinating book, Beyond the Synagogue, Rachel Gross describes a wide range of activities that help American Jews find meaning and connection: visiting historic synagogues, conducting Jewish genealogy research, eating Jewish foods, and sharing Jewish stories and toys with children. According to Gross, these activities are not only expressions of Jewish nostalgia, but important and often overlooked forms of American Jewish religious practice.

She details these aspects of American Jewish life not only to illuminate the significance of Jewish deli cuisine and Rebecca Rubin the American Girl, but to offer an assurance to her readers: despite claims to the contrary, American Judaism is thriving. In so doing, Gross takes issue with the scholars who point to the decline in synagogue attendance and participation in Jewish community centers as evidence that there is a “continuity crisis” in American Judaism. But these scholars, Gross argues, are “looking for Judaism in all the wrong places.” Take a look beyond the synagogue, she argues, and you can see that Jewish religiosity is actually not in decline. In fact, it’s flourishing.

Gross makes an important point that applies not only to the study of American Judaism, but to the study of religion more generally, and it is that people often practice religion and form religious communities outside congregations, through activities and in spaces that appear to be non-religious. Congregations and the activities that take place within them have long been the starting point for understanding American religious life. But Gross, like many other recent scholars of American religion, urges us to rethink our assumptions about where we might locate religious life and what we might count as religious practices. Religious life is vibrant outside the walls of churches, temples, and synagogues, and if we’re willing to shift our attention away from congregations, we’ll be rewarded with a more nuanced, complex, and realistic view of American religion.

Zingerman’s Deli, Ann Arbor Michigan (Ken Lund, via Wikimedia Commons)

Why has the study of American religion focused so heavily on churches, temples, and synagogues? There are many reasons, not least of which is the fact that both scholars and religious people have largely accepted that, as R. Stephen Warner argues, “the religious component of civil society in the U.S. is organized along broadly congregational lines.” In the U.S., congregations are a well-established form of religious organization. Although the congregational form is rooted in American Protestantism, other groups, from Hindus to Hmong animists, have institutionalized their beliefs, practices, and communities in the form of religious congregations.

Studying churches, temples, and synagogues is also relatively straightforward. You can find them in the phone book or in an online directory. You can see them when you walk down the street. You can count them, categorize them, and map them. The conspicuous presence of congregations and the numerous ways that they facilitate relatively tidy research about the messy topic of religion make them an obvious and practical choice.

In addition, congregation-focused research often benefits from generous financial support. Institutions that are ideologically invested in the health of congregations are often financially invested in research about congregations. Take, for example, the Lilly Endowment, which has an explicit commitment to “the vitality of congregations” and provided 115 grants through its recent Thriving Congregations Initiative. In this funding context, religion scholars are incentivized to study congregations.

Finally, and perhaps most important, the longstanding focus on congregations is the product of Protestant assumptions that continue to shape how people think and write about religion. The beliefs, practices, and communities that are recognized and respected as “religious” in the U.S. tend to have characteristics that are commensurable to the features of Protestantism: a clergy, a scripture, a creed, a church. Indeed, these are the criteria used by scholars and casual observers alike when they look for religion in the real world. In the same way that beliefs and texts continue to be the focus of the analysis of American religious life, congregations continue to serve as the primary setting.

Congregations are no doubt useful and important to study, but focusing on congregations has important drawbacks. For one, it limits our ability to understand religious groups that have a history of practicing rituals and creating communities outside of formal religious institutions. Many groups–Hindus, for example–have a rich tradition of conducting rituals at home.

Even when studying religious groups that organize themselves around churches, temples, and synagogues, a narrow focus on congregations–and a narrow understanding of religion in general–means that we can miss opportunities to engage in important forms of belief, practice, and community that are located elsewhere. Here, Gross’s work on American Judaism is instructive. As she argues, congregation-focused research does not offer an adequate representation of the vitality of American Judaism. If you consider only the number of people who regularly attend services at synagogues, she says, you might get the impression that American Judaism is stagnating. But if you look elsewhere, you can witness the dynamism of American Judaism, which is practiced in a variety of surprising and innovative ways.

If we don’t focus on synagogues, churches, and temples, where else can we look to find American religious life? Here are some ideas for alternative sites of religious life beyond the synagogue, church, and temple.

Homes

Many religious groups have a long tradition of conducting rituals in their residences. Hindus, for example, maintain home temples, sometimes improvising if they live in small urban apartments. The importance of these home rituals was even highlighted in a short film by Pixar, Sanjay’s Super Team, in which a little boy reimagines Hindu deities as superheroes while his older relative prays. Buddhists, too, have a tradition of home-based rituals. As Duncan Williams discusses in American Sutra, when the U.S. government incarcerated Japanese Americans during the Second World War, one of the most powerful acts of resilience undertaken by Japanese American Buddhists was setting up beautiful home altars in their barracks.

Workplaces

People don’t leave their religion at home when they go to work, and they sometimes pursue creative solutions in order to ensure that they are able to practice their rituals even when they’re on the job. Muslim taxi drivers find a way to pray in between rides, thus creating what Elta Smith and Courtney Bender describe in one article as an “urban niche religion.”

Schools

From student ministries, Bible study circles, and a cappella groups, religious life flourishes in many forms on college campuses. In God’s New Whiz Kids?, a study of Korean American evangelical college students, Rebecca Kim discusses how organizations such as Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and Campus Crusade for Christ serve as important sites of religious practice and community for young Asian American evangelicals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiQSsrQCG6c

Gyms

Settings that cultivate bodily health are often also places for cultivating spiritual health and religious community. Take, for example, the “muscular Christianity” that animated the creation of YMCAs in the 19th century and the ardor of CrossFit devotees in the 21st. The overlap of spiritual and bodily cultivation has received renewed attention with the HBO miniseries The Way Down, about Christian weight loss celebrity Gwen Shamblin, who is also featured in R. Marie Griffith’s book Born Again Bodies.

Activist organizations

The New Sanctuary Movement, the subject of Grace Yukich’s One Family Under God, shows how progressive Christianity merges with social justice activism. For the New Sanctuary Movement, which focuses on immigration justice, the aim is not only to change government policies but to change the hearts and minds of people of faith, and every aspect of the group’s work–from its chosen forms of protest to its rhetoric about immigration–reflects its religious orientation.

Restaurants, groceries, and markets

Gross writes about Jewish delis in order to discuss the importance of culinary traditions in American Jewish life. Similarly, others have shown the religious significance of places where people buy, sell, and consume food, especially food products that are important for ritual activities. The short documentary A Son’s Sacrifice, which tells the story of a Muslim man who takes over his father’s halal slaughterhouse in New York City, illuminates how institutions such as slaughterhouses play a critical role in the life of religious communities.

Online spaces

From email-based prayer networks to Facebook groups dedicated to daily meditation, religious life thrives on the Internet, and that’s not even considering the proliferation of Zoom-based activities that developed during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Considering religion online is especially important for those who want to understand populations that are digital natives. The Young Buddhist Editorial, for example, serves as an online forum where young Asian American Buddhists gather and speak freely about Asian American Buddhism from their Gen Z and Millennial perspectives.

Festivals

Robert Orsi’s richly detailed study of the street feste of Italian American Catholics in The Madonna of 115th Street is perhaps the most famous example of how popular celebrations are sites of religious life. More recently, in White Utopias, Amanda Lucia studies “transformational festivals” such as Burning Man to understand how festival-goers participate in music, meditation, and yoga as exotic activities that facilitate spiritual growth and connection.

Burning Man 2012 (Christopher Michel, via Wikimedia Commons)

The ideas and examples above are only a starting point. Where else can you find religious life? And what else might we be able to see if we make the effort look beyond the synagogue, church, and temple and witness the richness and creativity of religious life that exists beyond congregational walls?

American Religious History

Melissa Borja

Previous Post

October 15, 2021

The Death Of Christian Ireland

Next Post

October 19, 2021 "Evangelical": Past, Present, and Future

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe Guest Post guest post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does 2 Peter say scoffers will say in the last days?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Where is this 'coming' he promised? The world will never end Jesus will never return There is no God