Abstract
Mark Killian's Religious Vitality in Christian Intentional Communities: A Comparative Ethnographic Study is an in-depth analysis of religious vitality in two Midwestern Christian Intentional Communities (CICs). Based on 11 months of ethnographic research as an active participant, semi-structured interviews with 20 members of each community (40 total interviews) and ecological analysis (such as census data and real estate statistics), this book provides a unique look at contemporary intentional communities. Killian transports us to the inner-workings of a strict, charismatic, evangelical community called Philadelphia, and to a lenient, liturgical, parish-minded community called Berea. Exploring the motivations, ideologies, and organizational structure that shape these CICs, Killian draws upon a comprehensive review of religious vitality literature to examine how religious economies, power, demographics, culture, ecology, strictness, and lived religion influence each other within the context of CICs.
Killian's primary argument is that religious vitality should be understood as a nexus of reciprocal structures which interact and impact each other, rather than a linear relationship among specific variables. He draws on Anthony Gidden's theory of structuration—which argues that structure and agency exist in a relationship of irreducible duality—to suggest that the various levels of vitality shape each other. Killian uses this approach to understand both what factors influenced the emergence of the CICs, as well as the factors that maintained their ongoing existence. For example, he suggests that the unregulated, pluralistic, and privatized structure of the American religious economy not only created the sense of alienation that compelled individuals to seek out new religious opportunities (as they felt estranged from existing institutions and the commercialization of the religious marketplace), but also created the possibility for those opportunities to exist (as they created even more options within the religious marketplace). He explains, “religious vitality is a product of the religious economy freeing individuals from objective constraints, allowing religious subjectivities to flourish, while simultaneously those subjectivities feedback religious beliefs and behaviors that encompasses the pluralistic nature of the religious economy” (p. 22). The creation of a new CIC, driven by a particular sense of alienation from the existing religious environment, in turn created an even more pluralistic religious context of alternative worship options. In these ways, Killian argues, vitality is dynamic—a web of interrelated systems, structures, and features that are continually impacting each other.
Killian illustrates this claim by comparing how the emergence and development of Philadelphia and Berea were similarly impacted by structural, communal, and individual-level factors. Both communities emerged from a pluralistic religious economy and attracted post-baby boomers, but each community constructed unique identities in response to these realities: Philadelphia's ideology was grounded in free will rationalism that emphasized vows of chastity, while Berea's was based in expressive communalism and emphasized vows of stability. Both communities were shaped around charisma—for Philadelphia, it was an authoritative leadership that stabilized and unified the community; for Berea, it was a local church building, St. Seton, that represented the goals of the community and functioned as an orienting device. Similarly, both communities maintained membership through increasingly deep levels of personal investment: Philadelphia enforced strict theological and behavior expectations through required commitment mechanisms (shared finances, a rigid membership covenant, confession rituals); Berea's lenient culture had flexible theological and behavior expectations, and emphasized place-attachment, sustaining membership through optional financial and emotional investment in the geographic location (such as choosing to purchase a house or obtain employment in the neighborhood). Killian's argument thus, is not to offer a new theory of religious vitality, but rather to provide a “holistic vision of how [vitality] perspectives matter to each other” (p. 2).
One of the primary weaknesses of this book is its limited grappling with issues of race and racial power. Although Killian notes that both CICs were predominantly white (all but one of the community members were white) and briefly considers how members of Berea interacted with their neighbors (by seeking to be a positive presence, despite being viewed with suspicion), he provides little analysis about the implications of these racialized dynamics or how the CICs interact with their diverse neighbors. More broadly, however, Killian says little about how race is important for our understanding and application of vitality theories—the nexus he presents does not seem to consider how racial power interacts within and among the factors of vitality, such as charisma, ecology, and culture. For instance, one might wonder how these CICs function as racial enclaves and what impact does racial homogeneity have on our assessments of vitality? How might religious economy, for instance, be re-examined through a racial lens to assess the number and type of ‘options’ available in the religious marketplace? By overlooking these components, Killian's assessment leaves some important questions unanswered and unexplored.
Overall, this book provides a solid introduction to the study of intentional communities and religious vitality literatures. The writing is accessible to undergraduates and public audiences, and offers new insight into the contemporary religious landscape. Although Killian's key theoretical contribution—the religious vitality nexus—is primarily applied to these two specific CICs, he suggests that the construct is applicable to religious vitality in general and is useful to religious organizations or denominations seeking to understand vitality in their specific contexts.