\u27Dare to be Different\u27: How Religious Groups Frame and Enact Appropriate Sexuality and Gender Norms among Young Adults

Purpose The sexual lives of religious youth and young adults have been an increasing topic of interest since the rise of abstinence-only education and attendant programs in many religious institutions. But while we know a lot about individual-level rates of sexual behavior, far less is known about how religious organizations shape and mediate sexuality. We draw on data from observations with youth and young adult ministries and interviews with religious young adults and adult leaders from Muslim, Hindu, and Protestant Christian groups in order to examine how religious adults in positions of organizational authority work to manage the gender and sexual developments in the transition to adulthood among their youth. We find three distinct organizational styles across the various religious traditions: avoidance through gender segregation, self-restraint supplemented with peer surveillance, and a classed disengagement. In each of these organizational responses, gender and sexuality represent something that must be explained and controlled in the process of cultivating the proper adult religious disposition. The paper examines how religious congregations and other religious organizations oriented toward youth, work to manage the gender and sexual developments in their youth’s transitions to adulthood. The paper draws from a larger project that is studying the lived processes of religious transmission between generations. Methodology/approach Data were extracted from (a) ethnographic observations of youth programming at religious organizations; (b) ethnographicobservations with families during their religious observances; (c) interviews with adult leaders of youth ministry programs. The sample includes Protestant Christian, Muslim, and Hindu organizations and families

Saving Marriage One Relationship at a Time: Culture, Family, and Social Change in Christian Premarital Counseling

Despite concerns about the decline of marriage in the United States, research has consistently revealed that getting married and staying married remain important to Americans. The value attached to marriage, however, is coupled with an ethic of individualism that results in a focus on personal satisfaction and fulfillment in marriage. While this individualized marriage has been established at both the macro level as part of an American marriage culture and at the micro level in the preferences and actions of individuals, less attention has focused on how communities mediate, respond, and react to these beliefs. I draw from a comparative study of Catholic and evangelical Protestant marriage preparation programs to analyze how religious communities interpret cultural shifts in marriage and provide their members with lenses to understand them in their daily lives. In addition to research at six archives, the study includes ethnographic observations of four marriage preparation curricula and seventy interviews with participating couples and leaders of these and other programs. Through this research, I examine how religious groups craft discourses on the “good” and “Godly” marriage by drawing from broader therapeutic discourses and religious imagery. In addition to showing how this has implications for constructions of gender and sexuality, I consider the reception of these messages among premarital couples. My findings help to contextualize analyses of religious and marital change by situating recent cultural shifts within the broader development of a therapeutic culture

“Church” in Black and White: The Organizational The Organizational Lives of Young Adults

The religious lives of young adults have generally been investigated by examining what young people believe and their self-reported religious practices. Far less is known about young adults’ organizational involvement and its impact on religious identities and ideas about religious commitment. Using data from site visit observations of religious congregations and organizations, and individual and focus group interviews with college-age black and white Christians, we find differences in how black and white students talk about their religious involvement; and with how they are incorporated into the lives of their congregations. White students tended to offer “organizational biographies” chronicling the contours of belonging as well as disengagement, and emphasizing the importance of fulfilling personal needs as a criterion for maintaining involvement. On the other hand, black students used “family” and “home” language and metaphors to describe how their religious involvement, a voluntary choice, was tied to a sense of “calling” and community. We show that this variation is aligned with organizational differences in black and white congregations that situate white youth as separate and black youth as integrated into the larger church community