The Ties that Bind: Network Overlap among Independent Congregations
Baylor University
Pennsylvania State University
Baylor University
The growth of independent or non-denominational churches has been one of the more dramatic recent developments in American religion, but little research has been devoted to this population. One reason for this is the perception that independent churches lack the coherency of denominational populations, which creates methodological and theoretical challenges. We explore this assumption by examining the social and symbolic networks of a sample of independent congregations. Using the outgoing links from congregational websites, we find that there is more overlap than one might expect. This raises questions about how truly “independent” the independent population is.
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