Evangelical church attendance does not translate into broader community involvement

Evidence

The social capital of evangelicals, however, is invested at home more than in the wider community. Among evangelicals, church attendance is not correlated with membership in community organizations. There are exceptions to the generalization that evangelicals don’t reach out: Charles Colson’s Prison Fellowship Ministries, for example, is widely praised for working across denominational and racial lines in six hundred prisons nationwide to restore inmates to membership in the community. Most evangelical volunteering, however, supports the religious life of the congregation itself—teaching Sunday school, singing in the choir, ushering at worship services—but does not extend to the broader community as much as volunteering by members of other faiths. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 251

Categorization

• XREF: This extends the book’s core social capital framework—bonding versus bridging capital, evoking Robert Putnam’s own distinction and Coleman’s earlier argument that dense in-group ties can crowd out wider connections. — connects to: Nonprofit sector growth does not indicate rising social connectedness. — Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: America’s Declining…, 43; Church giving shifted from external charity toward internal operations — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 410; Movements grounded in preexisting churches mobilize better than those without social infrastructure — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 503 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Church attendance did not predict resistance to Trump among Republicans #corroborates (0.85) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 602