Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail (ECT’s): defining a cohort

• In Event: 341 - Section on Sociology of Religion Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 09. Evangelical Affiliation and Non-Affiliation

Abstract

Since Durkheim researchers have asked if religious organizations replicate the social cohesion of traditional societies of the pre-modern era. In 1985 Robert Webber’s Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail (ECT’s) caused a stir among Evangelical and Mainline church members alike, since it claimed to “rediscover” the power of religious tradition within the formal structure of the Anglican/Episcopal (“Canterbury”) churches in the US. No systematic study has been done to analyze the narrative account of these former Evangelicals now socially migrated to the American Mainline. Is this a religious movement or an expression of social mobility by former “wrong side of the tracks” Christians? This paper proposes a dialectical methodology for gathering data to identify and analyze this group: first, by the creation of a social survey to form a socio-demographic history of ECT’s; and second, by the implemention of an interview strategy to reconstruct the group’s narrative for systematic analysis. The purpose of the paper is to form hypotheses on the sociological meaning of this, and potentially similar, socio-religious migrations. A clearer understanding of ECT’s should help clarify the question, are traditional societies forming within the greater modern and post-modern societies of our world; and, if so, how do their members experience tradition?

Author

• J. Gary L'Hommedieu, University of Central Florida