136 Patricia M. Y. Chang
Proposition 6:Religion scholars have to begin to question the frameworks that they
are most familiar with and ask how well the conceptual categories we use reflect the
reality that is before us. Our persistence in studying religious denominations in spite
of the fact that individuals may not construct their identity in denominational terms
is one example of how we must question the adequacy of our causal assumptions.
We also must question the tendency to study the organizations that are able to
provide the best organizational information, which tends to be the Protestant mainline
denominations. We need to think more closely about why some denominations collect
data about their members, churches, and clergy, while others do not, and how this may
bias our investigations. Organizations tend to keep records on institutional features that
the organization values, or needs to monitor. Our data collection strategies may thus
partially be an artifact of the phenomena we are trying to explain.
Researchers need to question the social categories that they bring to religious re-
search and push harder to collect data that are comprehensive. In particular, we need
to broaden our understandings of how non-Protestant, non-Christian, and nondenom-
inational churches fit into our schemas. We are more likely to gain an understanding
of the directions in which we are headed by reaching out to the more marginalized re-
ligions than we are by continuing to focus on the declining mainline denominations.
These propositions offer some guidelines to keep in mind as we pursue the study
of religious institutions in this millennium. Overall, it pushes toward the development
of broader and more dynamic theoretical strategies that try to capture the mechanisms
by which religion evolves, rather than the development of static categories that will
be outdated by the time they reach publication. It is not an easy task, but it may be
one that helps us to think more proactively about the role religious institutions play in
shaping our society.