Religious Identities and Religious Institutions 219
not maintaining a lifelong religious tradition are less likely to describe their current
denominational identification as important to how they think about themselves. All the
church attenders we surveyed – from the Church of God members to the Presbyterians
and Lutherans – chose, on average, “spiritual person” and “devout Christian” as more
important to them than their particular denominational identity. But for noncradle
members the margin was much wider than for cradle members, and “spiritual person”
was a more popular self-designation than “devout Christian.” Having been exposed
to numerous religious narratives, they have developed a less particular way to de-
scribe themselves. While “religious seeker” is not the term they most often chose, their
journey has nevertheless been incorporated into an autobiographical narrative more
“spiritual” than “religious” (Roof 1999a; Wuthnow 1998). In turn, congregations in
which “switchers” dominate are less likely to describe themselves as strongly attached
to their denomination’s traditions. Congregations full of “switchers” often report that
they have given up on maintaining the narratives of the denominational tradition,
emphasizing a more generic Christian story (Sikkink 1999).
Some switcher congregations, however, have adopted a different narrative strategy.
They emphasize practices intended to introduce new adherents to the stories and tradi-
tions of the denomination. They teach newcomers their distinctive modes of worship,
introduce children and adults to denominational ideas and stories through Christian
education programs, and tell tales of the great deeds done through the cooperative
efforts of the churches that share their denominational identity. As a result, in these
churches the tie between the congregation’s identity and that of the denomination re-
mains strong in spite of the mixture of religious stories represented by those in the pews
(Ammerman 2000). Theirs is an active process of narrative construction, of bringing
individual stories into a new communal context at the same time that a tradition is
being passed on and thus modified (Bass 1994). Within some religious organizational
contexts, then, religious identities are being constructed in rather intentional ways
out of longstanding narratives. Tradition becomes more a verb than a noun (Calhoun
1991), supplying and introducing accounts and characters to new cohorts of religious
actors. By telling the stories, practicing the rituals, and celebrating the heroes, these
congregations consciously keep a genre of denominational public narratives alive.^20
It is important to note that the narratives derived from religious tradition are not
static. Sacred stories, no less than any others, are both structured and improvised, deter-
mined by tradition and created out of human appropriation of that tradition. Indeed,
primal religious narratives that involve episodes of transcendence are inherently unsta-
ble, disrupting existing scripts.^21 “Sacred Others” are notoriously unpredictable. If we
recognize religious identities as both structured and emergent, then one of the most in-
teresting questions we may ask is about the conditions under which religious episodes
emerge in surprising ways, redefining the expectations of the actors in them. To use
(^20) Hervieu-Leger (2000) argues that posttraditional religious institutions must mobilize a com- ́
bination of emotional belonging and rational appeals to an “ethicocultural heritage.” For
example, pilgrimages involve the experience of a long journey, the exhilaration of being part
of a large throng, recognition by international media, rituals in which potent symbols (like
the Pope) are mobilized, exposure to sites in which traditional stories are embedded, and par-
ticipation in didactic efforts to pass on those stories.
(^21) Berger’s (1967) discussion of “exstasis” and “dealienation” is a particularly provocative sugges-
tion of the way in which religious experience can threaten established orders.