The importance of religion to the generation of social capital is basically a foregone
conclusion. According to Putnam, “faith communities in which people worship together are
arguably the single most important repository of social capital in America (2000, 66). Coleman
describes the determination that religion generates social capital as “almost cliche” (2003, 33).
Verba, Scholzman and Brady (1995) assert that religion significantly increases the democratic
potential of the United States even serving to counteract the class bias that exists in other
institutions and social contexts. Certainly to scholars of religion and politics any recognition in
research that the influence of the world of faith is far reaching and significant is welcome news.
Too often the impact of religious factors is underappreciated. Not so in the social capital
literature. It readily acknowledges the importance of churches, synagogues, temples and
mosques as the primary institutions of associational life. The distinction is clearly warranted
considering that somewhere between three-fifths and three-fourths of the American adult
population are members of a church (Wald, 2004: 8). No other type of organization can
even hope for similar levels of involvement. Still, though the relationship between religion and
social capital is often received as a foregone conclusion, surprisingly little is known about its
nature. As Smidt observes, “the mechanisms by which affiliations get transformed into social
capital are far from being clearly specified (2003: 8).
When one examines the literature carefully it becomes clear that exactly how and why
churches increase social capital is not well understood. Sure there are multiple studies that reveal
how church involvement can increase civic skills (Schwadel, 2002; Brown and Brown, 2003;
Harris, 2003; Wood, 2002, 1997; Verba, Scholzman, and Brady, 1995; Peterson, 1992; Leege,
1988; Hougland and Christenson, 1983). There are ample studies that establish a linkage
Convention