The Arts in Sacred Spaces: How Religious Conservatism and Cultural Omnivorousness Influence Attitudes About Congregational Involvement in the Arts

Abstract

Background: How do religious and cultural sensibilities influence attitudes towards congregational involvement in the arts? Although religion’s role in constructing symbolic boundaries influences adherents’ behaviors both inside and outside of sacred spaces, a predominant focus on economic and cultural factors in the scholarship on cultural tastes and practices has tended to relegate religion to a marginal position in the literature. Theories of class-based cultural tastes and omnivorousness have only rarely been applied to the study of religion and even less so to the intersection between tastes or practices and the sacredness of congregational contexts. Purpose: This study aims to bridge the gap between the sociology of religion and of culture by showing how considerations about congregational spaces present a complex set of boundaries for practitioners when it comes to the arts, such that acceptance or rejection of the latter is conditioned by the form it takes. The study also examines the extent to which the inclusionary effects of cultural omnivorousness, by volume and composition, apply to attitudes about these sacred spaces. Methods: This study uses data from the Arts and Religion Survey to run logistic regressions on attitudes towards a range of forms of congregational participation in the arts. Results: The results show that religious conservatism and such attitudes are not intrinsically opposed. Instead, conservatism is consistently negatively related only when artistic inclusion does not have well-defined symbolic boundaries (i.e., is culturally atypical). Cultural omnivorousness also has varied effects. Omnivorousness by volume but not by composition predicts openness to congregational involvement in the arts, albeit only for well-defined and recognizable artistic forms. Conclusions and Implications: It is cultural atypicality (rather than variety) that is antithetical to conservative conceptions of the sacred. Moreover, because religious conservatism offers specifically religious understandings of legitimacy for sacred spaces, omnivorousness by composition, which deals in matters of (cultural) legitimacy, has little to offer, and it is only omnivorousness by volume that extends its inclusivity to attitudes about congregational involvement in the arts. The study concludes with a discussion of data limitations and recommendations for further research.