Social Capital and Religion across Different Contexts: A Critical Discussion on the Potential of Churches and Religious Organizations to Create Social Capital

Abstract

Higher social capital is often associated with better quality of democracy (Putnam 1993, Warren 2001). Social capital is a unique type of resource in the sense that the more it is used, the more it becomes available, and therefore it is important to explore how social capital can be generated. In this paper, we evaluate the potential that churches and religious organizations present in creating social capital. We identify structural constraints faced by churches and religious organizations engaged in this process. We argue that institutional survival concerns and social understandings of the roles played by religion and church in democratic societies may influence the potential for social capital to be constructed in the context of religious participation as well as the type of generated social capital. Moreover, we also discuss the implications of epistemological choices on measuring the relationship between church participation and social capital, and advocate methodological diversity and interdisciplinary research initiatives, at times, in the detriment of generalizability.