“The authors have managed to produce a book that is a model of rigorous scholarship, but is at the same time capable of attracting an audience not deeply grounded in that scholarship.  It takes the sociological study of immigrant religion to a new state of development.”—Peter Kivisto, Richard Swanson Professor of Social Thought, Augustana College

“In their examination of the effects of religious ideas, identities, and practices on immigrant life and civic engagement patterns, the authors take up where traditional social science studies leave off. This book will make significant contributions to its field.”—Pyong Gap Min, coeditor of Religions in Asian America: Building Faith Communities

“This book is an important reminder of the ‘religious’ aspects of immigrant congregations and how variations in religious doctrines, practices and identities influence civic engagement.”—Helen Rose Ebaugh, author of Religion and the New Immigrants

"Sacred Assemblies and Civic Engagement is part of an emerging body of scholarship that counterbalances this trend. Kniss and Numrich examine immigrant congregations not simply as religious versions of ethnic enclaves, but as internally diverse, complex, and dynamic organizations that are civically engaged."—Journal of American Ethnic History, Fall 2009

Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of America’s history. Currently, about 40 percent of the nation’s annual population growth comes from the influx of foreign-born individuals and their children. As these new voices enter America’s public conversations, they bring with them a new level of religious diversity to a society that has always been marked by religious variety.

Sacred Assemblies and Civic Engagement takes an in-depth look at one particular urban area—the Chicago metropolitan region—and examines how religion affects the civic engagement of the nation’s newest residents. Based on more than three years of ethnographic fieldwork and extensive interviewing at sixteen immigrant congregations, the authors argue that not only must careful attention be paid to ethnic, racial, class, and other social variations within and among groups but that religious differences within and between immigrant faiths are equally important for a more sophisticated understanding of religious diversity and its impact on civic life.

Chapters focus on important religious factors, including sectarianism, moral authority, and moral projects; on several areas of social life, including economics, education, marriage, and language, where religion impacts civic engagement; and on how notions of citizenship and community are influenced by sacred assemblies.

Fred Kniss is an associate professor and the chair of the sociology department at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of Disquiet in the Land: Cultural Conflict in American Mennonite Communities (Rutgers University Press). 

Paul D. Numrich is the chair of the program in world religions and inter-religious dialogue at the Theological Consortium of Greater Columbus in Ohio and an affiliate research associate professor in the sociology department at Loyola University Chicago.