Faith on the Avenue Faith on the Avenue :
Religion on a City Street
( Oxford University Press , 2014 ) is the latest book by Katie Day .
Faith on the Avenue is a unique contribution to the sociological study of congregations . Author Katie Day spent years studying all of the religious congregations that border the length of Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia - over eight miles and roughly 90 Christian churches , meetinghouses , mosques , and syncretistic religious communities . Day employed a variety of research methods in her study , including much the same quantitative valuation tool , the Economic Halo Effect of Sacred Places , developed by Partners in collaboration with Dr . Ram Cnaan at the University of Pennsylvania . She also used qualitative analysis through interviews and observation . She also used documentary photography and census data . As a whole , her study provides a detailed crosssection of urban , religious experience in 21 st century America .
Katie Day is the The Charles A . Schieren Professor of Church and Society at United Lutheran Theological Seminary where she has taught for over 30 years . She is ordained in the Presbyterian Church USA . She also serves on the Advisory Committee of the National Fund for Sacred Places ( see page two ), and has been a friend of Partners for many years . up and down Germantown Avenue daily . In a complex , urban context , change is dynamic and subtle .
CM : In the book you write about what makes these places sacred . Could you talk a little more about this idea ?
KD : Faith communities , both Christian and Muslim , have taken over very ordinary buildings on Germantown Avenue . A big warehouse , shoe stores , former liquor stores , theaters , funeral parlors . The oldest funeral home in America moved out to the suburbs after generations of being on the corner of Germantown and Washington . It was bought by a Jamaican Pentecostal congregation called Brand New Life . The irony was not lost on them .
The congregations that come into these ordinary , often dilapidated buildings make them sacred in different ways . For example , Brand New Life had a lot of exorcisms and “ cleansings .” On Sunday mornings they still have prayer warriors that come and stand over each chair to bless it , cleanse it , and reestablish the place as sacred .
Across the street is Germantown Mennonite Church ( the “ mother ” church of the denomination , founded in 1683 ). They took over what was an ironworks factory and warehouse . It is now this beautiful , open , and airy worship space . Mennonites don ’ t go in for a lot of iconography , stained glass windows , and some of the traditional trappings that we think make a place sacred . Rather , it was the sweat equity that they had put into it . The cleaning , renovating , and envisioning they undertook themselves . The space then became sacred because of their work , and remains sacred every time they are there .
CM : As you know well , the work of Partners is primarily focused on historic religious buildings . How does your research inform the kind of work we do ?
KD : There are a number of Mainline Protestant churches that have had continually worshipping congregations for over 300 years . That is pretty amazing .
16 • SACRED PLACES • AUTUMN / WINTER 2017-18 SACRED PLACES • AUTUMN 2017 • 16