Publications
My published work falls into two broad buckets. The first, including publications resulting from my dissertation research, is focused on contemporary spirituality and examines the role of practice, identity, emotion, and embodiment in the development of spiritual selves. My more recent work, in partnership with the Religion and Social Change Lab and the Clergy Health Initiative at Duke, is focused on clergy, congregations, and theological education. [* indicates equal authorship, ^ indicates student co-author]
On Clergy, Congregations, and Theological Education
Johnston, Erin. F, Anna Holleman, and Laura Krull. 2023. "There's theology and then there's the people I love...": Authority and Ambivalence in Seminarians’ Attitudes Towards Same-Sex Relationships, Marriage, and Ordination." Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review.
Drawing from 102 in-depth interviews conducted with first-year Master of Divinity (M.Div.) students at a Mainline Protestant seminary, this paper examines how students describe and account for their positions on homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. We found that students on “both sides” – i.e., those who lean affirming and those who lean non-affirming – invoked three primary authorities in their accounts: Biblical authority, Godly authority, and the authority of lived experience, as demonstrated in the lives of gay and lesbian people. We also found that nearly one-third of the students in our sample expressed uncertainty, ambivalence, and/or contradictions in their responses. Through a close analysis of these accounts, we show that ambivalence and uncertainty are rooted in attempts to navigate and “reconcile” the pulls of these different authorities, and that attitudinal certainty is often accomplished by privileging one authority over others.
Johnston, Erin F., Jennifer Headley, and David E. Eagle. 2023. "Pastoring in a Pandemic: Supports Used and Desired by United Methodist Clergy in the Early Period of the COVID-19 Pandemic." Journal of Psychology and Theology.
COVID-19 and its associated restrictions around in-person gatherings fundamentally unsettled routine ways doing ministry. In this paper, we draw on 50 in-depth interviews conducted with United Methodist clergy in the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic (June 2020-January 2021) to examine the sources and types of social support pastors relied on during this time. We found that most clergy reported drawing from a diverse eco-system of social supports and turned to different sources of support – e.g., similar others, local church members, and denominational leaders – for different types of support – e.g., informational, instrumental, or emotional. This study extends existing research on clergy well-being by examining whether the social support used by clergy during the COVID-19 map onto those identified in previous research and by specifying the types of support that were most salient. In the discussion, we consider the broader implications of our findings for clergy well-being beyond the pandemic period.
Eagle, David E., Josh Gaghan, and Erin F. Johnston. 2023. "Introducing the Seminary to Early Ministry Study." Religious Education. 118(2): 1-13.
While robust, high-quality empirical data are needed to assess theological education, they are lacking. The Seminary to Early Ministry (SEM) Study is a mixed-methods, prospective study designed to address this shortcoming. The study will use a series of surveys and in-depth interviews to track three cohorts of divinity school students from matriculation into the early years of their careers. As a result, the study hopes to compile the most comprehensive longitudinal dataset on theological education to date, enabling researchers to better understand who attends seminaries, how they form students, and how the training of future religious leaders can be improved. This paper introduces the methods and key measures that will be used in the SEM study to better understand how seminary forms students.
Johnston, Erin F. and David E. Eagle. 2022. "Expanding the Horizontal Call: A Typology of Social Influences on the Call to Ministry." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 62(1): 68-88.
This research examines the social actors and interactions that facilitate seminary students' sense of calling. Drawing from 36 in-depth interviews with first year Masters of Divinity students, we introduce six ideal typical social others who play a formative role in the early stages of a call to ministry: instigators, exemplars, interpreters, affirmers, challengers, and co-discerners. Together, these findings demonstrate that the call to ministry, while deeply personal, emerges through social interactions that facilitate and make plausible a person’s sense of calling and which sustain it over time. Extending Richard Pitt’s (2012) conceptualization of the “horizontal call,” this paper argues that social others help evoke and solidify – not merely legitimate – a personal sense of call. This research also highlights differences in the social structuring of call by gender. Despite considerable gains in the ordination of women, we find that many still face obstacles to experiencing and embracing a call to ministry.
Johnston, Erin F., David E. Eagle, Brian Perry, Amy Cornelli, and Rae Jean Proeschold-Bell. 2022. "Seminary Students and Physical Health: Beliefs, Intentions, and Behaviors." Journal of Religion and Health. 61: 1207–1225.
As an occupational group, clergy exhibit numerous physical health problems. Given the physical health problems faced by clergy, understanding where physical health falls within the priorities of seminary students, the ways students conceptualize physical health, and how seminary students do or do not attend to their physical health in the years immediately prior to becoming clergy, can inform intervention development for both seminary students and clergy. Moreover, understanding and shaping the health practices of aspiring clergy may be particularly impactful, with cascading effects, as clergy serve as important role models for their congregants. Drawing on 36 in-depth, qualitative interviews with first-year seminary students, this study examines the complex dynamics between religious frameworks related to physical health, explicit intentions to maintain healthy practices, and reported physical health behaviors. Our findings suggest that even students who deploy religious frameworks in relation to their physical health—and who, as a result, possess positive intentions to implement and maintain healthy behaviors—often report being unable to live up to their aspirations, especially in the face of barriers to health practices posed by the seminary program itself. After reviewing these findings, we offer suggestions for physical health focused interventions, including action and coping planning, which could be implemented at seminaries to reduce the intention–behavior gap and improve clergy health.
Johnston, Erin F., David E. Eagle, Jennifer Headley, and Anna Holleman^. 2021. "Pastoral Ministry in Unsettled Times: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences of Clergy During the COVID-19 Pandemic." Review of Religious Research. 64: 375–397.
COVID-19 and its associated restrictions around in-person gatherings have created unprecedented challenges for religious congregations and those who lead them. While several surveys have attempted to describe how pastors and congregations responded to COVID-19, these provide a relatively thin picture of how COVID-19 is impacting religious life. There is scant qualitative data describing the lived reality of religious leaders and communities during the pandemic. This paper provides a more detailed look at how pastors and congregations experienced and responded to COVID-19 and its associated restrictions in the early period of the pandemic. To do so, we draw from 26 in-depth interviews with church-appointed United Methodist pastors conducted between June and August 2020. Pastors reported that COVID-19 fundamentally unsettled routine ways of doing ministry. This disruption generated both challenges and opportunities for clergy and their congregations. In the findings, we describe how clergy responded in key areas of ministry–worship and pastoral care–and analyze how the pandemic is (re)shaping the way that clergy understood their role as pastors and envisioned the future of the Church. We argue for the value of examining the pandemic as an “unsettled” cultural period (Swidler 1986) in which religious leaders found creative ways to (re)do ministry in the context of social distancing. Rather than starting from scratch, we found that pastors drew from and modified existing symbolic and practical tools to fit pandemic-related constraints on religious life. Notably, however, we found that “redoing” ministry was easier and more effective in some areas (worship) than others (pastoral care).
David E. Eagle, Erin F. Johnston, Jennifer Headley, and Anna Holleman^. 2021. "The Financial Impacts of COVID-19 on United Methodist Churches in North Carolina: a Qualitative Study of Pastors’ Perspectives and Strategies." Review of Religious Research. 64: 399–420.
This article was quoted in American Storylines, "Will the Pandemic Bring About the End of Small Churches?" Daniel Cox.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, churches in the United States were forced to stop meeting in person and move to remote forms of worship and congregational life. This shift likely impacted congregational finances, which are primarily driven by individual donations. Initial research has suggested that there is a great deal of heterogeneity in the financial impact on congregations, but there has been scant research examining how pastors and congregations are managing finances during this period. This research examines the impact of COVID-19 and its associated restrictions on congregational finances and the strategies pastors used to adapt their church’s finances to the health restrictions. We conducted in-depth, qualitative interviews with 50 pastors in the North Carolina and Western North Carolina Conferences of the United Methodist Church appointed to 70 congregations. Using applied thematic analysis, we analyzed transcripts at both the pastor and congregation-level to identify similarities and differences in financial impact, financial strategies, and pastor experiences during the pandemic. Most congregations reported small decreases in giving that were offset by federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and other grants from the denomination. Some congregations, mostly urban and fairly large, reported significant increases in giving, while several other, predominantly small congregations, reported their church’s finances had been negatively impacted by the pandemic. Even in cases where the net impact of the pandemic was small or non-existent, pastors were forced to adopt a host of new strategies to manage finances. In general, small and large congregations experienced and responded to the financial impact of the pandemic very differently. This research suggests that the pandemic’s impact on congregational finances were more than just on the bottom line. And while most churches weathered the economic challenges without severe impacts, questions remain as to the long-term impact of the pandemic on church finances.
On Contemporary Spirituality: Practice, Identity, Emotion and Embodiment
Johnston, Erin F. 2023. "'You are not the body ...': (Re)interpreting the Body in and through Integral Yoga." in Interpreting the Body: Between Meaning and Materiality, edited by Anne Marie Champagne and Asia Friedman. Bristol University Press.
Based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and enactive immersion, this chapter argues that “becoming” an Integral Yoga practitioner is intimately bound up with a cognitive and perceptual reframing of the body—one marked by the cultivation of a sense of separation or “bodily detachment.” In the findings, the author highlights several key areas in which bodily detachment is cultivated. In doing so, this chapter attends closely to both the somatic/practical and the symbolic/discursive realms, tracing the dynamic interplay between them. It highlights the importance, in particular, of looking at talk and discourse in situ in order to better understand how religious practices and discourses become personally meaningful.
Johnston, Erin F. 2021. “The Feeling of Enlightenment: Emotional Transformations through Yoga and Prayer." Symbolic Interaction. 44(3): 576-602.
This paper explores how two spiritual communities – a Catholic prayer house and an Integral Yoga studio – shape the emotional lives of their members. I find that both organizations promise to facilitate what I call holistic emotional change: modifications of deep-seated emotional habits and dispositions. Moreover, both organizations transmit a comprehensive emotion management system – a regimen of different practices, or techniques of emotion management, with distinct goals and temporal horizons. At both sites, these practices – prospective, reflexive, and in situ techniques – are thought to work in tandem to overcome negative emotional habits and cultivate abiding dispositions of joy, peace, and contentment.
Johnston, Erin F. 2020. "Yoga as a Way of Life: Authenticity through Identity Management," in Patrick Williams and Kaylan Schwarz (eds), Studies on the Social Construction of Identity and Authenticity. Routledge.
Can anyone who practices yoga claim the identity of a “yogi,” or does this title imply specific criteria such as physical proficiency, philosophical understanding, or spiritual enlightenment? Drawing on 15-months of participant observation and interviews with both teachers and students at an Integral Yoga studio in the New York metropolitan area, this chapter describes the attributes and characteristics that mark identity authenticity (Williams 2019) for members of this community. It argues that Integral Yoga practitioners associate authenticity with a particular style of identity management (Brekhus 2003), one that is high in duration (e.g. always “turned on,” across time and context) and personal importance (e.g. central to the person’s overall sense of self), but low in both density (e.g. enacted at low volume or intensity) and dominance (e.g. it did not eclipse other identities or social roles. This chapter also reveals how Integral Yoga practitioners use this style of identity management to draw symbolic boundaries between themselves and other, culturally-salient types of yoga practitioners.
DeGloma, Thomas and Erin F. Johnston.* 2019. "Cognitive Migrations: Toward a Cultural & Cognitive Sociology of Personal Transformation." in Brekhus, Wayne and Gabe Ignatow (eds), Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Sociology. Oxford University Press.
In this chapter, we explore the ways that individuals account for major cognitive migrations – significant changes of mind and consciousness that are often expressed as powerful discoveries, transformative experiences, and newly embraced worldviews. Whether individuals articulate these developments as conversions, awakenings, self-actualizations, or ongoing quests, they typically involve an active embrace of new ways of thinking, feeling, and acting in the world and an equally active, whether explicit or implicit, rejection of other (prior) ways of being. Like Berger and Luckmann’s concept of alternations, our concept of cognitive migrations refers to the ways individuals switch (move between) sociomental reference groups.However, we specifically develop this notion to argue the following set of interrelated points. First, cognitive migrations take autobiographical form, which is to say they manifest as the narrative identity work of individuals who undergo them. Second, such narrative identity work provides a reflexive foundation for an individual’s understanding of self and identity in relation to other possible selves and identities – for seeing oneself as a relationally situated character. Third, individuals who articulate cognitive migrations use the plot structure and cultural coding at the root of their narrative identities to express their allegiance to a new sociomental community. They thereby take on new cognitive norms and identity-defining conventions while rejecting potential alternatives, locating themselves within a broader sociomental field. We use the spatial metaphor of cognitive migrations to explicitly draw attention to the broader sociomental field in which such radical changes of mind take place. Finally, such narrative identity work links self-meanings to the often-contested meanings of broadly relevant issues, events, and experiences; when individuals account for their migrations, they also advance claims that reach well-beyond their personal lives.
Johnston, Erin F. 2017. “Failing to Learn, or Learning to Fail?: Accounting for Shortcoming in the Acquisition of Spiritual Disciplines." Qualitative Sociology. 40(3): 353-372.
Translated reprint of this article appears in: El postsecularismo y la religion vivida: aportes desde la sociología cualitativa norteamericana. David Smilde and Hugo P. Hernáiz (eds), 2021. abediciones: Universidad Católica Ándres.
Failures abound in religious and spiritual life: Religious prophecies can fail to come to fruition, prayers sometimes go unanswered, and adherents are often unable to feel God’s presence. Experiences of perceived failure and personal shortcoming — especially when frequent or salient — can erode religious commitment. How then can we account for individuals’ persistence in the face of these experiences? Drawing on fieldwork in two organizations dedicated to the transmission of personal spiritual disciplines — an Integral Yoga studio and a Catholic prayer house — I find that texts and teachers at both sites promote a similar interpretive style related to experiences of shortcoming, one which translates perceived failures into constitutive features of practice. In doing so, this authoritative discourse normalizes, universalizes, and even valorizes the most common sources of frustration and anxiety for practitioners. More, I find that this interpretive style is tied to both identity and progress: The enactment of these socially-sanctioned scripts becomes a way to project oneself and to identify others as committed and authentic practitioners. More broadly, this research draws attention to the ubiquity of failure in cultural systems, and to the challenges posed by these events. Drawing on insights from social psychology and cultural sociology, it reveals the importance of organizations, social interaction, and meaning-making in accounting for persistence.
Johnston, Erin F. 2016. "The Enlightened Self: Identity and Aspiration in Two Communities of Practice." Religions. 7(7), 92.
Existing research on religious identity, especially from a narrative perspective, has tended to focus either on accounts of the past (especially occasions of religious change) or on conceptions of religious identity in the present. Religious communities, however, not only provide a sense of identity and belonging in the present—as a “Catholic” or “Buddhist,” for example—they also promote a particular vision of the religious ideal: The way of being-in-the-world that all adherents are (or ought to be) striving to achieve. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews, this paper describes and analyzes the identity and lifestyle goals of participants in two communities of practice: An Integral Yoga studio and a Catholic prayer house. I find that the ideal spiritual self in both communities is defined by three key characteristics: A sacred gaze, a simultaneous sense of presence and detachment, and a holistic style of identity management. I suggest that in constructing and transmitting a shared vision of the “enlightened self,” these organizations offer practitioners a highly desirable but ever-elusive aspirational identity. This study calls attention to religious organizations as important suppliers of possible identities—the identities, either desired and feared, we think we could or might become in the future—and reveals the situated and contextual nature of adherents’ religious aspirations.
Johnston, Erin F. 2016. “Anticipating the Future: The Growth of Practice-Oriented Spiritualties,” in Eugene V. Gallagher (ed), New and Minority Religions: Projecting the Future. Ashgate-INFORM Series. Ashgate.
Within the sociology of religion, the secularization thesis (as defined by religious decline) has increasingly been losing favor. Instead, recent work has sought to highlight the many qualitative changes religion and religious organizations have and continue to undergo. In this chapter, I address one major shift in the contemporary religious landscape: the development of communities of practice which aim to transmit what Robert Wuthnow has called a “practice-oriented spirituality.” For many contemporary individuals who are less attached to or do not believe in the central tenets of any particular religious doctrine, spiritual practices – as non-creedal and this-worldly – may be an ideal form of cultural adaptation. Practice-oriented spirituality offers practitioners the benefits of both dwelling and seeking forms of religiosity: a spiritual home and a spiritual journey. Indeed disciplined forms of spiritual practice – from meditation and yoga to contemplative prayer and examen – are increasingly found in both religious and secular spaces across the U.S. Drawing on data from my fieldwork in two communities of practice - an Integral Yoga Institute and a Catholic prayer house – I argue that these communities transmit an understanding of self that is particularly appealing to individuals experiencing the anxieties, existential dilemmas, and alienations of the late-modern world.
Johnston, Erin F. 2013. "'I was Always this Way ...': Rhetorics of Continuity in Narratives of Conversion." Sociological Forum. 28: 3: 549-573.
Association for the Sociology of Religion Robert J. McNamara Student Paper Award (Honorable Mention), 2012
Society for the Scientific Study of Religion Student Paper Award (Honorable Mention), 2011
This article is concerned with identifying, comparing and accounting for the principal rhetorical conventions within Pagan practitioners’ narratives of conversion. Applying key insights from studies on narrative identity and drawing on fifteen months of fieldwork and twenty-five in-depth interviews with Pagan practitioners, I first outline formal similarities in the content of participants’ narratives, arguing that these narrative conventions together constitute an ideal typical conversion narrative: what I call the rhetoric of continuity. This narrative form depicts the process of conversion as a rediscovery or uncovering of a temporally continuous and essentialized Pagan self. I suggest that while all conversions involve both change and continuity, adherents of different faith traditions vary in the degree to which they stress self-transformation and/or self-continuity. I then argue that the rhetoric of continuity reflects and reinforces practitioners’: (1) perspective on the locus and nature of the authentic self; (2) claims to legitimacy and social acceptance; and (3) understanding of the nature of religious truth.