Background

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced disruption that crossed sectors, borders, and disciplinary boundaries. Among faith communities and religious leaders, numerous commentators have observed technological innovations in response to physical gathering disruptions. We outline a form of pandemic spiritual leadership that supports faith communities beyond digital innovation by combining original empirical research and a novel conceptual framework.

Purpose

Our project examined innovation through a comparative study of how faith leaders adapt religious practices during a time of disruption. While existing research on congregational responses to COVID-19 has documented sustained technological innovation, our research argues that technological innovation is only one feature of a broader catalog of innovative practices.

Methods

To generate a trans-national sample, we used purposive sampling in two distinct locations, Pacific Northwest United States and Aotearoa New Zealand. Although separated by culture and geography, a purposeful sample across these two contexts illustrated how spiritual leaders in post-Christian contexts similarly responded to the pandemic crisis. The research involved semi-structured interviewing of nineteen faith leaders from seventeen communities we observed undertaking creative adaption. A trans-national selection deepened understandings of the dynamism of the unfolding pandemic and how limits, experienced differently in diverse contexts, can be generative.

Results

Our study identified six organizing practices: blessing, walking, slowing, place-making, connecting, and localizing care. We demonstrate how the presence of God is cultivated amid local letterboxes and neighborhood crossroads and argue for an intensification of the local as markers of pandemic spiritual leadership. These interrelated spiritual practices express features of Michel de Certeau’s “pedestrian utterings,” Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative recombination” and Pierre Bourdieu's social theory. Working with Certeau, we describe pedestrian utterings as historic church practices reframed as everyday local practices. Working with Schumpeter, we describe how the six practices and the language of innovation used by participants express creative recombinations. Working with Bourdieu, we consider how disruption realigns social fields, including between individuals, congregations, and broader communities. Finally, amid social distancing, congregations proved to be an anchor in resourcing this pandemic spiritual leadership.

Conclusions and Implications

These four theoretical foci and six localizing practices provide a conceptual framework for future research into spiritual practices and religious leadership in the wake of a crisis. Confinements in space and movement can be generative of spiritual practice. For religious leaders and organizations, the research informs the cultivation of concrete practices that can encourage communities of care as part of crisis preparation. For scholars and religious practitioners alike, while pandemics enforce social separation, pandemic spiritual leadership combines attention to the local and the particular, as new forms of in-place practice emerge to sustain faith communities.

中文翻译：

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大流行精神领导：创新和精神实践的跨国研究

背景

COVID-19 大流行带来了跨越部门、边界和学科界限的破坏。在信仰团体和宗教领袖中，许多评论员观察到技术创新是为了应对实体聚会的中断。我们概述了一种大流行精神领导形式，它通过结合原始实证研究和新颖的概念框架来支持超越数字创新的信仰社区。

目的

我们的项目通过比较研究宗教领袖在混乱时期如何调整宗教习俗来检验创新。虽然现有关于会众对 COVID-19 的反应的研究记录了持续的技术创新，但我们的研究认为，技术创新只是更广泛的创新实践目录中的一个特征。

方法

为了生成跨国样本，我们在两个不同的地点（美国太平洋西北部和新西兰奥特罗瓦）使用了有目的的抽样。尽管在文化和地理上有所不同，但在这两种情况下进行的有目的的样本说明了后基督教背景下的精神领袖如何对大流行危机做出类似的反应。该研究涉及对来自我们观察到的 17 个社区的 19 名信仰领袖的半结构化访谈，这些领袖正在进行创造性的适应。跨国选择加深了对正在蔓延的流行病的活力的理解，以及在不同背景下以不同方式经历的限制是如何产生的。

结果

我们的研究确定了六种组织实践：祝福、步行、放慢脚步、营造场所、联系和本地化护理。我们展示了上帝的存在是如何在当地的信箱和邻里十字路口中培养出来的，并主张加强当地作为大流行精神领导力的标志。这些相互关联的精神实践体现了米歇尔德塞尔托的“行人言谈”、约瑟夫熊彼特的“创造性重组”和皮埃尔布尔迪厄的社会理论的特征。与 Certeau 合作，我们将行人的话语描述为历史悠久的教会实践，并将其重新定义为当地的日常实践。我们与熊彼特合作，描述了参与者使用的六种实践和创新语言如何表达创造性重组。与 Bourdieu 合作，我们考虑破坏如何重新调整社会领域，包括个人、会众和更广泛的社区之间。最后，在保持社交距离的情况下，会众被证明是为这场流行病精神领袖提供资源的支柱。

结论和启示

这四个理论焦点和六个本地化实践为未来研究危机后的精神实践和宗教领导提供了一个概念框架。空间和运动的限制可以产生精神实践。对于宗教领袖和组织，该研究为培养具体实践提供了信息，这些实践可以鼓励社区关怀作为危机准备的一部分。对于学者和宗教实践者来说，虽然大流行病加强了社会分离，但随着新形式的就地实践的出现以维持信仰社区，大流行病的精神领导结合了对地方和特殊事物的关注。