University of Southern California

Gerardo Marti, Visiting Research Associate

Gerardo Marti is a visiting research associate at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture during the summers of 2005 and 2006. He is assistant professor of sociology at Davidson College and is a Congregational Studies Team Fellow, as part of the Engaged Scholars Project funded by the Lilly Foundation.

His primary research project explores the relationship between worship music and congregational diversity. Although we are coming to understand more about multiracial congregations, for example the rarity of such churches, the appropriation of theology in promoting integration, the nature of identity negotiation within such churches, and the perceived costs and benefits of membership, ultimately we know little about how multiracial congregations emerge. Given that many congregational leaders are taking on the challenge to diversify their churches, it is important to identify congregational factors that stimulate (and perhaps accelerate) diversification. Building on preliminary findings from case studies of two multiracial churches, this study seeks to determine how congregational music helps or hinders ethnic and racial diversification.

He is also in the writing phase for a study of a large, vibrant church in Hollywood that creatively accommodates itself to the entertainment industry (Rutgers University Press, forthcoming). How the church negotiates the tensions between evangelical faith and the pursuit of fame and profit is the subject of this book. The book extends analysis pursued in his previous book "A Mosaic of Believers: Diversity and Innovation in a Multiethnic Church" (Indiana University Press, 2005).