“There Wasn’t A Playbook For This”: Local Congregations and the Crises of 2020

Abstract Using 18 months of immersive ethnographic fieldwork in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, this paper highlights how religious congregations made sense of and adapted to the “unsettled time” of 2020, prompted by the onset of COVID-19 and the police killing of George Floyd. These events prompted congregational leaders to adapt organizational routines to accommodate pandemic safety measures, address member demands, and maintain legitimacy in an increasingly polarized religious field. Drawing on theories of inhabited institutionalism, commitment, and culture in action, we find three strategies of action leaders employed in 2020: Introspection, Avoidance, and Mobilization. Our analysis of twelve Christian and Catholic congregations sheds light into the unique challenges voluntary organizations face and offers models of institutional survival in an era of intensified polarization and partisan sorting. This study has implications for studies of organizations, politics, and religious life in 2020.