Churches for Today: Modernism and Suburban Expansion in Postwar America

FAIN: FB-56255-12

Gretchen T. Buggeln
Valparaiso University (Valparaiso, IN 46383-4520)

After WW II, America's religious denominations spread into the rapidly developing suburbs, in the process spending billions of dollars on architecture. These buildings are a revealing repository of the history of American religion in the postwar years, its ecumenism, its optimism, and its liturgical innovation as well as its fears about the increasing irrelevance of institutional religion at a time when cultural and social change and demographic shifts transformed society. This is the first comprehensive study of the emerging religious culture of postwar suburban churches, investigated primarily through the lens of their material culture. Research centers on the buildings, written records, and oral histories of about 75 congregations in the Midwest, where the modern-style church found particular purchase. While carefully attending to church architecture, this larger significance of this study lies in its analysis and interpretation of postwar American society and religious life.

Associated Products

The Suburban Church: Modernism and Community in Postwar America (Book)
Title: The Suburban Church: Modernism and Community in Postwar America
Author: Gretchen Buggeln
Abstract: After World War II, America’s religious denominations spent billions on church architecture as they spread into the suburbs. In this richly illustrated history of midcentury modern churches in the Midwest, Gretchen Buggeln shows how architects and suburban congregations joined forces to work out a vision of how modernist churches might help reinvigorate Protestant worship and community. The result is a fascinating new perspective on postwar architecture, religion, and society. Drawing on the architectural record, church archives, and oral histories, The Suburban Church focuses on collaborations between architects Edward D. Dart, Edward A. Sövik, Charles E. Stade, and seventy-five congregations. By telling the stories behind their modernist churches, the book describes how the buildings both reflected and shaped developments in postwar religion—its ecumenism, optimism, and liturgical innovation, as well as its fears about staying relevant during a time of vast cultural, social, and demographic change. While many scholars have characterized these congregations as “country club” churches, The Suburban Church argues that most were earnest, well-intentioned religious communities caught between the desire to serve God and the demands of a suburban milieu in which serving middle-class families required most of their material and spiritual resources.
Year: 2015
Publisher: Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Type: Single author monograph
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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