| This paper examines patterns of outreach as they appear in rector's reports and annual reports over multiple decades from two Episcopal parishes, with special attention paid to investigating changes in outreach patterns when a controversial or unpopular national church policy is announced. At two different points in history, outreach was used as a form of resistance by these parishes to two different national church policy changes: involvement in social justice in the late 1960s, and the consecration of Gene Robinson, an openly gay priest, in 2003. Both parishes reacted by drastically changing the type of outreach they engaged in and refocused their efforts on the local level. Using data from the parishes this paper argues for the inclusion of an identity formation component in the definition of law. The kinds of outreach a religious community participates in contributes to the formation of group norms and identity. By showing how outreach is used to maintain or reformulate a parish's identity when confronted with unpopular church pronouncements we can understand how this process works in other forms of normative systems, including the state political arena. |
