It is, then, toward the identification and interpretation of symbolic “texts” revelatory of congregational identity—that we now turn our attention. A Symbolic Approach to Cultural Analysis In his highly influential work, The Interpretation of Cultures, American anthropologist Clifford Geertz articulates his vision for interpretive anthropology: a study of the symbolic “webs of significance” human beings spin.4 For Geertz, culture is not merely the patterned sum of human behaviors; nor is it an underlying