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27 Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Q. 5 (1998)

handle is hein.journals/npvolsq27 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITORIAL Agency, Communion, and the Formation of Social Capital In November of 1996, residents of the small town in which I live (population 30,000) witnessed a double murder and suicide committed by a husband after he and his wife, co-owners of a highly visible and successful business, had separated. The wife had taken up with her husband's best friend, left the husband, took the children, and was in the process of taking over the business from her ex. The husband became increasingly and visibly distraught as these events occurred, his escalating instability noted by townspeople as it pro- gressed. Two days after the deaths, a large spontaneous memorial-several hundred folk-was held on the steps of the town's city hall. A week later, the director of the town's community center held a town meeting. Participants talked about the events that had transpired, offered assessments of what had gone wrong, and collectively named a number of preventive measures and programs to be developed and implemented. Of the 74 who attended this town meeting, 35 local citizens committed to participating in task groups created to move forward these group-proposed initiatives. A month later, participation had dwindled to two people. Clergy had been noticeably absent at the town meeting. We learned later that several of them had been among those who had witnessed the man who later killed others and himself increasingly lose emotional control over the course of several weeks. When queried why they had not acted, their responses were that it was the responsibility of the local women's organization/battered women's shelter to act and, moreover, that no one knew what else could have been done. When asked what resources the community might make available to clergy and their respective congregations to ensure that this kind of tragedy did not again occur, enthusiasm ran high for skill training in how to identify potential and likely domestic abuse and for the development of appropriate resources for men. This interest also soon dissolved. When training sessions were announced and provided 6 months later, not one pastor, rabbi, priest, nor self-identified lay church representative participated. Note: Support for this project was partially provided by a grant from the Lilly Endowment to the Program on Nonprofit Organizations, Yale University. Data for this project were collected as part of a pilot project carried out as part of a fledgling Religion and Society Program at Yale. Amanda Spriggle, working under the supervision of myself and several Bucknell University and Susque- hanna Institute staff members, collected much of the data for this commentary. I bear full responsibility, however, for the contents of this report. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1, March 1998 5-12 o 1998 Sage Publications, Inc. 5 from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.

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