ABSTRACT
The composition of Sunday congregations aside, in Selton Town and Vermount church membership remains an important dimension of social identity. The "respectable" churches, including Anglican, Methodist, Orthodox Baptist, Moravian and Roman Catholic, provide the source of a Christian ethic which many residents believe should be realized not only in the home, but in the public life of the neighborhood. School, church and Citizens' Association are linked by the participation in each of the school principal. The pentecostal churches, on the other hand, present an inspirational religion which also claims the right to arbitrate on social morality. For the pentecostalists the rule governed, "educated" religion of the respectable churches proves them to be influenced more by mammon and man than God. In Vermount the Anglican, Methodist and Roman Catholic churches are the most prestigious. Despite a flourishing Roman Catholic congregation, the ethos of Vermount Christianity is overwhelmingly protestant and strongly institutionalized.
