How Scott Thumma Accelerated Journalism: An Appreciation 

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald

When scholars increase what’s known about a topic, they often rely heavily on tools of the academic trades. From their tool belts come articles in peer-reviewed journals, classroom courses and advising for future peers. As a sociologist of religion, Dr. Scott Thumma used all of the above to help disseminate the breadth of what he’s learned over decades about congregations in America. 

But Scott went further by also working with the press – not only to make his research accessible to a wide swath of ordinary people, but also to accelerate what journalism itself could add to public understanding of congregational life. In doing so, Scott opened doors for complementary work to unfold beyond the academy and increase what’s known about congregational life.

I speak from experience. For the past year, I’ve been working on a journalistic book that wouldn’t have left the starting gate were it not for Scott’s vision and support. In three stages, he enabled my research to go forward. Along the way, he modeled what’s possible when scholars collaborate with journalists. I share this appreciation as a nod of gratitude to Scott and a nudge for all to value what he did – and what others perhaps could do in a similar vein – behind the scenes.   

A spark from one data point

For me, it started with one line in a clergy wellbeing report from the Exploring the Pandemic’s Impact on Congregations (EPIC) project, which Scott led for the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. It said part-time clergy enjoy higher levels of health and wellbeing than full-time clergy, despite being paid less for their church work. 

This challenges conventional views of part time clergy as overworked, underpaid and struggling to get by. Intrigued, I asked if we could parse the data to learn more. Scott and Assistant Professor of Research Charissa Mikoski gave an enthusiastic yes. They generated new data tables and spent more than an hour with me on Zoom discussing what they’d found and what it might mean. 

This was stage one of Scott’s powering up my work so that I could build upon his. His and Charissa’s analysis, showing that part-timers do better in all 17 wellbeing categories, was generated to launch journalism. They had uncovered a foundational news peg, not only for a story but for a book, which Scott encouraged as a topic. He believed I could get research funding for it. Now he really had my attention! 

Next came stage two. I wanted to know what the data had not told us about why part-time clergy are thriving. Is it something about their backgrounds, stages of life, attitudes, habits, environments…? I imagined interviewing dozens of part-time clergy to get the answers, but that would require considerable time. No editor was going to pay me for that assignment. 

Scott suggested I apply for a Louisville Institute research grant, which I did. My application included a recommendation from Scott. In Feb. 2025, I received $20,000 from Louisville to conduct interviews and write a book. Woo-hoo! Now… where would I find dozens of part-time pastors who’d talk with me on the record about matters as intimate as relationships, personal finances and health? 

You guessed it: stage three involved Scott opening a pivotal third door. He and Charissa reached out to survey respondents with an invitation to opt-in if they wanted to talk with a reporter. Dozens leapt at the opportunity. All told, I completed 50 interviews. The manuscript is now in the works. 

At each of these stages, my quest would have hit a brick wall if Scott had not cared about what I was trying to learn for the sake of pastors, congregations and the future of ministry. But he did care. He believed part-time pastors had important insights to share, and he saw the role I could play.

Scott appreciated how I brought a different set of tools to bear for evoking pastors’ stories. He saw value in the timing, too, as congregations are getting smaller and increasingly depend on part-time clergy to lead them. Most remarkably, Scott leveraged his position as a respected scholar to create opportunities for my kind of non-academic research to proceed. 

A model for scholars and journalists

I hope more scholars will follow Scott’s lead in seeing reporters as a scholar’s kindred spirits. What’s known about a subject can increase as reporters gain access, not only to experts’ reports and quotes, but also to raw material that experts will never get a chance to dig into on their own. 

Scott and Charissa valued my questions. They planned to incorporate some into future clergy surveys. It’s exciting to think of what becomes possible when professional learners, coming from different perspectives, approach a topic together.  

As he retires, I tip my hat to Scott for elevating opportunities for researchers like me, with no standing in the academy, to follow wherever the evidence leads and make the special contributions that are ours to make, thanks to him.