Deconversion and Disaffiliation in Contemporary US Roman Catholicism

Disaffiliation—when members of religious communities leave—has recently become a popular topic for theological and social scientific investigation. Today, fewer Roman Catholics than in recent memory describe themselves as strong members of their church. Many have left to seek other spiritual paths, and many of those who remain do not believe and practice as the Church teaches that they should. These essays propose that the theoretical framework of “deconversion” provides a broader and more effective way to understand forms of religious change that are occurring in contemporary America. In the classroom, teaching theology can take on a specific productive shape when the surrounding culture challenges theologians to take deconversion seriously as an element of, and larger context for, spiritual identity today. Theology remains vital when patient curiosity about the current adventure of religious identity is foregrounded pedagogically. Concluding thoughts sketch some important characteristics of an evangelical church, more concerned with its mission and witness in the world than with maintaining its internal life.

Download Full-text

Deconversion and Disaffiliation in Contemporary US Roman Catholicism

Horizons ◽

10.1017/hor.2013.76 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 40 (2) ◽

pp. 262-274

Author(s):

J. Patrick Hornbeck

Keyword(s):

Religious Identity ◽

Religious Communities ◽

Spiritual Identity ◽

Classroom Teaching ◽

Religious Change ◽

Roman Catholicism ◽

Evangelical Church ◽

Social Scientific ◽

Roman Catholics ◽

The Church

Disaffiliation—when members of religious communities leave—has recently become a popular topic for theological and social scientific investigation. Today, fewer Roman Catholics than in recent memory describe themselves as strong members of their church. Many have left to seek other spiritual paths, and many of those who remain do not believe and practice as the Church teaches that they should. These essays propose that the theoretical framework of “deconversion” provides a broader and more effective way to understand forms of religious change that are occurring in contemporary America. In the classroom, teaching theology can take on a specific productive shape when the surrounding culture challenges theologians to take deconversion seriously as an element of, and larger context for, spiritual identity today. Theology remains vital when patient curiosity about the current adventure of religious identity is foregrounded pedagogically. Concluding thoughts sketch some important characteristics of an evangelical church, more concerned with its mission and witness in the world than with maintaining its internal life.

Download Full-text

Between Dechurchification and Religious Persistence

10.1093/oso/9780198801665.003.0006 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Detlef Pollack ◽

Gergely Rosta

Keyword(s):

Federal Republic ◽

West Germany ◽

Religious Communities ◽

Religious Change ◽

Protestant Churches ◽

The Church

The analysis conducted in this chapter of the religious changes undergone by the Federal Republic since its founding considers the religious losses as well as the sometimes astonishing resistance of religious and church entities, but also the observable small religious increases. It addresses the following questions among others: Is it really the case that there has occurred a break in tradition in terms of people’s ties to the church? In which periods was religious change particularly dynamic, and in which periods was it less so? Did this change occur in the Catholic and Protestant churches in parallel? Are there counter-movements when it comes to free churches and small religious communities such as the charismatic churches? How have individualized forms of religiosity developed, especially those of non-church religiosity? The chapter not only describes religious changes in West Germany, but by referring to contextual conditions also explains the main tendencies observable there.

Download Full-text

Manning's Ultramontanism and the Catholic Church in British Politics

Recusant History ◽

10.1017/s0034193200020306 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 19 (3) ◽

pp. 332-347 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jeffrey P. von Arx

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Central Italy ◽

Church History ◽

British Politics ◽

Roman Catholicism ◽

Papal States ◽

Italian Unification ◽

Roman Catholics ◽

The Church

After his conversion to Roman Catholicism, the first major controversy in which Henry Edward Manning found himself involved as a member of his new church concerned the Roman Question, or the Temporal Power; that is, the political status and future of the Papal States. Now the question of the temporal power of the pope, and the amount of controversy it engendered, is one of those issues in nineteenth century church history whose significance it is difficult for us to understand. By the mid-nineteenth century, especially in relation to the movement for Italian unification, the temporal power of the popes looks to us like an historical anachronism. To Roman Catholics today, it is obvious that the ability of the church to preach the gospel has been enhanced and its mission in the world correspondingly facilitated by being disembarrassed of the burden of political control in central Italy. How to explain, then, the tremendous controversy the Roman Question aroused over so long a period in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the conviction, especially of the papacy's defenders, that the preservation of the Papal States was critical for the survival, not only of religion, but, as we shall see, of civilization in the West?

Download Full-text

Queen Adelaide and the Extension of Anglicanism in Malta

Studies in Church History ◽

10.1017/stc.2017.15 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 54 ◽

pp. 281-295 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nicholas Dixon

Keyword(s):

British Government ◽

Roman Catholicism ◽

Royal Patronage ◽

British Colony ◽

High Church ◽

Roman Catholics ◽

The Church ◽

Ambiguous Position

On a visit to Malta in 1838, Queen Adelaide expressed severe disappointment that the British colony did not possess a purpose-built Anglican place of worship. She determined to fund the building of one at her personal expense and within six years the grandiose neoclassical church of St Paul's, Valletta, was completed. This imposing structure occupied an ambiguous position in a colony where the British government was pledged to maintain Roman Catholicism. St Paul's was ostensibly intended for the existing Anglican population in Malta. However, the church was perceived by both evangelicals and Roman Catholics as a potential instrument of propagating Protestantism. In examining the basis for these perceptions, this article suggests that St Paul's was part of a larger effort, driven by high church clergy connected with the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), to influence the Maltese towards greater sympathy with the Anglican tradition, while avoiding overt proselytizing. The concomitant establishment of the diocese of Gibraltar in 1842 was, it is argued, key to this enterprise. The analysis advanced here has important implications for our understanding of Anglicanism in an imperial context, the contribution of royal patronage to this process and the conflict between religious and governmental imperatives.

Download Full-text

Introduction

American Catholic ◽

10.7591/cornell/9781501700576.003.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-17

Author(s):

D. G. Hart

Keyword(s):

Roman Catholic ◽

Moral Theology ◽

Popular Sovereignty ◽

Roman Catholicism ◽

The Press ◽

The 1950S ◽

Roman Catholics ◽

The Church ◽

Church Teaching ◽

John Courtney Murray

This chapter focuses on how Roman Catholics became prominent players in conservative circles and provides an understanding on the affinity and tension between national and Roman Catholic traditions and ideals. It describes John F. Kennedy's kind of Roman Catholicism, which Americans and the press found acceptable. It also mentions John Courtney Murray, who was considered a potential breakthrough for Roman Catholicism that harmonizes church teaching with national ideals, unlike Kennedy whose electoral victory was an example of religious indifference. The chapter talks about Pope Leo XIII's 1899 condemnation of Americanism or adjustment of the church to freedom, democracy, and popular sovereignty as Roman Catholics were still laboring under papal opposition to modernity in the 1950s. It refers to John T. Noonan, Jr., who authored important books about the church's evolving moral theology.

Download Full-text

“A Preacher from the Artisans with the Bible Prevailed”: Mennonite Religious Identity in Omsk Region in the 50–60s of the 20th Century

10.22250/2072-8662.2020.4.49-58 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 49-58

Author(s):

Natalia V. Vorobeva ◽

Keyword(s):

Religious Identity ◽

The State ◽

Religious Communities ◽

Constitutional Rights ◽

The Bible ◽

Religious Worldview ◽

Regional Committee ◽

The Russian Federation ◽

Council Of Ministers ◽

The Church

The article discusses the state-confessional policy in Omsk region in the 1950–60s on the example of reports of the plenipotentiary of the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR in Omsk Region. The source base was the funds of the State Archive of the Russian Federation – the P-6991 fund, inventory 3 “The Council for Religious Cults under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. 1944–1960”, which examined the reports of the plenipotentiary of the Council for Religious Cults under the Regional Committee of the CPSU for Omsk Region, as well as documents from the funds of the State Historical Archive of Omsk Region, which provide comparative data on actual religious communities and groups in Omsk Region for the 1950–1960s. Attention is paid to religious identity, methods for its identification by the Soviet official and local authorities. The problems of ethnocultural identity of the Mennonite Germans of Omsk Region are examined: the issues of creating autonomy and mass relocations to the Kazakh SSR in the late 1960s. It raises questions of Soviet identity and religiosity, as well as the problem of violations of the constitutional rights of believing Soviet citizens, in particular Article 124 of the Constitution. Particular attention is paid to issues of religious and anti-religious propaganda during the “Khrushchev persecution” of the church and marking the religious worldview as marginal

Download Full-text

Disunited Kingdom

Queen Victoria ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198753551.003.0007 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 169-204

Author(s):

Michael Ledger-Lomas

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Religious Diversity ◽

Irish Sea ◽

Roman Catholicism ◽

Church Of Scotland ◽

Small Circle ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

The Irish Sea ◽

Roman Catholics ◽

The Church

This chapter assesses Victoria’s efforts to cope with the religious diversity of the United Kingdom. Although Victoria’s admiration for the Church of Scotland, which was centred on the Highlands and a small circle of eloquent preachers, made her a biased participant in disputes over its established status, impressions of Victoria’s Presbyterian sympathies sank deep in Scotland and around the Empire. Victoria had hoped to commend herself to the Irish as she had to the Scots, by paying respect to their different kind of national faith, but the chapter shows that her estrangement from Irish Roman Catholics mounted with her reluctance to cross the Irish Sea. Though increasingly appreciative of Roman Catholicism as she encountered it during travel or in the lives of friends and relatives, and friendly towards popes, who she hoped might bring the Irish hierarchy to heel, Victoria could not translate these affinities into a constructive relationship with Catholic Ireland.

Download Full-text

Criminal Offences of Turning and Conversion to Roman Catholicism in Dušan’s Code

Vesnik pravne istorije ◽

10.51204/hlh_21105a ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 95-120

Author(s):

Stefan V. Stojanović

Keyword(s):

Historical Analysis ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Roman Catholicism ◽

Unleavened Bread ◽

The Subject ◽

The Relationship ◽

Roman Catholics ◽

The Church ◽

Christian Woman

Dušan’s Code is the most important monument of Serbian medieval law. It contains a large number of provisions relating to Orthodoxy, the church, the clergy and monasticism. The first 38 articles are directly dedicated to the faith and the church. The Code also prescribes various criminal offences against Orthodoxy, and the most numerous are offences of Roman Catholic proselytism. The introductory part of the paper contains a brief analysis of the position of Roman Catholics in medieval Serbia, the relationship between Serbian rulers and popes, and especially emphasizes the role of Roman Catholic propaganda and the conversion of the Orthodox to Roman Catholicism, which was most prevalent during the reign of Tsar Dušan. The subject of the author’s legal-historical analysis is those provisions of Dušan’s Code that incriminate turning and conversion to Roman Catholicism. So far, it has been indisputably established in science that these are Articles 6, 7, 8, 9 and 21. In Article 6, the Code of Emperor Stefan Dušan proclaims: „And concerning the Latin heresy: Christians who have turned to the use of unleavened bread shall return to the Christian observance. If any fail to obey and do not return to Christian Orthodoxy, let them be punished as is written in the Code of the Holy Fathers.” Article 7 provides: „And the Great Church shall appoint head priests in all market towns to reclaim from the Latin heresy those Christians who have turned to the Latin faith, and to give them spiritual instructions, so that each one of them returns to Christianity.” Article 8 punishes the Latin priest: „And if a Latin priest is found to have converted a Christian to the Latin faith, let him be punished according to the Law of the Holy Fathers.” Article 9 prohibits mixed marriage: „And if a half-believer is found to be married to a Christian woman, let him be baptized into Christianity if he desires it. But if he refuses to be baptized, let his wife and children be taken from him, and let a part of his house be allotted to them, and let him be driven forth.” Finally, Article 21 prescribes: „And whoever shall sell a Christian into another and false faith, let him be crippled and his tongue cut out.” In the concluding remarks, the author points out the basic causes of prescribing these crimes, as well as certain historical data on Emperor Stefan Dušan’s anti-Catholic politics.

Download Full-text

Holiness in Beauty? Roman Catholics, Arminians, and the Aesthetics of Religion in Early Caroline England

Studies in Church History ◽

10.1017/s0424208400012511 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 28 ◽

pp. 303-312

Author(s):

Keith A. Newman

Keyword(s):

Church Of England ◽

Devotional Literature ◽

Roman Catholicism ◽

Time And Space ◽

Public And Private ◽

The Hours ◽

Ordinary Folk ◽

Roman Catholics ◽

The Church

This paper is more concerned with posing questions than attempting to provide answers. I am principally interested in trying to establish whether there was a connection between the English Arminians’ emphasis on ritual and the beautification of churches in the 1620S and 1630S and the perception at the time that Roman Catholicism was gaining ground, especially in London and at the court. It has long been known that Charles I’s court was considered by contemporaries to have been rife with Catholic activity. Likewise, the embassy chapels in London provided a focus for Protestant discontent as a result of their attracting considerable congregations of English Catholics. The 1620s also saw the Arminian faction within the Church of England grow in influence, acquiring the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham and of King Charles himself. As has been demonstrated by Nicholas Tyacke, for example, this faction was very much orientated towards the court, and gained power by working within this milieu under the leadership of Laud and Neile. However, I am not concerned here with the politics of the Arminian rise to control of the Church of England hierarchy, but rather with their interest in ceremonial worship, their endeavour to place liturgy rather than the sermon at the centre of services. Was a leading Arminian such as John Cosin, for instance, reacting to what amounted to a Roman initiative? Furthermore, one needs to ask what part aesthetics played in attracting and retaining the allegiance of Catholics to what was, after all, an illegal form of worship. Even if the no longer faced the likelihood of physical martyrdom, financial penalties were severe, and the threat of imprisonment remained for priests and laity alike. Yet some twenty per cent of the titular nobility and many ordinary folk remained loyal to Rome. May not the very nature of Catholic worship provide a clue to explain this phenomenon? Clearly this is an extremely wide subject, which the time and space available does not permit me to explore in depth on this occasion. Therefore, I propose to focus on two specific areas: what attracted crowds of Londoners to the Catholic worship offered by the embassy chapels; and on one aspect of the Arminian response, namely, the field of devotional literature. I shall examine John Cosin’s A Collection of Private Devotions… Called the Hours of Prayer (1627) in the context of its being a reply to popular Catholic devotional books of the period, such as the Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis, commonly known as the Primer. Thus I shall address issues connected with both public and private devotions.

Download Full-text