Calvinism in the United States

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darryl Hart
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
American Society

The history of Calvinism in the United States is part of a much larger development, the globalization of western Christianity. American Calvinism owes its existence to the transplanting of European churches and religious institutions to North America, a process that began in the 16th century, first with Spanish and French Roman Catholics, and accelerated a century later when Dutch, English, Scottish, and German colonists and immigrants of diverse Protestant backgrounds settled in the New World. The initial variety of Calvinists in North America was the result of the different circumstances under which Protestantism emerged in Europe as a rival to the Roman Catholic Church, to the diverse civil governments that supported established Protestant churches, and to the various business sponsors that included the Christian ministry as part of imperial or colonial designs. Once the British dominated the Eastern seaboard (roughly 1675), and after English colonists successfully fought for political independence (1783), Calvinism lost its variety. Beyond their separate denominations, English-speaking Protestants (whether English, Scottish, or Irish) created a plethora of interdenominational religious agencies for the purpose of establishing a Christian presence in an expanding American society. For these Calvinists, being Protestant went hand in hand with loyalty to the United States. Outside this pan-Protestant network of Anglo-American churches and religious institutions were ethnic-based Calvinist denominations caught between Old World ways of being Christian and American patterns of religious life. Over time, most Calvinist groups adapted to national norms, while some retained institutional autonomy for fear of compromising their faith. Since 1970, when the United States entered an era sometimes called post-Protestant, Calvinist churches and institutions have either declined or become stagnant. But in certain academic, literary, and popular culture settings, Calvinism has for some Americans, whether connected or not to Calvinist churches, continued to be a source for sober reflection on human existence and earnest belief and religious practice.

Western Religion in the Long 1960s

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 823-831
Author(s):  
HUGH MCLEOD
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Post War ◽  
American Society

The Yale church historian, Sydney Ahlstrom, had just emerged somewhat dazed from the Sixties when he reviewed the religious trajectory of the United States during that decade. He wrote that by 1966 it was clear that ‘the post-war religious revival had completely frittered out, that the nation was moving towards a crise de la conscience of unprecedented depth’. As well as a ‘growing attachment to naturalism and “secularism”’ he mentioned ‘a creeping or galloping awareness of vast contradictions in American life between profession and performance, the ideal and the actual’ and ‘increasing doubt concerning the capacity of present-day ecclesiastical, political, social and educational institutions to rectify these contradictions’. As Ahlstrom made clear in a later essay, he saw the crisis faced both by the Roman Catholic Church and by the ‘mainline’ Protestant Churches as part of a wider loss of ‘confidence or hope’ in American society and a passing away of ‘the certitudes that had always shaped the nation's well-being and sense of destiny’.

America and the Irish problem, 1899–1921

1968 ◽  
Vol 16 (61) ◽  
pp. 64-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan J. Ward
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
United States Census ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Irish Americans ◽  
John Mitchel

The United States census of 1910 revealed that there were four and a half million people in the United States who had beenborn in Ireland, or who had at least one Irish-born parent. The figures did not reveal that many other Americans identified themselves with Ireland, the country of their grandparents, or even of their great-grandparents, and it was not unusual for Irish-American leaders at that time to claim the support of fifteen or twenty million fellow Irish-Americans. A great many of these had, indeed, managed to retain a sense of Irish identity and this was in part because they, or their forebears, had largely settled together in Irish ghettos in large cities. In addition they had been forced inwards to their Irish community for support when persecuted by the ‘ Know-nothings ’ and other nativist groups in the nineteenth century. This Irish subculture in which they lived was cultivated by three groups of fellow Irish-Americans who had an interest in promoting an Irish-American community, the better to control and command the Irish-Americans themselves; the Roman Catholic Church, which was very much an Irish Catholic Church in America, the Irish political bosses, interested in political power rather than Ireland, who had risen to power in the Democratic party by their ability to control the Irish vote, and a third group which utilized the audience they both nurtured, the Irish nationalists. The skill with which these nationalists mobilized Irish-Americans in support of Ireland’s claim to independence added an important dimension to the British government’s Irish problem for it became a problem for successive American governments too. As long as Ireland remained tied to England there were in America men and women prepared to emulate John Mitchel who had declared, when he first landed in New York in November 1853, that he intended to make use of the freedom guaranteed him in America to stimulate the movement for Irish independence. It is the object of this paper to review, albeit briefly and incompletely, the significance of the activities of these Irish-American nationalists in the struggle for Irish freedom and in the development of Anglo-American relations during the period from the Boer war, which began in October 1899, to the Anglo-Irish treaty of December 1921.

God Present in a Confused Situation: The Mixed Influence of the Charismatic Movement on Classical Pentecostalism in the United States

Pneuma ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank D. Macchia
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The United States ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Charismatic Movement ◽  
The Past ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
To Come

AbstractThis confused response to the Charismatic movement2 by an official of the Assemblies of God is typical of what many classical Pentecostals in the United States have felt in their struggle over the past three decades to come to terms with the obvious proliferation of extraordinary signs and gifts of the Holy Spirit among members of mainline churches. In the past, Pentecostals viewed these churches as the chief opponents of the latter-day bestowal of supernatural signs and wonders. Apparently, without the permission of Pentecostals, the Spirit of God was suddenly being felt in Charismatic Renewal among members of major Protestant churches and, most surprisingly for Pentecostals, in the Roman Catholic Church. The Pentecostal confusion, however, was due not only to the unexpected work of the Spirit among alleged opponents of revival, but also to the influence that these Renewal movements were having on many classical Pentecostals. In other words, Pentecostals not only had to wrestle with the dramatic work of the Spirit in the mainline churches, they also had to come to terms with the possibility that the movement may serve as a source of renewal for Pentecostal churches. This confusion was rooted in the Pentecostal ambivalence toward a Renewal movement that both repelled and influenced the classical Pentecostal churches.

Intolerance toward Native American Religions

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-146
Author(s):  
John Corrigan ◽  
Lynn S. Neal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
North America ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Native American Religions

Settler colonialism was imbued with intolerance towards Indigenous peoples. In colonial North America brutal military force was applied to the subjection and conversion of Native Americans to Christianity. In the United States, that offense continued, joined with condemnations of Indian religious practice as savagery, or as no religion at all. The violence was legitimated by appeals to Christian scripture in which genocide was commanded by God. Forced conversion to Christianity and the outlawing of Native religious practices were central aspects of white intolerance.

Southeast Asian Refugees in North America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl L. Bankston
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Khmer Rouge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Theravada Buddhism ◽  
Southeast Asian Refugees ◽  
American Society

Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia have historically been nations with large Buddhist populations. While Mahāyāna Buddhism predominates in Vietnam, most people in Cambodia and Laos have been dedicated to Theravāda Buddhism. In 1975, these three countries came under the domination of Communist governments, which had earlier been in conflict with factions militarily supported by the United States. This led to the beginnings of the massive movement of refugees from Southeast Asia to North America. An especially radical regime had taken power in Cambodia, and after war broke out between Cambodia and Vietnam the flow of refugees became a flood. All of the new governments of these countries were hostile to independent religious organizations and practices. The Khmer Rouge in power in Cambodia took its antagonism to religion to an extreme, attempting to violently eradicate traditional Buddhist practices and institutions. As refugees settled in ever-greater numbers in North America and other locations, they established Buddhist temples and other organizations in the new homelands. In consequence, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao communities in the United States and Canada have also become sites for the rapid growth of North American Buddhism. Southeast Asian Buddhism has become a part of a pluralistic religious environment, adding new rites, celebrations, and cultural activities to American society. Buddhism has also played a central part in maintaining ethnic identity among refugee populations and their descendants, as well as in helping Buddhists adapt to life under changing circumstances.

The Roman Catholic Church and the Nineteenth-Century Irish Diaspora

1984 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheridan Gilley
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Irish Catholics

Quite the most remarkable achievement of nineteenth-century Ireland was the creation of an international Catholic Church throughout the Celtic diaspora in the British Empire and North America. A true Irish empire beyond the seas, it was often compared in Hibernian self-congratulation to the monastic missions of the Dark Ages and was served by an Irish clergy and a host of religious orders who fostered a distinctively ‘ethnic’ or Irish Catholic expatriate culture, while often showing the higher values of the Catholic spiritual life. It is remarkable that there is no scholarly modern study of this international community now in process of dissolution, for it has given an incalculable strength to twentieth-century Roman Catholicism. Something of its dimensions and importance can, however, be glimpsed from a growing body of historical writing about Irish Catholicism in England and Scotland, the United States and Australia, as well as in Ireland itself. The American Republic and the white settler areas of the British Empire were to Irish Catholics what the Roman Empire had been to Jews and Christians, the alien organisms by which a faith was carried to the far corners of the earth. As a matter of institutional and ecclesiastical history, the subject is one in which the new nations were divided into dioceses and parishes, and provided with churches, convents, colleges, seminaries and schools. This was, moreover, achieved by no easy process, but in spite of endemic conflict within Irish Catholic communities, who were also opposed by Roman Catholics of other national traditions, by the expanding Protestant Churches and by a hostile Protestant or secular state.

scholarly journals Keeping the tradition alive: An analysis of contemporary Jain religious education for children in India and North America

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Shivani Bothra
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Religious Education ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Schools ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Minority Religions ◽  
Part Time ◽  
American Society

<p>How do Jains, adherents of one of the oldest minority religions in India, maintain their identity and protect their way of life when surrounded by non-Jain religions? Even more striking, how do Jains in the United States, where they constitute a minority within the Indian minority, maintain their traditions amidst a multi-cultural American society? Seeking upward mobility, Jains in post-independence India, have migrated locally, regionally, and internationally and these migrations have disrupted their social, religious, and cultural practices. My thesis looks at the ways in which Jains have addressed these disruptions. I analyse how they have restructured their traditional religious education, transforming it in a variety of ways, producing a range of contemporary Jain religious schools for children, both in India and the United States.  I argue that these new religious schools serve an important function in maintaining ancient Jain traditions, but have, at the same time, initiated significant structural as well as curricular changes that have transformed some of those traditions: widening the gap between Jain children and Jain mendicants, and reallocating authority within the Jain community by enabling laywomen to shape the curriculum and to teach in part-time religious schools, to name a few. The thesis pays attention to these changes, the reasons for the changes, and their consequences.  Using in-depth curriculum analysis and formal interviews, I examine contemporary Jain religious schools for children in the image-worshipping Digambar tradition and the non-image worshipping Shvetambar Terapanth tradition in India, and in mixed traditions in the United States. These Jain schools are growing exponentially in number and popularity within India and America, but have largely remained unexamined. This study aims to fill an important gap by closely analysing the rituals, leadership, and curricula of these new religious schools and their role in shaping modern Jain traditions.</p>

Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion in North America

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Petro
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
North America ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Sexuality And Religion

The history of religion in the United States cannot be understood without attending to histories of race, gender, and sexuality. Since the 1960s, social and political movements for civil rights have ignited interest in the politics of identity, especially those tied to movements for racial justice, women’s rights, and LGBT rights. These movements have in turn informed scholarly practice, not least by prompting the formation of new academic fields, such as Women’s Studies and African American studies, and new forms of analysis, such as intersectionality, critical race theory, and feminist and queer theory. These movements have transformed how scholars of religion in colonial North America and the United States approach intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. From the colonial period to the present, these discourses of difference have shaped religious practice and belief. Religion has likewise shaped how people understand race, gender, and sexuality. The way that most people in the United States think about identity, especially in terms of race, gender, or sexuality, has a longer history forged out of encounters among European Christians, Native Americans, and people of African descent in the colonial world. European Christians brought with them a number of assumptions about the connection between civilization and Christian ideals of gender and sexuality. Many saw their role in the Americas as one of Christianization, a process that included not only religious but also sexual and cultural conversion, as these went hand in hand. Assumptions about religion and sexuality proved central to how European colonists understood the people they encountered as “heathens” or “pagans.” Religion likewise informed how they interpreted the enslavement of Africans, which was often justified through theological readings of the Bible. Native Americans and African Americans also drew upon religion to understand and to resist the violence of European colonialism and enslavement. In the modern United States, languages of religion, race, gender, and sexuality continue to inform one another as they define the boundaries of normative “modernity,” including the role of religion in politics and the relationship between religious versus secular arguments about race, gender, and sexuality.

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