Reconstruction, Revival, and the Triumph of Experience, 1914–30

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew R. Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Post War ◽  
Denominational Loyalty

The final chapter begins with post-war reconstruction and how new professorial appointments signalled a move from dogma and theological proficiency to experience and practical Christianity. The second section examines a powerful outbreak of religious revival in the early 1920s associated with William Patterson Nicholson. Though aspects of popular revivalism were criticized, the religious awakening was encouraged by leaders within the Presbyterian Church and helped to draw attention to the role and rhetoric of religious experience. The final two sections discuss the course and aftermath of the heresy trial of James Ernest Davey in 1927. They examine the increasingly fractious debate over revising the formula of subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the formation of the Bible Standards League. The exoneration of Davey seemed to confirm the fears of conservatives, but this obscures the essential conservatism of the denomination in terms of evangelical principles and denominational loyalty.

scholarly journals The Bible and the British and American Armed Forces in Two World Wars

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Snape
Keyword(s):  
Armed Forces ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
World War ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
Post War ◽  
American Society

AbstractThe role of the Bible in Great Britain and the United States in the era of the two World Wars offers new insights into the nature and trajectory of religious change in contemporary British and American society, and not least the much-vaunted religious impact of the First World War. By focusing on the use and the significance of the Bible during these conflicts, and especially its role in and for the British and American armed forces, this article illustrates the uneven quality of inter-war secularization on both sides of the Atlantic. Although rarely considered as a measure of religious change in this period, it underlines the enduring cultural significance of the Bible for Britons and Americans alike, demonstrates the Bible’s burgeoning importance during the years of the Second World War, and indicates that this development helped prepare the ground for the religious revival of the post-war era, and most notably the transatlantic success of Billy Graham.

The Religious Functions of Near-Death Experiences

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Schlieter
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Life After Death ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Near Death Experiences

This final chapter secures the result of the survey by discussing the religious functions of near-death experiences for affected individuals, but also the functions of the reports for the audience. It outlines (a) ontological, (b) epistemic, (c) intersubjective, and (d) moral aspects. It has been argued that experiencers feel closer to God, are less attracted to religion, and are significantly more inclined to believe in life after death. A function of the narratives consists in the claim that, in atheistic and secular times, individual religious experience is still possible. Several reports argue with a copresence of life and death. Discussing cognitivist approaches, the chapter finally concludes that, given the Latin etymology of “experience,” harboring, among others, the meaning of “being exposed to danger” or “passing a test,” near-death experiences can be seen as a match for conceptions of religious experience as a transformative, gained by surviving a life-threatening danger.

Enchanted Calvinism

2021 ◽  
pp. 589-607
Author(s):  
Adam Mohr
Keyword(s):  
Bible Study ◽  
Primary Site ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Initial Transformation ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Church

The goal of this chapter is to explain how healing and deliverance practices were instituted in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG). The first half of this chapter examines the PCG’s initial transformation, which was driven by three factors: the decision by the leadership to introduce healing practices into the church, the creation of the Bible Study and Prayer Group to manage the afflicted within congregations, and the influence of two parachurch organizations. The second half of this chapter focuses on Catechist Ebenezer Abboah-Offei, who since 1996 has been leading Grace Presbyterian Church in Akropong, the primary site of healing and deliverance practices within the PCG. With regards to Abboah-Offei, this chapter describes how he came to teach and practise deliverance and the process by which Grace Presbyterian was established. Finally, this chapter describes the various healing and deliverance activities that occur at Grace Presbyterian Church.

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’.

Polska Nowa Zelandia: Emigracja lat 1945-2006

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dariusz Zdziech
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
World War ◽  
World War 2 ◽  
Young Professionals ◽  
Recent Group ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
Considerable Detail

A brief history of Polish emigration to New Zealand until the end of the World War 2 is presented first, setting a background to the main topic of the book. Then in the next chapter, all attention is given to the post-war period. Each wave of newcomers, beginning with groups of ex-soldiers arriving to join with members of their family and ending with a recent group of mostly young professionals aiming at making a successful career on the antipodes, has been analysed with considerable detail. The following chapter looks at the stance the Polish immigrants took towards the Polish communist Government in Warsaw including its diplomatic post in Wellington. This has been thoroughly analysed. It shows the patriotism of the Polish communities. With admirable determination they felt allegiance to and strongly supported the Polish Government in London – in exile until 1990. The final chapter deals with the attitude of Polish immigrants toward the host country and the local government in Wellington. Legal matters regarding residency, citizenship, work and so on, together with motives of coming and settling in this country, becoming a loyal citizen, are all presented in attempt to determine the national consciousness of the immigrants – are they still Polish or more New Zealanders by now? Although there is no one answer to that question, it seems certain that regardless of the opinion one or another individual holds toward their home country, in times of trouble or glory, they do remember their Polish roots. The source of the wide material presented in this book came from extensive queries done in New Zealand, Great Britain, Switzerland, Austria and Poland. Most valuable were numerous interviews with ‘Polish Kiwis’ living in various places in New Zealand. They were conducted while the author was on his New Zealand leg of his research.

The First and Last Day (1917–1922)

2019 ◽  
pp. 86-118
Author(s):  
Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye
Keyword(s):  
Significant Variation ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Chinese Christians ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Personal Morality ◽  
The World ◽  
Big Ideas ◽  
True Jesus Church ◽  
Social Turmoil ◽  
Insight Into

Why do some big ideas catch on, spread, and endure while others fizzle? Analyzing Wei Enbo’s vision of Jesus and the religious revival it sparked gives us insight into the attraction of the True Jesus Church in 1917. Wei’s theophany was recounted in multiple stories revealing overlap but also significant variation. Over the course of retelling, these stories became more abstract and theologically focused, suggesting ways in which religious narratives emerge. This process generated a culturally fluent and linguistically discriminating message of biblical adherence. Chinese Christians seeking increased ecclesiastical purity and personal morality converted to the new movement. Wei’s prediction that the world would end by 1922 reflected realities of social turmoil and Chinese millenarian traditions, but also was in keeping with the charismatic (extraordinary) tenor of the early True Jesus Church movement, which relied heavily on tropes, language, and expectations from the Bible.

Interlude: Helium, Argon, and Creationism

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Time Span ◽  
The Other ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
Fort Lauderdale ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Creation Science ◽  
Strict Interpretation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Creationism ◽  
The Subject

Henry M. Morris, widely regarded as the founder of the modern creationist movement, died February 25, 2006, at the age of eighty-seven. His 1961 book The Genesis Flood, subtitled, The Biblical Record and Its Scientific Implications, was a cornerstone of the movement. Many more books followed, including Scientific Creationism; What Is Creation Science?; Men of Science; Men of God; History of Modern Creationism; The Long War Against God; and Biblical Creationism. In 1970 he founded the Institute for Creation Research, which continues to be a leading creationist force, now headed by his sons, John and Henry III. In 1982 I debated the subject with him at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale in front of a sellout crowd of several thousand. He had emphasized in our initial contacts that the debate would be based on science, not religion, but when he opened his remarks with this same statement and the audience responded with loud cries of “Amen!” and “Praise Jesus!” I knew I was in for a long night. Both of us steered away from the biological arguments, I because I’m not a biologist and he presumably because the Biblical side of that is so evidently silly—if he had tried to describe how Noah brought two mosquitoes or two fleas aboard he might have got away with it, but the whole panoply of billions of species of submicroscopic creatures was obviously a problem. Instead he concentrated on the physical side, in particular on the age of the earth, and that was fine with me. As noted in the previous chapters, the earth’s age is central to Darwin’s argument. A strict interpretation of the Bible gives a limit of thousands of years, which is clearly not enough time for evolution to take place. Radioactive dating, on the other hand, gives Darwin his needed time span of billions of years, and so a cornerstone of the creationist argument is its necessary destruction. Morris was a wonderful motivational speaker, and spent a long introduction wandering through the Bible to show how wonderfully reasonable it is.

Drawing Lessons

Arthur Szyk ◽  
2004 ◽  
pp. 175-186
Author(s):  
Joseph P. Ansell
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
World War ◽  
Young Audiences ◽  
Book Illustration ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Personal Loss ◽  
Book Illustrations ◽  
Post War

This chapter marks Arthur Szyk's return to book illustrations after the war and the ways in which he created interconnections between his art and contemporary world events. In the years after the war book illustration continued to occupy a significant portion of Szyk's creative time. His next project was a series of illustrations for Pathways through the Bible, an abridged version of the Old Testament intended for young audiences. Here, again, Szyk found ways to connect his work to the recent world war. Both the author, Mortimer Cohen, and the illustrator provided dedications for the volume; Szyk's recalled his personal loss resulting from Nazi atrocities, thus connecting his art to the recent war. After exploring his work in Pathways through the Bible, the chapter also analyses his other works during the post-war period.

scholarly journals Form and Content in Buber’s and Schweid’s Literary-Philosophical Readings of Genesis

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 398
Author(s):  
Jonathan Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Religious Sensibility ◽  
Fear Of God ◽  
Human Side

The following essay is presented as part of a long-term project concerned with the theory and practice of modern Jewish thinkers as interpreters of the Bible. The recent Bible commentaries of Eliezer Schweid, who is one of the foremost Jewish scholars and theologians active in Israel today, are analyzed in comparison with parallel interpretations of Martin Buber, with special reference to the first chapters of Genesis. Their respective analyses of Biblical narrative reveal notable similarities in their treatment of the literary “body” of the text as the key to its theological significance. Nonetheless, Buber articulates religious experience largely “from the human side,” striving to mediate Biblical consciousness to the contemporary humanistic mindset, while Schweid positions himself more as the clarion of the “prophetic writers” for whom the fear of God, no less than the love of God, must inform an authentic religious sensibility. Schweid’s more theocentric perspective has great import for contemporary issues such as the universal covetousness engendered by the violation of our ecological covenant with the Earth.

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