Conclusion—Periodizing Secularization

2019 ◽  
pp. 245-278
Author(s):  
Clive D. Field
Keyword(s):  
Performance Indicators ◽  
Religious Socialization ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Six Dimensions ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Religious Crisis

Since most chapters contain individual summaries, they are not reproduced in the conclusion. Rather, there is a holistic overview of religious allegiance and churchgoing across seven micro-periods between 1880 and 1980, with reference to a hybrid measure of adult ‘active church adherence’ relative to population. This declined continuously and gradually, undermining arguments for ‘revolutionary’ secularization in the 1960s. A second section considers six dimensions of ‘diffusive religion’, a basket of alternative performance indicators cited by some scholars who contend religion has not declined but simply changed, moving away from institutional expressions. Such claims are not judged evidentially strong. The third section updates secularization’s historiography, critiquing previous work on the alleged religious crisis of 1890–1914, the religious impact of the world wars, and the so-called religious revival of the 1950s and crisis of the 1960s. The causation of secularization is discussed, and weakening Sabbatarianism and religious socialization of children are emphasized.

Christian Radicalism and the Enactment of Secular Theology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Brewitt-Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Religious Organization ◽  
Secular Theology ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Student Christian Movement ◽  
Christian Leaders ◽  
The Church

This chapter outlines three examples of how secular theology was put into practice in the 1960s: Nick Stacey’s innovations in the parish of Woolwich; the radicalization of the ‘Parish and People’ organization; and the radicalization of Britain’s Student Christian Movement, which during the 1950s was the largest student religious organization in the country. The chapter argues that secular theology contained an inherent dynamic of ever-increasing radicalization, which irresistibly propelled its adherents from the ecclesiastical radicalism of the early 1960s to the more secular Christian radicalism of the late 1960s. Secular theology promised that the reunification of the church and the world would produce nothing less than the transformative healing of society. As the 1960s went on, this vision pushed radical Christian leaders to sacrifice more and more of their ecclesiastical culture as they pursued their goal of social transformation.

Periodizing Secularization

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clive D. Field
Keyword(s):  
Performance Indicators ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Preliminary Evaluation ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
Religious Socialization ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Religious Transformation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Descriptive Sense ◽  
The Church

Moving beyond the (now somewhat tired) debates about secularization as paradigm, theory, or master narrative, this book focuses upon the empirical evidence for secularization, viewed in its descriptive sense as the waning social influence of religion, in Britain. Particular emphasis is attached to the two key performance indicators of religious allegiance and churchgoing, each subsuming several sub-indicators, between 1880 and 1945, including the first substantive account of secularization during the fin de siècle. A wide range of primary sources is deployed, many relatively or entirely unknown, and with due regard to their methodological and interpretative challenges. On the back of them, a cross-cutting statistical measure of ‘active church adherence’ is devised, which clearly shows how secularization has been a reality and a gradual, not revolutionary, process. The most likely causes of secularization were an incremental demise of a Sabbatarian culture and of religious socialization (in the church, at home, and in the school). The analysis is also extended backwards, to include a summary of developments during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; and laterally, to incorporate a preliminary evaluation of a six-dimensional model of ‘diffusive religion’, demonstrating that these alternative performance indicators have hitherto failed to prove that secularization has not occurred. The book is designed as a prequel to the author’s previous volumes on the chronology of British secularization – Britain’s Last Religious Revival? (2015) and Secularization in the Long 1960s (2017). Together, they offer a holistic picture of religious transformation in Britain during the key secularizing century of 1880–1980. [250 words]

The motif of ‘crossings’ in selected works by Azouz Begag

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-237
Author(s):  
Pat Duffy
Keyword(s):  
School System ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Immigrant Child ◽  
The Third ◽  
French Writer ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Azouz Begag

The French writer of Algerian origin, Azouz Begag, has long been interested in the reception in France of those with immigrant origins. Their treatment often continues to be that reserved for the ‘visitor’, even several generations down the line. Yet these ‘outsiders’, who are not expected to ‘stay’, no longer identify with the country of their ancestors. Their life journeys become characterised by often delicate negotiations in order to be accepted. In the light of this situation, we examine three of Begag’s autofictional works. The first of these is Le Gone du Chaâba (1986), the text for which he gained celebrity. It explores the world of a young Algerian boy in France in the 1960s confronted with a Francocentric school system largely dismissive of the immigrant child. The second text, Le Marteau pique-cœur (2004) reveals an adult destabilised by the collapse of his marriage and the loss of his father, while the third, Salam Ouessant (2012), shows him on holiday with his two daughters and struggling with single status. All three texts share common concerns about reference points in life and all three are linked by numerous ‘crossings’ featuring various kinds of movement – physical, cultural, linguistic and transitional.

Fancy Meeting You Here: Pioneers of the Concept Album

Daedalus ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 142 (4) ◽  
pp. 98-108
Author(s):  
Todd Decker
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Concept Album ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Live Music ◽  
Rock Bands ◽  
The World ◽  
Unify Concept ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The 1960S

The introduction of the long-playing record in 1948 was the most aesthetically significant technological change in the century of the recorded music disc. The new format challenged record producers and recording artists of the 1950s to group sets of songs into marketable wholes and led to a first generation of concept albums that predate more celebrated examples by rock bands from the 1960s. Two strategies used to unify concept albums in the 1950s stand out. The first brought together performers unlikely to collaborate in the world of live music making. The second strategy featured well-known singers in songwriter-or performer-centered albums of songs from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s recorded in contemporary musical styles. Recording artists discussed include Fred Astaire, Ella Fitzgerald, and Rosemary Clooney, among others.

The “Christianization” of Israel and Jews in 1950s America

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Mart
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Christian Family ◽  
Bible Stories

AbstractIn the 1950s, the United States experienced a domestic religious revival that offered postwar Americans a framework to interpret the world and its unsettling international political problems. Moreover, the religious message of the cold war that saw the God-fearing West against atheistic communists encouraged an unprecedented ecumenism in American history. Jews, formerly objects of indifference if not disdain and hatred in the United States, were swept up in the ecumenical tide of “Judeo-Christian” values and identity and, essentially, “Christianized” in popular and political culture. Not surprisingly, these cultural trends affected images of the recently formed State of Israel. In the popular and political imagination, Israel was formed by the “Chosen People” and populated by prophets, warriors, and simple folk like those in Bible stories. The popular celebration of Israel also romanticized its people at the expense of their Arab (mainly Muslim) neighbors. Battling foes outside of the Judeo-Christian family, Israelis seemed just like Americans. Americans treated the political problems of the Middle East differently than those in other parts of the world because of the religious significance of the “Holy Land.” A man such as Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who combined views of hard-nosed “realpolitik” with religious piety, acknowledged the special status of the Middle East by virtue of the religions based there. Judaism, part of the “Judeo-Christian civilization,” benefitted from this religious consciousness, while Islam remained a religion and a culture apart. This article examines how the American image of Jews, Israelis, and Middle Eastern politics was re-framed in the early 1950s to reflect popular ideas of religious identity. These images were found in fiction, the press, and the speeches and writings of social critics and policymakers. The article explores the role of the 1950s religious revival in the identification of Americans with Jews and Israelis and discusses the rise of the popular understanding that “Judeo-Christian” values shaped American culture and politics.

World Crisis and the Making of Christian Radicalism, c.1938–1957

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Brewitt-Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Modern History ◽  
World War ◽  
World Crisis ◽  
The World ◽  
Spiritual Crisis ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Second World

This chapter locates the immediate origins of British Christian radicalism in the early 1940s. The Second World War was frequently interpreted by Christian commentators as evidence of a profound spiritual crisis in Western civilization. The resulting quest for a new Christianity was pursued, amongst others, by J.H. Oldham, Kathleen Bliss, Ronald Gregor Smith, Alec Vidler, and John Robinson. Many of these figures went on to become leading figures in the Christian radicalism of the 1960s. The perception that Western civilization was experiencing an unprecedented crisis encouraged readings of modern history influenced by Christian eschatology, which argued that the Church’s central mission was to help transform the world. In the 1950s, the memory of this crisis encouraged British theology’s engagement with American and German radical theologians, including Bonhoeffer, Bultmann, and Tillich. This tradition only required fresh imagined crises to regain its momentum in the 1960s.

Epistemological Exercises: Encyclopedias of world cultural history in twentieth-century Japan

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
MIRIAM KINGSBERG KADIA
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Objective Knowledge ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The Third ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract Encyclopedias are purportedly all-encompassing, authoritative presentations of information compiled mainly by experts for an audience of non-specialists. Believed to offer only universal ‘facts’, they have long been associated with objectivity. Yet, by arranging information into a usable form, encyclopedias inevitably convey particular ideologies and ideals. As a result, they offer a lens into the changing ‘truths’ upheld by or expected of readers. This article compares three successive, high-profile Japanese encyclopedias, each bearing the title Sekai bunkashi taikei [Encyclopedia of world cultural history]. Somewhat differently from today, the field of world cultural history purported to ‘objectively’ cover the widest relevant space (earth) and time (the human past). However, the specific concerns and commitments of world cultural historians changed greatly between the 1920s, when the first encyclopedia was published, and the 1960s, when the final volumes of the third series appeared. By looking closely at both the production and consumption of these texts, this article shows the deeply politicized ways in which ‘objective’ knowledge of the world was interpreted, implemented, marketed, and received by the Japanese public during the years of nation-building, imperial expansionism, and the Cold War.

scholarly journals Color accents in Olga Orlova's painting

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Людмила Анатольевна Тома
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Emotional Content ◽  
Creative Evolution ◽  
Human Essence ◽  
Research Material ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The 1960S

В статье освещается творческая эволюция живописца Молдавии Ольги Орловой, чье искусство основано на принципах реализма, допускающего цветовую экспрессию. Материалом исследования стали многочисленные живописные произведения художника с 1950-х годов по настоящее время, которые впервые введены в широкий международный искусствоведческий оборот. Автор анализирует динамику тем и мотивов, композиционных особенностей, колорита картин, отмечая их тональность, декоративность и гармонию. В результате исследования определено, что при всем разнообразии задач Ольга Орлова верна традициям, которые близки ей с 1960-х годов. Это интерес к проявлению сущностного в человеке и в природном мире, лаконизм языка пластики, эмоциональная содержательность колорита. The article elucidates the creative evolution of the Moldavian painter Olga Orlova, whose art is based on the principles of realism, but allowing also color expression. The research material is the artists numerous paintings from the 1950s to the present, which were first introduced into a wide, international art history circulation. The author analyzes the dynamics of themes and motives, compositional features, color of paintings, noting their tonality, decorativeness and harmony. As a result of the study, it is determined that, with all the variety of tasks, Olga Orlova is true to the traditions that have become close to her since the 1960s. It is her interest for manifestation of the human essence and for the world of nature, as well as the laconism of the plastic language and the emotional content of color.

scholarly journals Eskimo Ice Cream and Kraft Dinner Goulash: The Cultural Geographies of Food in Three Cookbooks from the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Northwest Territories ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Anglican Church ◽  
The Third ◽  
The North ◽  
Indigenous Representation ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Insight Into

In this article, I explore three Northwest Territories (NWT) cookbooks from the 1960s. The first cookbook, a fundraiser for the Anglican Church in Inuvik, demonstrates the significance of traditional Indigenous food preparations, as well as the integration of imported recipes, adapted to draw resourcefully on northern store provisions of that time. Most, if not all, of the recipes are provided by Indigenous women. The second, published by the Daughters of the Midnight Sun in Yellowknife, is a hospital fundraiser that offers a different perspective - that of an emerging population of newcomers from elsewhere in Canada and the world. While the recipes attest to the diverse roots of settlers in a growing community, they also tell a story of exclusion: one cannot help but wonder at the lack of Indigenous representation among the recipe writers, in a community built within the traditional homelands of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. The third, published by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, offers tips to northern “wilderness wives” on nutrition along with recipes that are often out of touch with the availability of certain ingredients in northern communities. Drawing on feminist and postcolonial theory, I critique these cookbooks: analyzing both the recipes and the positionalities of their writers, to explore how the north was imagined by three different, often opposing, perspectives; and offering insight into (persistent) colonial geographies of food and community in the NWT.

The Rise of Investment Treaties and ISDS in the 1990s and Since

2021 ◽  
pp. 96-121
Author(s):  
Nicolás M. Perrone
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Global Consensus ◽  
Investment Treaty ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Investment Treaties ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Bar Association ◽  
The 1960S

In the early 1980s, many countries had not signed investment treaties or joined the ICSID Convention. Neither was there any ISDS practice. This situation changed quickly, however, as the views of the norm entrepreneurs of the 1950s and 1960s became part of the global consensus on development thinking. In the 1990s, the World Bank and UNCTAD put themselves at the forefront of efforts to promote investment treaties and ISDS, a task for which they had the support of organizations such as the American Bar Association. The investment treaty network rapidly expanded, most states joined ICSID, and the first ISDS cases emerged. Some arbitrators acted as pioneers of a new legal field, while others wrote in celebration of the fact that the proposals of the 1960s had now become law. Crucially, they also resolved the disputes in the background of the legal imagination.

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