Churches Unusual: Worship and Broad-Based Organizing in Two Brooklyn Congregations

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-466
Author(s):  
Aarian Marshall

Abstract The following is an ethnographical study of two ‘churches unusual’ in Brooklyn, New York, USA: ‘unusual’ because all are members of a local citizen’s organization. East Brooklyn Congregations (EBC) is itself an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), a broad-based organizing network grounded in the idea that the most potent power is found in community relationships. The ethnography presented here of two EBC member institutions—Hope Christian Center and St Paul Community Baptist Church—moves back and forth between each congregation’s worship and participation in the citizens’ organization to which it belongs. In juxtaposing their religious practice and organizing, this article explores the relationship between them, asking how religious identities are changed in the organizing process.

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Henry

John D. Rockefeller, Jr.’s reactions to the Colorado Coal Wars resulted in the creation of the Employee Representation Plan, better known as the Rockefeller Plan. While labor historians identify the Rockefeller Plan as a dynamic shift in labor-management relations, this article focuses on the lesser studied portion of Rockefeller's reconstruction plan, his program of soft reform and its effect on the construction of masculinity in the industrial West. For Junior, restructuring the work environment and the relationship between management and labor left reconstruction incomplete, and thus vulnerable to future crises. Beginning in 1914, Rockefeller provided support for local and national social organizations to work throughout southern Colorado in order to impart middle-class values to his workers. He believed that reconstructing their social and cultural values—from language to sexual behavior—would remove any socialist influences, and create a better workforce. By applying this type of pressure, Junior helped create an environment that supported local anti-vice movements, and validated a growing belief that law enforcement and legislation could be used to curb vice. Following the deadly strike, Rockefeller's attempts to transform his public image and industrial workers not only have implications for labor history, but also social and gender histories, in particular the construction of masculinity in the American West.As I understand you are a member of the Baptist Church. So am I. But I think you must be a very inconsistent one. You teach Sunday school in New York and let the devil run your business in Colorado. You and your managers are totally responsible for all the bloodshed that occurred in Colorado. If you had lived up to the law there would have been no strike in Colorado. It is human nature to suffer rather than resent and men do not go on strikes for the fun of it.1


Moreana ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (Number 175) (3) ◽  
pp. 14-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Cummings

The relationship between scripture and tradition has always been recognised as central to the controversy between More and Tyndale in the late 1520s and early 1530s. It was already one of the key issues in the English campaign against Luther instigated in 1521, and in the 1540s became one of the lynchpins of confessional identity both among Catholic theologians at Trent and in the English reformed articles of 1553. This is often seen as a doctrinal issue, but beneath the surface it can also be seen as part of a profound philosophical argument about the authority of oral and written evidence, an argument which goes back to the origins of Jewish and Christian religious practice and which continues to haunt the ecumenical concerns of today.


2005 ◽  
Vol 156 (8) ◽  
pp. 288-296
Author(s):  
Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani

In the first half of the 19th century scientific philosophers in the United States, such as Emerson and Thoreau, began to pursue the relationship between man and nature. Painters from the Hudson River School discovered the rural spaces to the north of New York and began to celebrate the American landscape in their paintings. In many places at this time garden societies were founded, which generated widespread support for the creation of park enclosures While the first such were cemeteries with the character of parks, housing developments on the peripheries of towns were later set in generous park landscapes. However, the centres of the growing American cities also need green spaces and the so-called «park movement»reached a first high point with New York's Central Park. It was not only an experimental field for modern urban elements, but even today is a force of social cohesion.


Author(s):  
Dustin Gamza ◽  
Pauline Jones

What is the relationship between state repression of religion and political mobilization in Muslim-majority states? Does religious repression increase the likelihood that Muslims will support acts of rebellion against the state? This chapter contends that the effect of repression on attitudes toward political mobilization is conditional on both the degree of enforcement and the type of religious practice that is being targeted. When enforcement is high and the repressive regulation being enforced targets communal (rather than individualistic) religious practices, Muslims expect state persecution of their religious community to increase, and that this persecution will extract a much greater toll. They are thus more willing to support taking political action against the state in order to protect their community from this perceived harm. The chapter tests this argument with two novel survey experiments conducted in Kyrgyzstan in 2019. It finds that the degree of enforcement has a significant effect on attitudes toward political mobilization, but this effect is negative (reducing support) rather than positive (increasing support). The chapter also finds that repression targeting communal practices has a stronger effect on attitudes toward political mobilization than repression targeting individualistic practices, but again, these effects are negative. The chapter’s findings suggest that the fear of collective punishment increases as the degree of enforcement increases, particularly when it comes to repression targeting communal practices. Thus, while Muslims are motivated to protect their community from harm, it may be that the certainty of financial and physical harm outweighs the expectation of increasing religious persecution.


Author(s):  
Qingyu Zhou ◽  
Qinwen Yu ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Peiwu Shi ◽  
Qunhong Shen ◽  
...  

This study aimed to analyze the changes in the 10 major categories of women’s healthcare services (WHSs) in Shanghai (SH) and New York City (NYC) from 1978 to 2017, and examine the relationship between these changes and maternal mortality ratio (MMR). Content analysis of available public policy documents concerning women’s health was conducted. Two indicators were designed to represent the delivery of WHSs: The essential women’s healthcare service coverage rate (ESCR) and the assessable essential healthcare service coverage rate (AESCR). Spearman correlation was used to analyze the relationship between the two indicators and MMR. In SH, the ESCR increased from 10% to 90%, AESCR increased from 0% to 90%, and MMR decreased from 24.0/100,000 to 1.01/100,000. In NYC, the ESCR increased from 0% to 80%, the AESCR increased from 0% to 60%, and the MMR decreased from 24.7/100,000 to 21.4/100,000. The MMR significantly decreased as both indicators increased (p < 0.01). Major advances have been made in women’s healthcare in both cities, with SH having a better improvement effect. A common shortcoming for both was the lack of menopausal health service provision. The promotion of women’s health still needs to receive continuous attention from governments of SH and NYC. The experiences of the two cities showed that placing WHSs among policy priorities is effective in improving service status.


Author(s):  
Dörte Schmidt

Abstract The article discusses how new developments in the notation of contemporary music were negotiated within the framework of the Darmstadt Summer Courses and which interests and actors played a role in this. The first part examines the publications and publication projects that emerged in the context of the Notation conference in 1964. The focus is on the interests of institutions such as the International Music Council and the International Association of Music Libraries, in whose name the New York publisher Kurt Stone attempted to persuade the International Music Institute Darmstadt to cooperate and, following on from the debates there, to systematically record various forms of notation together. In a second step, the content of the debates at the conference is examined, with a particular focus on the different and sometimes conflicting perspectives of interpreters and composers. Numerous connections to fundamental aesthetic discussions of the time can be worked out, in particular to the relationship between the composer’s intention and interpretation, which was renegotiated in a form of notation that was individualized to the extreme. Finally, with a view to later discussions, this topic is pointed to the question of the relationship between morphology and musical structure, exemplified by positions of Wolfgang Rihm (1982), Klaus Huber (1988) and John Cage (1990).


Author(s):  
Rachel Herold ◽  
Rachel Boykan ◽  
Allison Eliscu ◽  
Héctor E. Alcalá ◽  
Maciej L. Goniewicz

Nicotine and cannabis use are common among adolescents and may be associated with behavioral problems, poor academic outcomes and use disorders. The goals of this analysis were the following: (1) Describe the influence of friends’ nicotine and cannabis smoking and vaping on self-reported use. (2) Describe the relationship between friends’ nicotine and cannabis use on participants’ urinary biomarkers of nicotine (cotinine) and cannabis (11-nor-9-carboxy-Δ⁹tetrahydrocannabinol=THC-COOH). This is a secondary analysis of survey and biomarker data collected in adolescents aged 12–21 between April 2017 and April 2018, in Long Island, New York. Bivariate and multivariable analyses were conducted using SPSS 26. A cutoff value of ≥10 ng/mL was used to signify recent usage for urinary cotinine and THC-COOH levels. Over one-third of the 517 surveyed adolescents reported using tobacco and one-third reported using cannabis. A significant relationship between friends’ substance use and self-use was found. For both tobacco and cannabis, over 90% (p < 0.01) of participants with urinary biomarker levels above cutoff had friends who used the respective substance. Friends’ nicotine and friends’ cannabis use were each independently associated with urinary biomarker levels for those substances (for nicotine, beta = 88.29, p = 0.03; for cannabis, beta = 163.58, p = 0.03). Friends’ use of nicotine and cannabis is associated with adolescents’ intake, as well as the physiological exposure to those substances. These findings underscore the importance of including peer influence in the discussion with adolescents about tobacco and cannabis use.


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