The changing position and meaning of religion and the church in Western Europe-a sociological analysis

1996 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 246-258
Author(s):  
Gerard Dekker
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
The Church ◽  
Range Of Influence

AbstractThe changes that have taken place in religious and ecclesiastical life in Western Europe are characterised as a process of secularisation. Secularisation encompasses three different processes, namely a decline in the religiosity of people, the restriction of the range of influence of religion and the adaptation of religion to the values of society. By means of these processes on three levels the developments with relation to religious life in its entirety can be described. Since changes in religious life are connected with changes in society and the culture of the society in which that religion functions, a better understanding of what secularisation entails demands that we look at those developments in society which have promoted changes in religion and the church. Developments in society that are discussed include the changed organisation of society and processes of rationalisation, democratisation and subjectivation. Finally, it is shown how these developments resulted in the diminishing significance of religion and the churches in and for society.

Le problème des vocations religieuses en Pologne

1968 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-234
Author(s):  
Witold Zdaniewicz
Keyword(s):  
Primary Education ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Statistical Study ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Religious Orders ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Conscious Level ◽  
The Church

In the first two parts of his work, the author devotes himself to a statistical study of changes in the personnel of convents in Poland between 1945 and 1958 (number of postulants, number of professed, number leaving the religious life, lay brothers and clerics). It would appear that the number of vocations among brothers in particular is diminishing, that twice as many leave as enter and that the brothers who leave outnumber the professed threefold. In a third part, the sociological analysis attempts to grasp, at a conscious level, the motivation of vocations: for priests, it is the desire for the apostolic life which predominates; for brothers, it is of a more monastic nature: to serve God. The enquiry also reveals the social factors under the influence of which monks become aware of their vocations. The more noticeable features are: the importance of the years of primary education, the importance of the liturgy, personal example and the activity of the Church, the reputation of the chosen community. Finally, enquiry at an individual level attempts to discover the way in which vocations arise: their difficulties, the cause of 'crises'. 46 % of clerics and 43% of brothers go through a crisis in the course of their lives. The cause is to be looked for in the increasing influence of 'secular' life on the convents; this influence has a profound effect on the activity and spirituality of religious, (the practice of obedience in particular). In conclusion: 1. The statistics create the impression not so much of 'crisis' as of modification in the recruitment of religious orders, (nuns are not taken into account in this study). 2. As for spiritual 'crises': these will find no solution unless the structures of the religious life adapt and accept postulants as they are, with all the implications of their modern mentality.

Summary

1998 ◽  
pp. 90-91
Author(s):  
Editorial board Of the Journal
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
The Church

In the first section “Scientific Reports and Notes” of the Bulettin there are published the papers by V. Suyarko “The Humanistic Mission of the Religious Studies”, O. Buchma “Personality, Society, Religion: the Spiritual Transformations on the Edge of the Millenium”, T. Gorbachenko “The Language and Literacy as the Components of the Church-Religious Life of the Christians”, G. Nadtoka “The Orthodox Monasteries in Ukraine of the 1900-1917”.

Tract 90

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. G. Pahls ◽  
Kenneth Parker
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Best Effort ◽  
The Church

In 1864, John Henry Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua characterized Tract 90 as his last best effort to remain in the Church of England. While Newman always celebrated his reliance on Anglican Caroline divines, this chapter demonstrates his unacknowledged debt to a notable Oxford convert of the Caroline period, Christopher Davenport (1598–1680), known in Franciscan religious life as Franciscus à Sancta Clara. Davenport served as Catholic chaplain to Queen Henrietta Maria and penned his irenic Paraphrastica Expositio Articulorum Confessionis Anglicanae (1634) to promote the reunion of the churches of England and Rome. The chapter demonstrates Newman’s use and close reading of Davenport’s work, analysing numerous paraphrases that Newman employed to build his arguments.

scholarly journals Czwarty synod archidiecezji warszawskiej

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 23-49
Author(s):  
Janusz Gręźlikowski
Keyword(s):  
Canon Law ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
Holy See ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
The Many ◽  
Administrative Structures ◽  
The Church

The 4th Synod of the Warsaw Archdioceses was debating during the five-year period, between 19th March 1998 and 19th March 2003 when the Warsaw Church had been run by the primate of Poland, cardinal Joseph Glemp. He proposed, summoned and carried out the synod and promulgated its resolutions. The initiative of summoning the synod was connected with the need for overall renewal of the religious and moral life of the Warsaw archdiocese. The synod’s deliberations and its resolutions were to cause the betterment of the organization and functioning of administrative and pastoral apparatus in the archdiocese, to normalize the many issues concerning the church and religious life, as well as to improve the laity and clergy’s religious, social and moral level. To achieve, a wide representation of clergy, catholic laity and monks were engaged. The synodical resolutions with its jurisdictional and pastoral nature are signified by strong setting in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, the Canon Law, the documents of the Holy See and John Paul II, as well as by the resolutions of the Second Polish Plenary Second and the instructions of the Conference of the Polish Episcopate. At the same time they refer to the tradition of the Warsaw archdiocese and remain fully opened for the “tomorrow” of the Church, evangelizing and pastoral objective. Furthermore they undertake, organize and regulate many difficult pastoral issues. Thus the synodical legislator contributed to the renewal, revival and activation of the church and administrative structures of the archdioceses, so they could serve to various pastoral, church and administrative assignments.

Being Done: Why People Leave the Church, But Not Their Faith

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 499-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Packard ◽  
Todd W. Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Religious Congregations ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Iron Cage ◽  
Meaningful Relationships ◽  
Push And Pull ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
The Church ◽  
Unique Dataset

Institutionally organized religious life in the United State is undergoing a dramatic transformation. While individual beliefs and practices remain relatively stable, institutional affiliation and participation has declined dramatically. In this article, we explore the religious “Dones”—those who have disaffiliated with their religious congregations but, unlike the Nones, continue to associate with a religious tradition. Drawing on a unique dataset of 100 in-depth interviews with self-identified Christians, we explain the “push” and “pull” factors that lead a person to intentionally leave their congregations. We find that a bureaucratic structure and a narrow focus on certain moral proscriptions can drive people away, while the prospect of forming more meaningful relationships and the opportunities to actively participate in social justice issues draw people out. From these factors, we show that an “iron cage of congregations” exists that is ill-suited to respond to a world where religious life is increasingly permeable as people enact their spirituality outside traditional religious organizations. We conclude by questioning whether the spiritual lives of the Dones are ultimately sustainable without institutional support.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
State Building ◽  
Court System ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Church ◽  
Written Sources

This introductory chapter provides an overview of Russian and Ukrainian witchcraft from the Middle Ages to the turn of the twentieth century. Like their European neighbors, Russia and the Ukrainian lands recorded incidents of witchcraft and sorcery from the times of the earliest written sources, and along with other Christian cultures, they formally condemned the practice of magic outside of the Church. In synch with their European contemporaries, they saw spikes in formal legal prosecution during the early modern period. In the case of Russia, this was a time of ambitious state building and expansion of the tsarist court system. Formal trials of witches there began as a minute trickle in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, when they were already well underway or even inching toward an end in parts of Western Europe. Peaking in the second half of the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth centuries, Russian and Ukrainian trials abated only during the 1770s but did not cease altogether until the mid-nineteenth century. Witchcraft was energetically prosecuted in Russia and Ukraine after the entire notion of magic had fallen into disrepute (or even become laughable) among most members of the educated classes in Western areas.

Plymouth and the Bay

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-149
Author(s):  
Francis J. Bremer
Keyword(s):  
Religious Life ◽  
Armed Force ◽  
Massachusetts Bay ◽  
The North ◽  
Massachusetts Bay Colony ◽  
The Church

During the 1620s the colony faced various challenges, some centering on a settlement to the north that came to be dominated by Thomas Morton. Morton was accused of selling guns and liquor to Natives and carrying on revels around a maypole he had erected. Plymouth sent Myles Standish and a small armed force to arrest Morton, and they sent him back to England. In 1628 the first settlers of what was to be the Massachusetts Bay Colony arrived in Salem. These puritans were not separatists but turned to Plymouth for advice on how to organize their religious life. Samuel Fuller, Plymouth’s physician and a deacon of the church, visited Salem to aid those suffering from scurvy, but also persuaded John Endecott, the settlement’s leader, of the congregational principles on which the Plymouth congregation was based. The Salem settlers thereafter drew up their own covenant and subsequently chose their own ministers.

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