scholarly journals The church’s witness in a secular age: A Hauerwasian response to privatized and individualized religion

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Aaron Wessman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Stanley Hauerwas ◽  
Secular Age ◽  
The Church ◽  
Contemporary Western Society

Stanley Hauerwas has been noted for his theology of missionary “witness.” However, his theology is not uncontroversial. Of late, it is argued that his theology of witness does not often, or sufficiently, attend to the nature and complexity of belief for those people who live in contemporary, Western society. Part of this complexity, as highlighted by various sociologists and theologians, is that religion has become individualized and privatized. These are serious challenges to the church’s engagement with contemporary society, which Hauerwas does not always seem to adequately address. It will be the purpose of this article, however, to attempt to overcome this lacuna in Hauerwas’s theology, and explore if, and how, his theology might serve as a response to some of the specific challenges arising out of the growing trend towards “privatized religion” in the United States. This will be accomplished by bringing into dialogue Hauerwas’s later work on witness, with some of the sociological insights provided by Charles Taylor and Robert Wuthnow. It will be argued that Hauerwas’s theology of witness, though incomplete, does provide insights that might be helpful to the church in her missionary efforts in the United States.

Coda

2018 ◽  
pp. 167-168
Author(s):  
Lindsay Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
History Of ◽  
White Supremacists ◽  
Contemporary Western Society

In focusing on a medieval theological discourse of figural slavery, this book demonstrates the racist force of the construction of inferior identities for Jews, Muslims, and Africans. Although these groups occupy complexly different positions in contemporary Western society, the medieval linkages between them nevertheless help us understand the recent rise in nationalism and white supremacism both in the United States and Europe. White supremacists and the alt-right have expressly drawn on medieval tropes and phrases to fabricate a notion of originary medieval Christian whiteness that they aspire to recreate in the contemporary moment. While no apparent rationale organizes white supremacists’ animus against blacks, Muslims, and Jews, the history of the ideology of white supremacy can be traced back to medieval Western Europe, when the concept of Christian superiority, often coded as white, opposed itself to an imagined infidel inferiority that correlated Jews, Muslims, and Africans.

scholarly journals The Culture Apocalypse: Hegemony and the Frontier at the End of the World

1969 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-20
Author(s):  
Amanda Oldring
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The World ◽  
American Way ◽  
The Church

The turn of the millennium saw a marked increase in apocalypse-themed mass media, especially in television and film, of which the United States is the largest producer. The role of the apocalypse has been to produce hegemony for the ruling establishment that purported itself as being able to prevent or somehow save potential victims. Historically the church possessed this authority, but in contemporary society that role has been passed to governments and to scientific and technological institutions. In contemporary America, apocalypse is part of a spectrum of religious beliefs ingrained into the American Way of life. Commercial America has resurrected the apocalypse myth as spectacle commodity. Apocalyptic media today reflect current values of the American hegemon in globalization, and are portrayed as particularly real in order to be effective. The increased interest in disaster myths specifically reflects Beck’s (1992) concept of a world risk society. Deconstructing the films Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow reveals hegemonic devices that uphold the American way in the advent of globalization through the use of heteronormative values, scientific savior-adversary binaries, and symbolic rebirth through the recreation of frontier space.

Pentecostalism and African diaspora : a case study of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), in North America

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-92
Author(s):  
Rotimi Williams Omotoye
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church Of God ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church

Pentecostalism as a new wave of Christianity became more pronounced in 1970's and beyond in Nigeria. Since then scholars of Religion, History, Sociology and Political Science have shown keen interest in the study of the Churches known as Pentecostals because of the impact they have made on the society. The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) was established by Pastor Josiah Akindayomi in Lagos,Nigeria in 1952. After his demise, he was succeeded by Pastor Adeboye Adejare Enock. The problem of study of this research was an examination of the expansion of the Redeemed Christian Church of God to North America, Caribbean and Canada. The missionary activities of the church could be regarded as a reversed mission in the propagation of Christianity by Africans in the Diaspora. The methodology adopted was historical. The primary and secondary sources of information were also germane in the research. The findings of the research indicated that the Redeemed Christian Church of God was founded in North America by Immigrants from Nigeria. Pastor Adeboye Enock Adejare had much influence on the Church within and outside the country because of his charisma. The Church has become a place of refuge for many immigrants. They are also contributing to the economy of the United States of America. However, the members of the Church were faced with some challenges, such as security scrutiny by the security agencies. In conclusion, the RCCGNA was a denomination that had been accepted and embraced by Nigerians and African immigrants in the United States of America.

THE INCEPTION AND EVOLUTION OF FINANCIAL REPORTING IN THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

1986 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Swanson ◽  
John C. Gardner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Reporting ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Episcopal Church ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Not For Profit ◽  
The Church

This research documents the emergence of accounting procedures and concepts in a centrally controlled not-for-profit organization during a period of change and consolidation. The evolution of accounting as prescribed by the General Canons is identified and its implementation throughout the church conferences is examined.

Attitudes toward Mormons and Voter Behavior in the 2012 Presidential Election

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Hawley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Voter Behavior ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Active Member ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

AbstractPrior to the 2012 presidential election, some commentators speculated that Mitt Romney's status as a devout and active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would undermine his presidential aspirations. Using the 2012 American National Election Survey, this study examines the relationship between attitudes toward Mormons and voter behavior in the United States in that election year. It finds that attitudes toward Mormons had a statistically-significant effect on turnout — though these effects differed according to party identification. It additionally finds that these attitudes influenced vote choice. In both cases, the substantive effects were small, indicating that anti-Mormon feelings did play a role in the 2012 presidential election, but they did not determine the final outcome.

Christian Doctrine and Free Church Ecclesiology: Recent Developments among Baptists in the Southern United States

Ecclesiology ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-219
Author(s):  
Paul Fiddes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Southern Baptist ◽  
The United States ◽  
Southern United States ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Local Manifestation ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe main substance of this article is an extended review of a recent book by a Southern Baptist historical theologian, Malcolm Yarnell, entitled The Formation of Christian Doctrine, which aims to root the development of doctrine in a free-church ecclesiology. This review offers the opportunity to examine a spectrum of ecclesiologies that has recently emerged among Baptists in the Southern region of the United States of America. Four 'conservative' versions of ecclesiology are identified, which are named as 'Landmarkist', 'Reformed', 'Reformed-Ecumenical' and 'Conservative Localist'. Four 'moderate' versions are similarly identified, and named as 'Voluntarist', 'Catholic', 'Moderate Localist' and 'World-Baptist'. While these categories are not intended to be mutually exclusive, the typology is useful both in positioning Yarnell's particular thesis, and in making comparisons with recent Baptist ecclesiology in Great Britain, which has focussed on the concept of covenant. Yarnell's own appeal to covenant is unusual in Southern Baptist thinking, and means that he cannot be easily fitted into the typology suggested. Though he belongs most evidently to the group named here as 'Conservative Localists', and is overtly opposed to any concept of a visible, universal church except in an eschatological sense, it is suggested that his own arguments might be seen as tending towards a more 'universal' view of the reality of the church beyond its local manifestation. His own work thus offers the promise that present polarizations among Baptists in the southern United States might, in time, be overcome.

Why Is There So Much Christianity in the United States? A Reply to Sommerville

2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 858-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Hollinger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church History ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Secular Culture ◽  
The North ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Church

If we are going to explain the slow pace of de-Christianization for the United States relative to other industrialized societies in the North Atlantic West, we might well begin with the church-state relationship. The absence of an established church in the United States has enabled religious affiliation to function, like other voluntary organizations in “civil society,” as mediators between the individual and the nation. I conimented on this rather old idea in a book C. John Sommerville is kind enough to cite in another connection, Science, Jews, and Secular Culture, but since he does not take up this point, I will develop it a bit further here, before reacting to Sommerville's other concerns as expressed in his refreshingly fair-minded rejoinder to my essay in the March 2001 issue of Church History.

The Protestant Episcopal Church, Black Nationalists, and Expansion of the West African Missionary Field, 1851–1871

1988 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Oldfield
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
The United States ◽  
West African ◽  
Second Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Episcopal Church ◽  
American Missionaries ◽  
Protestant Denominations ◽  
The Church

One of the most boldly conceived assaults on benighted Africa during the nineteenth century was that undertaken by mainline Protestant denominations in the United States. With the brash confidence characteristic of the age, hundreds of American missionaries were dispatched from New York and Baltimore to convert the heathen tribes of Africa and wrest a continent from ruin. If the experience of the Protestant Episcopal church is at all typical, however, these efforts not infrequently aroused suspicion and open hostility. In fact, Episcopal penetration of Liberia in the second half of the second century was remarkable for a long and bitter contest with black nationalists who were intent on using the church as a vehicle for their own personal and racial ambitions.

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