The Exceptional Influence of Christian Fundamentalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mugambi Jouet
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
Culture Shock ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Evangelical Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Relative Separation ◽  
Biblical Literalism ◽  
American Society ◽  
Christian Fundamentalism

Religion remains exceptionally influential in America but frequently inspires indifference, skepticism or suspicion in other developed nations. Moreover, a huge minority of Americans lean towards Christian fundamentalism—a radical faith rooted in Biblical literalism and ultra-traditionalism. Due to the relative separation of church and state since the United States’ founding, Americans have not experienced the long history of religious oppression that Europeans once endured. Americans thus became far less suspicious towards organized religions, which many see as benign means of worship, not as social institutions. This is a paradox, as prominent Founding Fathers were skeptical of organized religions and Christian dogma. Jouet illustrates the weight of religion in the Bible Belt by describing his experiences as a Frenchman in Texas, where he visited evangelical churches and observed a very different kind of faith from the “soft” Catholicism he was accustomed to in France. This culture shock leads him to explore the fascinating historical and social factors behind the evolution of faith in American society.

Scriptures, Myths, and Power: The Bible at Work

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15
Author(s):  
Burton Mack
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Linguistic Style ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Cultural Function ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Henry Louis Gates ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Christian Myth ◽  
American Society

The introduction to Burton Mack's extended conversation with Vincent Wimbush and Institute for Signifying Scripture, Claremont Graduate University. The conversation revolves around the cultural function of the Bible as Christian myth in American society, and the African-American domestication of the Bible as their Scripture. The essay explores the differences between the Bible as myth in the dominant Euro-American tradition, and the Bible as Scripture in African-American experience. Drawing upon the work of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the concept of "signifying" describes a remarkable linguistic style characteristic of African-American mentality and culture.

Scriptures, Myths, and Power: The Bible at Work - Chapter Five

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-113
Author(s):  
Burton Mack
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Linguistic Style ◽  
American Experience ◽  
Cultural Function ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Henry Louis Gates ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Christian Myth ◽  
American Society

Part 6 of Burton Mack's extended conversation with Vincent Wimbush and Institute for Signifying Scripture, Claremont Graduate University. The conversation revolves around the cultural function of the Bible as Christian myth in American society, and the African-American domestication of the Bible as their Scripture. The essay explores the differences between the Bible as myth in the dominant Euro-American tradition, and the Bible as Scripture in African-American experience. Drawing upon the work of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the concept of "signifying" describes a remarkable linguistic style characteristic of African-American mentality and culture.

Broadening the Picture of Nineteenth-Century Baptists: How Battles with Catholicism Moved Baptists Toward Separationism

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 453-486
Author(s):  
Marty McMahone
Keyword(s):  
Southern Baptist ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Southern Baptist Convention ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
The Other ◽  
Biblical Authority ◽  
American Experience ◽  
American Society

Discussions about the historical meaning of religious liberty in the United States often generate more heat than light. This has been true in the broad discussion of the meaning of the First Amendment in American life. The debate between “separationists” and “accommodationists” is often contentious and seldom satisfying. Both sides tend to believe that a few choice quotes that seem to disprove the other side's position prove their own. Each side is tempted to miss the more nuanced story that is reflected in the American experience. In recent years, this division has been reflected among those who call themselves Baptists. One group, best represented by the work of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, tends to argue that the Baptist heritage is clearly steeped in the separation of church and state. The other group, probably best represented by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, tends to reject the term separation and sees value in promoting an American society that “affirms and practices Judeo-Christian values rooted in biblical authority.” This group tends to reject the separationist perspective as a way of defending religious liberty. They argue that Baptists have defended religious liberty without moving to the hostility toward religion that they see in separationism. Much like the broad story of America, the Baptist story is considerably more complicated than either side makes it appear.

scholarly journals From America to the World: Protestant Christianity's Creation of Religious Liberty

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Peter A. Lillback
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
Constitutional Protection ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACT: Half the population of the world to this day still has not experienced religious freedom. Religious persecution often still occurs at many places in the world. Research studies show that there is a direct correlation between religious freedom and economic prosperity. "Prosperity is the result of freedom, therefore the best way to improve the economic prosperity of a nation is to ensure freedom for its citizens." This article will first elaborate models of the relationship between church and state, and then explain the basic principle of the Bible regarding religious freedom. It further explains why incarceration of religious freedom or of conscience by the state is wrong, despite the reasons of protecting its citizens from false religion or from a cult. This paper will also explore religious persecution from the time of early church until the birth of Protestantism, and then speaks about the struggle and the protection of religious freedom. Furthermore this article goes into what underlies the constitutional protection of religious freedom in America, and then browse through the struggle and the protection of religious freedom as a struggle of the world. KEY WORDS: religious freedom, religious conflict, heresy, early church, Protestantism, religious freedom in the United States of America.

scholarly journals Kerk en burgerlike owerheid: Die Nederlandse geloofsbelydenis en drie kerkordes

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Piet J. Strauss
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
Church History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
Ten Commandments ◽  
Church Life ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Church and state authorithy: The Confessio Belgica and three church orders. In reformed churches the Bible is regarded as the norm of the norms. The confessions of faith of these churches are the second norm and subjected to the Bible. The church order is less powerful than the Bible and the confessions but of a higher status than the normal decisions of church assemblies. Therefore, the influence of the Belgic Confession on three church orders is an important issue in these churches.The author recommends four principles to understand the relation between the church and the state authority in article 36 of the Belgic Confession: both should honour God in their activities; both are guided by the Ten Commandments; both have their own internal law to fulfil the purpose as an institution; and both should respect and co-operate with one another. Although they are not in agreement on every aspect, these principles give the guidance to understand the main issue in all four documents which are investigated. The theme of this article is of a theological and church historical nature and a contribution on a well-discussed topic in reformed churches.Contribution: It should be important for the reformed churches in the Dutch tradition that a dynamic relationship exists between their confessions of faith and their church orders. While the Bible is the first and most important norm for church life, the confessions are the second most important. Church history shows that the relationship between the church and state is of utmost importance for the church, the quality of the confessions and the order of the church.

Afterword

Rough Country ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wuthnow
Keyword(s):  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
Group Behavior ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Institution Building ◽  
Symbolic Boundaries

This chapter begins by briefly reviewing the two standard approaches to religion often regarded as the most widely discussed alternative perspectives on the relationship between religion and society: secularization theory and rational choice theory. It then discusses how practice theory and an emphasis on lived religion have focused attention on the intricacies of religious practice both outside and inside of religious institutions at the micro level of individual and small-group behavior and yet have failed to provide strong linkages with the macrolevel social structures and processes that interested scholars in earlier studies. The third section draws on studies of race and ethnicity to emphasize how the concept of symbolic boundaries serves as a useful way of thinking about religious categories and identities. The fourth section outlines the processes through which the identities defined by symbolic boundaries change over time and suggests how to bring in consideration of the influences on these processes of political arrangements, demographic factors, and social institutions. Finally, it suggests applications of this multilevel perspective to the analysis of religious actors' strategies of institution building, the dynamics of church and state relations, connections of religion to racial and ethnic politics, and the restructuring of religion.

“Literary Institutions are Founded and Endowed for the Common Good”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Dorn
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
The Public ◽  
Regional Center ◽  
The Common ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Civic Mindedness ◽  
Primary Mission

This chapter examines Bowdoin College, which was supported by district elites who worked to erect a regional center of higher learning to which they could send their sons rather than incur the cost of dispatching them south to other colleges. On the morning of Bowdoin's opening, appointed president Joseph McKeen pronounced the college's primary mission: “That the inhabitants of this district may have their own sons to fill the liberal professions among them, and particularly to instruct them in the principles and practice of our holy religion, is doubtless the object of this institution.” This conception of higher education's function in American society drew heavily on a social ethos of civic-mindedness that assigned priority to social responsibility over individuals' self indulgence. Characterized by the practice of civic virtue and a commitment to the public good, civic-mindedness provided social institutions, including those dedicated to higher learning, a source from which to derive their central aims.

person’s use of the Bible as the most important religious authority was implicitly to devalue the elaborate edifices protecting scriptural interpretation that prevailed in all the historic European churches, Protestant as well as Catholic. The institutions compromised by such logic included established churches defined as authoritative communicators of divine grace through word and sacrament, institutions of higher learning monopolized by the establishment in order to protect intellectual activity from religious as well as rational error, and the monarchy as the primary fount of godly social stabil-ity. British Protestant Dissent moved somewhat more cautiously in this direction. But even after the rise of Methodism and the reinvigoration of the older Dissenting traditions, the strength of evangelicalism among British establishmentarians never permitted the kind of thoroughly voluntaristic ecclesiology that prevailed in the United States. On questions of establishment, post-Revolutionary American evangeli-calism marked a distinct development from the colonial period when the most important evangelical leaders had spoken with opposing voices. Some, like Charles Wesley, whose hymns were being used in America from the 1740s, remained fervent defenders of the status quo. Some, like George Whitefield, gave up establishment in practice but without ever addressing the social implications of such a move and without being troubled by occa-sional relapses into establishmentarian behaviour. Some, like the Baptists in America from the 1750s, renounced establishment with a vengeance and became ardent proponents of disestablishment across the board. Some, like the American Presbyterian Gilbert Tennent, eagerly threw establishment away in the enthusiasm of revival, only later to attempt a partial recovery after enthusiasm cooled. Some, like John Wesley, gave up establishment instincts reluctantly, even while promoting religious practices that others regarded as intensely hostile to establishment. Some, like Francis Asbury, the leader of American Methodists, gave it up without apparent trauma. Many, like Jonathan Edwards and the leading evangelical laymen of the Revolutionary era – John Witherspoon, Patrick Henry and John Jay – never gave up the principle of establishment, even though they came to feel more spiritual kinship with evangelicals who attacked established churches (including their own) than they did with many of their fellow establishmen-tarian Protestant colleagues who did not embrace evangelicalism. By the late 1780s, except in New England, this mixed attitude towards formal church and state ties had been transformed into a nearly unanimous embrace of disestablishment. Even in Connecticut and Massachusetts, where evangelical support of the Congregational establishments could still be found, the tide was running strongly away from mere toleration towards full religious liberty. Methodism was an especially interesting variety of evangelicalism since its connectional system retained characteristics of an establishment (especially the human authority of Wesley, or the bishops who succeeded Wesley). But

2003 ◽  
pp. 160-161
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Partial Recovery ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Scriptural Interpretation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Learning ◽  
The Status ◽  
George Whitefield

The Role of Women

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Bramadat
Keyword(s):  
Senior Pastors ◽  
Christian Reformed ◽  
Level Of Involvement ◽  
Evangelical Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Evangelical Women ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Church

Whenever I describe the IVCF to non-Christian academic peers, they almost invariably express their astonishment at the fact that at virtually every IVCF event I attend, approximately 70% of the participants are women. Perhaps this level of involvement is not unusual in the world of contemporary Protestantism; after all, in many of the churches IVCF members attend every Sunday, women outnumber men. However, the proportion of women to men is not as high in evangelical churches as it is in the IVCF (Bibby 1987:102; Rawlyk 1996:143). As well, women’s roles are usually much more tightly controlled in many if not most evangelical churches than they are in the IVCF. In fact, IVCF participants who attend churches in the Fellowship Baptist, Christian Reformed, and Brethren traditions may never see a woman in the pulpit, or, if women are allowed to speak at the front of the church, they are not usually permitted to become senior pastors or interpret the Bible. At the IVCF functions I have attended, however, women are in no way restricted in their abilities to lead worship, deliver sermons, organize events, or perform any of the myriad tasks involved in maintaining the group. In fact, the chapter’s paid staff worker is a woman, and she tries to ensure that the position of president alternates between a male and a female student every other year. I began to wonder how to make sense of the high level of female participation at every McMaster IVCF event I attended, especially in light of the fact that the scholarly literature on evangelicalism in North America often depicts the tradition as inimical or opposed to the egalitarian or feminist values that are so prevalent at universities. During my research, I found that many, but not all, of the evangelical women I interviewed maintain nonegalitarian views on the role of women. In other words, the common academic depiction of the place of women in evangelicalism seems to be confirmed by my experience, even though I hope to nuance this portrayal somewhat.

The Concept and Ethical Justification of Informed Consent

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica W. Berg ◽  
Paul S. Appelbaum ◽  
Charles W. Lidz ◽  
Lisa S. Parker
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Ethical Justification ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
American Society

The values underlying informed consent—autonomy and concern for individual well-being—are deeply embedded in American culture, in our religious traditions, and in Western moral philosophy. It is not surprising that informed consent is a cornerstone doctrine of contemporary medical ethics and health law in the United States. There is widespread agreement about the importance of the concept, goals, and practice of informed consent. Even when there are differences of opinion about the best way to implement informed consent in clinical practice, or when there is debate about the core meaning of the concept, the attention paid to these controversies only reinforces recognition of the importance of informed consent in contemporary health care and medical research. The concept of informed consent has multiple meanings and draws its ethical justification from several sources. Some consider informed consent to be synonymous with the ideal of shared decision making between physician and patient, or at least to embody this ideal (1). Others emphasize that informed consent is a particular sort of decision made by a particular sort of decision maker (2). Still others focus on informed consent as a norm-governed social practice that is embedded in social institutions, specifically law and medicine. This chapter discusses these different but often overlapping conceptions of informed consent. From a patient’s perspective, informed consent appears to be a right, while from the physician’s viewpoint, it is a duty or obligation. In fact, informed consent imposes responsibilities on both patient and physician. The relationship between ethical rights and duties, as well as the possibility of conflict between them, form another topic of this chapter. In this chapter we also discuss the ethical values and goals that underlie informed consent. Informed consent is grounded in some of the ethical values most prized in American society and Western ethical thought, especially autonomy— auto from the Greek word for self, and nomos from the Greek for rule—literally “self-rule.” It is interesting to observe how the fundamental goals of informed consent usually coincide, but sometimes conflict, both in theory and as manifest in particular cases.

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