In the Eye of the Beholder: Perspectives on Intermarriage Conversion in Orthodox Christian Parishes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Slagle
Keyword(s):  
Family Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Personal Choice ◽  
Eastern Orthodoxy ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Choice Making

AbstractBased on ethnographic research conducted in Pittsburgh, this article examines the experiences of American-born intermarriage converts to Eastern Orthodoxy. Long characterized as a variety of Christianity fundamentally ethnic in its orientation and insular in its relationships to American religious and cultural mainstreams, Eastern Orthodoxy has attracted increasing numbers of American-born converts over the last thirty years. While the motives and perspectives of more overtly theologically driven conversions have garnered attention, intermarriage conversions are often dismissed as the natural outcomes of entering into marriage and family life. Significantly, intermarriage converts frequently stress their decisions to enter the Orthodox church as autonomously made apart from external influences.By gauging the ways intermarriage converts are depicted in parish life as well as the motives and perspectives they themselves convey in interviews, I argue that the language and assumptions of the American spiritual marketplace profoundly influence Orthodox Christian understandings of family and religion today. Personal choice and individualism rather than the expectations of traditionally ascribed identities have come to be highly valued and valorized means of counting Orthodox identity in the United States. Yet, the prevalence of marketplace values does not diminish the emotional and social impacts of family and community for intermarriage converts. Rather, I observed a general elevation in the importance of both and a frequent substantiation of their roles as the transmitters of shared values among these individuals. Thus, this article provides a case study of how individual and familial concerns further religious choice-making.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Alexander Kitroeff
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Greek Orthodox ◽  
Eastern Orthodoxy ◽  
Greek Orthodox Church ◽  
Language Schools ◽  
Greek Americans

This chapter provides an account of the Greek Orthodox Church's interrelationship with the Greek Americans throughout the twentieth century. It analyzes the Orthodox Church in the United States that plays a determining role in community affairs not seen anywhere else, such as its control of Greek-language schools. It also establishes the hegemony of the Greek Orthodox Church over the Greek American community. This chapter argues that the Greek Orthodox Church helped shape Greek American identity throughout the twentieth century and did so by adapting to the steady Americanization of the Greek Americans. It also reaches beyond the domain of Eastern Orthodoxy in America as it illustrates the way a relatively small, ethnically rooted religion can survive in the wider religious marketplace of America.

Enfants Terribles: The Challenge of Sectarian Converts to Ethnic Orthodox Churches in the United States

2003 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Charles Lucas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Episcopal Church ◽  
Eastern Orthodoxy ◽  
Ethnic Barriers ◽  
Increased Pressure ◽  
Strict Reading

This article considers two case studies of collective conversions to Eastern Orthodoxy to illustrate the most pressing challenges faced by ethnic Orthodox congregations who attempt to assimilate sectarian groups into their midst. I argue that these challenges include: 1) the different understandings of ecclesiology held by former Protestant sectarians and by "cradle" Orthodox believers; 2) the pan-Orthodox aspirations of sectarian converts versus the factionalism found in ethnically-based American Orthodox jurisdictions; 3) the differing pastoral styles of former sectarian ministers and Orthodox priests; 4) the tendency of sectarian converts to embrace a very strict reading of Orthodoxy and to adopt a critical and reformist attitude in relations with cradle Orthodox communities; and 5) the covert and overt racism that sometimes exists in ethnic Orthodox parishes. I suggest that the increasing numbers of non-ethnic converts to ethnic Orthodox parishes may result in increased pressure to break down ethnic barriers between Orthodox communities and to form a unified American Orthodox Church. These conversions may also lead to the growth of hybrid Orthodox churches such as the Charismatic Episcopal Church.

“Money Is Not Everything and That’s the Bottom Line”

2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Leinonen
Keyword(s):  
Family Relationships ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
International Marriages

This article highlights and fills gaps in research on migrant elites, traditionally defined as highly educated or professional migrants. The research on elite migrants has often suffered from methodological individualism: elite migrants are depicted as male professionals who shuttle from one work assignment or country to another, unrestricted by family relationships or national borders. My research shows the important role of marriage and family ties in life decisions of elite migrants, who in migration statistics and scholarly discussions appear merely as professionals, highly educated persons, or students. I also contribute to the recent literature that challenges the common assumption that migration is a unidirectional movement from one place to another initiated by a single motive, work or family. My research shows that in reality, for both women and men, multiple motives and multidirectional movements are often involved. Furthermore, my research highlights how elite migrants’ high social status does not necessarily guarantee privileged treatment by the host society or that elite migrants feel a part of the society in which they live. I use international marriages between Finns and Americans in Finland and the United States as a case study. I base my analysis on the 74 interviews that I conducted with American migrants and their Finnish spouses living in the capital region of Finland, in or near Helsinki, and with Finnish migrants married to US citizens and living in the state of Minnesota. In addition, I use responses to an online survey of American-born people who were living in Finland in 2008. I received 106 responses to the survey.

scholarly journals REGARDING AMORIS LAETITIA: ITS LANGUAGE, ITS RECEPTION, SOME CHALLENGES, AND AGNOSTICISM OF SOME OF THE HIERARCHY

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
James F. Keenan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Pastoral Ministry ◽  
The United States ◽  
Lay Leaders ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Church ◽  
Amoris Laetitia

Five years after its promulgation, the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia is continuing to shape the church by reforming its pastoral ministry in particular, its work in marriage and family life. This essay looks at the key contents of the lengthy document by considering the rich language it uses as well as the varied imaginative modes of reception by bishops, theologians, and lay leaders. It investigates a sustained criticism that argues for further reform, though in line with the basic arguments of Amoris Laetitia. It notes, nonetheless, that in the United States some of the episcopacy display an indifference to the magisterial teaching and concludes suggesting that that indifference needs to be investigated.

scholarly journals Dirty Work, Dangerous Others

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-63
Author(s):  
Wendy Vogt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central American ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Immigration Enforcement ◽  
Dirty Work ◽  
Strategic Partner ◽  
Central Americans ◽  
Transit Migration

While Mexico has been openly critical of US immigration enforcement policies, it has also served as a strategic partner in US efforts to externalize its immigration enforcement strategy. In 2016, Mexico returned twice as many Central Americans as did the United States, calling many to criticize Mexico for doing the United States’ “dirty work.” Based on ethnographic research and discourse analysis, this article unpacks and complicates the idea that Mexico is simply doing the “dirty work” of the United States. It examines how, through the construction of “dirty others”—as vectors of disease, criminals, smugglers, and workers—Central Americans come to embody “matter out of place,” thus threatening order, security, and the nation itself. Dirt and dirtiness, in both symbolic and material forms, emerge as crucial organizing factors in the politics of Central American transit migration, providing an important case study in the dynamics between transit and destination states.

scholarly journals Christian ethical perspectives on marriage and family life in modern Western culture

2008 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J.M. Vorster
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Family Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Clear Indication ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
The Past ◽  
Family Patterns ◽  
Marriage Contract

The past four decades witnessed a tremendous and wide-ranging change in family patterns in Western societies. Amongst these changes are phenomena such as growing number of divorces, births out-of-wedlock, and the absence of fathers because of globalisation, same-sex marriages and cohabitation of people without a marriage contract. Western societies are typified as “highdivorce societies”. Furthermore, in the United States the number of couples cohabiting has increased eightfold since 1970 and it is fair to conclude that the situation is similar in other Western societies. The purpose of the article is to deal with these patterns from a Reformed perspective. The central theoretical argument is that these developments can be perceived as a crisis in view of the Biblical perspectives on marriage and family life. However, the Biblical perspectives not only offer a clear indication of healthy marriage and family life entail, but also indicate that a Christian attitude in marriage and family life can serve as a remedy for the damage caused by the new trends.

Gendered differences in emigration and mobility perspectives among European researchers working abroad

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
The Future ◽  
Highly Skilled

This paper focuses on gendered mobilities of highly skilled researchers working abroad. It is based on an empirical qualitative study that explored the mobility aspirations of Austrian scientists who were working in the United States at the time they were interviewed. Supported by a case study, the paper demonstrates how a qualitative research strategy including graphic drawings sketched by the interviewed persons can help us gain a better understanding of the gendered importance of social relations for the future mobility aspirations of scientists working abroad.

‘A Routh O’ Auld Nick-Nackets’ – the antiquarian collection of John Rae

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
National Museums ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.

Varied Responses to Human-Induced Seismicity in the City of Azle, Texas

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Sarmistha R. Majumdar
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
Induced Seismicity ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Prior History ◽  
Small Community ◽  
Regulatory Policies ◽  
The Status

Fracking has helped to usher in an era of energy abundance in the United States. This advanced drilling procedure has helped the nation to attain the status of the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas in the world, but some of its negative externalities, such as human-induced seismicity, can no longer be ignored. The occurrence of earthquakes in communities located at proximity to disposal wells with no prior history of seismicity has shocked residents and have caused damages to properties. It has evoked individuals’ resentment against the practice of injection of fracking’s wastewater under pressure into underground disposal wells. Though the oil and gas companies have denied the existence of a link between such a practice and earthquakes and the local and state governments have delayed their responses to the unforeseen seismic events, the issue has gained in prominence among researchers, affected community residents, and the media. This case study has offered a glimpse into the varied responses of stakeholders to human-induced seismicity in a small city in the state of Texas. It is evident from this case study that although individuals’ complaints and protests from a small community may not be successful in bringing about statewide changes in regulatory policies on disposal of fracking’s wastewater, they can add to the public pressure on the state government to do something to address the problem in a state that supports fracking.

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