Evangelical Women and Secular Society in New Zealand: An Investigation into Feminism as an Ideology of Empowerment

<p>This thesis examines the resurgence of evangelicalism in New Zealand and the conflicting nature of the lives that evangelical women in New Zealand live. Evangelicalism in New Zealand is growing and evolving and thus evangelical women are by necessity adapting to their secular setting whilst maintaining their faith. This study reveals many interesting findings, illustrating the often contradictory and challenging issues that evangelical women must face as they identify with feminism as a secular symbol while maintaining a conservative evangelical faith. Evangelical women in New Zealand today are living in two worlds. The women have a strong sense of identity and faith within evangelicalism however there are contradictions. Simultaneously there is a strong influence of secular liberal society which is evident through the women's identification with feminist values. What has been discovered is that evangelical women can successfully live in two separate worlds – one secular and one religious. They can be women of faith while at the same time living their lives in a secular society. Similarly there is a significant gap between rhetoric and reality in evangelical women's lives – what evangelical women articulate regarding gender roles in theory is not necessarily what occurs in practice. These challenges are defined by society and thus are a useful tool to assist in the understanding of the conflicts evangelical women have to negotiate on a daily basis.</p>

Evangelical Women and Secular Society in New Zealand: An Investigation into Feminism as an Ideology of Empowerment

<p>This thesis examines the resurgence of evangelicalism in New Zealand and the conflicting nature of the lives that evangelical women in New Zealand live. Evangelicalism in New Zealand is growing and evolving and thus evangelical women are by necessity adapting to their secular setting whilst maintaining their faith. This study reveals many interesting findings, illustrating the often contradictory and challenging issues that evangelical women must face as they identify with feminism as a secular symbol while maintaining a conservative evangelical faith. Evangelical women in New Zealand today are living in two worlds. The women have a strong sense of identity and faith within evangelicalism however there are contradictions. Simultaneously there is a strong influence of secular liberal society which is evident through the women's identification with feminist values. What has been discovered is that evangelical women can successfully live in two separate worlds – one secular and one religious. They can be women of faith while at the same time living their lives in a secular society. Similarly there is a significant gap between rhetoric and reality in evangelical women's lives – what evangelical women articulate regarding gender roles in theory is not necessarily what occurs in practice. These challenges are defined by society and thus are a useful tool to assist in the understanding of the conflicts evangelical women have to negotiate on a daily basis.</p>

‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’: What do science and faith have to do with youth ministry?

Dating back to medieval times, and some would contend even ancient biblical times, scholars of the faith have made significant contributions to scientific discovery. Theology was considered foundational to the understanding of our natural world, and possibly the motivation for scientific enquiry. No tension existed between observation and study of the natural world and faith. In modern times the rift between science and faith, from a conservative evangelical perspective, has been ever-widening with both sides viewing the other with growing suspicion. This article reflected on the impact that this approach to science and faith has had on the faith formation of youth raised within evangelical faith communities. It investigated how conservative evangelical teachings concerning the creation story has hindered the faith formation of youth in this context. We connected this tension between science and faith as we considered connections to environmental justice as it related to youth in marginalised communities in South Africa. This article served as an introductory exploration of why we believe young people are not engaging with environmental issues.Contribution: As part of the special edition on youth, faith and climate change, this article reflects on the impact that the conflicted evangelical approaches to science and faith have on the faith formation of youth raised within evangelical faith communities. It investigates how fundamentalistic evangelical teachings concerning the creation story has hindered the faith formation of youth in this context. Within the context of environmental justice and inequality, this article highlights the need for church engagement on issues related to these conflicted approaches, its effect on how youth engage on issues affecting their environments, and youth ministry practice within evangelical churches.

(Re)Discoveries of the Reformed Faith in Brazil

The recent widespread interest in the Reformed faith among evangelicals in Brazil raises the question of how much Calvinism entered and established itself in this country. Brazilian Presbyterianism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries appears to have been more conservative evangelical, more anti-Roman Catholic, than distinctively Reformed. The twenty-first-century interest in the Reformed faith among many evangelicals from different denominations (including a greater interest among Presbyterians) comes through four avenues: literature, conferences, media, and theological schools. However, the variegated use of the terms ‘Reformed’ and ‘Calvinism’ allows the conclusion that many elements that have composed this historical tradition have not been widely rediscovered. In order for Brazilians further to understand Calvinism, there needs to be a discovery of its rich legacy in biblical-hermeneutical, historical-dogmatic, as well as pastoral studies.

God Emperor Trump: Defending Western Civilization Against Neo-Marxism and Militant Islam

As we await the Second Coming of President Donald Trump, it is important to understand that his conservative Evangelical supporters view him not as a new Christ but as a new Constantine, a guardian of Western Civilization in a crucial period when we face threatened conquest by foreign enemies and infiltrators, Postmodern Neo-Marxism, and Militant Islam Thus he should be seen also as a new Charles Martel. He need not be a Bible-reading pietist to fulfill these roles, so Christians need not be ashamed of him if he isn’t.

Interpretive Context Matters: Isaiah and the African Context in African Study Bibles

The chapter analyzes three examples of the genre Study Bible in Africa, discussing how they express African contextual concerns in their respective interpretations of Isaiah. The three include a Roman Catholic one (characterized by Catholic inculturation theology), a mainstream Protestant one (characterized by conservative evangelical theology), and a Pentecostal one (characterized by concepts of prosperity gospel and spiritual warfare). Three conclusions are reached. First, that the genre should attend more to definitions of context, not only cultural but also denominational and ideological aspects. Second, the purpose of the comparison of ancient text and contemporary, interpretive context should be clarified. And third, as far as content is concerned, readers of a Study Bible should expect to find information about literary and historical questions.

Postfeminist, engaged and resistant: Evangelical male clergy attitudes towards gender and women’s ordination in the Church of England

Despite the introduction of female bishops, women do not hold offices on equal terms with men in the Church of England, where conservative evangelical male clergy often reject the validity of women’s ordination. This article explores the gender values of such clergy, investigating how they are expressed and the factors that shape them. Data is drawn from semi-structured interviews and is interpreted with thematic narrative analysis. The themes were analyzed with theories on postfeminism, engaged orthodoxy and group schism. It is argued that participants’ gender values are best understood as postfeminist and that the wider evangelical tradition, as well as a perceived change in Anglican identity with the onset of women’s ordination, shape their postfeminism. Moreover, whilst evangelical gender values possess the potential to foster greater gender equality within the Church of England, gender differentiation limits this possibility, a limitation that could be addressed by increasing participants’ engagement beyond the Church.

Why the Prophetic Torch Wasn’t Passed

This chapter examines the fate of liberal and moderate evangelicals from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s. It argues that moderate evangelicals—an ascendant force in the 1970s—were marginalized less by the rise of so-called “values” issues than by economic anxieties and a broader white reaction against federal civil rights initiatives. That white evangelicals drifted to the political Right for essentially secular reasons—and often in the face of counterpressures from prominent evangelical leaders and institutions—provides further confirmation of religion’s limited ability to shape political behavior in an age of religious autonomy. In short, it is the weakness of evangelical institutions, not their strength, that best explains why the term “conservative evangelical” has come to seem redundant.

‘Fermentation will be universal’: Intersections of Race and Class in Robert Wedderburn’s Black Atlantic Discourse of Transatlantic Revolution

The speeches and writings of Robert Wedderburn are the subject of this chapter by Raphael Hoermann who contrasts Wedderburn’s radical brand of abolitionism, rooted in self-emancipation and slave agency, to the conservative, Evangelical approach of William Wilberforce’s moral appeals to white liberators. Hoermann recounts some of the biographical background Wedderburn provides in his self-published pamphlet, The Horrors of Slavery, and draws connections between Wedderburn’s life—as the progeny of a white slaveholder father and black slave mother, and his impoverished life in London eking out a living as a tailor—and the political ideologies he promoted. Hoermann highlights Wedderburn’s provocative argument for a violent overthrow of slavery and his critique of British capitalism that interlinked class and race exploitation as ideas that kept him on the fringes of both the abolitionist and working class movements during his lifetime and have kept him an understudied, obscure historical figure.