The Future of American Christianity

The Future of American Christianity PDF Author: Laurene Beth Bowers
Publisher: The Pilgrim Press
ISBN: 0829800719
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 138

Get Book Here

Book Description
After decades of chasing revitalization programs and young pastors, American congregations are still plummeting in membership. Clergy are jumping ship. New generations aren’t interested. Revitalization programs are a stop-gap. Author and pastor Laurene Bowers asserts that churches need to shift to new communities with a grassroots focus on love of neighbor: developing relationships, reforming belief, and collaborating for justice. The Future of American Christianity is, against all odds, a book of hopeful vision for the impact of Christian faith communities.

The Future of American Christianity

The Future of American Christianity PDF Author: Laurene Beth Bowers
Publisher: The Pilgrim Press
ISBN: 0829800719
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 138

Get Book Here

Book Description
After decades of chasing revitalization programs and young pastors, American congregations are still plummeting in membership. Clergy are jumping ship. New generations aren’t interested. Revitalization programs are a stop-gap. Author and pastor Laurene Bowers asserts that churches need to shift to new communities with a grassroots focus on love of neighbor: developing relationships, reforming belief, and collaborating for justice. The Future of American Christianity is, against all odds, a book of hopeful vision for the impact of Christian faith communities.

Bad Religion

Bad Religion PDF Author: Ross Douthat
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143917833X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
Traces the decline of Christianity in America since the 1950s, posing controversial arguments about the role of heresy in the nation's downfall while calling for a revival of traditional Christian practices.

The Democratization of American Christianity

The Democratization of American Christianity PDF Author: Nathan O. Hatch
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300159560
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Get Book Here

Book Description
A provocative reassessment of religion and culture in the early days of the American republic "The so-called Second Great Awakening was the shaping epoch of American Protestantism, and this book is the most important study of it ever published."—James Turner, Journal of Interdisciplinary History Winner of the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic book prize, and the Albert C. Outler Prize In this provocative reassessment of religion and culture in the early days of the American republic, Nathan O. Hatch argues that during this period American Christianity was democratized and common people became powerful actors on the religious scene. Hatch examines five distinct traditions or mass movements that emerged early in the nineteenth century—the Christian movement, Methodism, the Baptist movement, the black churches, and the Mormons—showing how all offered compelling visions of individual potential and collective aspiration to the unschooled and unsophisticated.

The Juvenilization of American Christianity

The Juvenilization of American Christianity PDF Author: Thomas Bergler
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802866840
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
Pop worship music. Falling in love with Jesus. Mission trips. Wearing jeans and T-shirts to church. Spiritual searching and church hopping. Faith-based political activism. Seeker-sensitive outreach. These now-commonplace elements of American church life all began as innovative ways to reach young people, yet they have gradually become accepted as important parts of a spiritual ideal for all ages. What on earth has happened? In The Juvenilization of American Christianity Thomas Bergler traces the way in which, over seventy-five years, youth ministries have breathed new vitality into four major American church traditions -- African American, Evangelical, Mainline Protestant, and Roman Catholic. Bergler shows too how this "juvenilization" of churches has led to widespread spiritual immaturity, consumerism, and self-centeredness, popularizing a feel-good faith with neither intergenerational community nor theological literacy. Bergler s critique further offers constructive suggestions for taming juvenilization. Watch the trailer:

Mainline Christianity

Mainline Christianity PDF Author: Jason S Lantzer
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814753337
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since the Revolutionary War, Mainline Christianity has been comprised of the Seven Sisters of American Protestantism—the Congregational Church, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, the United Methodist Church, the American Baptist Convention, and the Disciples of Christ. These denominations have been the dominant cultural representatives since the nineteenth century of how and where the majority of American Christians worship. Today, however, the Seven Sisters no longer represent most American Christians. The Mainline has been shrinking while evangelical and fundamentalist churches, as well as non denominational congregations and mega churches, have been attracting more and more members. In this comprehensive and accessible book, Jason S. Lantzer chronicles the rise and fall of the Seven Sisters, documenting the ways in which they stopped shaping American culture and began to be shaped by it. After reviewing and critiquing the standard decline narrative of the Mainline he argues for a reconceptualization of the Mainline for the twenty-first century, a new grouping of Seven Sisters that seeks to recognize the vibrancy of American Christianity.

The Future of Christianity

The Future of Christianity PDF Author: Alister E. McGrath
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631228158
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Get Book Here

Book Description
Christianity is the world's largest religious grouping. It has undergone massive change in the twentieth century, and seems poised to undergo major transformations in the next. In this important and timely book, one of Christianity's most prolific and respected writers examines these changes, and their implications for the future.

To Change the Church

To Change the Church PDF Author: Ross Douthat
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1501146939
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book Here

Book Description
A New York Times columnist and one of America’s leading conservative thinkers considers Pope Francis’s efforts to change the church he governs in a book that is “must reading for every Christian who cares about the fate of the West and the future of global Christianity” (Rod Dreher, author of The Benedict Option). Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1936, today Pope Francis is the 266th pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis’s stewardship of the Church, while perceived as a revelation by many, has provoked division throughout the world. “If a conclave were to be held today,” one Roman source told The New Yorker, “Francis would be lucky to get ten votes.” In his “concise, rhetorically agile…adroit, perceptive, gripping account (The New York Times Book Review), Ross Douthat explains why the particular debate Francis has opened—over communion for the divorced and the remarried—is so dangerous: How it cuts to the heart of the larger argument over how Christianity should respond to the sexual revolution and modernity itself, how it promises or threatens to separate the church from its own deep past, and how it divides Catholicism along geographical and cultural lines. Douthat argues that the Francis era is a crucial experiment for all of Western civilization, which is facing resurgent external enemies (from ISIS to Putin) even as it struggles with its own internal divisions, its decadence, and self-doubt. Whether Francis or his critics are right won’t just determine whether he ends up as a hero or a tragic figure for Catholics. It will determine whether he’s a hero, or a gambler who’s betraying both his church and his civilization into the hands of its enemies. “A balanced look at the struggle for the future of Catholicism…To Change the Church is a fascinating look at the church under Pope Francis” (Kirkus Reviews). Engaging and provocative, this is “a pot-boiler of a history that examines a growing ecclesial crisis” (Washington Independent Review of Books).

The End of White Christian America

The End of White Christian America PDF Author: Robert P. Jones
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501122290
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
"The founder and CEO of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and columnist for the Atlantic describes how white Protestant Christians have declined in influence and power since the 1990s and explores the effect this has had on America, "--NoveList.

Onward

Onward PDF Author: Russell D. Moore
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
ISBN: 1433686171
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description
Christianity Today "Beautiful Orthodoxy" Book of the Year in 2016. Keep Christianity Strange. As the culture changes all around us, it is no longer possible to pretend that we are a Moral Majority. That may be bad news for America, but it can be good news for the church. What's needed now, in shifting times, is neither a doubling-down on the status quo nor a pullback into isolation. Instead, we need a church that speaks to social and political issues with a bigger vision in mind: that of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christianity seems increasingly strange, and even subversive, to our culture, we have the opportunity to reclaim the freakishness of the gospel, which is what gives it its power in the first place. We seek the kingdom of God, before everything else. We connect that kingdom agenda to the culture around us, both by speaking it to the world and by showing it in our churches. As we do so, we remember our mission to oppose demons, not to demonize opponents. As we advocate for human dignity, for religious liberty, for family stability, let's do so as those with a prophetic word that turns everything upside down. The signs of the times tell us we are in for days our parents and grandparents never knew. But that's no call for panic or surrender or outrage. Jesus is alive. Let's act like it. Let's follow him, onward to the future.

White Too Long

White Too Long PDF Author: Robert P. Jones
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982122870
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book Here

Book Description
"WHITE TOO LONG draws on history, statistics, and memoir to urge that white Christians reckon with the racism of the past and the amnesia of the present to restore a Christian identity free of the taint of white supremacy"--