Author: Nancy D. Wadsworth
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813935326
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 460
Book Description
Over the past three decades, American evangelical Christians have undergone unexpected, progressive shifts in the area of race relations, culminating in a national movement that advocates racial integration and equality in evangelical communities. The movement, which seeks to build cross-racial relationships among evangelicals, has meant challenging well-established paradigms of church growth that built many megachurch empires. While evangelical racial change (ERC) efforts have never been easy and their reception has been mixed, they have produced meaningful transformation in religious communities. Although the movement as a whole encompasses a broad range of political views, many participants are interested in addressing race-related political issues that impact their members, such as immigration, law enforcement, and public education policy. Ambivalent Miracles traces the rise and ongoing evolution of evangelical racial change efforts within the historical, political, and cultural contexts that have shaped them. Nancy D. Wadsworth argues that the stunning breakthroughs this movement has achieved, its curious political ambivalence, and its internal tensions are products of a complex cultural politics constructed at the intersection of U.S. racial and religious history and the meaning-making practices of conservative evangelicalism. Employing methods from the emerging field of political ethnography, Wadsworth draws from a decade’s worth of interviews and participant observation in ERC settings, textual analysis, and survey research, as well as a three-year case study, to provide the first exhaustive treatment of ERC efforts in political science. A 2014 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
Ambivalent Miracles
Author: Nancy D. Wadsworth
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813935326
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 460
Book Description
Over the past three decades, American evangelical Christians have undergone unexpected, progressive shifts in the area of race relations, culminating in a national movement that advocates racial integration and equality in evangelical communities. The movement, which seeks to build cross-racial relationships among evangelicals, has meant challenging well-established paradigms of church growth that built many megachurch empires. While evangelical racial change (ERC) efforts have never been easy and their reception has been mixed, they have produced meaningful transformation in religious communities. Although the movement as a whole encompasses a broad range of political views, many participants are interested in addressing race-related political issues that impact their members, such as immigration, law enforcement, and public education policy. Ambivalent Miracles traces the rise and ongoing evolution of evangelical racial change efforts within the historical, political, and cultural contexts that have shaped them. Nancy D. Wadsworth argues that the stunning breakthroughs this movement has achieved, its curious political ambivalence, and its internal tensions are products of a complex cultural politics constructed at the intersection of U.S. racial and religious history and the meaning-making practices of conservative evangelicalism. Employing methods from the emerging field of political ethnography, Wadsworth draws from a decade’s worth of interviews and participant observation in ERC settings, textual analysis, and survey research, as well as a three-year case study, to provide the first exhaustive treatment of ERC efforts in political science. A 2014 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813935326
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 460
Book Description
Over the past three decades, American evangelical Christians have undergone unexpected, progressive shifts in the area of race relations, culminating in a national movement that advocates racial integration and equality in evangelical communities. The movement, which seeks to build cross-racial relationships among evangelicals, has meant challenging well-established paradigms of church growth that built many megachurch empires. While evangelical racial change (ERC) efforts have never been easy and their reception has been mixed, they have produced meaningful transformation in religious communities. Although the movement as a whole encompasses a broad range of political views, many participants are interested in addressing race-related political issues that impact their members, such as immigration, law enforcement, and public education policy. Ambivalent Miracles traces the rise and ongoing evolution of evangelical racial change efforts within the historical, political, and cultural contexts that have shaped them. Nancy D. Wadsworth argues that the stunning breakthroughs this movement has achieved, its curious political ambivalence, and its internal tensions are products of a complex cultural politics constructed at the intersection of U.S. racial and religious history and the meaning-making practices of conservative evangelicalism. Employing methods from the emerging field of political ethnography, Wadsworth draws from a decade’s worth of interviews and participant observation in ERC settings, textual analysis, and survey research, as well as a three-year case study, to provide the first exhaustive treatment of ERC efforts in political science. A 2014 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
Recognizing Miracles in Antiquity and Beyond
Author: Maria Gerolemou
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110562618
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 447
Book Description
In recent years, scholars have extensively explored the function of the miraculous and wondrous in ancient narratives, mostly pondering on how ancient authors view wondrous accounts, i.e. the treatment of the descriptions of wondrous occurrences as true events or their use. More precisely, these narratives investigate whether the wondrous pursues a display of erudition or merely provides stylistic variety; sometimes, such narratives even represent the wish of the author to grant a “rational explanation” to extraordinary actions. At present, however, two aspects of the topic have not been fully examined: a) the ability of the wondrous/miraculous to set cognitive mechanisms in motion and b) the power of the wondrous/miraculous to contribute to the construction of an authorial identity (that of kings, gods, or narrators). To this extent, the volume approaches miracles and wonders as counter intuitive phenomena, beyond cognitive grasp, which challenge the authenticity of human experience and knowledge and push forward the frontiers of intellectual and aesthetic experience. Some of the articles of the volume examine miracles on the basis of bewilderment that could lead to new factual knowledge; the supernatural is here registered as something natural (although strange); the rest of the articles treat miracles as an endpoint, where human knowledge stops and the unknown divine begins (here the supernatural is confirmed). Thence, questions like whether the experience of a miracle or wonder as a counter intuitive phenomenon could be part of long-term memory, i.e. if miracles could be transformed into solid knowledge and what mental functions are encompassed in this process, are central in the discussion.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110562618
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 447
Book Description
In recent years, scholars have extensively explored the function of the miraculous and wondrous in ancient narratives, mostly pondering on how ancient authors view wondrous accounts, i.e. the treatment of the descriptions of wondrous occurrences as true events or their use. More precisely, these narratives investigate whether the wondrous pursues a display of erudition or merely provides stylistic variety; sometimes, such narratives even represent the wish of the author to grant a “rational explanation” to extraordinary actions. At present, however, two aspects of the topic have not been fully examined: a) the ability of the wondrous/miraculous to set cognitive mechanisms in motion and b) the power of the wondrous/miraculous to contribute to the construction of an authorial identity (that of kings, gods, or narrators). To this extent, the volume approaches miracles and wonders as counter intuitive phenomena, beyond cognitive grasp, which challenge the authenticity of human experience and knowledge and push forward the frontiers of intellectual and aesthetic experience. Some of the articles of the volume examine miracles on the basis of bewilderment that could lead to new factual knowledge; the supernatural is here registered as something natural (although strange); the rest of the articles treat miracles as an endpoint, where human knowledge stops and the unknown divine begins (here the supernatural is confirmed). Thence, questions like whether the experience of a miracle or wonder as a counter intuitive phenomenon could be part of long-term memory, i.e. if miracles could be transformed into solid knowledge and what mental functions are encompassed in this process, are central in the discussion.
Slavery's Long Shadow
Author: James L. Gorman
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467452572
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
How interactions of race and religion have influenced unity and division in the church At the center of the story of American Christianity lies an integral connection between race relations and Christian unity. Despite claims that Jesus Christ transcends all racial barriers, the most segregated hour in America is still Sunday mornings when Christians gather for worship. In Slavery’s Long Shadow fourteen historians and other scholars examine how the sobering historical realities of race relations and Christianity have created both unity and division within American churches from the 1790s into the twenty-first century. The book’s three sections offer readers three different entry points into the conversation: major historical periods, case studies, and ways forward. Historians as well as Christians interested in racial reconciliation will find in this book both help for understanding the problem and hope for building a better future. Contributors: Tanya Smith Brice Joel A. Brown Lawrence A. Q. Burnley Jeff W. Childers Wes Crawford James L. Gorman Richard T. Hughes Loretta Hunnicutt Christopher R. Hutson Kathy Pulley Edward J. Robinson Kamilah Hall Sharp Jerry Taylor D. Newell Williams
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467452572
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 382
Book Description
How interactions of race and religion have influenced unity and division in the church At the center of the story of American Christianity lies an integral connection between race relations and Christian unity. Despite claims that Jesus Christ transcends all racial barriers, the most segregated hour in America is still Sunday mornings when Christians gather for worship. In Slavery’s Long Shadow fourteen historians and other scholars examine how the sobering historical realities of race relations and Christianity have created both unity and division within American churches from the 1790s into the twenty-first century. The book’s three sections offer readers three different entry points into the conversation: major historical periods, case studies, and ways forward. Historians as well as Christians interested in racial reconciliation will find in this book both help for understanding the problem and hope for building a better future. Contributors: Tanya Smith Brice Joel A. Brown Lawrence A. Q. Burnley Jeff W. Childers Wes Crawford James L. Gorman Richard T. Hughes Loretta Hunnicutt Christopher R. Hutson Kathy Pulley Edward J. Robinson Kamilah Hall Sharp Jerry Taylor D. Newell Williams
Eusebius of Caesarea against Paganism
Author: Aryeh Kofsky
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004421408
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
Dealing with the subject of apologetics and polemics against the pagans in Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260-340), this volume discusses his response to the vigorous political, cultural and religious campaign launched against Christianity in his time. The first part of the book examines the background for Eusebius' apologetic enterprise and his early apologetic writings. The second and main part of the study analyzes major topics in Eusebius' great two-part apologetic work, the Praeparatio Evangelica and the Demonstratio Evangelica, such as the concept of Christian prehistory, prophecy and miracles. The last part deals with Eusebius' tactics and rhetoric and the place of Porphyry - the outstanding pagan polemicist against Christianity - in Eusebius' work. This part closes with a discussion of Eusebius' final apologetic statement in his work The Theophany, reflecting already the recent triumph of Christianity. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004421408
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
Dealing with the subject of apologetics and polemics against the pagans in Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260-340), this volume discusses his response to the vigorous political, cultural and religious campaign launched against Christianity in his time. The first part of the book examines the background for Eusebius' apologetic enterprise and his early apologetic writings. The second and main part of the study analyzes major topics in Eusebius' great two-part apologetic work, the Praeparatio Evangelica and the Demonstratio Evangelica, such as the concept of Christian prehistory, prophecy and miracles. The last part deals with Eusebius' tactics and rhetoric and the place of Porphyry - the outstanding pagan polemicist against Christianity - in Eusebius' work. This part closes with a discussion of Eusebius' final apologetic statement in his work The Theophany, reflecting already the recent triumph of Christianity. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.
The Pro-Life Pregnancy Help Movement
Author: Laura S. Hussey
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700629009
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
There is more to the pro-life movement than campaigning against abortion. That, at least, is the logic behind a large and growing network of pro-life pregnancy centers offering “help” to pregnant women. As these centers face increasing scrutiny, this book offers the first social-scientific study of the pro-life pregnancy help movement. The work being performed at pro-life pregnancy centers, maternity homes, and other charitable agencies is, Laura S. Hussey suggests, distinguished by several strategic features: it is directed at non-state targets, operates in largely privatized venues, employs service provision as its primary tactic, and aims to address causes popularly associated with its countermovement such as women’s (including poor women’s) wellbeing and empowerment. The motives and nature of the services such pregnancy centers deliver have become the subjects of competing political narratives—but, until now, very little empirical research. A rich, mixed-method study including data from two original national surveys and extensive interviews, Hussey’s book adjudicates these opposing views even as it provides a measured look at the identity, work, history, and impact of pro-life pregnancy centers and related service providers, as well as their relations with the larger American antiabortion movement. To what extent is pro-life pregnancy help work primarily geared to serving women versus “saving babies?” Pursued in these pages, the answer has broad implications for the wider study of social action and the pro-life movement, and for the future of the American abortion conflict.
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700629009
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
There is more to the pro-life movement than campaigning against abortion. That, at least, is the logic behind a large and growing network of pro-life pregnancy centers offering “help” to pregnant women. As these centers face increasing scrutiny, this book offers the first social-scientific study of the pro-life pregnancy help movement. The work being performed at pro-life pregnancy centers, maternity homes, and other charitable agencies is, Laura S. Hussey suggests, distinguished by several strategic features: it is directed at non-state targets, operates in largely privatized venues, employs service provision as its primary tactic, and aims to address causes popularly associated with its countermovement such as women’s (including poor women’s) wellbeing and empowerment. The motives and nature of the services such pregnancy centers deliver have become the subjects of competing political narratives—but, until now, very little empirical research. A rich, mixed-method study including data from two original national surveys and extensive interviews, Hussey’s book adjudicates these opposing views even as it provides a measured look at the identity, work, history, and impact of pro-life pregnancy centers and related service providers, as well as their relations with the larger American antiabortion movement. To what extent is pro-life pregnancy help work primarily geared to serving women versus “saving babies?” Pursued in these pages, the answer has broad implications for the wider study of social action and the pro-life movement, and for the future of the American abortion conflict.
Jesus the Miracle Worker
Author: Graham H. Twelftree
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 9780830815968
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 472
Book Description
Graham Twelftree extensively examines the miracles of each Gospel narrative. He weighs their historical reliability and considers the question of miracles and the modern mind.
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 9780830815968
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 472
Book Description
Graham Twelftree extensively examines the miracles of each Gospel narrative. He weighs their historical reliability and considers the question of miracles and the modern mind.
Race and American Political Development
Author: Joseph E. Lowndes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136086420
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Race has been present at every critical moment in American political development, shaping political institutions, political discourse, public policy, and its denizens’ political identities. But because of the nature of race—its evolving and dynamic status as a structure of inequality, a political organizing principle, an ideology, and a system of power—we must study the politics of race historically, institutionally, and discursively. Covering more than three hundred years of American political history from the founding to the contemporary moment, the contributors in this volume make this extended argument. Together, they provide an understanding of American politics that challenges our conventional disciplinary tools of studying politics and our conservative political moment’s dominant narrative of racial progress. This volume, the first to collect essays on the role of race in American political history and development, resituates race in American politics as an issue for sustained and broadened critical attention.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136086420
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
Race has been present at every critical moment in American political development, shaping political institutions, political discourse, public policy, and its denizens’ political identities. But because of the nature of race—its evolving and dynamic status as a structure of inequality, a political organizing principle, an ideology, and a system of power—we must study the politics of race historically, institutionally, and discursively. Covering more than three hundred years of American political history from the founding to the contemporary moment, the contributors in this volume make this extended argument. Together, they provide an understanding of American politics that challenges our conventional disciplinary tools of studying politics and our conservative political moment’s dominant narrative of racial progress. This volume, the first to collect essays on the role of race in American political history and development, resituates race in American politics as an issue for sustained and broadened critical attention.
Kincraft
Author: Todne Thomas
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478013125
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 159
Book Description
In Kincraft Todne Thomas explores the internal dynamics of community life among black evangelicals, who are often overshadowed by white evangelicals and the common equation of the “Black Church” with an Afro-Protestant mainline. Drawing on fieldwork in an Afro-Caribbean and African American church association in Atlanta, Thomas locates black evangelicals at the center of their own religious story, presenting their determined spiritual relatedness as a form of insurgency. She outlines how church members cocreate themselves as spiritual kin through what she calls kincraft—the construction of one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Kincraft, which Thomas traces back to the diasporic histories and migration experiences of church members, reflects black evangelicals' understanding of Christian familial connection as transcending racial, ethnic, and denominational boundaries in ways that go beyond the patriarchal nuclear family. Church members also use their spiritual relationships to navigate racial and ethnic discrimination within the majority-white evangelical movement. By charting kincraft's functions and significance, Thomas demonstrates the ways in which black evangelical social life is more varied and multidimensional than standard narratives of evangelicalism would otherwise suggest.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478013125
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 159
Book Description
In Kincraft Todne Thomas explores the internal dynamics of community life among black evangelicals, who are often overshadowed by white evangelicals and the common equation of the “Black Church” with an Afro-Protestant mainline. Drawing on fieldwork in an Afro-Caribbean and African American church association in Atlanta, Thomas locates black evangelicals at the center of their own religious story, presenting their determined spiritual relatedness as a form of insurgency. She outlines how church members cocreate themselves as spiritual kin through what she calls kincraft—the construction of one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Kincraft, which Thomas traces back to the diasporic histories and migration experiences of church members, reflects black evangelicals' understanding of Christian familial connection as transcending racial, ethnic, and denominational boundaries in ways that go beyond the patriarchal nuclear family. Church members also use their spiritual relationships to navigate racial and ethnic discrimination within the majority-white evangelical movement. By charting kincraft's functions and significance, Thomas demonstrates the ways in which black evangelical social life is more varied and multidimensional than standard narratives of evangelicalism would otherwise suggest.
Billy Graham
Author: Andrew Finstuen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190683546
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
Billy Graham stands among the most influential Christian leaders of the twentieth century. Perhaps no single doctrine, practice, political position, or preacher has united the sprawling and diverse world of evangelicalism like Billy Graham. Throughout his six-decade career, Graham mainstreamed evangelicalism and through that tradition brought about major changes to American Christianity, global Christianity, church and state, the Cold War, race relations, American manhood, intellectual life, and religious media and music. His life and career provide a many-paned window through which to view the history and character of our present and recent past. Billy Graham: American Pilgrim offers groundbreaking accounts of Graham's role in shaping these phenomena. Graham stayed true to evangelical precepts yet journeyed to positions in religion, politics, and culture that stretched his tradition to its limits. This book's distinguished contributors capture Graham's evolution and complexity. Like most people, he grew in fits and starts. But Graham's growth occurred on an international stage, influencing the world around him in ways large and small. This book delves into this influence, going beyond conventional subjects and taking a fresh and nuanced look at the complex life and legacy of one of the most important figures of the last century.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190683546
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
Billy Graham stands among the most influential Christian leaders of the twentieth century. Perhaps no single doctrine, practice, political position, or preacher has united the sprawling and diverse world of evangelicalism like Billy Graham. Throughout his six-decade career, Graham mainstreamed evangelicalism and through that tradition brought about major changes to American Christianity, global Christianity, church and state, the Cold War, race relations, American manhood, intellectual life, and religious media and music. His life and career provide a many-paned window through which to view the history and character of our present and recent past. Billy Graham: American Pilgrim offers groundbreaking accounts of Graham's role in shaping these phenomena. Graham stayed true to evangelical precepts yet journeyed to positions in religion, politics, and culture that stretched his tradition to its limits. This book's distinguished contributors capture Graham's evolution and complexity. Like most people, he grew in fits and starts. But Graham's growth occurred on an international stage, influencing the world around him in ways large and small. This book delves into this influence, going beyond conventional subjects and taking a fresh and nuanced look at the complex life and legacy of one of the most important figures of the last century.
The Urban Church Imagined
Author: Jessica M. Barron
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479887102
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
Explores the role of race and consumer culture in attracting urban congregants to an evangelical church The Urban Church Imagined illuminates the dynamics surrounding white urban evangelical congregations’ approaches to organizational vitality and diversifying membership. Many evangelical churches are moving to urban, downtown areas to build their congregations and attract younger, millennial members. The urban environment fosters two expectations. First, a deep familiarity and reverence for popular consumer culture, and second, the presence of racial diversity. Church leaders use these ideas when they imagine what a “city church” should look like, but they must balance that with what it actually takes to make this happen. In part, racial diversity is seen as key to urban churches presenting themselves as “in touch” and “authentic.” Yet, in an effort to seduce religious consumers, church leaders often and inadvertently end up reproducing racial and economic inequality, an unexpected contradiction to their goal of inclusivity. Drawing on several years of research, Jessica M. Barron and Rhys H. Williams explore the cultural contours of one such church in downtown Chicago. They show that church leaders and congregants’ understandings of the connections between race, consumer culture, and the city is a motivating factor for many members who value interracial interactions as a part of their worship experience. But these explorations often unintentionally exclude members along racial and classed lines. Indeed, religious organizations’ efforts to engage urban environments and foster integrated congregations produce complex and dynamic relationships between their racially diverse memberships and the cultivation of a safe haven in which white, middle-class leaders can feel as though they are being a positive force in the fight for religious vitality and racial diversity. The book adds to the growing constellation of studies on urban religious organizations, as well as emerging scholarship on intersectionality and congregational characteristics in American religious life. In so doing, it offers important insights into racially diverse congregations in urban areas, a growing trend among evangelical churches. This work is an important case study on the challenges faced by modern churches and urban institutions in general.
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479887102
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 203
Book Description
Explores the role of race and consumer culture in attracting urban congregants to an evangelical church The Urban Church Imagined illuminates the dynamics surrounding white urban evangelical congregations’ approaches to organizational vitality and diversifying membership. Many evangelical churches are moving to urban, downtown areas to build their congregations and attract younger, millennial members. The urban environment fosters two expectations. First, a deep familiarity and reverence for popular consumer culture, and second, the presence of racial diversity. Church leaders use these ideas when they imagine what a “city church” should look like, but they must balance that with what it actually takes to make this happen. In part, racial diversity is seen as key to urban churches presenting themselves as “in touch” and “authentic.” Yet, in an effort to seduce religious consumers, church leaders often and inadvertently end up reproducing racial and economic inequality, an unexpected contradiction to their goal of inclusivity. Drawing on several years of research, Jessica M. Barron and Rhys H. Williams explore the cultural contours of one such church in downtown Chicago. They show that church leaders and congregants’ understandings of the connections between race, consumer culture, and the city is a motivating factor for many members who value interracial interactions as a part of their worship experience. But these explorations often unintentionally exclude members along racial and classed lines. Indeed, religious organizations’ efforts to engage urban environments and foster integrated congregations produce complex and dynamic relationships between their racially diverse memberships and the cultivation of a safe haven in which white, middle-class leaders can feel as though they are being a positive force in the fight for religious vitality and racial diversity. The book adds to the growing constellation of studies on urban religious organizations, as well as emerging scholarship on intersectionality and congregational characteristics in American religious life. In so doing, it offers important insights into racially diverse congregations in urban areas, a growing trend among evangelical churches. This work is an important case study on the challenges faced by modern churches and urban institutions in general.