Red-Hot and Righteous

Red-Hot and Righteous PDF Author: Diane Winston
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674045262
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
In this engrossing study of religion, urban life, and commercial culture, Diane Winston shows how a (self-styled "red-hot") militant Protestant mission established a beachhead in the modern city. When The Salvation Army, a British evangelical movement, landed in New York in 1880, local citizens called its eye-catching advertisements "vulgar" and dubbed its brass bands, female preachers, and overheated services "sensationalist." Yet a little more than a century later, this ragtag missionary movement had evolved into the nation's largest charitable fund-raiser--the very exemplar of America's most cherished values of social service and religious commitment. Winston illustrates how the Army borrowed the forms and idioms of popular entertainments, commercial emporiums, and master marketers to deliver its message. In contrast to histories that relegate religion to the sidelines of urban society, her book shows that Salvationists were at the center of debates about social services for the urban poor, the changing position of women, and the evolution of a consumer culture. She also describes Salvationist influence on contemporary life--from the public's post-World War I (and ongoing) love affair with the doughnut to the Salvationist young woman's career as a Hollywood icon to the institutionalization of religious ideals into nonsectarian social programs. Winston's vivid account of a street savvy religious mission transformed over the decades makes adroit use of performance theory and material culture studies to create an evocative portrait of a beloved yet little understood religious movement. Her book provides striking evidence that, counter to conventional wisdom, religion was among the seminal social forces that shaped modern, urban America--and, in the process, found new expression for its own ideals.

Building the Old Time Religion

Building the Old Time Religion PDF Author: Priscilla Pope-Levison
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 147988989X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
"During the Progressive Era, a period of unprecedented ingenuity, women evangelists built the old time religion with brick and mortar, uniforms and automobiles, fresh converts and devoted protégés. Across America, entrepreneurial women founded churches, denominations, religious training schools, rescue homes, rescue missions, and evangelistic organizations. Until now, these intrepid women have gone largely unnoticed, though their collective yet unchoreographed decision to build institutions in the service of evangelism marked a seismic shift in American Christianity. In this ground-breaking study, Priscilla Pope-Levison dusts off the unpublished letters, diaries, sermons, and yearbooks of these pioneers to share their personal tribulations and public achievements. The effect is staggering. With an uncanny eye for essential details and a knack for historical nuance, Pope-Levison breathes life into not just one or two of these women, but two dozen. The evangelistic empire of Aimee Semple McPherson represents the pinnacle of this shift from itinerancy to institution building. Her name remains legendary. Yet she built her institutions on the foundation of the work of women evangelists who preceded her. Their stories -- untold until now -- reveal the cunning and strength of women who forged a path for every generation, including our own, to follow."--Back cover.

Religion Out Loud

Religion Out Loud PDF Author: Isaac Weiner
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 081470820X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
- "Fascinating, resourceful, and thoughtful from beginning to end." - David Morgan, Duke University - "Deftness and discerning insight." - Leigh Eric Schmidt, Washington University in St. Louis "Brilliantly researched and intellectually nuanced... In sum: a pleasure to read and to ponder." - Sally M. Promey, Yale University

Saved, Sanctified and Serving

Saved, Sanctified and Serving PDF Author: Denis Metrustery
Publisher: Authentic Media Inc
ISBN: 1780780745
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
This comprehensive, significant work on Salvation Army theology and practice is designed to help reinforce Salvationists' appreciation of their movement's rationale and mission, helping to maintain and increase the Army's unique position within the Church and as part of global faith-based responses to humanitarian need. The writers in this volume hold and proclaim a clear vision for the Army's future, fully seizing contemporary opportunities while retaining the fire and zeal of the primitive Movement.

Claiming Society for God

Claiming Society for God PDF Author: Nancy J. Davis
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253007143
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
The nonviolent ways orthodox religious groups achieve social power and influence: a “brilliant” study of four movements in the US and abroad (Wendell Bell, Yale University). Gold Medal Winner, Independent Publisher Book Awards Claiming Society for God focuses on common strategies used by religiously orthodox (what some would call “fundamentalist”) movements around the world. Rather than using armed struggle or terrorism, as much of post-9/11 thinking suggests, these movements use a patient, under-the-radar strategy of taking over civil society. Claiming Society for God tells the stories of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Sephardi Torah Guardians or Shas in Israel, Comunione e Liberazione in Italy, and the Salvation Army in the United States, showing how these movements, grounded in a communitarian theology, are building massive grassroots networks of religiously based social service agencies, hospitals and clinics, rotating credit societies, schools, charitable organizations, worship centers, and businesses. These networks are already being called states within states, surrogate states, or parallel societies, and in Egypt brought the Muslim Brotherhood to control of parliament and the presidency. This bottom-up, entrepreneurial strategy is aimed at making religion the cornerstone of society. “Sociology at its very best…professionally researched and analyzed, both pragmatic and theoretical, overwhelmingly convincing, and an important corrective to a lot of current beliefs…a great read—fascinating from beginning to end.”—Wendell Bell, Yale University, author of Foundations of Futures Studies

Under the Big Top

Under the Big Top PDF Author: Josh McMullen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199397872
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Under the Big Top examines the immensely popular big tent revivals of turn-of-the-twentieth-century America and develops a new framework for understanding Protestantism in this transformative period of the nation's history. Contemporary critics of the revivalists often depicted them as anxious and outdated religious opponents of a modern, urban nation. Early historical accounts likewise portrayed tent revivalists as Victorian hold-outs, bent on re-establishing nineteenth-century values and religion in a new America. In this revisionist work, Josh McMullen argues that, contrary to these stereotypes, big tent revivalists actually participated in the shift away from Victorianism and helped in the construction of a new consumer culture in the United States. How did the United States became the most consumer-driven and yet one of the most religious societies in the western world? McMullen shows that revivalists and their audiences reconciled the Protestant ethic of salvation with the emerging consumer ethos by cautiously unlinking Christianity from Victorianism and joining it to the new, emerging consumer culture. Under the Big Top helps to explain the continued appeal of both the therapeutic and the salvific worldview to many Americans as well as the ambivalence that accompanies this combination.

Murdering Holiness

Murdering Holiness PDF Author: Jim Phillips
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 9780774809061
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Murdering Holiness explores the story of the "Holy Roller" sect led by Franz Creffield in the early years of the twentieth century. In the opening chapters, the authors introduce us to the community of Corvallis, Oregon, where Creffield, a charismatic, self-styled messiah, taught his followers to forsake their families and worldly possessions and to seek salvation through him. As his teachings became more extreme, the local community reacted: Creffield was tarred and feathered and his followers were incarcerated in the state asylum. Creffield himself was later imprisoned for adultery, but shortly after his release he revived the sect. This proved too much for some of the adherents' families, and in May 1906 George Mitchell, the brother of two women in the sect, pursued Creffield to Seattle and shot him dead. The authors take us into the courtroom for the trial that made headlines across North America, as Mitchell was acquitted of murder. Though the formal plea was insanity, the defence built its case on the "unwritten law" that justified killing to protect or avenge family honour. Based on court records and archival sources, this case study includes a detailed examination of the trial, the media's response to it, and the dramatic aftermath, and sheds light on the rise of ardent religion in the Pacific Northwest, the justice system in Seattle, and the role of the press in influencing public opinion.

Red-Hot Monogamy

Red-Hot Monogamy PDF Author: Bill Farrel
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
ISBN: 0736935037
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
With their trademark insight, humor, and candid personal perspectives, Bill and Pam Farrel reveal the truths about the sexual relationship in marriage and what husbands and wives need to know to keep the embers burning. Sex is like fireworks!—why a little skill turns marriage into red-hot monogamy How sex works best emotionally, physically, and physiologically How to avoid the pleasure thieves that steal your chance for fulfillment The Farrels present difficult-to-discuss topics and biblical truths in universal language with sensitivity, fun, and understanding. For newlyweds, golden anniversary celebrants, and all couples in between—this book inspires the gift of romance and passion to fuel lives with love.

Christianity On Trial

Christianity On Trial PDF Author: Vincent Carroll
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594033153
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
In "Christianity on Trial," Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett do not shrink from confronting the tragedies that have been perpetrated throughout the ages in the name of Christianity. But they argue that the current indulgence of anti-Christian rhetoric in our culture not only involves bad taste, but tunnel vision and willful historical illiteracy as well. Carroll and Shiflett dispassionately consider the indictment of Christianity--specifically that it has justified racism and misogyny, encouraged ignorance, and promoted the despoliation of the environment and even justified genocide. Then, in a narrative whose intellectual elegance and verve calls up comparisons to "How the Irish Saved Civilization," they answer these charges, showing how in fact the Christian tradition has not only injected morality into our political order, but softened brutal practices and confining superstitions, created the foundation for intellectual inquiry, and created the compassionate! impulse. "Christianity on Trial" challenges readers of all beliefs--even those with a belief in disbelief itself--to question the anti-religious bigotry that thrives in our intellectual world and to reevaluate the role of Christianity not only as a source of consolation but of enlightenment and human liberation as well.

The Virgin of El Barrio

The Virgin of El Barrio PDF Author: Kristy Nabhan-Warren
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814758800
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
In 1998, a Mexican American woman named Estela Ruiz began seeing visions of the Virgin Mary in south Phoenix. The apparitions and messages spurred the creation of Mary’s Ministries, a Catholic evangelizing group, and its sister organization, ESPIRITU, which focuses on community-based initiatives and social justice for Latinos/as. Based on ten years of participant observation and in-depth interviews, The Virgin of El Barrio traces the spiritual transformation of Ruiz, the development of the community that has sprung up around her, and the international expansion of their message. Their organizations blend popular and official Catholicism as well as evangelical Protestant styles of praise and worship, shedding light on Catholic responses to the tensions between popular and official piety and the needs of Mexican Americans.

Sanctified Sisters

Sanctified Sisters PDF Author: Jenny Wiley Legath
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479860638
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
The first history of the deaconess movement in the United States In the late nineteenth century, a new movement arose within American Protestant Christianity. Unsalaried groups of women began living together, wearing plain dress, and performing nursing, teaching, and other works of welfare. Modeled after the lifestyles of Catholic nuns, these women became America’s first deaconesses. Sanctified Sisters,the first history of the deaconess movement in the United States, traces its origins in the late nineteenth century through to its present manifestations. Drawing on archival research, demographic surveys, and material culture evidence, Jenny Wiley Legath offers new insights into who the deaconesses were, how they lived, and what their legacy has been for women in Protestant Christianity. The book argues that the deaconess movement enabled Protestant women—particularly single women—to gain power in a male-dominated Protestant world. They created hundreds of new institutions within Protestantism and created new roles for women within the church. While some who study women’s ordination draw a line from the deaconesses’ work to the struggle for women’s ordination in various branches of Protestant Christianity, Legath argues that most deaconesses were not interested in ordination. Yet, while they didn’t mean to, they did end up providing a foundation for today’s ordination debates. Their very existence worked to open the possibility of ecclesiastically authorized women’s agency.