Eliza F. Kent
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195165074
- eISBN:
- 9780199835171
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195165071.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter argues that Protestant Christian women in the West were intrigued by the purdah system in India, partly because it resonated with patterns of gender segregation with which they were ...
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This chapter argues that Protestant Christian women in the West were intrigued by the purdah system in India, partly because it resonated with patterns of gender segregation with which they were familiar. The aspects of the gender ideology embodied in purdah that were retained in the new hybrid discourse of femininity resulting from the interaction between Protestant missionaries and representatives of elite Indian culture are examined. This is followed by an analysis of the history of the zenana missions, tracking the changes in the strategies for the reform of Indian women and their relationship to the Indian home as the focus of missions shifted from elite to low-caste women.Less
This chapter argues that Protestant Christian women in the West were intrigued by the purdah system in India, partly because it resonated with patterns of gender segregation with which they were familiar. The aspects of the gender ideology embodied in purdah that were retained in the new hybrid discourse of femininity resulting from the interaction between Protestant missionaries and representatives of elite Indian culture are examined. This is followed by an analysis of the history of the zenana missions, tracking the changes in the strategies for the reform of Indian women and their relationship to the Indian home as the focus of missions shifted from elite to low-caste women.
Brian Stanley
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691196848
- eISBN:
- 9781400890316
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691196848.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
This chapter examines the ecumenical movement. The twentieth century has sometimes been denominated by historians of Christianity as “the ecumenical century.” Narratives of the ecumenical movement ...
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This chapter examines the ecumenical movement. The twentieth century has sometimes been denominated by historians of Christianity as “the ecumenical century.” Narratives of the ecumenical movement typically begin with the World Missionary Conference, held in Edinburgh in June of 1910, which assembled some 1,215 Protestant delegates from various parts of the globe to devise a more effective common strategy for the evangelization of the world. Viewed with the benefit of hindsight, the Edinburgh conference has been widely identified as the birthplace of the formal ecumenical movement. Without it, there would be no World Council of Churches. Yet serious attempts to bridge divisions between Protestant Christians were already under way in India and China before 1910. Furthermore, the World Missionary Conference was precisely that—a gathering of mission executives and missionaries convened to consider questions of missionary policy. Delegates represented missionary agencies rather than churches, and discussion of questions of doctrine and church order was forbidden, in deference to the Church of England, whose endorsement would not have been given if the conference had been expected to discuss matters of faith and order with Nonconformists. The chapter then looks at the failure and success of the ecumenical movement.Less
This chapter examines the ecumenical movement. The twentieth century has sometimes been denominated by historians of Christianity as “the ecumenical century.” Narratives of the ecumenical movement typically begin with the World Missionary Conference, held in Edinburgh in June of 1910, which assembled some 1,215 Protestant delegates from various parts of the globe to devise a more effective common strategy for the evangelization of the world. Viewed with the benefit of hindsight, the Edinburgh conference has been widely identified as the birthplace of the formal ecumenical movement. Without it, there would be no World Council of Churches. Yet serious attempts to bridge divisions between Protestant Christians were already under way in India and China before 1910. Furthermore, the World Missionary Conference was precisely that—a gathering of mission executives and missionaries convened to consider questions of missionary policy. Delegates represented missionary agencies rather than churches, and discussion of questions of doctrine and church order was forbidden, in deference to the Church of England, whose endorsement would not have been given if the conference had been expected to discuss matters of faith and order with Nonconformists. The chapter then looks at the failure and success of the ecumenical movement.
Frank Burch Brown
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195158724
- eISBN:
- 9780199849567
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195158724.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Because Protestant Christians are sensitive about issues on salvation by grace through faith, they tend to become discriminating in measuring one's development in terms of Christian maturity or ...
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Because Protestant Christians are sensitive about issues on salvation by grace through faith, they tend to become discriminating in measuring one's development in terms of Christian maturity or “progress”. Protestants have encouraged Christian education not only through Sunday schools but also through showing their support through higher education institutions. Nonetheless, we observe that Protestants are relatively unenthusiastic about a concrete plan that would promote spiritual growth. Generally, there are several different forms of vocations that Christians may adopt and they may adopt these artfully by incorporating skill, taste, aesthetics, and other such measures in various aspects of their Christian life.Less
Because Protestant Christians are sensitive about issues on salvation by grace through faith, they tend to become discriminating in measuring one's development in terms of Christian maturity or “progress”. Protestants have encouraged Christian education not only through Sunday schools but also through showing their support through higher education institutions. Nonetheless, we observe that Protestants are relatively unenthusiastic about a concrete plan that would promote spiritual growth. Generally, there are several different forms of vocations that Christians may adopt and they may adopt these artfully by incorporating skill, taste, aesthetics, and other such measures in various aspects of their Christian life.
Nicholas Harkness
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780520281226
- eISBN:
- 9780520961081
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520281226.003.0018
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter explores how semiotic differentiation, class, and denominationalism have influenced the rapid postwar urbanization of Seoul and the rapid growth of Protestant Christianity in South ...
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This chapter explores how semiotic differentiation, class, and denominationalism have influenced the rapid postwar urbanization of Seoul and the rapid growth of Protestant Christianity in South Korea. It argues that these views of the city manifest as perspectives on other Christians—or, in a sense, “Christian others”—those who claim one's own Christian faith but appear alien or antithetical to it. Specifically, it considers how these views are related to worship styles that invoke, for Protestant Christians, other kinds of Protestant churches and practices in Seoul. It also examines how the preaching and prayer of other Christians are intertwined with specific times and places in the expanding city. It suggests that active differentiation of worship style by congregants contributes to the emergence of new religious institutions in particular times and places in the postwar urban migration to Seoul.Less
This chapter explores how semiotic differentiation, class, and denominationalism have influenced the rapid postwar urbanization of Seoul and the rapid growth of Protestant Christianity in South Korea. It argues that these views of the city manifest as perspectives on other Christians—or, in a sense, “Christian others”—those who claim one's own Christian faith but appear alien or antithetical to it. Specifically, it considers how these views are related to worship styles that invoke, for Protestant Christians, other kinds of Protestant churches and practices in Seoul. It also examines how the preaching and prayer of other Christians are intertwined with specific times and places in the expanding city. It suggests that active differentiation of worship style by congregants contributes to the emergence of new religious institutions in particular times and places in the postwar urban migration to Seoul.
Albert L. Park
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824839475
- eISBN:
- 9780824869731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824839475.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter examines the process in which capitalism unfolded in Korea through ideas and institutions developed by the Protestant Christian Church after 1885. Focusing on the Nevius Plan, which ...
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This chapter examines the process in which capitalism unfolded in Korea through ideas and institutions developed by the Protestant Christian Church after 1885. Focusing on the Nevius Plan, which encouraged the construction of financially self-sustaining churches throughout Korea, and the Industrial Education Departments (IEDs), the chapter considers how the Protestant Christian Church supplied language and practices that exposed Koreans to the principles of capitalism. It shows how the Nevius Plan introduced Korean followers to a new language of money, work, and economy, while IEDs became places where young Koreans actually experienced the principles of capitalism by learning business skills and how to manufacture various goods. It argues that Protestant Christianity offered a cultural matrix through which Koreans could acquire knowledge about how to have meaningful social lives and navigate a path to modernity.Less
This chapter examines the process in which capitalism unfolded in Korea through ideas and institutions developed by the Protestant Christian Church after 1885. Focusing on the Nevius Plan, which encouraged the construction of financially self-sustaining churches throughout Korea, and the Industrial Education Departments (IEDs), the chapter considers how the Protestant Christian Church supplied language and practices that exposed Koreans to the principles of capitalism. It shows how the Nevius Plan introduced Korean followers to a new language of money, work, and economy, while IEDs became places where young Koreans actually experienced the principles of capitalism by learning business skills and how to manufacture various goods. It argues that Protestant Christianity offered a cultural matrix through which Koreans could acquire knowledge about how to have meaningful social lives and navigate a path to modernity.
David Harrington Watt
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780801448270
- eISBN:
- 9781501708541
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801448270.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter looks at the people who were part of the fundamentalist movement—who they were, what they believed, and what set them apart from other Protestant Christians. The fundamentalist movement ...
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This chapter looks at the people who were part of the fundamentalist movement—who they were, what they believed, and what set them apart from other Protestant Christians. The fundamentalist movement was created in the 1920s by Protestants who feared that America's churches had drifted away from the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. They proudly called themselves fundamentalists, and their opponents called them that, too. The chapter then shows that the defining characteristics of global fundamentalism have often been said to include a penchant for reading texts literally, a proclivity for mixing politics and religion, a determination to resist modernity, and a predilection for militancy. As it turns out, none of the supposed characteristics of global fundamentalism can be neatly applied to the fundamentalists of the 1920s and 1930s.Less
This chapter looks at the people who were part of the fundamentalist movement—who they were, what they believed, and what set them apart from other Protestant Christians. The fundamentalist movement was created in the 1920s by Protestants who feared that America's churches had drifted away from the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. They proudly called themselves fundamentalists, and their opponents called them that, too. The chapter then shows that the defining characteristics of global fundamentalism have often been said to include a penchant for reading texts literally, a proclivity for mixing politics and religion, a determination to resist modernity, and a predilection for militancy. As it turns out, none of the supposed characteristics of global fundamentalism can be neatly applied to the fundamentalists of the 1920s and 1930s.
Gregory Vanderbilt
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824839475
- eISBN:
- 9780824869731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824839475.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter examines the question of what might constitute “Japanese Christianity” that surfaced in the 1930s at a time of military aggression on the Asian continent. It considers how increased ...
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This chapter examines the question of what might constitute “Japanese Christianity” that surfaced in the 1930s at a time of military aggression on the Asian continent. It considers how increased political controls and mobilization of the populace, recognizable as fascism, were swept up into ideology that promised the “overcoming of modernity” and the purification of the national body. The first generation of Protestant Christians, who were born into samurai families before Christianity’s relegalization in 1873, were passing from the scene, and the generation that was assuming leadership had been born into the ideology of the “emperor system.” The chapter explores the viability of Christianity as it traveled to new situations through second-generation Japanese Christians, such as Yoshida Etsuzō, who published the Christian magazine called Voice at the Lakeside and used it in an attempt to define a Christianity viable in Japan.Less
This chapter examines the question of what might constitute “Japanese Christianity” that surfaced in the 1930s at a time of military aggression on the Asian continent. It considers how increased political controls and mobilization of the populace, recognizable as fascism, were swept up into ideology that promised the “overcoming of modernity” and the purification of the national body. The first generation of Protestant Christians, who were born into samurai families before Christianity’s relegalization in 1873, were passing from the scene, and the generation that was assuming leadership had been born into the ideology of the “emperor system.” The chapter explores the viability of Christianity as it traveled to new situations through second-generation Japanese Christians, such as Yoshida Etsuzō, who published the Christian magazine called Voice at the Lakeside and used it in an attempt to define a Christianity viable in Japan.
David Harrington Watt
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780801448270
- eISBN:
- 9781501708541
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801448270.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This book provides a pathbreaking account of the role that the fear of fundamentalism has played—and continues to play—in American culture. Fundamentalism has never been a neutral category of ...
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This book provides a pathbreaking account of the role that the fear of fundamentalism has played—and continues to play—in American culture. Fundamentalism has never been a neutral category of analysis, and the book scrutinizes the various political purposes that the concept has been made to serve. In 1920, the conservative Baptist writer Curtis Lee Laws coined the word “fundamentalists.” The book examines the antifundamentalist polemics of Harry Emerson Fosdick, Talcott Parsons, Stanley Kramer, and Richard Hofstadter, which convinced many Americans that religious fundamentalists were almost by definition backward, intolerant, and anti-intellectual and that fundamentalism was a dangerous form of religion that had no legitimate place in the modern world. For almost fifty years, the concept of fundamentalism was linked almost exclusively to Protestant Christians. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the establishment of an Islamic republic led to a more elastic understanding of the nature of fundamentalism. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Americans became accustomed to using fundamentalism as a way of talking about Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists, as well as Christians. Many Americans came to see Protestant fundamentalism as an expression of a larger phenomenon that was wreaking havoc all over the world. This book provides an overview of the way that the fear of fundamentalism has shaped American culture, and it will lead readers to rethink their understanding of what fundamentalism is and what it does.Less
This book provides a pathbreaking account of the role that the fear of fundamentalism has played—and continues to play—in American culture. Fundamentalism has never been a neutral category of analysis, and the book scrutinizes the various political purposes that the concept has been made to serve. In 1920, the conservative Baptist writer Curtis Lee Laws coined the word “fundamentalists.” The book examines the antifundamentalist polemics of Harry Emerson Fosdick, Talcott Parsons, Stanley Kramer, and Richard Hofstadter, which convinced many Americans that religious fundamentalists were almost by definition backward, intolerant, and anti-intellectual and that fundamentalism was a dangerous form of religion that had no legitimate place in the modern world. For almost fifty years, the concept of fundamentalism was linked almost exclusively to Protestant Christians. The overthrow of the Shah of Iran and the establishment of an Islamic republic led to a more elastic understanding of the nature of fundamentalism. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Americans became accustomed to using fundamentalism as a way of talking about Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists, as well as Christians. Many Americans came to see Protestant fundamentalism as an expression of a larger phenomenon that was wreaking havoc all over the world. This book provides an overview of the way that the fear of fundamentalism has shaped American culture, and it will lead readers to rethink their understanding of what fundamentalism is and what it does.
Don Baker
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824832339
- eISBN:
- 9780824869373
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824832339.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
Korea has one of the most dynamic and diverse religious cultures of any nation on earth. Koreans are highly religious, yet no single religious community enjoys dominance. Buddhists share the Korean ...
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Korea has one of the most dynamic and diverse religious cultures of any nation on earth. Koreans are highly religious, yet no single religious community enjoys dominance. Buddhists share the Korean religious landscape with both Protestant and Catholic Christians as well as with shamans, Confucians, and practitioners of numerous new religions. As a result, Korea is a fruitful site for the exploration of the various manifestations of spirituality in the modern world. At the same time, however, the complexity of the country's religious topography can overwhelm the novice explorer. Emphasizing the attitudes and aspirations of the Korean people rather than ideology, this book navigates the highways and byways of Korean spirituality. It adopts a broad approach that distinguishes the different roles that folk religion, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, and indigenous new religions have played in Korea in the past and continue to play in the present while identifying commonalities behind that diversity to illuminate the distinctive nature of spirituality on the Korean peninsula.Less
Korea has one of the most dynamic and diverse religious cultures of any nation on earth. Koreans are highly religious, yet no single religious community enjoys dominance. Buddhists share the Korean religious landscape with both Protestant and Catholic Christians as well as with shamans, Confucians, and practitioners of numerous new religions. As a result, Korea is a fruitful site for the exploration of the various manifestations of spirituality in the modern world. At the same time, however, the complexity of the country's religious topography can overwhelm the novice explorer. Emphasizing the attitudes and aspirations of the Korean people rather than ideology, this book navigates the highways and byways of Korean spirituality. It adopts a broad approach that distinguishes the different roles that folk religion, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, and indigenous new religions have played in Korea in the past and continue to play in the present while identifying commonalities behind that diversity to illuminate the distinctive nature of spirituality on the Korean peninsula.
James L. Heft, Reuven Firestone, and Omid Safi (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199769308
- eISBN:
- 9780190258283
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199769308.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Constructive interreligious dialogue is only a recent phenomenon. Until the nineteenth century, most dialogue among believers was carried on as a debate aimed either to disprove the claims of the ...
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Constructive interreligious dialogue is only a recent phenomenon. Until the nineteenth century, most dialogue among believers was carried on as a debate aimed either to disprove the claims of the other, or to convert the other to one's own tradition. At the end of the nineteenth century, Protestant Christian missionaries of different denominations had created such a cacophony amongst themselves in the mission fields that they decided that it would be best if they could begin to overcome their own differences instead of confusing and even scandalizing the people whom they were trying to convert. By the middle of the twentieth century, the horrors of the Holocaust compelled Christians, especially mainline Protestants and Catholics, to enter into a serious dialogue with Jews, one of the consequences of which was the removal of claims by Christians to have replaced Judaism, and revising text books that communicated that message to Christian believers. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, many branches of Christianity, not least the Catholic Church, are engaged in a world-wide constructive dialogue with Muslims, made all the more necessary by the terrorist attacks of September 11. In these new conversations, Muslim religious leaders took an important initiative when they sent their document, “A Common Word Between Us,” to all Christians in the West. It is an extraordinary document, for it makes a theological argument (various Christians in the West, including officials at the Vatican, have claimed that a “theological conversation” with Muslims is not possible) based on texts drawn from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qurʾan, that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim believers share the God-given obligation to love God and each other in peace and justice.Less
Constructive interreligious dialogue is only a recent phenomenon. Until the nineteenth century, most dialogue among believers was carried on as a debate aimed either to disprove the claims of the other, or to convert the other to one's own tradition. At the end of the nineteenth century, Protestant Christian missionaries of different denominations had created such a cacophony amongst themselves in the mission fields that they decided that it would be best if they could begin to overcome their own differences instead of confusing and even scandalizing the people whom they were trying to convert. By the middle of the twentieth century, the horrors of the Holocaust compelled Christians, especially mainline Protestants and Catholics, to enter into a serious dialogue with Jews, one of the consequences of which was the removal of claims by Christians to have replaced Judaism, and revising text books that communicated that message to Christian believers. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, many branches of Christianity, not least the Catholic Church, are engaged in a world-wide constructive dialogue with Muslims, made all the more necessary by the terrorist attacks of September 11. In these new conversations, Muslim religious leaders took an important initiative when they sent their document, “A Common Word Between Us,” to all Christians in the West. It is an extraordinary document, for it makes a theological argument (various Christians in the West, including officials at the Vatican, have claimed that a “theological conversation” with Muslims is not possible) based on texts drawn from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qurʾan, that Jewish, Christian, and Muslim believers share the God-given obligation to love God and each other in peace and justice.
Jonathan M. Yeager
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199916955
- eISBN:
- 9780190258368
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199916955.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This book charts the history of early evangelicalism that flourished during the transatlantic revivals of the eighteenth century, coinciding with the emergence of the Enlightenment in America and ...
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This book charts the history of early evangelicalism that flourished during the transatlantic revivals of the eighteenth century, coinciding with the emergence of the Enlightenment in America and Europe. As a religious movement, evangelicalism crossed nations and encompassed different traditions within Christianity. The book examines hymns, historical works, poems, political pamphlets, revival accounts, sermons, and theological treatises published by those responsible for the growth of evangelicalism, along with their conversion experiences and diaries that chronicle their spiritual development. It also provides biographical sketches of several important religious figures and presents excerpts from Protestant Christians such as George Whitefield, Samuel Finley, James Robe, Joseph Bellamy, and Jedidiah Morse.Less
This book charts the history of early evangelicalism that flourished during the transatlantic revivals of the eighteenth century, coinciding with the emergence of the Enlightenment in America and Europe. As a religious movement, evangelicalism crossed nations and encompassed different traditions within Christianity. The book examines hymns, historical works, poems, political pamphlets, revival accounts, sermons, and theological treatises published by those responsible for the growth of evangelicalism, along with their conversion experiences and diaries that chronicle their spiritual development. It also provides biographical sketches of several important religious figures and presents excerpts from Protestant Christians such as George Whitefield, Samuel Finley, James Robe, Joseph Bellamy, and Jedidiah Morse.