David W. Miller
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195314809
- eISBN:
- 9780199785278
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195314809.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter focuses on the first wave of the faith at work movement (FAW). Three broad streams of FAW activity developed whose vestiges are still seen today: (a) the Social Gospel, (b) ...
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This chapter focuses on the first wave of the faith at work movement (FAW). Three broad streams of FAW activity developed whose vestiges are still seen today: (a) the Social Gospel, (b) special–purpose groups, and (c) the popularization of Jesus. The Social Gospel sought theological legitimacy in and gave hermeneutical primacy to the doctrine of the kingdom of God. The Social Gospel comprised many shapes and forms, often with overlapping interests. However, it can be arranged into three main substreams: conservative social Christianity, radical social Christianity, and progressive social Christianity. Special-purpose groups addressed “issues both specific to the churches and of more general concern to the broader society.”. These religiously motivated groups are part of the American tradition of voluntary associations. The popularization of Jesus involves the emergence of a style of writing and speaking that sought to contemporize and popularize a practical Jesus for modern times.Less
This chapter focuses on the first wave of the faith at work movement (FAW). Three broad streams of FAW activity developed whose vestiges are still seen today: (a) the Social Gospel, (b) special–purpose groups, and (c) the popularization of Jesus. The Social Gospel sought theological legitimacy in and gave hermeneutical primacy to the doctrine of the kingdom of God. The Social Gospel comprised many shapes and forms, often with overlapping interests. However, it can be arranged into three main substreams: conservative social Christianity, radical social Christianity, and progressive social Christianity. Special-purpose groups addressed “issues both specific to the churches and of more general concern to the broader society.”. These religiously motivated groups are part of the American tradition of voluntary associations. The popularization of Jesus involves the emergence of a style of writing and speaking that sought to contemporize and popularize a practical Jesus for modern times.
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226306629
- eISBN:
- 9780226306759
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226306759.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter argues that Conservative Christianity can promote a political agenda. American political history teaches us, though, that the direction it leads men and women cannot be determined in ...
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This chapter argues that Conservative Christianity can promote a political agenda. American political history teaches us, though, that the direction it leads men and women cannot be determined in advance. Evangelical militancy is not new, and while it is distasteful when it marches in the opposite direction of our own cause, it can be also be embraced to support the “onward, Christian soldiers” march of one's own cause. While some disregard history to demonize Conservative Christianity's involvement in politics that promote a conservative social agenda, they are reminded that religious zeal in the pursuit of political objectives has not been the monopoly of one particular political camp. In the present era, the same religious principles that lead whites to the right lead blacks to the left.Less
This chapter argues that Conservative Christianity can promote a political agenda. American political history teaches us, though, that the direction it leads men and women cannot be determined in advance. Evangelical militancy is not new, and while it is distasteful when it marches in the opposite direction of our own cause, it can be also be embraced to support the “onward, Christian soldiers” march of one's own cause. While some disregard history to demonize Conservative Christianity's involvement in politics that promote a conservative social agenda, they are reminded that religious zeal in the pursuit of political objectives has not been the monopoly of one particular political camp. In the present era, the same religious principles that lead whites to the right lead blacks to the left.
Christopher Douglas
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781501702112
- eISBN:
- 9781501703539
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501702112.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
The rise of the Christian Right took many writers and literary critics by surprise, trained as we were to think that religions waned as societies became modern. This book shows that American writers ...
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The rise of the Christian Right took many writers and literary critics by surprise, trained as we were to think that religions waned as societies became modern. This book shows that American writers struggled to understand and respond to this new social and political force. Religiously inflected literature since the 1970s must be understood in the context of this unforeseen resurgence of conservative Christianity, the book argues a resurgence that realigned the literary and cultural fields. Among the writers that are considered are Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, N. Scott Momaday, Gloria Anzaldúa, Philip Roth, Carl Sagan, and Dan Brown. Their fictions engaged a wide range of topics: religious conspiracies, faith and wonder, slavery and imperialism, evolution and extraterrestrial contact, alternate histories and ancestral spiritualities. But this is only part of the story. Liberal-leaning literary writers responding to the resurgence were sometimes confused by the Christian Right's strange entanglement with the contemporary paradigms of multiculturalism and postmodernism—leading to complex emergent phenomena that the book terms “Christian multiculturalism” and “Christian postmodernism.” Ultimately, the book shows the value of listening to our literature for its sometimes subterranean attention to the religious and social upheavals going on around it.Less
The rise of the Christian Right took many writers and literary critics by surprise, trained as we were to think that religions waned as societies became modern. This book shows that American writers struggled to understand and respond to this new social and political force. Religiously inflected literature since the 1970s must be understood in the context of this unforeseen resurgence of conservative Christianity, the book argues a resurgence that realigned the literary and cultural fields. Among the writers that are considered are Marilynne Robinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, N. Scott Momaday, Gloria Anzaldúa, Philip Roth, Carl Sagan, and Dan Brown. Their fictions engaged a wide range of topics: religious conspiracies, faith and wonder, slavery and imperialism, evolution and extraterrestrial contact, alternate histories and ancestral spiritualities. But this is only part of the story. Liberal-leaning literary writers responding to the resurgence were sometimes confused by the Christian Right's strange entanglement with the contemporary paradigms of multiculturalism and postmodernism—leading to complex emergent phenomena that the book terms “Christian multiculturalism” and “Christian postmodernism.” Ultimately, the book shows the value of listening to our literature for its sometimes subterranean attention to the religious and social upheavals going on around it.
Doug Rossinow
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231169882
- eISBN:
- 9780231538657
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231169882.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter describes the manifold crisis that enveloped the “Reagan revolution” from late 1986 through 1988. This was not just a crisis of conservative governance but a crisis of legitimacy for ...
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This chapter describes the manifold crisis that enveloped the “Reagan revolution” from late 1986 through 1988. This was not just a crisis of conservative governance but a crisis of legitimacy for conservatism as a philosophy and movement. The pillars of Reaganism included conservative Christianity and reverence of wealth, the latter often taking the form of cheerleading for financiers. Each of these pillars suffered major blows and showed signs of cracking during the crisis that commenced in late 1986. In November, Ivan Boesky, the high-flying Wall Street arbitrageur, pled guilty to extensive insider trading, and it was revealed that he had cooperated extensively with prosecutors, implicating other figures in American finance. Conservative evangelists were brought low by tawdry sex and corruption scandals. Just as damaging to the politicized version of conservative Christianity was the outcry over the government’s failure to respond to the exploding AIDS crisis. By 1988, a widespread public yearning to turn the page on Reaganite conservatism was palpable.Less
This chapter describes the manifold crisis that enveloped the “Reagan revolution” from late 1986 through 1988. This was not just a crisis of conservative governance but a crisis of legitimacy for conservatism as a philosophy and movement. The pillars of Reaganism included conservative Christianity and reverence of wealth, the latter often taking the form of cheerleading for financiers. Each of these pillars suffered major blows and showed signs of cracking during the crisis that commenced in late 1986. In November, Ivan Boesky, the high-flying Wall Street arbitrageur, pled guilty to extensive insider trading, and it was revealed that he had cooperated extensively with prosecutors, implicating other figures in American finance. Conservative evangelists were brought low by tawdry sex and corruption scandals. Just as damaging to the politicized version of conservative Christianity was the outcry over the government’s failure to respond to the exploding AIDS crisis. By 1988, a widespread public yearning to turn the page on Reaganite conservatism was palpable.
Paul Lichterman and Rhys H. Williams
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781479854769
- eISBN:
- 9781479834457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479854769.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Paul Lichterman and Rhys H. Williams’s chapter focuses on theologically liberal Mainline Protestants, who have historically been at the forefront of many progressive religious actions. First, the ...
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Paul Lichterman and Rhys H. Williams’s chapter focuses on theologically liberal Mainline Protestants, who have historically been at the forefront of many progressive religious actions. First, the chapter outlines some of the distinctive cultural challenges Mainliners face when they try to bring a specifically religious voice to progressive political advocacy. It then shows how Mainline Protestant identity and communication style, as well as the larger reputation of vocal conservative Christianity in public, all create cultural gaps that politically progressive Protestants must confront and engage.Less
Paul Lichterman and Rhys H. Williams’s chapter focuses on theologically liberal Mainline Protestants, who have historically been at the forefront of many progressive religious actions. First, the chapter outlines some of the distinctive cultural challenges Mainliners face when they try to bring a specifically religious voice to progressive political advocacy. It then shows how Mainline Protestant identity and communication style, as well as the larger reputation of vocal conservative Christianity in public, all create cultural gaps that politically progressive Protestants must confront and engage.
Amanda J. Baugh
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520291164
- eISBN:
- 9780520965003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520291164.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Chapter 5 examines Faith in Place’s use of language around religious, racial, and ethnic diversity. It demonstrates that Faith in Place’s use of “interfaith” discourse helped the organization build a ...
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Chapter 5 examines Faith in Place’s use of language around religious, racial, and ethnic diversity. It demonstrates that Faith in Place’s use of “interfaith” discourse helped the organization build a racially and ethnically diverse coalition, while at the same time limiting the kinds of people willing to associate with the Faith in Place. By using the discourse of “interfaith,” Faith in Place tapped into a resonant trope in American life – the valuing of religious diversity and religious differences – to talk about a subject with a much more difficult set of associations: race.Less
Chapter 5 examines Faith in Place’s use of language around religious, racial, and ethnic diversity. It demonstrates that Faith in Place’s use of “interfaith” discourse helped the organization build a racially and ethnically diverse coalition, while at the same time limiting the kinds of people willing to associate with the Faith in Place. By using the discourse of “interfaith,” Faith in Place tapped into a resonant trope in American life – the valuing of religious diversity and religious differences – to talk about a subject with a much more difficult set of associations: race.
Susan B. Ridgely
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- December 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199755073
- eISBN:
- 9780190619107
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199755073.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Using interviews with mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, Practicing What the Doctor Preached explores the mutual relationship between James C. Dobson, Focus on the Family, and the actual values ...
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Using interviews with mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, Practicing What the Doctor Preached explores the mutual relationship between James C. Dobson, Focus on the Family, and the actual values and practices of Focus’s users. It asks to what extent Focus shaped the practices of their listeners to its own ends and to what extent Focus’s understanding of its members’ practices and needs shaped the organization. It follows that interaction by attending to Focus’s listeners and their changing needs over the organization’s first forty years, years that saw the organization expand from one centered on childrearing to one deeply engaged in public debates over sexuality, education, and politics. Dobson extended the central relationship of evangelical Christianity from the individual and Jesus to the individual as constituted through the family and Jesus by theories in developmental psychology that melded parental modeling with a conservative Christian theology of sinfulness, salvation, and a living relationship with Jesus. While evangelical Christians may have always placed importance on their familial responsibilities, Dobson and his supporters emphasized that one could only be in a right relationship with Jesus if one was enacting one’s role in the family. Women, for instance, could come to know God only through submitting to their husbands and nurturing their children to know God, just as Jesus had. Such uniting of family life and religion drew Focus users to the organization, just as it forced them to wrestle with what it meant to be a Christian wife, husband, mother, father, son, or daughter.Less
Using interviews with mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, Practicing What the Doctor Preached explores the mutual relationship between James C. Dobson, Focus on the Family, and the actual values and practices of Focus’s users. It asks to what extent Focus shaped the practices of their listeners to its own ends and to what extent Focus’s understanding of its members’ practices and needs shaped the organization. It follows that interaction by attending to Focus’s listeners and their changing needs over the organization’s first forty years, years that saw the organization expand from one centered on childrearing to one deeply engaged in public debates over sexuality, education, and politics. Dobson extended the central relationship of evangelical Christianity from the individual and Jesus to the individual as constituted through the family and Jesus by theories in developmental psychology that melded parental modeling with a conservative Christian theology of sinfulness, salvation, and a living relationship with Jesus. While evangelical Christians may have always placed importance on their familial responsibilities, Dobson and his supporters emphasized that one could only be in a right relationship with Jesus if one was enacting one’s role in the family. Women, for instance, could come to know God only through submitting to their husbands and nurturing their children to know God, just as Jesus had. Such uniting of family life and religion drew Focus users to the organization, just as it forced them to wrestle with what it meant to be a Christian wife, husband, mother, father, son, or daughter.
Andrew Briggs, Hans Halvorson, and Andrew Steane
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198808282
- eISBN:
- 9780191866944
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198808282.003.0009
- Subject:
- Physics, History of Physics
In this the second of the three autobiographical chapters, Andrew Steane (A.S.) recounts some of his experiences. He describes a life at a crossing-point of conservative and liberal forms of ...
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In this the second of the three autobiographical chapters, Andrew Steane (A.S.) recounts some of his experiences. He describes a life at a crossing-point of conservative and liberal forms of Christian witness, and conscious of both modern-day atheist and theist values and points of view. This has been difficult but, hopefully, creative. A.S. describes his reading of Bertrand Russell as a young man, and of later being waylaid by Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. He gives brief reactions and asks what the reaction to such books shows us about contemporary culture. More penetrating authors have been Rowan Williams, R. S. Thomas, Brian McLaren, and N. T. Wright. A.S. describes aspects of Christian community life that have proved positive and significant for him.Less
In this the second of the three autobiographical chapters, Andrew Steane (A.S.) recounts some of his experiences. He describes a life at a crossing-point of conservative and liberal forms of Christian witness, and conscious of both modern-day atheist and theist values and points of view. This has been difficult but, hopefully, creative. A.S. describes his reading of Bertrand Russell as a young man, and of later being waylaid by Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. He gives brief reactions and asks what the reaction to such books shows us about contemporary culture. More penetrating authors have been Rowan Williams, R. S. Thomas, Brian McLaren, and N. T. Wright. A.S. describes aspects of Christian community life that have proved positive and significant for him.
