The Gold Coast Church And The Ghetto

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The Gold Coast Church and the Ghetto

Author : James K. Wellman
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : History
ISBN : 0252068041

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The Gold Coast Church and the Ghetto by James K. Wellman Pdf

"One of the nation's best known churches, Fourth Presbyterian is a thriving mainline church housed in an elegant Gothic building in Chicago's wealthy Gold Coast neighborhood. Less than a mile to the west is another world: the Cabrini-Green low- income housing projects. In this evenhanded account, James Wellman surveys the church's history of balancing its theological aims and its social boundaries and sheds light on the strengths and weaknesses of liberal Protestantism as a modern religious institution. Wellman shows how Fourth Presbyterian has moved from an establishment congregation to what he calls a lay liberal church working to overcome class and race inequality in its urban context while carving out its institutional identity in an increasingly pluralistic environment. By examining the church's four main leaders over the course of the century, Wellman tracks Fourth Presbyterian's gradual shift away from an evangelical role and toward the current focus on service, epitomized in the church's main outreach program, an extensive volunteer tutoring program that serves hundreds of Cabrini-Green residents each week. In documenting Fourth Presbyterian's struggle to meet the needs of its privileged congregants while challenging them to move beyond exclusive boundaries of race and class, The Gold Coast Church and the Ghetto opens a window into the past, present, and future of the Protestant mainline."

High on God

Author : James Wellman Jr.,Katie Corcoran,Kate Stockly
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2020-01-10
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780190065102

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High on God by James Wellman Jr.,Katie Corcoran,Kate Stockly Pdf

"God is like a drug, a high, [I] can't wait for the next hit." This direct quote from a megachurch member speaking about his experience of God might be dismissed as some sort of spiritually-induced drug riff. However, according to the research in this book, it was not only sincere, but a deeply felt, and sought-after sensibility. Megachurch attendees desire this first-hand experience of God, and many report finding it in their congregations. The book focuses on the emotional, social and religious dynamics that pull thousands of people into megachurches and how those churches make some feel like they are "high on God" and can't wait to get their next spiritual "hit." High on God gives the first robust and plausible explanation for why megachurches have conquered the churchgoing market of America. Without condescension or exaggeration, the authors show the genius of megachurches: the power of charisma, the design of facilities, the training of leaders, the emotional dynamics, and the strategies that bring people together and lead them to serve and help others. Using Emile Durkheim's concept of homo duplex, the authors plot the strategies that megachurches employ to satisfy the core human craving for personal meaning and social integration, as well as personal identity and communal solidarity. The authors also show how these churches can go wrong, sometimes tragically so. But they argue that, for the most part, megachurches help their attendees find themselves through bonding with and serving others.

The Urban Church Imagined

Author : Jessica M. Barron,Rhys H. Williams
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 203 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2017-11-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781479877669

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The Urban Church Imagined by Jessica M. Barron,Rhys H. Williams Pdf

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.

The American Church Experience

Author : Thomas A. Askew,Richard V. Pierard
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2008-08-06
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781725222953

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The American Church Experience by Thomas A. Askew,Richard V. Pierard Pdf

"A welcome addition to the ongoing reflection on the meaning of religion in America. The authors are both responsible as scholars and accessible as writers. Teachers, students, clergy, and laity will find this book worthwhile. It deserves a wide reading." -- Ronald A. Wells, Professor of History, Calvin College; editor, Fides et Historia "This is a most welcome update of the first textbook survey of American church history. The American Church Experience retains all the virtues of the original--brevity, clarity, and evenhandedness--while incorporating recent historical developments and contemporary historical scholarship." --Michael S. Hamilton, Associate Professor of History, Seattle Pacific University "Specialists and general readers alike should welcome this valuable new resource in American religious history. I certainly plan to recommend it to my students." --Garth M. Rosell, Professor of Church History and Director of the Ockenga Institute at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary "Captures the ebb and flow of religious history in a scholarly and precise way while retaining a highly readable quality. Students will be challenged and laypeople will be informed about America's fascinating religious heritage. This book is a must for the pastor's study and for the church library." --Ruth A. Tucker, author of From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions "Tom Askew and Dick Pierard provide a lively and succinct account of the origins, expansion, and struggles of the faith in America. Their analyses are enhanced by commendable balance and a healthy global perspective. This volume will prove to be an excellent resource for church study groups as well as for undergraduate and seminary classes." --James A. Patterson, Professor of Christian Studies, Union University

The Political Influence of Churches

Author : Paul A. Djupe,Christopher P. Gilbert
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 295 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780521871655

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The Political Influence of Churches by Paul A. Djupe,Christopher P. Gilbert Pdf

Abstract:

Shades of White Flight

Author : Mark T. Mulder
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 198 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2015-03-12
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780813575476

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Shades of White Flight by Mark T. Mulder Pdf

Since World War II, historians have analyzed a phenomenon of “white flight” plaguing the urban areas of the northern United States. One of the most interesting cases of “white flight” occurred in the Chicago neighborhoods of Englewood and Roseland, where seven entire church congregations from one denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, left the city in the 1960s and 1970s and relocated their churches to nearby suburbs. In Shades of White Flight, sociologist Mark T. Mulder investigates the migration of these Chicago church members, revealing how these churches not only failed to inhibit white flight, but actually facilitated the congregations’ departure. Using a wealth of both archival and interview data, Mulder sheds light on the forces that shaped these midwestern neighborhoods and shows that, surprisingly, evangelical religion fostered both segregation as well as the decline of urban stability. Indeed, the Roseland and Englewood stories show how religion—often used to foster community and social connectedness—can sometimes help to disintegrate neighborhoods. Mulder describes how the Dutch CRC formed an insular social circle that focused on the local church and Christian school—instead of the local park or square or market—as the center point of the community. Rather than embrace the larger community, the CRC subculture sheltered themselves and their families within these two places. Thus it became relatively easy—when black families moved into the neighborhood—to sell the church and school and relocate in the suburbs. This is especially true because, in these congregations, authority rested at the local church level and in fact they owned the buildings themselves. Revealing how a dominant form of evangelical church polity—congregationalism—functioned within the larger phenomenon of white flight, Shades of White Flight lends new insights into the role of religion and how it can affect social change, not always for the better.

The Methodist Experience in America Volume I

Author : Kenneth E. Rowe,Dr. Russell E. Richey,Jean Miller Schmidt
Publisher : Abingdon Press
Page : 763 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2010-08-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781426719370

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The Methodist Experience in America Volume I by Kenneth E. Rowe,Dr. Russell E. Richey,Jean Miller Schmidt Pdf

Beginning in 1760, this comprehensive history charts the growth and development of the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren church family up and through the year 2000. Extraordinarily well-documented study with elaborate notes that will guide the reader to recent and standard literature on the numerous topics, figures, developments, and events covered. The volume is a companion to and designed to be used with THE METHODIST EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA: A SOURCEBOOK, for which it provides background, context and interpretation. Contents include: Launching the Methodist Movements 1760-1768 Structuring the Immigrant Initiatives 1769-1778 Making Church 1777-1784 Constituting Methodism 1784-1792 Spreaking Scriptural Holiness 1792-1816 Snapshot I- Methodism in 1816: Baltimore 1816 Building for Ministry and Nuture 1816-1850s Dividing by Mission, Ethnicity, Gender, and Vision 1816-1850s Dividing over Slavery, Region, Authority, and Race 1830-1860s Embracing the War Cause(s) 1860-1865 Reconstructing Methodism(s) 1866-1884 Snapshot II- Methodism in 1884: Wilker-Barre, PA 1884 Reshaping the Church for Mission 1884-1939 Taking on the World 1884-1939 Warring for World Order and Against Worldliness Within 1930-1968 Snapshot III- Methodism in 1968: Denver 1968 Merging and Reappraising 1968-1984 Holding Fast/Pressing On 1984-2000 A wide-angled narrative that attends to religious life at the local level, to missions and missionary societies , to justice struggles, to camp and quarterly meetings, to the Sunday school and catechisms, to architecture and worship, to higher education, to hospitals and homes, to temperance, to deaconesses and to Methodist experiences in war and in peace-making A volume that attends critically to Methodism’s dilemmas over and initiatives with regard to race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and relation to culture A documentation and display of the rich diversity of the Methodist experience A retelling of the contests over and evolution of Methodist/EUB organization, authority, ministerial orders and ethical/doctrinal emphases

Ecumenism in Retreat

Author : Martin Camroux
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2016-05-27
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781498234009

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Ecumenism in Retreat by Martin Camroux Pdf

In his enthronement sermon as archbishop of Canterbury in 1942 William Temple famously declared the ecumenical movement to be "the great new fact of our era." In this book Martin Camroux tries to face honestly how hope met reality. By the end of the century the enthusiasm had largely dissipated, the organizations that represented it were in decline, and organic unity looked further away than ever. One significant ecumenical merger took place in Britain--the creation in 1972 of the United Reformed Church, which saw its formation as a catalyst for ecumenical renewal. Its hopes, however, were largely illusory. With the failure of its ecumenical hope the church had little idea of its purpose, found great difficulty establishing an identity, and faced a catastrophic implosion in membership. This first serious study of the United Reformed Church also includes groundbreaking analysis of the unity process, the mixed fortunes of Local Ecumenical Projects and how the national ecumenical organizations withered. All of this is put in the wider context of religion in British society including secularization, individualism, and post-denominationalism. What failed was not ecumenism but a particular model of it and the book ends with a commitment to a renewed ecumenical hope.

Worship Frames

Author : Deborah J. Kapp
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 153 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2008-09-16
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781566997065

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Worship Frames by Deborah J. Kapp Pdf

Worship is a congregation's most important practice. In worship we encounter God's gracious presence and come face to face with the frailty, goodness, and potential of our humanity. We are comforted, corrected, forgiven, healed, challenged, and sometimes even disturbed by the divine and one another. We are morally formed and sent by God into the world. The mysterious and uncontrollable work of the Spirit is at the heart of all genuine worship. Yet worshipers and leaders work hard to worship. In Worship Frames, Deborah Kapp explores how the sociological concept of frames can help us better understand the social and human dynamics of worship. Frames are interpretive schemes or ideas that help people locate, understand, and identify their experiences. For example, opening a service with a period of silent reflection followed by a sober hymn is a different frame for worship than opening with congregational announcements and a loud call-and-response session. She has found that this theory has opened her eyes to dynamics in worship she had not noticed before and best helped her understand differences in worship styles. By understanding our frames, we can learn how to reframe worship to give fuller and richer expression to our faith. Kapp shares her insights with congregations and worship leaders so they will gain new perspectives from which to analyze and design worship, and deepen their perceptions about the role worship plays in faith communities.

Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest

Author : Patricia O'Connell Killen,Mark Silk
Publisher : Rowman Altamira
Page : 210 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2004-03-15
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780759115750

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Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest by Patricia O'Connell Killen,Mark Silk Pdf

When asked their religious identification, more people answer 'none' in the Pacific Northwest than in any other region of the United States. But this does not mean that the region's religious institutions are without power or that Northwesterners who do attend no place of worship are without spiritual commitments. With no dominant denomination, Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews, adherents of Pacific Rim religious traditions, indigenous groups, spiritual environmentalists, and secularists must vie or sometimes must cooperate with each other to address the regions' pressing economic, environmental, and social issues. One cannot understand this complex region without understanding the fluid religious commitments of its inhabitants. And one cannot understand religion in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska without Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest.

Pillars of Faith

Author : Nancy Tatom Ammerman
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Religion
ISBN : 052093833X

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Pillars of Faith by Nancy Tatom Ammerman Pdf

At the close of the twentieth century the United States was, by all accounts, among the most religious of modern Western nations. Pillars of Faith describes the diversity of tradition and the commonality of organizational strategy that characterize the more than 300,000 congregations in the United States, arguing that they provide the social bonds, spiritual traditions, and community connections that are vital to an increasingly diverse society. Nancy Tatom Ammerman follows several traditions--Mainline Protestant, Conservative Protestant, African American Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox, Jewish, Sectarian, and other religions--as they establish discernible patterns of congregational life that fit their own history, tradition, and relationship to American society. Her methodologically sophisticated study balances survey research with interviews conducted with people from ninety-one different religious traditions and ethnographic observations that yield new information on many dimensions of American congregational life. Her book is the first to depict the complex resource base supporting American congregations, the enormous web of partners with whom congregations work, and the range of institutional patterns they exhibit. Contrary to many gloomy forecasts, Pillars of Faith: American Congregations and Their Partners argues that organized religion in the United States is robust and vigorous--and that it can handle the increasing demands of escalating diversity and mobility the future is sure to bring.

The Subversive Evangelical

Author : Peter J. Schuurman
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2019-06-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780773558342

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The Subversive Evangelical by Peter J. Schuurman Pdf

Evangelicals have been scandalized by their association with Donald Trump, their megachurches summarily dismissed as “religious Walmarts.” In The Subversive Evangelical Peter Schuurman shows how a growing group of “reflexive evangelicals” use irony to critique their own tradition and distinguish themselves from the stereotype of right-wing evangelicalism. Entering the Meeting House – an Ontario-based Anabaptist megachurch – as a participant observer, Schuurman discovers that the marketing is clever and the venue (a rented movie theatre) is attractive to the more than five thousand weekly attendees. But the heart of the church is its charismatic leader, Bruxy Cavey, whose anti-religious teaching and ironic tattoos offer a fresh image for evangelicals. This charisma, Schuurman argues, is not just the power of one individual; it is a dramatic production in which Cavey, his staff, and attendees cooperate, cultivating an identity as an “irreligious” megachurch and providing followers with a more culturally acceptable way to practise their faith in a secular age. Going behind the scenes to small group meetings, church dance parties, and the homes of attendees to investigate what motivates these reflexive evangelicals, Schuurman reveals a playful and provocative counterculture that distances itself from prevailing stereotypes while still embracing a conservative Christian faith.

America's Religions

Author : Peter W. Williams
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 706 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780252075513

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America's Religions by Peter W. Williams Pdf

A panoramic introduction to religion in America, newly revised and updated

Congregations in America

Author : Mark Chaves
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2009-07-01
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780674029446

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Congregations in America by Mark Chaves Pdf

More Americans belong to religious congregations than to any other kind of voluntary association. What these vast numbers amount to--what people are doing in the over 300,000 churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples in the United States--is a question that resonates through every quarter of American society, particularly in these times of "faith-based initiatives," "moral majorities," and militant fundamentalism. And it is a question answered in depth and in detail in Congregations in America. Drawing on the 1998 National Congregations Study--the first systematic study of its kind--as well as a broad range of quantitative, qualitative, and historical evidence, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the most significant form of collective religious expression in American society: local congregations. Among its more surprising findings, Congregations in America reveals that, despite the media focus on the political and social activities of religious groups, the arts are actually far more central to the workings of congregations. Here we see how, far from emphasizing the pursuit of charity or justice through social services or politics, congregations mainly traffic in ritual, knowledge, and beauty through the cultural activities of worship, religious education, and the arts. Along with clarifying--and debunking--arguments on both sides of the debate over faith-based initiatives, the information presented here comprises a unique and invaluable resource, answering previously unanswerable questions about the size, nature, make-up, finances, activities, and proclivities of these organizations at the very center of American life.

Handbook of Religion and Social Institutions

Author : Helen Rose Ebaugh
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2007-10-23
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780387237893

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Handbook of Religion and Social Institutions by Helen Rose Ebaugh Pdf

Handbook for Religion and Social Institutions is written for sociologists who study a variety of sub-disciplines and are interested in recent studies and theoretical approaches that relate religious variables to their particular area of interest. The handbook focuses on several major themes: - Social Institutions such as Politics, Economics, Education, Health and Social Welfare - Family and the Life Cycle - Inequality - Social Control - Culture - Religion as a Social Institution and in a Global Perspective This handbook will be of interest to social scientists including sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and other researchers whose study brings them in contact with the study of religion and its impact on social institutions.