The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline
The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline

Author: Elesha J. Coffman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-04-04

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0199985863

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline offers the first full-length, critical study of The Christian Century, widely regarded as the most influential religious magazine in America for most of the twentieth century and hailed by Time as "Protestantism's most vigorous voice." Elesha Coffman narrates the previously untold story of the magazine, exploring its chronic financial struggles, evolving editorial positions, and often fractious relations among writers, editors, and readers, as well as the central role it played in the rise of mainline Protestantism. Coffman situates this narrative within larger trends in American religion and society. Under the editorship of Charles Clayton Morrison from 1908-1947, the magazine spoke out about many of the most pressing social and political issues of the time, from child labor and women's suffrage to war, racism, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It published such luminaries as Jane Addams, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Martin Luther King Jr. and jostled with the Nation, the New Republic, and Commonweal, as it sought to enlarge its readership and solidify its position as the voice of liberal Protestantism. But by the 1950s, internal strife between liberals and neo-orthodox and the rising challenge of Billy Graham's evangelicalism would shatter the illusion of Protestant consensus. The coalition of highly educated, theologically and politically liberal Protestants associated with the magazine made a strong case for their own status as shepherds of the American soul but failed to attract a popular following that matched their intellectual and cultural clout. Elegantly written and persuasively argued, The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline takes readers inside one of the most important religious magazines of the modern era.

New SCM Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship
New SCM Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship

Author: Paul F. Bradshaw

Publisher: Hymns Ancient and Modern Ltd

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 509

ISBN-13: 0334049326

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This reference work incorporates the insights and expertise of leading liturgists and scholars of liturgy at work today, comprising 200 entries on important topics in the field, from vestments and offertories to ordination and divine unction. It is systematically organized and alphabetically arranged for ease of use. It also includes comprehensive bibliographies and reading lists, to bring the work fully up to date and to encourage further reading and research.

Southern White Ministers and the Civil Rights Movement
Southern White Ministers and the Civil Rights Movement

Author: Elaine Allen Lechtreck

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2018-05-29

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 1496817540

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In 1963, the Sunday after four black girls were killed by a bomb in a Birmingham church, George William Floyd, a Church of Christ minister, preached a sermon based on the Golden Rule. He pronounced that Jesus Christ was asking Christians to view the bombing from the perspective of their black neighbors and asserted, "We don't realize it yet, but because Martin Luther King Jr. is preaching nonviolence, which is Jesus's way, someday Martin Luther King Jr. will be seen as the best friend the white man in the South has ever had." During the sermon, members of the congregation yelled, "You devil, you!" and, immediately, Floyd was dismissed. Although not every anti-segregation white minister was as outspoken as Pastor Floyd, many signed petitions, organized interracial groups, or preached gently from a gospel of love and justice. Those who spoke and acted outright on behalf of the civil rights movement were harassed, beaten, and even jailed. Based on interviews and personal memoirs, Southern White Ministers and the Civil Rights Movement traces the efforts of these clergymen who--deeply moved by the struggle of African Americans--looked for ways to reconcile the history of discrimination and slavery with Christian principles and to help their black neighbors. While many understand the role political leaders on national stages played in challenging the status quo of the South, this book reveals the significant contribution of these ministers in breaking down segregation through preaching a message of love.

Women in the Church
Women in the Church

Author: Lesly F. Massey

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 9780786411955

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The status of women in the church is one of the most hotly debated issues of our time. Some Protestant churches have either abandoned or radically modified their interpretations of Biblical passages to allow women to take leadership roles and to accommodate social change; for others, the Old and New Testament passages forbid women to take leadership roles, even though equality between the sexes was taught by Jesus Christ and demonstrated in the early Christian community. The current fervor concerning women in the church is examined in this book, which also traces the status of women through 2,000 years of church history. Chapters are devoted to women in the life and ministry of Jesus, women in the earliest Christian community, solutions to transitional problems, the church's reversion to patriarchal models, Alexander Campbell and the American Restoration Movement in the 19th century, the antislavery movement and modern feminism, and the differing stances taken by churches concerning women in leadership roles.

Yet Saints Their Watch are Keeping
Yet Saints Their Watch are Keeping

Author: J. Michael Utzinger

Publisher: Mercer University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 9780865549029

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Evangelicals have always worried about how to be the Church in "the world." They have also struggled to determine with which institutions to attach themselves. Examining the idea of the church, or ecclesiology, within the Northern Protestant "establishment" in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, J. Michael Utzinger argues that evangelical ecclesiology was characterized by denominational ambivalence. This ambivalence meant that, while Northern Protestants valued their denominational affiliations, they also had no compunction to work outside of them. Trans-denominational affiliations, a result of this ambivalence, often acted as an agent for change that not only disturbed but revitalized their home denominations. Evangelicals believed their denominations were worth fighting for, even while they criticized their respective denomination's shortcomings. Faced with what they perceived to be the waning of their cultural influence, different parties of evangelicals in the late-nineteenth worked to change the vision of the church within their home denominations. Utzinger examines the theological sources of ecclesiological change (doctrine of the Holy Spirit, eschatology, and methods of cultural engagement) that evangelicals promoted, and how these influenced later fundamentalism and modernism. Further, he carefully charts the dynamics of conflict and compromise within the Northern Protestant establishment churches. Using the Northern Baptist Convention, the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and Disciples of Christ as case studies, Utzinger shows that, despite their infighting, evangelicals typically found ways to cooperate with one another in order to preserve their denominational institutions. In other words, the controversies' results were not only contention but compromise. And, rather than indicating the eclipse of denominationalism, fundamentalism and modernism acted to revitalize those institutions and help them persist. - Publisher.

The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement
The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement

Author: Douglas A. Foster

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 902

ISBN-13: 9780802838988

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Over ten years in the making, The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement offers for the first time a sweeping historical and theological treatment of this complex, vibrant global communion. Written by more than 300 contributors, this major reference work contains over 700 original articles covering all of the significant individuals, events, places, and theological tenets that have shaped the Movement. Much more than simply a historical dictionary, this volume also constitutes an interpretive work reflecting historical consensus among Stone-Campbell scholars, even as it attempts to present a fair, representative picture of the rich heritage that is the Stone-Campbell Movement."--BOOK JACKET.

Chalice Introduction to Disciples Theology
Chalice Introduction to Disciples Theology

Author:

Publisher: Chalice Press

Published:

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9780827205628

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Chalice Introduction to Disciples Theology offers a comprehensive introduction to theology and ethics from the standpoint of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Including a broad range of Disciples authors, the text represents the racial-ethnic, generational, and theological diversity that characterizes the denomination from a postmodern and postcolonial view. Contributors include: D. Newell Williams, James O. Duke, Verity Jones, William J. Nottingham, Hee An Choi, William Tabbernee, W. Clark Gilpin, Kristine A. Culp, Don Browning, Clark M. Williamson, Rita Nakashima Brock, Dyron Daughrity, Victor L. Hunter, Sharon E. Watkins, Keith Watkins, Thomas F. Best, Belva Brown Jordan, Stephanie A. Paulsell, Kay Bessler Northcutt, Mark Miller McLemore, Darryl Trimiew, Joe R. Jones, William Wright, Boseale Eale, Karen-Marie Yust, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Joseph D. Driskill, Angel Luis Rivera-Agosto, Michael K. Kinnamon, Michael St. A. Miller, Carmelo Álvarez, Christobal Mareco Lird, Don A. Pittman, Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, and Peter Goodwin Heltzel

At the Blue Hole
At the Blue Hole

Author: Jack R. Reese

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2021-10-14

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1467463132

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“Said plainly, churches are in trouble. All churches are, but certainly Churches of Christ. Whether or not they recognize the threats they are facing is a different matter. The future is fraught with dangers. Many won’t make it.” On New Year’s weekend, 1831–32, two churches came together in Lexington, Kentucky, in what is often known today as the Restoration Movement. Among the churches that emerged from this movement were Churches of Christ, which grew in the nineteenth century and then flourished in the twentieth. At their zenith, around 1990, there were over 13,000 Church of Christ congregations in the United States with nearly 1.3 million members. Especially in the southern states where Churches of Christ were concentrated, it seemed inconceivable that they would ever face their own death. Like many communities of faith, these churches are now in rapid decline. The numbers are devastating. At the current trajectory, Churches of Christ in America, with a membership of just over a million, will be less than a quarter their current size in thirty years. As they awaken to their crisis, many of them are beginning to see themselves at the edge. This book is an elegy for those churches. But it is also a story of hope and promise. As from the “Blue Hole”—the tiny, hidden spring from which flows the San Antonio River, near where Jack Reese ministers—there is still abundant life and grace to be found flowing into Churches of Christ, waiting to be uncovered. Anyone wondering how to stem the seemingly inevitable ebb of the fading Western church will find solace and help in Reese’s account of a once-thriving fellowship of churches that, God willing, may yet emerge from the grave into the light of resurrection.