Read and Download eBook Full
Author: Rhiannon Grant
Publisher:
Published: 2018
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9789004378704
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn British Quakers and Religious Language, Rhiannon Grant explores the ways in which this community discusses the Divine. She identifies characteristic patterns of language use and uncovers the philosophical and theological claims that support these patterns.
Author: Rhiannon Grant
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2018-06-05
Total Pages: 104
ISBN-13: 9004379142
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn British Quakers and Religious Language, Rhiannon Grant explores the ways in which this community discusses the Divine. She identifies characteristic patterns of language use and, through a detailed analysis of examples from published sources, uncovers the philosophical and theological claims which support these patterns. These claims are not always explicit within the Quaker community, which does not have written creeds. Instead, implicit claims are often being made with community functions in mind. These can include a desire to balance potentially conflicting needs, such as the wish to have a single unified community that simultaneously welcomes diversity of belief. Having examined these factors, Grant connects the claims made to wider developments in the disciplines of theology, philosophy of religion, and religious studies, especially to the increase in multiple religious belonging, the work of nonrealist theologians such as Don Cupitt, and pluralist philosophers of religion such as John Hick.
Author: Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia
Publisher: Interactive Publications Pty Ltd
Published: 2015-07
Total Pages: 22
ISBN-13: 0975157965
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAdvices and queries designed to challenge and inspire Australian Quakers in their personal lives and in their life as a religious community.
Author: Pink Dandelion
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-04-08
Total Pages: 169
ISBN-13: 1351728873
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book explores the inter-relationship between religious groups and wider society and examines the way religious groups change in relation to societal norms, potentially to the point of undergoing processes of ‘internal secularisation’ within secular and secularist cultures. Received sociological wisdom suggests that over time religious groups moderate their claims. This comes with the potential loss of new adherents, for theorists of secularisation suggest unique or universal, rather than moderate, truth claims appear attractive to would-be recruits. At the same time, religious groups need to appear equivalent, in terms of harmlessness, to state-sanctioned religious expression in order to secure rights. Thus, religious organisations face a perpetual conundrum. Using British Quakers as a case study as they moved from a counter-cultural group to an accepted and accepting part of twentieth- and twenty-first-century society, the author builds on models of religion and non-religion in terms of flows and explores the consequences of religious assimilation when the process of constructing both distinctive appeal and ‘harmlessness’ in pursuit of rights is played out in a secular culture. A major contribution to the sociology of religion, The Cultivation of Conformity presents a new theory of internal secularisation as the ultimate stage of the cultivation of conformity, and a model of the way sects and society inter-relate.
Author: Maria Kennedy
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2019-09-02
Total Pages: 106
ISBN-13: 900441519X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDr Kennedy’s work is a sociological study of Quakers that investigates the impact that sectarianism has had on identity construction within the Religious Society of Friends in Ireland. The research highlights individual Friends’ complex and hybrid cultural, national and theological identities – mirrored by the Society’s corporate identity. This monograph focuses specifically on examples of political and theological hybridity. These hybrid identities resulted in tensions which impact on relationships between Friends and the wider organisation. How Friends negotiate and accommodate these diverse identities is explored. It is argued that Irish Quakers prioritise ‘relational unity’ and have developed a distinctive approach to complex identity management. Kennedy asserts that in the two Irish states, ‘Quaker’ represents a meta-identity that is counter-cultural in its non-sectarianism, although this is more problematic within the organisation. Furthermore, by modelling an alternative, non-sectarian identity, Quakers in Ireland contribute to building capacity for transformation from oppositional, binary identities to more fluid and inclusive ones.
Author: Barry Levy
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 1988
Total Pages: 363
ISBN-13: 0195049764
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis brilliant study shows the pivotal role the Quakers played in the origins and development of America's family ideology. Levy argues that the Quakers brought a new vision of family and social life to America--one that contrasted sharply with the harsh, formal world of the New England Puritans. The Quakers stressed affection, friendship and hospitality, the importance of women in the home, and the value of self-disciplined, non-coercive childrearing. This book explains how and why the Quakers have had such a profound cultural impact on America and what the Quakers' experience with their own radical family system tells us about American families.
Author: Geoffrey Durham
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2010-11-16
Total Pages: 155
ISBN-13: 0300175019
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWho are the Quakers, what do they believe, and what do they practice? The Religious Society of Friends--also known as Quakers---believes that everyone can have a direct experience of God. Quakers express this in a unique form of worship that inspires them to work for change in themselves and in the world. In "The Spirit of the Quakers," Geoffrey Durham, himself a Friend, explains Quakerism through quotations from writings that cover 350 years, from the beginnings of the movement to the present day.Peace and equality are major themes in the book, but readers will also find thought-provoking passages on the importance of action for social change, the primacy of truth, the value of simplicity, the need for a sense of community, and much more. The quoted texts convey a powerful religious impulse, courage in the face of persecution, the warmth of human relationships, and dedicated perseverance in promoting just causes. The extended quotations have been carefully selected from well-known Quakers such as George Fox, William Penn, John Greenleaf Whittier, Elizabeth Fry and John Woolman, as well as many contemporary Friends. Together with Geoffrey Durham's enlightening and sympathetic introductions to the texts, the extracts from these writers form an engaging, often moving guide to this accessible and open-hearted religious faith.
Author: Katharine Gerbner
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2018-02-07
Total Pages: 293
ISBN-13: 0812294904
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCould slaves become Christian? If so, did their conversion lead to freedom? If not, then how could perpetual enslavement be justified? In Christian Slavery, Katharine Gerbner contends that religion was fundamental to the development of both slavery and race in the Protestant Atlantic world. Slave owners in the Caribbean and elsewhere established governments and legal codes based on an ideology of "Protestant Supremacy," which excluded the majority of enslaved men and women from Christian communities. For slaveholders, Christianity was a sign of freedom, and most believed that slaves should not be eligible for conversion. When Protestant missionaries arrived in the plantation colonies intending to convert enslaved Africans to Christianity in the 1670s, they were appalled that most slave owners rejected the prospect of slave conversion. Slaveholders regularly attacked missionaries, both verbally and physically, and blamed the evangelizing newcomers for slave rebellions. In response, Quaker, Anglican, and Moravian missionaries articulated a vision of "Christian Slavery," arguing that Christianity would make slaves hardworking and loyal. Over time, missionaries increasingly used the language of race to support their arguments for slave conversion. Enslaved Christians, meanwhile, developed an alternate vision of Protestantism that linked religious conversion to literacy and freedom. Christian Slavery shows how the contentions between slave owners, enslaved people, and missionaries transformed the practice of Protestantism and the language of race in the early modern Atlantic world.
Author: Thomas D. Hamm
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 306
ISBN-13: 0231123639
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Quakers in America is a multifaceted history of the Religious Society of Friends and a fascinating study of its culture and controversies today. Lively vignettes of Conservative, Evangelical, Friends General Conference, and Friends United meetings illuminate basic Quaker theology and reflect the group's diversity while also highlighting the fundamental unity within the religion. Quaker culture encompasses a rich tradition of practice even as believers continue to debate whether Quakerism is necessarily Christian, where religious authority should reside, how one transmits faith to children, and how gender and sexuality shape religious belief and behavior. Praised for its rich insight and wide-ranging perspective, The Quakers in America is a penetrating account of an influential, vibrant, and often misunderstood religious sect. Known best for their long-standing commitment to social activism, pacifism, fair treatment for Native Americans, and equality for women, the Quakers have influenced American thought and society far out of proportion to their relatively small numbers. Whether in the foreign policy arena (the American Friends Service Committee), in education (the Friends schools), or in the arts (prominent Quakers profiled in this book include James Turrell, Bonnie Raitt, and James Michener), Quakers have left a lasting imprint on American life. This multifaceted book is a concise history of the Religious Society of Friends; an introduction to its beliefs and practices; and a vivid picture of the culture and controversies of the Friends today. The book opens with lively vignettes of Conservative, Evangelical, Friends General Conference, and Friends United meetings that illuminate basic Quaker concepts and theology and reflect the group's diversity in the wake of the sectarian splintering of the nineteenth century. Yet the book also examines commonalities among American Friends that demonstrate a fundamental unity within the religion: their commitments to worship, the ministry of all believers, decision making based on seeking spiritual consensus rather than voting, a simple lifestyle, and education. Thomas Hamm shows that Quaker culture encompasses a rich tradition of practice even as believers continue to debate a number of central questions: Is Quakerism necessarily Christian? Where should religious authority reside? Is the self sacred? How does one transmit faith to children? How do gender and sexuality shape religious belief and behavior? Hamm's analysis of these debates reveals a vital religion that prizes both unity and diversity.
