Christianity in the Twentieth Century

Christianity in the Twentieth Century

Author: Brian Stanley

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 501

ISBN-13: 0691196842

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"[This book] charts the transformation of one of the world's great religions during an age marked by world wars, genocide, nationalism, decolonization, and powerful ideological currents, many of them hostile to Christianity"--Amazon.com.


The Rise of Liberal Religion

The Rise of Liberal Religion

Author: Matthew Hedstrom

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0195374495

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Winner of the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Best First Book Prize of the American Society of Church History Society for U. S. Intellectual History Notable Title in American Intellectual History The story of liberal religion in the twentieth century, Matthew S. Hedstrom contends, is a story of cultural ascendency. This may come as a surprise-most scholarship in American religious history, after all, equates the numerical decline of the Protestant mainline with the failure of religious liberalism. Yet a look beyond the pews, into the wider culture, reveals a more complex and fascinating story, one Hedstrom tells in The Rise of Liberal Religion. Hedstrom attends especially to the critically important yet little-studied arena of religious book culture-particularly the religious middlebrow of mid-century-as the site where religious liberalism was most effectively popularized. By looking at book weeks, book clubs, public libraries, new publishing enterprises, key authors and bestsellers, wartime reading programs, and fan mail, among other sources, Hedstrom is able to provide a rich, on-the-ground account of the men, women, and organizations that drove religious liberalism's cultural rise in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Critically, by the post-WWII period the religious middlebrow had expanded beyond its Protestant roots, using mystical and psychological spirituality as a platform for interreligious exchange. This compelling history of religion and book culture not only shows how reading and book buying were critical twentieth-century religious practices, but also provides a model for thinking about the relationship of religion to consumer culture more broadly. In this way, The Rise of Liberal Religion offers both innovative cultural history and new ways of seeing the imprint of liberal religion in our own times.


Devotions and Desires

Devotions and Desires

Author: Gillian A. Frank

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2018-02-06

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1469636271

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

At a moment when "freedom of religion" rhetoric fuels public debate, it is easy to assume that sex and religion have faced each other in pitched battle throughout modern U.S. history. Yet, by tracking the nation's changing religious and sexual landscapes over the twentieth century, this book challenges that zero-sum account of sexuality locked in a struggle with religion. It shows that religion played a central role in the history of sexuality in the United States, shaping sexual politics, communities, and identities. At the same time, sexuality has left lipstick traces on American religious history. From polyamory to pornography, from birth control to the AIDS epidemic, this book follows religious faiths and practices across a range of sacred spaces: rabbinical seminaries, African American missions, Catholic schools, pagan communes, the YWCA, and much more. What emerges is the shared story of religion and sexuality and how both became wedded to American culture and politics. The volume, framed by a provocative introduction by Gillian Frank, Bethany Moreton, and Heather R. White and a compelling afterword by John D'Emilio, features essays by Rebecca T. Alpert and Jacob J. Staub, Rebecca L. Davis, Lynne Gerber, Andrea R. Jain, Kathi Kern, Rachel Kranson, James P. McCartin, Samira K. Mehta, Daniel Rivers, Whitney Strub, Aiko Takeuchi-Demirci, Judith Weisenfeld, and Neil J. Young.


Who Owns Religion?

Who Owns Religion?

Author: Laurie L. Patton

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-11-27

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 022667598X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Who Owns Religion? focuses on a period—the late 1980s through the 1990s—when scholars of religion were accused of scandalizing or denigrating the very communities they had imagined themselves honoring through their work. While controversies involving scholarly claims about religion are nothing new, this period saw an increase in vitriol that remains with us today. Authors of seemingly arcane studies on subjects like the origins of the idea of Mother Earth or the sexual dynamics of mysticism have been targets of hate mail and book-banning campaigns. As a result, scholars of religion have struggled to describe their own work to their various publics, and even to themselves. Taking the reader through several compelling case studies, Patton identifies two trends of the ’80s and ’90s that fueled that rise: the growth of multicultural identity politics, which enabled a form of volatile public debate she terms “eruptive public space,” and the advent of the internet, which offered new ways for religious groups to read scholarship and respond publicly. These controversies, she shows, were also fundamentally about something new: the very rights of secular, Western scholarship to interpret religions at all. Patton’s book holds out hope that scholars can find a space for their work between the university and the communities they study. Scholars of religion, she argues, have multiple masters and must move between them while writing histories and speaking about realities that not everyone may be interested in hearing.


Survey of 20th-Century Revival Movements in North America, A

Survey of 20th-Century Revival Movements in North America, A

Author: Richard M. Riss

Publisher: Baker Academic

Published: 1988-12-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780801047534

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The twentieth century has witnessed periodic revivals comparable to the awakenings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And yet, many of the places and players of these reawakenings have been overlooked or neglected by the chroniclers of North American church history. A Survey of 20th-Century Revival Movements in North America attempts to set the record straight. It offers a concise and useful survey of the major currents of revival that have swept over this continent since the turn of the century. As the final decade of this century approaches it is appropriate that historian Richard Riss chart the course of twentieth-century revival on this continent and record the people, places, and events that have shaped the modern American church. Names like William J. Seymour or Maria B. Woodworth-Etter; places like Azusa Street or North Battleford, Saskatchewan; and events like the forest Home Briefing Conference or the Latter Rain Revival might not be as familiar as Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, or the Jesus movement, but each has played a significant role in keeping the streams of revival flowing. The impact of these often lesser-known figures and events is tremendous. For example, William J. Seymour was a key figure in early Pentecostalism, which has become one of the most rapidly growing segments of modern Christianity. Also, college awakenings at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, North Park College, and Wheaton College in late 1949 and early 1950 received nationwide press coverage and sparked college revivals throughout the country. A decade later, in 1960, Dennis Bennett's experience of the Holy Spirit in Van Nuys, California, would mark the beginning of a tremendous outpouring of the Spirit, and for many, came to represent the start of the charismatic renewal movement.


Alfred Loisy and the Making of History of Religions

Alfred Loisy and the Making of History of Religions

Author: Annelies Lannoy

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-08-10

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 3110584131

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This monograph studies the professionalization of History of religions as an academic discipline in late 19th and early 20th century France and Europe. Its common thread is the work of the French Modernist priest and later Professor of History of religions at the Collège de France, Alfred Loisy (1857-1940), who participated in many of the most topical debates among French and international historians of religions. Unlike his well-studied Modernist theology, Loisy’s writings on comparative religion, and his rich interactions with famous scholars like F. Cumont, M. Mauss, or J.G. Frazer, remain largely unknown. This monograph is the first to paint a comprehensive picture of his career as a historian of religions before and after his excommunication in 1908. Through a contextual analysis of publications by Loisy and contemporaries, and a large corpus of private correspondence, it illuminates the scientification of the discipline between 1890-1920, and its deep entanglement with religion, politics, and society. Particular attention is also given to the role of national and transnational scholarly networks, and the way they controlled the theoretical and institutional frameworks for studying the history of religions.


Evangelicalism and the Church of England in the Twentieth Century

Evangelicalism and the Church of England in the Twentieth Century

Author: Andrew Atherstone

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1843839113

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An important contribution to the understanding of twentieth-century Anglicanism and evangelicalism This volume makes a considerable contribution to the understanding of twentieth-century Anglicanism and evangelicalism. It includes an expansive introduction which both engages with recent scholarship and challenges existing narratives. The book locates the diverse Anglican evangelical movement in the broader fields of the history of English Christianity and evangelical globalisation. Contributors argue that evangelicals often engaged constructively with the wider Church of England, long before the 1967 Keele Congress, and displayed a greater internal party unity than has previously been supposed. Other significant themes include the rise of various 'neo-evangelicalisms', charismaticism, lay leadership, changing conceptions of national identity, and the importance of generational shifts. The volume also provides an analysis of major organisations, conferences and networks, including the Keswick Convention, Islington Conference and Nationwide Festival of Light. ANDREW ATHERSTONE is tutor in history and doctrine, and Latimer research fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. JOHN MAIDEN is lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at the Open University. He is author of National Religion and the Prayer Book Controversy, 1927-1928 (The Boydell Press, 2009).


Religion and its History

Religion and its History

Author: Jörg Rüpke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-05-09

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1000381129

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Religion and its History offers a reflection of our operative concept of religion and religions, developing a set of approaches that bridge the widely assumed gulf between analysing present religion and doing history of religion. Religious Studies have adapted a wide range of methodologies from sociological tool kits to insights and concepts from disciplines of social and cultural studies. Their massive historical claims, which typically idealize and reify communities and traditions, and build normative claims thereupon, lack a critical engagement on the part of the researchers. This book radically rethinks and critically engages with these biases. It does so by offering neither an abridged global history of religion nor a small handbook of methodology. Instead, this book presents concepts and methods that allow the analysis of contemporary and past religious practices, ideas, and institutions within a shared framework.


A Twentieth-Century Crusade

A Twentieth-Century Crusade

Author: Giuliana Chamedes

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2019-06-17

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 0674983424

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first comprehensive history of the Vatican’s agenda to defeat the forces of secular liberalism and communism through international law, cultural diplomacy, and a marriage of convenience with authoritarian and right-wing rulers. After the United States entered World War I and the Russian Revolution exploded, the Vatican felt threatened by forces eager to reorganize the European international order and cast the Church out of the public sphere. In response, the papacy partnered with fascist and right-wing states as part of a broader crusade that made use of international law and cultural diplomacy to protect European countries from both liberal and socialist taint. A Twentieth-Century Crusade reveals that papal officials opposed Woodrow Wilson’s international liberal agenda by pressing governments to sign concordats assuring state protection of the Church in exchange for support from the masses of Catholic citizens. These agreements were implemented in Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, as well as in countries like Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. In tandem, the papacy forged a Catholic International—a political and diplomatic foil to the Communist International—which spread a militant anticommunist message through grassroots organizations and new media outlets. It also suppressed Catholic antifascist tendencies, even within the Holy See itself. Following World War II, the Church attempted to mute its role in strengthening fascist states, as it worked to advance its agenda in partnership with Christian Democratic parties and a generation of Cold War warriors. The papal mission came under fire after Vatican II, as Church-state ties weakened and antiliberalism and anticommunism lost their appeal. But—as Giuliana Chamedes shows in her groundbreaking exploration—by this point, the Vatican had already made a lasting mark on Eastern and Western European law, culture, and society.