This book is a result of the times in which we are living. These times demand a response. When the authors began to write this book, it was not popular to dissent against the Bush administration. In fact, dissent was and still is equated with terrorism. Now, it might seem that the tide is turning and maybe after the 2008 election some of this nightmare we have been experiencing will change.
Have you ever felt too progressive for conservatives, but too conservative for progressives? It's easy for faithful Christians to grow disillusioned with civic engagement or fall into tribal extremes. Representing the AND Campaign, the authors of this book lay out the biblical case for political engagement and help Christians navigate the complex world of politics with integrity.
Two famous and powerful men of the late Victorian and early Edwardian era, Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914) and George Cadbury (1839-1922), towered over one of the great cities of the British Empire - Birmingham. Together, they offer a fascinating window into the rapidly changing world in which they lived and the preoccupations of their generation. Throughout their lives both men pursued a common mission - to improve the lives of their fellow citizens - and zealously pursued a philosophy of social and civic responsibility rooted in nonconformist religion. However, these were very different characters sharing a single stage. Having aggressively built a fortune in engineering as a young man, Chamberlain entered civic politics and, during three terms as mayor, he made Birmingham the global model of good civic governance. But his ambitions stretched beyond Birmingham to Westminster where he became the first great middle-class statesman of modern Britain and the leading Radical of the age although his career ended in failure and he never achieved the highest office he craved. Throughout this tubulent career, Birmingham, sometimes referred to as his "Duchy", remained Chamberlain's political base and his family home. It was here after an incapacitating stroke, Chamberlain was buried following a funeral where the size of the crowds brought the whole city to a halt. It was also here in Birmingham that Cadbury created his fortune and where his programmes for social improvement caught the attention of the world. Taking control of the confectionary business established by his Quaker family, Cadbury built it into one of the first great global brands. The wealth he created allowed Cadbury to introduce far-sighted benefits for his workers including the visionary model village of Bournville which was his response to the jerry-built slum housing of his workforce. Then around the houses, schools and green open spaces of Bournville Cadbury created a distinct community founded on strict adherence to his Quaker values of temperance and industrial discipline. Meanwhile, on the national stage Cadbury successfully campaigned to improve the lives of men and women labouring in sweatshops and worked for the introduction of pioneering social reforms including non-contributory old age pensions. Throughout this time, unlike Chamberlain, he abhorred party politics and his pacifist views brought them into conflict during the Anglo Boer War which Chamberlain championed. By his death, Cadbury was lauded as one of the leading philanthropists of his age. So, both Chamberlain and Cadbury championed political and social reform based on their experiences in Birmingham and subsequently became important figures of British life. Yet for all that they had in common, they were radically different from each other. Their ambitions and their methods for effecting change, took divergent routes and as a result from time-to-time they came into conflict in the arena of national affairs and in Birmingham," where they were reluctant neighbours. Two Titans: One City is the first study to explore, compare and contrast the lives of these two very famous but very different figures, Historian and author, Andrew Reekes uses archives, correspondence and contemporary accounts to reveal the fascinating lives and rivalries of these two important figures of their age.
In this hard-hitting history of "the gospel of education," W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson reveal the allure, and the fallacy, of the longstanding American faith that more schooling for more people is the remedy for all our social and economic problems--and that the central purpose of education is workplace preparation. But do increasing levels of education accurately represent the demands of today's jobs? Grubb and Lazerson argue that the abilities developed in schools and universities and the competencies required in work are often mismatched--since many Americans are under-educated for serious work while at least a third are over-educated for the jobs they hold. The ongoing race for personal advancement and the focus on worker preparation have squeezed out civic education and learning for its own sake. Paradoxically, the focus on schooling as a mechanism of equity has reinforced social inequality. The challenge now, the authors show, is to create environments for learning that incorporate both economic and civic goals, and to prevent the further descent of education into a preoccupation with narrow work skills and empty credentials.
The award–winning author of The New Abolition continues his history of black social gospel with this study of its influence on the Civil Rights movement. The civil rights movement was one of the most searing developments in modern American history. It abounded with noble visions, resounded with magnificent rhetoric, and ended in nightmarish despair. It won a few legislative victories and had a profound impact on U.S. society, but failed to break white supremacy. The symbol of the movement, Martin Luther King Jr., soared so high that he tends to overwhelm anything associated with him. Yet the tradition that best describes him and other leaders of the civil rights movement has been strangely overlooked. In his latest book, Gary Dorrien continues to unearth the heyday and legacy of the black social gospel, a tradition with a shimmering history, a martyred central figure, and enduring relevance today. This part of the story centers around King and the mid-twentieth-century black church leaders who embraced the progressive, justice-oriented, internationalist social gospel from the beginning of their careers and fulfilled it, inspiring and leading America’s greatest liberation movement.
This collection of essays examines the central, yet often overlooked, role played by women in the formation of the social gospel movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A practical theological response to the stark realities of poverty and injustice prevalent in turn-of-the-century America, the social gospel movement sought to apply the teachings of Jesus and the message of Christian salvation to society by striving to improve the lives of the impoverished and the disenfranchised. The contributors to this volume set out to broaden our understanding of this radical movement by examining the lives of some of its passionate and vibrant female participants and the ways in which their involvement expanded and enriched the scope of its activity. In addition to examining the lives of individual women, the essays in Gender and the Social Gospel contain broader analyses of the gender and racial issues that have caused the histories of movements such as the social gospel to be viewed almost exclusively in terms of their male, European-American, intellectual participants at the expense of the women, African Americans, and Canadians whose contributions were just as worthy of attention.
They say the Bible is true, but does it ring true? Does it resonate? In this journey through the Gospel of Matthew, Matt Woodley considers the audacious idea of a God with us--confronting us in the midst of all we've invested ourselves in and dedicated ourselves to, and encouraging us with the promise that the God who made us has a better life in mind for us. The Resonate series recovers the ancient wisdom of Scripture for a complex world. The stories and insights of each book of the Bible are brought into conversation with contemporary voices of hope and lament--the cultural messages we interact with on a daily basis. The Scriptures become a meeting ground where God is confronted with the pressing concerns of our day, and we are confronted in turn with a fresh experience of God's truth.
In recent decades, Christian clergy have ever more frequently had to decide whether to become involved in politics. When they do become involved, their influence can be substantial. In this book Sue E. S. Crawford, Laura R. Olson, and their coauthors explore the political choices clergy make and the consequences of these choices. Drawing on personal interviews and statistical data to place the actions of clergy in both their religious and secular contexts, the authors study mainline and evangelical Protestant, Catholic, and Mennonite communities. They examine the role of white, African American, and female religious leaders. And they address issues of local development, city government, and national and international politics. Contributors: Christi J. Braun, Boston University School of Law • Timothy A. Byrnes, Colgate University • James C. Cavendish, University of South Florida • Sue E. S. Crawford, Creighton University • Katie Day, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia • Melissa M. Deckman, Washington College • Paul A. Djupe, Denison University • Joel S. Fetzer, Central Michigan University • James L. Guth, Furman University • Ted G. Jelen, University of Nevada-Las Vegas • Laura R. Olson, Clemson University • James M. Penning, Calvin College • Mary R. Sawyer, Iowa State University • Corwin E. Smidt, Calvin College
Before the 99% occupied Wall Street... Before the concept of social justice had impinged on the social conscience... Before the social safety net had even been conceived... By the turn of the 20th Century, the era of the robber barons, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) had already accumulated a staggeringly large fortune; he was one of the wealthiest people on the globe. He guaranteed his position as one of the wealthiest men ever when he sold his steel business to create the United States Steel Corporation. Following that sale, he spent his last 18 years, he gave away nearly 90% of his fortune to charities, foundations, and universities. His charitable efforts actually started far earlier. At the age of 33, he wrote a memo to himself, noting ..".The amassing of wealth is one of the worse species of idolatry. No idol more debasing than the worship of money." In 1881, he gave a library to his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland. In 1889, he spelled out his belief that the rich should use their wealth to help enrich society, in an article called "The Gospel of Wealth" this book. Carnegie writes that the best way of dealing with wealth inequality is for the wealthy to redistribute their surplus means in a responsible and thoughtful manner, arguing that surplus wealth produces the greatest net benefit to society when it is administered carefully by the wealthy. He also argues against extravagance, irresponsible spending, or self-indulgence, instead promoting the administration of capital during one's lifetime toward the cause of reducing the stratification between the rich and poor. Though written more than a century ago, Carnegie's words still ring true today, urging a better, more equitable world through greater social consciousness.
Creative Participation presents the theory and practice of new innovative forms of political participation. Examples covered in the book include consumers engaging in political shopping, capitalists building green developments, UK Muslim youth campaigning on the internet, Sicilian housewives taking on the Mafia, young evangelical ministers becoming concerned with social change and vegetarians making political statements. The authors show how in these new campaigns individuals swarm like honeybees around particular issues, causing those in power to sit up and take notice. This is the essential guide to the new politics of participation.
