Search

THE ARTICLES IN THIS SECTION CONTINUE THE DISCUSSION OF how changeable and unstable any supposed boundary between the religious and the secular has been, looking particularly at this dissolving binary [...]

Vatican II's Gaudium et spes sees the church-world relationship in dialogical terms. This article argues that conceiving the church-world relationship as a dialogue is an important element in the council's recognition of what Charles Taylor calls the "modern social imaginary." The article defends the council's view of dialogue against the argument that contemporary Western views of dialogue are inherently relativist. It concludes by investigating the rich implications of this dialogical view for the church's primary task of proclamation., IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF Vatican IFs Gaudium et spes, the concept of dialogue emerged as a means of expressing a new understanding of the Roman Catholic Church's relationship with the [...]

miriam cooke's article raises some important ongoing questions about how the category Muslimwoman is being constituted, contested, and lived. The dynamics associated with naming and inhabiting this identity through the [...]

It is a pleasure to respond to Melendez and LaSala's (2006) critique of my article 'Epistemological Frameworks, Homosexuality, and Religion: How People of Faith Understand the Intersection between Homosexuality and [...]

Reducing religion to a mere ethnic marker has stifled the debate about its social and political significance in Northern Ireland. This article puts forward a constructivist argument, which understands religion as a dynamic of personal and group identification, as the key to illuminating its social significance. Drawing on analysis of in-depth interviews it finds four main ways in which religion informs processes of social identification and community construction in Northern Ireland: where it acts as an identity marker; where religious rituals play a practical role, or religious ideas play a symbolic role, in the construction of community; and, where doctrine can legitimize oppositional social identifications. In fact, specifically religious structures and religious ideas remain socially significant beyond the confines of the most devout. Thus, rather than just marking out ethnic identities, this article argues that religion generally provides some substantive content to processes of categorization and social comparison in Northern Ireland., Whilst nearly nine out of ten people in contemporary Northern Ireland select a Protestant or Catholic identification, common sense, as well as the literature, tells us that conflict has not [...]

Uniformed traditional 'holy dance' makes the Nazareth Baptists most conspicuously the cultural nationalist African-initiated or independent church (AIC) in South Africa today. No other wears its African identity so forthrightly. [...]

Close systematic analysis of interaction episodes depicted in the vita of a thirteenth-century religious virtuosa reveals the basic social elements connecting charismatic agency to a contingent structural moment in the medieval ecclesia. During the contingency phase a dynamic human network drawn from small ruling circles assumed sect-like characteristics to incorporate the special charismatic gifts of Juliana Mont-Cornillon, who provided the unifying symbol in their human quest for legitimate domination and control. The case analysis illustrates contemporary theorizing in church-sect typologies by describing the dynamic micro-processes of a religious movement and negotiations for power behind the illusory veneer of a univocal institutional church. These processes resulted in an integration of the new Feast of Corpus Christi, which simultaneously recognized, incorporated, and quarantined the pneumatic source and feminine voice of Juliana., INTRODUCTION The Roman Catholic ecclesia reached an apogee in the thirteenth century, a historical period referred to by Le Goff as one of the essouflement and excess of the grand [...]

Like an anthropologist touring deepest, darkest Africa, the writer David Brooks has courageously trekked to Middle America, studied the natives there, and reported back to readers of The Atlantic Monthly, [...]

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. This struggle may be a [...]

Scripture presents the paradigm by which Christians make sense of the world in relation to God. Embracing the Bible as scripture, we do not accept it as one narrative among others but accord it a privilege above all others and allow ourselves to be shaped by it., ********** With apologies to Martin Luther, I recently created 'Table Talk,' a center for discussion on our seminary's Intranet. 'Table Talk' has become a place for debate on all sorts [...]

Scott Holland (Church of the Brethren) has taught since 1999 at Bethany Theological Seminary (which is in partnership with Earlham School of Religion) in Richmond, IN, where he directs the program for the study of church and society, including programs in Peace Studies and in Cross Cultural Theologies, along with graduate courses in ecumenical theology, theology and culture, and postmodernism and religion. Ordained in the Church of the Brethren, he has served congregations in Pennsylvania and Ohio and has taught at Carlow, Seton Hill, and Westminster colleges, at Ashland Theological Seminary, and at Duquenie University. He has an M. Div. Sun Ashland and a Ph.D. (1999) in theology Sun Duquesne. He has written and lectured (in the U.S.A., Nigeria, and Europe) in the areas of contemporary theology and Christianity and culture. He co-edited (with A. Riggs and F. Enns) Theology and Culture: Peacemaking in a Globalized World (forthcoming from Pandora Press and WCC Publications), His essays appear in J. Ries and L. Boeve, ech., The Presence of Transcendence (Peeters, 2001), and in G. and S. Biesecker-Mast, eds., Anabaptists and Postmodernity, and L Jobs, eat, Apocalypticism and Millennialism (both Herald/Pandora, 2000). He co-edited (with C. Mathen) a special issue (on religion and violence) of Cross Currents (Summer, 2001), for whom he is a contributing editor. An article on 'Bonhoeffer's New York' appears in Cross Currents (Fall, 2001) and Metanoia (Autism-Winter, 2000)., ********** One afternoon, Ernst Bloch and Johannes Baptist Metz were walking the streets of the city of Munster. As their conversation turned to political theology, Block pointed to the three [...]

Ann K Riggs (Religious Society of Friends) has been Assistant to the Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, DC, since 1996. Since 1997, she has co-chaired the 'Authority in the Church' study of the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., becoming an executive committee member in 2000. Since 1997 she has been a member of the Friends General Conference Central Committee's Christian and Interfaith Relations Committee, with responsibility for relations with Faith and Order and with the World Council of Churches, She holds a B.A. from Smith College, an M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.Div. and a Th.M. from Duke University Divinity School, and a Ph.D. (2001) from the School of Religious Studies at Catholic University of America. She has been a high school art teacher in Montclair, NJ (1972-74) and worked in the fields of art and museum curatorshi p in Chapel Hill, NC, and Worcester, MA. She has been a member of the Quaker Theological Discussion Group since 1995 and is a founding associate editor (1999) of Quaker Theology. Her dissertation, 'Visual Arts and Architecture in Ecumenical Statements of the Holy See and the World Council of Churches, 1982-97,' is being revised for publication by Liturgical Press. She co-edited (with S. Holland and F. Enns) Peace-theology and Culture in a Globalized World from the Perspective of the Historic Peace Churches (forthcoming from Pandora Press). Her articles and reviews have appeared in denominational and ecumenical journals and edited collections., ********** It does, indeed, seem to be a moment for new starting points in ecumenical peace dialogue. Over the decades, a body of literature has been produced in which representatives [...]

CHRISTIANS HAVE NEVER embraced blood sacrifice. We have not offered chickens or slain goats, let alone sacrificed our firstborn children to God. Indeed, the very idea of blood sacrifice is [...]

The concept of mapping religion and then acting on the basis of that concept necessarily involves discussion of another concept, that of boundaries. The notion of discerning neat boundaries serves well for assessing the inherited institutions of religion in America; assessments of trends within them reveal impressive continuities in organization and structures of meaning. Many of the most important religious developments in the last third of the century, however, appear to be less bounded--or even unbounded--and on the blurry landscape of boundarylessness there are more evident discontinuities, innovations, and evidence of fluidity. An analysis of several trends on the unbounded landscape suggests that, in the new century, there will be a great deal of interchange and conflict between these two ways of conceiving American religious dynamics., THE concept of boundaries has become central in much social scientific and political discourse. The acts of defining boundaries, transgressing them, and being limited by them enter into discussions of [...]

Changing cultural conditions in three quite different settings - a highly industrialized Canada, an increasingly post-industrial United States, and an industrializing Brazil - have led many observes to assert that the religious markets in the three countries are fairly open. However, an examination of affiliation patterns reveals that the traditionally strong religious groups in the three societies are succeeding in maintaining monopolies. Identification with the long-established mainline churches remains both very stable and high, despite the activities and claims of religious competitors. Religious affiliation continues to be largely inherited, complete with important social, psychological, and emotional associations. Nevertheless, general cultural specialization has contributed to an accelerated inclination on the part of Canadians, Americans, and Brazilians to look to religious groups for highly specific services. These include programs with spiritual and social justice emphases, and rites of passage pertaining to birth, marriage, and death. Religious groups have responded to such market demands by expanding their religious menus and, in the process, largely neutralizing the offerings of religious competitors. The result is very tight specialized religious markets in all three countries. Identification prevails, but the related impact of religion at the level of the individual is extremely specific and limited., Since at least Comte, advocates of what has come to be known as 'the secularization thesis' have maintained that science, and the specialization associated with advanced societies weaken the role [...]

This paper analyses the decline of religious beliefs, of nationalist tendencies and of confidence in institutions. The empirical data gain in substance from the fact that the same trends are observed in many European countries. Sociologically it is possible to show whether God is present or absent from people's minds. Belief in the existence of God is an observable social fact. The decline of nationalism is analysed in terms of national pride, confidence in the army, defeatism and trust of neighbouring European countries. A significant proportion of Europeans do not have confidence in parliament, high administration, parties, unions, corporations and courts., Religion, nationalism and authority were the traditional pillars of the old state-societies of Western Europe. Three generations ago it was still a sacrilege to critize them. The church sanctified the [...]

Of the many adversities experienced by the peculiar people, one which strikes us as particularly odd is the condition of the Hebrew Bible, or, as it is more commonly referred [...]

With the conjunction 'therefore' at the beginning of this pericope, one expects a transition. Most often in the writings attributed to the apostle Paul, it is a transition from doctrinal [...]

HOW DO WE as Christians identify ourselves? We carry the name of Christ. We are the people who are known for their loyalty to the historical person who was given [...]

In the space of a few days last spring, '60 Minutes' aired a segment on a sex scandal involving an archbishop and U.S. News & World Report ran a cover [...]

Jim Sleeper, The New York Daily News columnist, tells a story about the time a reporter returned to his newsroom from a meeting of a black journalists' association A Jewish [...]

IN THEIR LONG struggle for equality, India's dalits, or 'untouchables,' have often exchanged their Hinduism for Islam, Christianity, Sikhism or Buddhism, believing that they will better their lives by doing [...]

We face a deep problem today: The family where each member pursues his own self-interest. I have lived in such a family. I learned, to my surprise, that such homes [...]

The great triumphs of modern science, from splitting the atom to unraveling the human genome, increasingly raise a troubling question: Is the pursuit of knowledge always a good thing? A [...]

After two years of elaborate discussions and intense preparations, the Decade to Overcome Violence (2001-10, DOV) was formally launched in Berlin, Germany, on 4 February 2001, during the meeting of [...]

With both launch dates for the new millennium now behind us, we can safely thumb our noses at the doomsayers, whose visions of a Y2K apocalypse went unfulfilled. But though [...]

There are Christians who are convinced that they believe and preach an 'old time gospel' that is unchanged from the time of the New Testament, and there is merit in [...]

Faith matters ONE OF THE central characters in Berke Breathed's wonderful comic strip Bloom County was a penguin named Opus. One day Opus decided he wanted to give up television [...]

PART OF THE FABRIC of public life in America during the post--World War II years, perhaps the cross-stitch that held the symbolic boundaries in place, was anticommunism. Most mainline church [...]

The original theme of this issue was just plain 'Homophobia,' but it rather quickly became an issue focused more narrowly on the religious Right. And the reason is clear: in [...]