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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian institutions & organizations > Christian social thought & activity
Against the background of impending and then actual war, the
discussions of the Moot focused on the roles of moral choice and
the Christian community. The Moot was the study and discussion
group set up by J.H. Oldham (1874-1969) following the 1937 Oxford
Conference on 'Church, Community and State'. Its purpose was to
continue, in an informal, confidential but serious way, exploration
of the relation between church and society and the realisation of
Christian ethics in the public sphere. The Moot met twice or three
times a year from 1938 to 1947 (21 times in all) and was convened
by Oldham with the conscious intention of responding to the grave
crisis that was felt to be facing western society in Britain no
less than on the continent of Europe. Overall some 35 people
attended the Moot at one time or another, but its core comprised a
small number of regular members who were representative of the
highest levels in theology, social science and public affairs. In
addition to Oldham himself they included John Baillie, T.S. Eliot,
H.A. Hodges, Eleonora Iredale, Adolf Lowe, Karl Mannheim, Walter
Moberly, John Middleton Murry and Alec Vidler. Other participants
included Kathleen Bliss, Fred Clarke, Christopher Dawson, H.H.
Farmer, Hector Hetherington, Walter Oakshott and Gilbert Shaw,
while notables such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Melville Chaning-Pearce,
Donald Mackinnon, Philip Mairet, Lesslie Newbigin, William Paton,
Frank Pakenham (later Lord Longford), Michael Polanyi and Oliver
Tomkins made occasional 'guest appearances'. Against the background
of impending and then actual war, the discussions in the Moot
repeatedly focused on the 'planned' nature of modern society and
therewith the roles (if any) within it of moral choice and the
Christian community.
As society becomes more culturally diverse and globally connected,
churches and seminaries are rapidly changing. And as the church
changes, preaching must change too. Crossover Preaching proposes a
way forward through conversation with the "dean of the nation's
black preachers," Gardner C. Taylor, senior pastor emeritus of
Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. In this richly
interdisciplinary study, Jared E. Alcantara argues that an analysis
of Taylor's preaching reveals an improvisational-intercultural
approach that recovers his contemporary significance and equips US
churches and seminary classrooms for the future. Alcantara argues
that preachers and homileticians need to develop intercultural and
improvisational proficiencies to reach an increasingly
intercultural church. Crossover Preaching equips them with concrete
practices designed to help them cultivate these competencies and
thus communicate effectively in a changing world.
Culture affects how we make disciples. We often unconsciously bring
our own cultural assumptions into ministry and mission, not
realizing that how we think and operate is not necessarily the best
or only way to do things. In today's global environment,
disciplemaking requires the cultural humility and flexibility to
adapt between different cultural approaches. Charles Davis, former
director of TEAM, provides a framework for missional disciplemaking
across diverse cultural contexts. He shows how we can recalibrate
our ministry efforts, like adjusting sound levels on a mixer board,
to accommodate different cultural assumptions. With on-the-ground
stories from a lifetime of mission experience, Davis navigates such
tensions as knowledge and behavior, individualism and collectivism,
and truth and works to help Christian workers minister more
effectively. Ministry teams, church planters, pastors and
missionaries working interculturally at home or overseas can be
part of God's movement of making disciples. Discover how the body
of Christ grows in the unity and diversity of the global church.
The Rhetoric of Operation Rescue is a comprehensive examination of
the rhetoric of Operation Rescue, a pro-life social protest group
(prominent between 1988 and 1992) that orchestrated blockades of
clinics where abortions are performed. Steiner examines how the
group sought to persuade people-primarily conservative evangelical
and fundamentalist Christians-to join their ranks, as well as how
they sought to use their form of social protest to achieve their
public policy goals. In so doing, Steiner explains both the group's
initial success (beginning with its 1988 "Siege of Atlanta"
protests) and its ultimate failure. More fundamentally, though,
Steiner shows how the group appealed to the convictions of
conservative evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in the
United States. He shows how the rhetoric of Operation Rescue-for
those conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists that found it
convincing-shaped fundamental understandings of what their
Christian faith means, how to practice it in an authentic manner,
and how to engage in public dialogue and political activism.
Shortlisted for the 2016 Michael Ramsey Prize Smokey Mountain, the
vast garbage dump in Manila has served for many years as an emblem
of third world squalor - a metaphor for a planet slowly choking on
garbage and waste. But for Fr Beltran, who served for three decades
as a chaplain to the scavengers who survive off this reeking heap,
it is also a metaphor of hope - an emblem of the will to survive,
the ability to create joy and find meaning even in the midst of
abject poverty. Faith and Struggle on Smokey Mountain describes the
spiritual resilience of the scavengers of Smokey Mountain, and how
they taught Beltran to read the Gospel with new eyes. The lessons
he learned bear a message for all who struggle for a better world.
Questions about civil society have been reopened in recent years
with increasing urgency. How can we preserve and protect democracy?
Is it possible to bring a moral dimension back into public life?
How strong or weak do we want government to be? What can motivate
us to be better, more responsibly engaged citizens? In this book,
well-known author Robert Wuthnow presents an engaging and
provocative exploration of the role of Christianity in civil
society which, he says, "applies to other U.S. religions as will."
Professor Wuthnow considers three aspects of the relationship
between Christianity and civil society: (1) whether civil society
is in jeopardy and what effects the declining influence of
Christianity has on civil society; (2) whether Christians can be
civil, including an examination of the conflicts that have arisen
among religious groups in the public arena and the so-called
culture wars that many in the media have been discussing; and (3)
the growing multiculturalism in the United States, how Christian
groups are responding to the new diversity, and how Christianity
can regain a critical voice for itself in these debates. Robert
Wuthnow is the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor of Social Sciences
and Director of the Center for the Study of American Religion at
Princeton University. He is the author of fifteen books, including
Learning to Care: Elementary Kindness in an Age of Indifference and
God Mammon in America.
Because the Holocaust, at its core, was an extreme expression of
a devastating racism, the author contends it has special
significance for African Americans. Locke, a university professor,
clergyman, and African American, reflects on the common experiences
of African American and Jewish people as minorities and on the
great tragedy that each community has experienced in its
history--slavery and the Holocaust. Without attempting to equate
the experiences of African Americans to the experiences of European
Jews during the Holocaust, the author does show how aspects of the
Holocaust, its impact on the Jewish community worldwide, and the
long-lasting consequences relate to slavery, the civil rights
movement, and the current status of African Americans.
Written from a Christian perspective, this book argues that the
implications of the Holocaust touch all people, and that it is a
major mistake to view the Holocaust as an exclusively Jewish event.
Instead, the author asks whether it is possible for both African
Americans and Jewish Americans to learn from the experience of the
other regarding the common threat that minority people confront in
Western societies. Locke focuses on the themes of parochialism and
patriotism and reexamines the role of the Christian churches during
the Holocaust in an effort to challenge some of the prevailing
views in Holocaust studies.
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