This is the first book to offer a comparative analysis of the impact of the post-war ?Baby Boom? generation on Christianity around the world. Taking a cross-cultural approach, the contributors examine ten advanced countries, including England, France, Germany, Australia, and the United States, and explore the ways baby boomers have helped reshape and redefine ?establishment religions? ? that is, the dominant, primarily Christian institutions. Their conclusions are broad and far-reaching, shedding light on the fate of religion in other countries now modernizing and those countries moving through the modern to the postmodern. Sociologists, historians, and scholars of religion will profit from the insights put forth here on religion in a postmodern context.

This book offers a close-up look at theological education in the U.S. today. The authors' goal is to understand the way in which institutional culture affects the outcome of the educational process. To that end, they undertake ethnographic studies of two seminaries-one evangelical and one mainline Protestant. These studies, written in a lively journalistic style, make up the first part of the book and offer fascinating portraits of two very different intellectual, religious, and social worlds.
The authors go on to analyze these disparate environments, and suggest how in each case corporate culture acts as an agent of educational change. They find two major consequences stemming from the culture of each school. First, each culture gives expression to a normative goal that aims at shaping the way students understand themselves and from issues of ministry practice. Second, each provides a "cultural tool kit" of knowledge, practices, and skills that students use to construct strategies of action for the various problems and issues that will confront them as pastors or in other forms of ministry. In the concluding chapters, the authors explore the implications of their findings for theories of institutional culture and professional socialization and for interpreting the state of religion in America. They identify some of the practical dilemmas that theological and other professional schools currently face, and reflect on how their findings might contribute to their solution. This accessible, thought-provoking study will not only illuminate the structure and process by which culture educates and forms, but also provide invaluable insights into important dynamics of American religious life.

This is the first book to offer a comparative analysis of the impact of the post-war "Baby Boom" generation on Christianity around the world. Taking a cross-cultural approach, the contributors examine ten advanced countries, including England, France, Germany, Australia, and the United States, and explore the ways baby boomers have helped reshape and redefine "establishment religions" - that is, the dominant, primarily Christian institutions. Their conclusions are broad and far-reaching, shedding light on the fate of religion in other countries now modernizing and those countries moving through the modern to the postmodern. Sociologists, historians, and scholars of religion will profit from the insights put forth here on religion in a postmodern context.

Description: Congregations today face both old and often new, unprecedented challenges--spiritual, moral, technological, and economic--for which there are no easy solutions. Facing such challenges calls for pastors able to lead with authority in ways at the same time faithful to the gospel and appropriate to the congregation's setting and the issues at hand. Yet many pastors are unsure of their authority, often experiencing conflict as they attempt to lead. Others have abused their authority and brought mistrust and suspicion to ordained ministry, making it difficult for other clergy to lead. In this book, a new and revised edition of his earlier, highly regarded work on pastoral authority and leadership, Jackson Carroll brings together theological and sociological perspectives to provide an interpretation of pastoral authority as reflective leadership, a style of leadership that involves vision and discernment, and that is appropriate for the many roles in which pastors engage--preaching, worship leadership, teaching, counseling, and shaping the congregation's corporate life. In this new edition Carroll draws on what he has learned from many conversations with pastors and lay leaders since the book's initial publication as well as insights from others. He also introduces helpful new case material from practicing pastors and incorporates the perspectives of several recent leadership theorists and practitioners to deepen and enhance the discussion of pastoral authority as reflective leadership. Endorsements: ""When a book is described as a 'classic, ' it means it stands the test of time. Its message is as important today as when the author first put pen to paper. Jackson Carroll's As One With Authority is a classic. This book remains essential reading for every church leader who wants to understand the unique kind of leadership needed in congregations. This is one of those rare books that should never sit neglected on a shelf. It is meant to be read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested--and shared with a new generation of pastors."" -Michael Jinkins President Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary ""Based on solid theological and sociological research, and several decades of astute observation, Jackson Carroll has updated his classic work on As One With Authority, and just in time to benefit those clergy who are questioning their authority. Jackson clarifies the narrative of pastoral authority as reflective leadership and takes us back to those biblical roots as old as Paul, Jesus, Isaiah, and Moses. This is a penetrating exposition of the biblical vision of the way pastoral ministry should be done, and is the first book every beginning student of ministry should read. I recommend it most highly."" -Robert E. Cooley President Emeritus Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary ""Pastors need the expertise that allows them to read the social situation and interpret their traditions, but also an ear for the calling and vision that lends their work 'sacred weight.' Building on the insight sociology has to offer and his own keen theological sensibilities, Carroll speaks here 'as one with authority.'"" -Nancy T. Ammerman Professor of Sociology of Religion Boston University About the Contributor(s): Jackson W. Carroll is the Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams Jr. Professor Emeritus of Religion and Society at Duke University Divinity School, where he also was project director of Pulpit & Pew: Research on Pastoral Leadership. An ordained United Methodist minister, he has most recently authored God's Potters: Pastoral Leadership and the Shaping of Congregations (2006). He has also written extensively on pastoral ministry and congregations, including Mainline to the Future: Congregations for the 21st Century (2000).

Pastoral ministry is an occupation in flux. In this comprehensive study Jackson Carroll considers the many factors -- changing roles among clergy and laypeople, the opening of ordination to women, an increasing shortage of clergy, and more -- that are shaping congregations and ministers today. Building on Paul's image of Christians as "clay jars," Carroll paints a portrait of "God's potters" -- pastors whose calling is to form their congregational jars so that they reveal rather than hide God's treasure.

A veteran clergy watcher, Carroll uses data from what is likely the most representative survey of Protestant and Catholic clergy ever undertaken, as well as focus group interviews and congregational responses, to take a hard look at who is doing ministry today, what it involves, and how pastors are faring in leading their congregations. Significantly, his study covers clergy from a broad range of traditions -- Catholic, mainline Protestant, conservative Protestant, and historic black churches.

Replete with pertinent tables and figures, "God's Potters" culminates with specific strategies for strengthening pastoral leadership and nurturing excellence in ministry.

While others lament the declining attendance of mainline churches and blame it on an out-of-date tradition, Jackson Carroll offers a more hopeful perspective, arguing that they key to future vitality can be found in the same tradition. According to Carroll, the tension between tradition and change has always been part of the Protestant heritage, and he argues that now is a time when being faithful requires adaptation.

This book takes a novel, cultural approach to studying mainline denominations, focusing on the denominations' religious and moral vision--the beliefs, values, symbols, stories, and style that make a denomination distinct. Of special concern are the ways in which denominations passed on their vision and how they maintained plausibility under changing circumstances. Contributors include a variety of authors, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, educators, and liturgists who examine ways in which denominations have sought to transmit their culture with varying degrees of success or failure.

Jackson Carroll focuses on reclaiming a healthy understanding of authority in the church by reviewing the meaning and foundation of clergy authority and examining how his authority has been used and abused. Carroll asks how a sense of clergy authority might be recovered--one that honors shared ministry among clergy and lay leaders while it appreciates the distinctive leadership tasks of each clergyperson. To recover this sense, Carroll proposes a model of reflective leadership and uses practical examples to illustrate this method.

This handbook for seminarians and clergy professionals places the congregation itself, rather than individual scholarly disciplines, at the center of congregational analysis. Using a comprehensive systems approach to congregations, this volume enables readers to analyze the ministries, stories, and processes that are at work in congregations. It provides techniques for studying the congregation as well as a framework for understanding the nature of the congregation.