|
Showing 1 - 2 of
2 matches in All Departments
American religious pacifism is usually explained in terms of its
practitioners' ethical and philosophical commitments. Patricia
Appelbaum argues that Protestant pacifism, which constituted the
religious center of the large-scale peace movement in the United
States after World War I, is best understood as a culture that
developed dynamically in the broader context of American religious,
historical, and social currents. Exploring piety, practice, and
material religion, Appelbaum describes a surprisingly complex
culture of Protestant pacifism expressed through social networks,
iconography, vernacular theology, individual spiritual practice,
storytelling, identity rituals, and cooperative living. Between
World War I and the Vietnam War, she contends, a paradigm shift
took place in the Protestant pacifist movement. Pacifism moved from
a mainstream position to a sectarian and marginal one, from an
embrace of modernity to skepticism about it, and from a Christian
center to a purely pacifist one, with an informal, flexible
theology. The book begins and ends with biographical profiles of
two very different pacifists, Harold Gray and Marjorie Swann. Their
stories distill the changing religious culture of American pacifism
revealed in Kingdom to Commune.
How did a thirteenth-century Italian friar become one of the
best-loved saints in America? Around the nation today, St. Francis
of Assisi is embraced as the patron saint of animals, beneficently
presiding over hundreds of Blessing of the Animals services on
October 4, St. Francis' Catholic feast day. Not only Catholics,
however, but Protestants and other Christians, Hindus, Buddhists,
Jews, and nonreligious Americans commonly name him as one of their
favorite spiritual figures. Drawing on a dazzling array of art,
music, drama, film, hymns, and prayers, Patricia Appelbaum explains
what happened to make St. Francis so familiar and meaningful to so
many Americans. Appelbaum traces popular depictions and
interpretations of St. Francis from the time when non-Catholic
Americans ""discovered"" him in the nineteenth century to the
present. From poet to activist, 1960s hippie to
twenty-first-century messenger to Islam, St. Francis has been
envisioned in ways that might have surprised the saint himself.
Exploring how each vision of St. Francis has been shaped by its own
era, Appelbaum reveals how St. Francis has played a sometimes
countercultural but always aspirational role in American culture.
St. Francis's American story also displays the zest with which
Americans borrow, lend, and share elements of their religious lives
in everyday practice.
|
You may like...
Brightside
The Lumineers
CD
R194
Discovery Miles 1 940
|