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Christianity and cultural aspirations are inevitably in tension: the combination invites a suspicion that temporal pursuits have slackened a quest for divine approbation. Nevertheless, as Christians generally believe that worldly success may be a position of influence worth seeking for noble reasons, it is truly an area of tension, rather than merely temptation. This volume explores this lively juxtaposition in the context of modern Britain and America. In fifteen original essays, a range of well-respected scholars examine the cultural aspirations of a broad spectrum of Christians, including Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and Anglicans, as they were expressed in arenas as diverse as politics, education, arthitecture, and sport.
In the late nineteenth century in Europe and to some extent in the United States, the Jewish upper middle class--particularly the more affluent families--began to enter the cultural spheres of public life, especially in major cities such as Vienna, Berlin, Paris, New York, and London. While many aspects of society were closed to them, theater, the visual arts, music, and art publication were far more inviting, especially if they involved challenging aspects of modernity that might be less attractive to Gentile society. Jews had far less to lose in embracing new forms of expression, and they were very attracted to what was regarded as the universality of cultural expression. Ultimately, these new cultural ideals had an enormous influence on art institutions and artistic manifestations in America and may explain why Jews have been active in the arts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to a degree totally out of proportion to their presence in the US population. Jewish cultural activities and aspirations form the focus of the contributions to this volume. Invited authors include senior figures in the field such as Matthew Baigell and Emily Bilski, alongside authors of a younger generation such as Daniel Magilow and Marcie Kaufman. There is also an essay by noted Los Angeles artist and photographer Bill Aron. The guest editor of the volume, Ruth Weisberg, provides an Introduction that places the individual contributions in context.
This is a short, accessible analysis of Christianity that focuses on its social and cultural diversity as well as its historical dimensions.
Professor David Bebbington is a highly regarded historian. He holds a chair at the University of Stirling, has been President of the Ecclesiastical History Society, and has delivered numerous endowed lecture series, as well as being deeply involved in the Dr Williams’s Dissenting Academies Project. He is both a popular and influential academic historian, whose writings have significantly shaped our thinking about the history of evangelicalism, Baptist life, and political developments. In Pathways and Patterns, colleagues, former research students and friends who are indebted to Professor Bebbington and value his contribution to scholarship join together to pay tribute to his outstanding work. Not only has he stimulated academic endeavour, he has also given much personal support, not least to those in the Baptist Historical Society and in Colleges, among them Spurgeon’s College and Baylor University (USA) where he is a Distinguished Visiting Professor. This volume reflects his wide involvements and the grateful esteem in which he is held. Among Professor Bebbington’s achievements has been both instituting and masterminding the very important International Conference on Baptist Studies (ICOBS), held every three years in different parts of the world. It is appropriate, then, that this volume was presented to him at the Seventh ICOBS Conference held in Manchester, July 2015.
Given sport’s centrality in English society, what role does it play in symbolising contemporary English national identity? This comprehensive study explores the complex set of relationships between sport and what it means to be English in the twenty-first century. The bond between sport and nationalism has long been recognised, but with increasingly vociferous separatist nationalisms threatening the dismantling of the United Kingdom, a closer analysis is timely. Part one addresses key debates regarding English national identity within the specific sporting contexts of association football, cricket, tennis, cycling and rugby. Part two discusses the complex relationship between religion, sport and English national identity as well as the attitudes and experiences of traditionally marginalized groups, including women, minority ethnic groups and disabled people. Part three considers the perspectives of the other UK nations on the link between sport and English national identity. Sport and English National Identity in a 'Disunited Kingdom' is fascinating reading for all those with an interest in the sociology, politics and history of sport, and the study of nations, nationalism and national identity.
This book treads new ground by bringing the Evangelical and Dissenting movements within Christianity into close engagement with one another. While Evangelicalism and Dissent both have well established historiographies, there are few books that specifically explore the relationship between the two. Thus, this complex relationship is often overlooked and underemphasised. The volume is organised chronologically, covering the period from the late seventeenth century to the closing decades of the twentieth century. Some chapters deal with specific centuries but others chart developments across the whole period covered by the book. Chapters are balanced between those that concentrate on an individual, such as George Whitefield or John Stott, and those that focus on particular denominational groups like Wesleyan Methodism, Congregationalism or the ‘Black Majority Churches’. The result is a new insight into the cross pollination of these movements that will help the reader to understand modern Christianity in England and Wales more fully. Offering a fresh look at the development of Evangelicalism and Dissent, this volume will be of keen interest to any scholar of Religious Studies, Church History, Theology or modern Britain.
This interdisciplinary text examines the sports-Christianity interface from Protestant and Catholic perspectives. In addition to a "systematic review of literature," field-pioneering contributors such as Michael Novak, Shirl Hoffman, Joseph Price and Robert Higgs address a wide range of topics from the sporting world, including biblical athletic metaphors, disability, evangelism, professionalism and celebrity, humility and pride, genetic enhancement technologies, stereotypes, sport as art and British and American historical analyses of sport and Christianity. Insightful chapters from Scott Kretchmar, one of the world’s leading philosophers of sport, and Father Kevin Lixey, the head of the Vatican’s ‘Church and Sport’ office (2004-), add further depth and breadth to this book, making it accessible and interesting to academic and practitioner audiences alike. Within the context of this relatively new and rapidly expanding area of inquiry, this collection provides a unique and important addition to the current literature for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, and serves as a point of reference for scholars of theology and religious studies, psychology, health studies, ethics and sports studies. The book may also be of interest to physical educators and sports coaches who wish to adopt a more "holistic" and ethical approach to their work. As modern sport is often intertwined with commercial and political agendas, this book offers an important corrective to the "win-at-all-costs" culture of modern sport, which cannot be fully understood through secular ethical inquiry.
It demonstrates that developments in technology, commerce, and infrastructure in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were closely linked to theological shifts and changing modes of religious life as British evangelicals developed new methods of spreading the gospel and new forms of personal religious practice.
Clive Marsh offers a contemporary Christian understanding of salvation. He shows how salvation is understood and articulated now, when 'redemption' language is widely used outside of Christianity, and when redemptive experiences are reported in response to the arts, popular culture, media, and through counselling.
Protestant Nonconformity, the umbrella term for Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists and Unitarians, belongs specifically to the religious history of England and Wales. Initially the result of both unwillingness to submit to the State's interference in Christian life and a dissatisfaction with the progress of reform in the English Church, Nonconformity has been primarily motivated by theological concern, ecclesial polity, devotion and the nurture of godliness among the members of the church. Alongside such churchly interests, Nonconformity has also made a profound contribution to debates about the role of the State, to family life and education, culture in general, trade and industry, the development of philanthropy and charity, and the development of pacifism. In this volume, for the first time, Nonconformity and the breadth of its activity come under the expert scrutiny of a host of recognised scholars. The result is a detailed and fascinating account of a movement in church history that, while currently in decline, has made an indelible mark on social, political, economic and religious life of the two nations.