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What would a divinely ordained social order look like? Pre&–Vatican II Catholics, from archbishops and theologians to Catholic union workers and laborers on U.S. farms, argued repeatedly about this in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Debating God&’s Economy is a history of American Catholic economic debates taking place during the generation preceding Vatican II. At that time, American society was rife with sociopolitical debates over the relative merits and dangers of Marxism, capitalism, and socialism; labor unions, class consciousness, and economic power were the watchwords of the day. This was a time of immense social change, and, especially in the light of the monu...
With the poetic force of Kathleen Norris and the pastoral warmth of Eugene Peterson, Kansas pastor Roth sets forth a vision for vibrant rural churches, for ministry in congregations that bear a profound sense of both loss and possibility, and for harvesting fruits of transformation and renewal. Rooted in stories from Scripture, his own ministry, and interviews with rural church leaders, Roth offers a sturdy theological and practical alternative to church-growth strategies that rely on success stories and flashy metrics. Reclaiming God’s vision for the rural church, Roth writes, means learning how to praise, abide, watch, pray, grow, work the edges, die, befriend, and dream. In God’s Country, rediscover the stunning abundance of God’s presence in rural communities. Name the ways that the rural church testifies to God’s glory and goodness. Learn to live and love and minister right where you are, no matter how small or unassuming it may seem. Winner of the Award of Merit, Christianity Today 2018 Book Awards, The Church / Pastoral Leadership category. Free downloadable study guide available here.
Shaken by the ongoing clergy sexual abuse scandal, and challenged from within by social and theological division, Catholics in America are at a crossroads. But is today’s situation unique? And where will Catholicism go from here? With the belief that we understand our present by studying our past, James O’Toole offers a bold and panoramic history of the American Catholic laity. O’Toole tells the story of this ancient church from the perspective of ordinary Americans, the lay believers who have kept their faith despite persecution from without and clergy abuse from within. It is an epic tale, from the first settlements of Catholics in the colonies to the turmoil of the scandal-ridden pr...
A man far ahead of his time, Archbishop Edwin V. O'Hara of Kansas City (1881-1956) orchestrated numerous initiatives that profoundly affected American Catholic life.
There are few places left in this world where we can escape the influence and din of progress and technology. Voices from every direction and perspective beckon, even push, us forward toward more, greater and faster technology, with the teaser of more wealth, more possessions, more pleasure, and, consequently, more happiness and contentment. This is how the present American dream is now defined, and every investment broker and political candidate promises that if we trust them, we also can trust that one day it will all be ours. But have we become so blinded by the material, industrial, progressivist culture in which we live that we've lost the ability, not just to achieve, but to even disce...
In the early twentieth century, many Americans were troubled by the way agriculture was becoming increasingly industrial and corporate. Mainline Protestant churches and cooperative organizations began to come together to promote agrarianism: the belief that the health of the nation depended on small rural communities and family farms. In Baptized with the Soil, Kevin M. Lowe offers for the first time a comprehensive history of the Protestant commitment to rural America. Christian agrarians believed that farming was the most moral way of life and a means for people to serve God by taking care of the earth that God created. When the Great Depression hit, Christian agrarians worked harder to ke...
This collection begins on the premise that, until recently, religion has been particularly influential in Ireland in forming a sense of identity, and in creating certain versions of reality. History has also been a key component in that process, and the historical evolution of Christianity has been appropriated by the main religious denominations – Catholic, Church of Ireland, and Presbyterian – with a view to reinforcing their own identities. This book explores the ways in which this occurred; the writing of religious history, and some of the manifestations of that process, forms key parts of the collection. Also included are chapters discussing current and recent attempts to examine the legacy of collective religious memory - notably in Northern Ireland - based on projects designed to encourage reflection about the religious past among both adults and school-children. Readers will find this collection particularly timely in view of the current ‘decade of commemorations’.
A powerful dissection of a core American myth. The idea that the United States is unlike every other country in world history is a surprisingly resilient one. Throughout his distinguished career, Ian Tyrrell has been one of the most influential historians of the idea of American exceptionalism, but he has never written a book focused solely on it until now. The notion that American identity might be exceptional emerged, Tyrrell shows, from the belief that the nascent early republic was not simply a postcolonial state but a genuinely new experiment in an imperialist world dominated by Britain. Prior to the Civil War, American exceptionalism fostered declarations of cultural, economic, and spa...