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In the decades following the Second World War, North America and Western Europe experienced widespread secularization and dechristianization; many scholars have pinpointed the 1960s as a pivotally important period in this decline. The Sixties and Beyond examines the scope and significance of dechristianization in the western world between 1945 and 2000. A thematically wide-ranging and interdisciplinary collection, The Sixties and Beyond uses a framework that compares the social and cultural experiences of North America and Western Europe during this period. The internationally based contributors examine the dynamic place of Christianity in both private lives and public discourses and practices by assessing issues such as gender relations, family life, religious education, the changing relationship of church and state, and the internal dynamics of religious organizations. The Sixties and Beyond is an excellent contribution to the burgeoning scholarship on the 1960s as well as to the history of Christianity in the western world.
Who’s Minding the Story? examines the trajectory of the United Church of Canada since its heyday in the mid-1960s. Jeff Seaton argues that the denomination accepted the criticisms leveled at it by proponents of secular theology in the 1960s and made sweeping changes to its practices, its presentation of the Christian story, and its engagement with the world. Seaton argues that these “adjustments,” which continue to exert strong influence in the denomination today—as witnessed in the approaches of influential contemporary United Church leaders John Pentland and Gretta Vosper—have seriously weakened the United Church’s Christian identity and contributed to its decline. Engaging the work of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor in his magisterial volume A Secular Age, Seaton questions the assumptions that undergird secular theology. The book concludes with an invitation to the United Church to make a course correction by reengaging with the Christian tradition while maintaining its commitment to social justice, in a formulation Seaton names “progressive orthodoxy.”
The church is called to be the agency through which God is not only known but through which his kingdom is also advanced. This book, therefore, is an attempt to examine the church's influence on communities through social justice practices as part of advancing the gospel of the kingdom of God. The book brings out results of a study about a congregation's significant impact on a local community through varied social justice programs. The book also provides relevant recommendations on how such initiatives can be improved for a more effective kingdom-driven ministry to local communities. It is hoped that the example of J. Jireh Ministry Church provides a case worthy of emulation by other churches, congregations, and similar faith-based community organizations for ministering to social justice needs at the local level.
The Toronto 2018 Symposium on Christian Higher Education provided an opportunity for leaders in the Canadian Christian higher education movement to reflect deeply on its development, current reality, and future possibilities. The Canadian Christian higher education scene comprises a wide range of institutions, including Christian universities, Bible colleges, and seminaries and graduate schools. Each type has its own distinctive history and likewise represents both challenges and opportunities. Even though they are intertwined in their common purpose, these higher educational institutions express this purpose in various ways. This volume is a collection of the papers and plenary talks design...
Contexts -- Churches and movements -- The culture of evangelicalism -- Personalities.
At a time when Canadians were arguing about the merits of a new flag, the birth-control pill, and the growing hippie counterculture, the leaders of Canada's largest Protestant church were occupied with turning much of English-Canadian religious culture on its head. In After Evangelicalism, Kevin Flatt reveals how the United Church of Canada abruptly reinvented its public image by cutting the remaining ties to its evangelical past. Flatt argues that although United Church leaders had already abandoned evangelical beliefs three decades earlier, it was only in the 1960s that rapid cultural shifts prompted the sudden dismantling of the church's evangelical programs and identity. Delving deep int...
This book explores the world of religion, spirituality and secularity among the Millennial generation in the United States and Canada, with a focus on the ways Millennials are doing (non)religion differently in their social lives compared with their parents and grandparents. It considers the influences exercised on the (non)religious and spiritual landscapes of young adults in North America by the digital age, precarious work, growing pluralism, extreme individualism, environmental crisis, advanced urbanism, expanded higher education, emerging adulthood, and a secular age. Based on extensive primary and secondary quantitative data, complemented with high-quality qualitative research, including interviews and focus groups, this book offers cross-national comparisons between the United States and Canada to highlight the impact of different social environments on the experience of religion, spirituality and secularity among the continent’s most numerous generation. As such, it will appeal to scholars of religion and sociology, with interests in religious and societal change as well as in religious practice among young adults.
"A New Creed" is, by all accounts, a dominant feature of The United Church of Canada. Since its initial writing in 1968, it has come to be a primary symbol of the denomination in the ancient Christian (baptismal) sense of the word and also in the modern. The Search for a Symbol reveals the fascinating and largely untold story of "A New Creed's" origins. It also engages in an unprecedented historical, literary, and theological analysis of the creed's text. This book offers the provocative argument that though "A New Creed" should continue to have a place in the life and liturgy of Canada's largest Protestant church, it does not take full advantage of the possible benefits that can come from healthy practices of creedal confession--namely teaching people about the biblical story of salvation as well as connecting them in relationship with God and one another. For these purposes, the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds are shown to be better confessional options, and readily available ones within The United Church's tradition.