Contemporary Protestantism Research Articles

Between Religion and State

Abstract On the basis of Martin Luther’s theologia crucis in the Heidelberg Disputation (1518), the Lutheran concept of law in the 20th Century is examined. Luther’s distinction of religious and civil dimension of law with its religious restriction to a convicting function regarding the sin is received in the Luther-Renaissance of the 1920 and 1930s. The sample of Emanuel Hirsch (1888–1972) gives insight into the deeply ambivalent character of the Lutheran concept of law before World War II which combined a profound theory of Christian subjectivity with a theory of state promoting German nationalism in opposition to western democracy. The moderate theology of Wolfgang Trillhaas (1903–1995) reflecting the experience of the Nazi-Regime de-potentializes the Lutheran prejudice against the law in order to achieve new democratic perspectives on the notion of law in dogmatics and ethics. Thus, an affirmative position is established despite a remaining ambivalence in contemporary Lutheran Protestantism.

Zgromadzenia zakonne we współczesnym protestantyzmie. Zarys problematyki na przykładzie żeńskiej wspólnoty z Grandchamp

Christian Orders in Contemporary Protestantism. Outline of the Problem on the Example of the Female Community from Grandchamp The article concentrates on the renewal of monastic life in the European evangelical churches after 1945. The Reformation, initiated by the speech of Martin Luther (1483–1546), brought about great changes in this respect, questioning the current principles of the presence of the monk’s life in the Christian community. Criticism of religious life, formulated by the father of the Wittenberg Reformation, was undertaken by both Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) and John Calvin. Until the 19th century, monasticism had not seen rehabilitation of the churches that emerged in the wake of the Reformation. This did not mean, however, that it was completely forgotten. Due to renewal movements, including radical Pietism, which in the 17th and 18th centuries became popular in Protestant Europe, monastic issues returned. Eminent figures in the history of Christianity were discovered. Their world of faith and personal experience was mediated through community life, based on prayer rules and practices known since the time of the original church. At the same time in France, Germany and England a return to the abandoned ways of implementing Christian life began. The article analyses the inspiring community of Grandchamp to indicate the way tradition in the churches deriving from the Reformation has been discovered and re-read.

PERSPECTIVE OF MAX WEBER’S THESIS ON THE ETHICS OF PROTESTANTISM AND ITS RELEVANCE TO THE STYLE OF CHRISTIANITY IN MALUKU

Purpose of study: This study aims to explain Max Weber's thesis on the ethics of Protestantism and its relevance to the style of Christianity in Maluku.
 Methodology: The method used in this study is descriptive qualitative with an inductive approach. Data analysis will use metaphor, narration, and semiotics as a step to place historical facts into qualitative data related to research problems.
 Main Findings: The results achieved in this study are that the reality of Protestantism in Maluku is especially at the GPM, in its correlation with Weber's Thesis it is clearly stated that Protestant Calvinists are people who survive and save so that they succeed in the economic world and become capital owners (Capitalism), on the contrary, the Calvinist Protestants in Maluku (GPM) did not show that attitude.
 Implications: This concludes that Protestant Ethics as a contextual demand in this study was put forward because of the attention to the context of the meaning and articulation of contemporary Protestantism in Maluku.

History Lessons

This article contends that Chinese Protestant history is increasingly produced and consumed by various interest groups in China today. Protestant families, church congregations, and local state actors are all involved in reassessing and promoting local Protestant history. These processes reveal vibrant, organic forms of acculturation of Christianity into Chinese society. This article further argues that it would be prudent for scholars of contemporary Chinese Protestantism to focus greater analytical attention on Chinese Protestant history.

Дискуссия об авторитете, богодухновенностии безошибочности Библии в современном протестантизме

Статья посвящена учению о безошибочности Библии, а также вопросам библейской богодухновенности и авторитета в современной протестантской традиции. Исследуя историю вопроса, автор показывает, что учение о безошибочности Священного Писания возникло как реакция на утверждения католиков о непогрешимости Папы Римского и Церкви, а также на либеральные тенденции в богословии. На примере «Чикагского заявления о библейской безошибочности» излагаются ключевые моменты данного учения. В ходе критического анализа автор показывает основные проблемные аспекты современного учения о безошибочности (представляемые такими фундамен талистами, как Г. Линдселл), которое неверно воспринимается как основание христианской веры, навязывает библейским текстам чуждый им критерий истинности, дает неверные герменевтические установки исследователям, апеллирует к несуществующим первоначальным библейским рукописям. В заключение автор приходит к выводу, что авторитет и богодухновенность Библии не могут основываться на доказательстве безошибочности библейских текстов, но должны утверждаться на вере, подкрепленной свидетельством о преображающем воздействии Божьего Слова в жизни христианской общины.

Still Influential: The Protestant Emphasis on Schooling

Abstract From its beginning 500 years ago, Protestantism has been advocating and actively pursuing the expansion of schooling, including the schooling of girls. In many countries, it has thus helped to create a cultural heritage that puts a high value on education and schooling. This paper provides evidence that Protestantism’s historical legacy has an enduring effect. Using data on 147 countries, it finds that countries with larger Protestant population shares in 1900 had higher secondary school enrollment rates over 1975-2010, including among girls. The magnitude of the effect is small though. Using Protestant population shares over 1975-2010, the paper also shows that Protestantism’s influence on schooling has diminished and that contemporary Protestantism, in contrast to historical Protestantism, does not affect schooling. The regression analysis accounts for numerous other determinants of schooling.

Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American EvangelicalismMollyWorthen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism Molly Worthen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.If we can rightfully make any sort of generalizations about the movement, Evangelicalism in the West is a study in contradictions. Although influenced by Enlightenment thinking, it remains skeptical of reason. While it places a premium on individual revelation and a personal relationship with a Creator, it is deeply anxious about those believers who eschew authority, Biblical or institutional. Believing that their faith stands apart from the world, they nevertheless fear that the world itself wants little to do with them. It is within this matrix of contradictions that Molly Worthen's Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism provides a scholarly yet accessible exploration of contemporary Protestantism in the West and as a global movement. This is no small feat as the subject matter itself defies an easy narrative. Histories often depend on well-defined institutional structures and the individualistic and schismatic character of the evangelical church makes the story a difficult one to tell. Worthen, however, rises to the challenge.Her book begins in 1942 with the founding of the National Association for Evangelicals in St. Louis. She very successfully captures the excitement of forming a group that hoped to combine the insights gleaned from science and the study of history with the message of the Gospel and to offer it to a world its members felt was hungry for such a message. Immediately, however, as Worthen skillfully recounts, doctrinal differences between Baptists, Presbyterians, and Pentecostals laid bare the problems of the intellectual traditions in these denominations. The book treats in great detail the schism between fundamentalism and modernism in the evangelical churches and how that rupture affects the church some seventy years later.The book covers all the familiar history of American evangelicalism with the impact of Barth, the rise of Billy Graham and the conservative intellectual backlash to his Crusades, William F. Buckley (albeit a Roman Catholic) with his efforts to wrest American universities from secularism, and the rise of the Religious Right. Worthen shows quite ably that evangelicalism's unresolved problems with authority and its relative inability to offer a cogent viewpoint that ran counter to the dominance of European Reformed the- ology in seminaries and universities hampered its ability to forge an intellectual tradition. …

Is It the Spirit Moving, Or Is It Just that Burrito from Lunch? A Review Essay of T. M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God

T. M. Luhrmann sets out to explore a crucial theme in contemporary evangelical Protestantism: the process by which members of the so-called “new paradigm” churches not only learn how to pray to God but also how to engage God in entire conversations. Luhrmann analyzes how prayer, visions, therapeutic practices, and spirituality play a part in this process. Beautifully written and compellingly told, When God Talks Back deserves the widest possible audience.

Introdução à desmistificação na Reforma luterana: Conflito entre o misticismo cristão e o protestantismo moderno

This article, due to the large historical period concerned and its limited number of pages, could be nothing but an introductory presentation. The man theme has a certain Weberian inspiration and partially addresses the conflict between Christian mysticism — the charismatic dement — and the modern forms of Protestant Reformation, especially found in Lutheranism. The mysticism of antiquity was reformulated and featured by Karistadt and Angelus Silesius in a movement contemporary with Lutheranism. This conflict of charisma versus the modern and rational religiosity is ideally presented as opposed forces, but it should be also understood as a set of elements melted in present times, with the predominance of the charismatic elements. This article is acknowledged mainly for contemporary Protestantism researchers, in case it serves of any help on presenting this dynamic element that is still present in contemporary times.

(Re‐)Forming Freedom: Reflections “after Veritatis splendor” on Freedom's Fate in Modernity and Protestantism's Antinomian Captivity

This essay unfolds in four steps. First, it sketches the way the fate of freedom in modernity – the freedom of the Promethean self – has set the stage for Protestantism's antinomianism as well as for the theological intervention of Veritatis Spendor. The essay focuses here on Kant, Fichte, Nietzsche. Secondly, it shows how Veritatis Spendor overcomes modernity's autonomist conception of freedom. The essay, thirdly, turns to Protestantism “after Veritatis Spendor” and argues that the encyclical's vision of freedom puts into clear relief the antinomian captivity of contemporary Protestantism. Here, the essay also offers a fresh perspective on Luther's largely unknown opposition to antinomianism. It concludes with ten theses “after the Promethean self” that point the way forward, intimating how freedom will need to be rethought theologically in order to overcome the antinomian captivity of contemporary Protestantism.

The Church of the Center

Within contemporary Protestantism a center is emerging that is both evangelical and ecumenical. Its theology is controlled by neither cultural orthodoxies nor ideological wars; its loyalty is to Christ alone, the one center of the church.

Preaching About Sin in Contemporary Protestantism

“[W]hile some traditional images of sin are retained in [sermons], the language frequently cushions the listener from their impact, employing a variety of softening rhetorical devices. … Yet, in many of the sermons, judgment against sin is in fact rendered. But it is not aimed at the listeners; indeed, its precise formulations and the nature of its targets may give us pause. This may suggest that, while care is taken not to appear unattractive to actual or potential members of the congregation (seeing them as ‘consumers’ to be courted), politeness does not necessarily extend into tolerance for those outside the reach of the church.”

Prophecy, Gender, and Culture: Ellen Gould Harmon [White] and the Roots of Seventh-Day Adventism

“… the weakest of the weak…”Ellen G. White, nee Harmon (1827-1915), is among the least known of the prophet-founders of major American religious movements. The Seventh-day Adventist prophet has received neither the celebrity nor the notoriety of Mormonism’s Joseph Smith, Shakerism’s Ann Lee, or Christian Science’s Mary Baker Eddy. Yet she deserves at least the recognition of these other sect founders. Ill, introverted, and undereducated, White ultimately asserted the most forceful influence on Seventh-day Adventism and ensured it a place among the major American sects. Her long and resourceful career as the Adventist visionary inspired the transformation of a single-minded, other-worldly, Millerite off-shoot into a complex and established denomination with wide-ranging interests in sabbatarianism, eschatology, health reform, temperance, medicine, child nurture, education, and religious liberty. Her legacy includes an impressive global network of sanitariums and hospitals and a vast educational system unparalleled in contemporary Protestantism. Her writings number eighty printed volumes, circulated among an Adventist world membership of over five million.

Prophecy, Gender, and Culture: Ellen Gould Harmon [White] and the Roots of Seventh-day Adventism

“… the weakest of the weak…”Ellen G. White, nee Harmon (1827-1915), is among the least known of the prophet-founders of major American religious movements. The Seventh-day Adventist prophet has received neither the celebrity nor the notoriety of Mormonism’s Joseph Smith, Shakerism’s Ann Lee, or Christian Science’s Mary Baker Eddy. Yet she deserves at least the recognition of these other sect founders. Ill, introverted, and undereducated, White ultimately asserted the most forceful influence on Seventh-day Adventism and ensured it a place among the major American sects. Her long and resourceful career as the Adventist visionary inspired the transformation of a single-minded, other-worldly, Millerite off-shoot into a complex and established denomination with wide-ranging interests in sabbatarianism, eschatology, health reform, temperance, medicine, child nurture, education, and religious liberty. Her legacy includes an impressive global network of sanitariums and hospitals and a vast educational system unparalleled in contemporary Protestantism. Her writings number eighty printed volumes, circulated among an Adventist world membership of over five million.

The Study of Scripture in the Congregation Old Problems and New Programs

The decline of the study of Scripture in the congregation, emanating from the twofold crisis of modern forms of inquiry into Scripture and various failures of the teaching office in contemporary Protestantism, has given rise to programs specifically designed to meet those problems.

The Curious Path of Conservative Protestantism

The effective origins of contemporary conservative Protestantism are found in the early nineteenth century, when an evangelicalism emerged and so influenced that century. This outlook, both theological and moral, dominated until after the Civil War, when forces of immigration, urbanization, and education severely challenged at least the theological domination. By early in the twentieth century, therefore, Protestantism had split into two factions: a liberal wing that, by accommodating theologically to those forces of modernity, remained dominant, and a conservative wing that seemed, by the 1920s, to have submerged from public life. To understand not only the resurgence of conservative Protestantism but also its unusual political turn, therefore, requires consideration of moral—not just theological—factors peculiar to America since the 1960s.

In Search of a Protestant Twentieth Century: American Religion and Power Since 1900

The aim of this essay is to shed light on the resurgence of conservative Protestantism in the current day. To do this, I review the enormous change Protestantism underwent between 1880 and 1920, two eflects of which were: a) breaking the link between mainline denominations and the exercise of power in American society, and b) a failure of nerve in foreign missions. Thus, although contemporary conservative Protestantism still sounds as if it is at war with modernism, in fact its quarrel (generally focused on "secular humanism") is with the diminished political role played by religion. This adversarial change helps explain the "politicization" of current-day conservative Protestantism.

Comments on Hoge's "Free Will Behavior Index"

Writing in the late 1960s during the height of political and social turmoil throughout America, Martin E. Marty (1970) described two opposing "parties" in contemporary American Protestantism. On the one hand were "Private" Protestants whose faith "accented individual salvation out of the world, personal moral life . . . , [and] rewards or punishments in another world in a life to come." The other "party" (which Marty called "Public Protestantism") was "public insofar as it was more exposed to the social order and the social destinies of men" (Marty, 1970:179). Although these theological traditions had existed side by side throughout the early 19th century, Marty argued that opposing theological parties solidified during the industrializing and urbanizing post-Civil War era. Taking his cue from Marty, Dean R. Hoge (1976) developed several indices to assess the various components of this twol-party experience. One component was a continuum with the presumed poles of "free will vs. the social interpretation of human behavior" (Hoge, 1976:75). According to Hoge, persons adhering to the "Private" pole of this component are expected to, stress "the will of the individual as the main determinant of behavior. . . . Social problems are at their root personal problems, and the best way to approach them is to appeal to the will of the individual." The programmatic implications of this perspective for Christians involve personal evangelism and conversion. Believers who fall within the "Public" party would hold "that social impacts on the individual are so great that individual freedom is limited. Social forces often overwhelm individual will power, and many social problems demand action to change those forces." The practical consequences for Christians having this perspective are corporate efforts towards large-scale social change. Measuring this bi-polar dimension has been particularly difficult. In two separate surveys-one in 1972 of selected New Jersey Presbyterians and the other in 1973 of a nationwide sample of Presbyterians (Hoge, 1976:135-136) -Hoge used a total of eight Likert-type items (4 items in each study) to assess this dimension. From these sets of four items Hoge selected the three most highly inter-correlated in each survey to measure the Free Will Behavior issue. Hoge, et al. (1978) used a three-item Free Will Behavior Index in conjunction with several other indices to, test Marty's two-party hypothesis. They found that:

Religious Affiliation and Use of Drugs among Adolescent Students

prominent sacred symbol of the group at summer youth camps than in any other context of contemporary American Protestantism: (1) the summer camp is a newly formed group for which there is a greater need for correspondingly new symbols of group unity; (2) group consciousness is greater for adolescents than for other age groups; (3) when campers leave urban settings to come to camp, the already romanticized and poetic phenomenon of nature sharply and vividly parallels the existence of the group. In addition, an interfaith camp creates demands for inclusive symbols, and nature is a highly generalized symbol, offensive to none, yet romantic and sacred when spoken of within a prayer.

Renewal Movements in Contemporary Protestantism

Renewal Movements in Contemporary Protestantism