North American Churches Research Articles

Book review: Western Christians in Global Mission: What’s the Role of the North American Church?

Book review: Western Christians in Global Mission: What’s the Role of the North American Church?

Liturgy and Faith Formation: Reimagining a Partnership for the Sake of Youth

If ever there was a golden era for the faith formation of young people in the North American church, the present day is most likely its nadir. The news, in a word, is grim. In a recent landmark stu...

Encounters over Garbage: Tourists and Lifestyle Migrants in Mexico

This article explores a tour to the garbage dump in the city of Mazatlán, northern Mexico, as an alternative to mass tourism. The tour, conducted by an evangelical North American church, is conceptualized as a non-profit, eye-opening experience for affluent tourists. I frame the tour as a particular kind of slum tourism, which is embedded in Christian values and promises a meaningful tourist experience by helping the poor. Drawing on an ethnographic approach, I argue that the interplay of globalization processes and local conditions in Mazatlán produces a particular framework in which slum tours emerge and work. The analysis reveals that this tour is a consequence of revised forms of tourism, transnational lifestyles and global forces at work in the North American–Mexican relationships. I stress that research needs to draw further attention to slum tourism's positioning in wider structural and historical contexts in order to understand its idiosyncratic features.

A Missional Church Model

Statistical evidence is clear; the Evangelical churches in North America are in decline. There are many reasons for this decline, not least of which is the reality that the North American Evangelical churches now exist in a post-Christendom milieu. A new ontology and a new praxis are needed to address this new reality. However, the model is perhaps not new, but merely a return to the intended purpose for the church since its inception in Jerusalem more than 2,000 years ago. This article explores a fourfold missional model for the North American church moving from liminality through communitas and emergence to mission.

Multiculturalism, Immigration and the North American Church

Missiologists have recently debated the extent to which missions in North America should attend to the culture of newer immigrant groups in efforts to create culturally particular congregations. While congregations composed of a single linguistic or ethnic group may be appropriate in some cases, the idea of mission work based on ministry to distinct “people groups” represented among immigrants in North America ignores critical dynamics of power and change in these communities. Instead, missiologists should focus on preparing the wider North American church to minister to immigrant communities with radical hospitality, compassion, and justice, responding to cultural change and the social diversities present in most North American immigrant communities.

Emerging from the Dark Age Ahead: The Future of the North American Church

Emerging from the Dark Age Ahead: The Future of the North American Church

Managerialism and Charisma in Catholic and Pentecostal Churches in the Americas

Managerialism impacted North American churches long before South and Central American churches, due to both the greater affinity for managerialism in Protestant ecclesial structures, and to the earlier development of advanced capitalism in North America. The most recent managerialist developments in Catholic churches of both continents have manifested themselves in the curial and Episcopal treatment of the clerical pedophilia scandals, while the developments in Pentecostal churches, especially in Latin America, have emanated from lower structural levels. Most of these emanate from pastors in churches on a growth trajectory that utilizes mass media, especially televised services and sermons.

Ardour and Order: Can the Bonds of Affection Survive in the Anglican Communion?

In the life of the Anglican Communion today, an approach which expresses ‘ardour’, a response to the Gospel which tends towards freedom from institutional restraint, is favoured over an approach of ‘order’, which sees the regulation of the life of the church as itself a witness to the ordered will of God. There is both an ‘ardour of the left’, which seeks to loosen the restrictions of canon law to allow a greater ‘inclusiveness’, and an ‘ardour of the right’, which is prepared to override traditional understandings of jurisdiction in the defence of ‘orthodoxy’. The First Epistle to Clement bears witness to an ancient tradition of respect for order in the life of the church. The ‘Windsor Lambeth Process’ in the Anglican Communion – as developed by the Primates' Meeting at Dromantine in 2006, and affirmed at their meeting in 2007 at Dar es Salaam – furthers just such an ordered approach to the life of the Communion, by its requests to the North American Churches through due process, by the development of mechanisms to address questions of alternative episcopal oversight, by the Listening Process to address the moral questions under debate, and by the process to draft and adopt an Anglican Covenant. These initiatives are all intended to strengthen ‘the bonds of affection’, and to secure the future of the Anglican Communion as an international family of Churches.

Rethinking the International Expansion of Mormonism

ABSTRACT: The rapid international expansion of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter—day Saints—the LDS, or Mormon Church—prompts some sociologists to claim that Mormonism is an incipient world religion. This expansion also serves as the basis for several sociological theories of church growth. However, these observations and theories rely on an uncritical acceptance of the LDS Church's membership statistics. This article uses census data from nations around the world to argue that Mormon Church membership claims are inflated. I argue that Mormonism is a North American church with tendrils in other continents, and that calling Mormonism a "world religion" is premature.

Faithful Gestures: Rebooting the Educational Mission of the Church

The authors contend that two haunting conditions foster frailty within the North American church's efforts at educating its adherents—first, the curious gap in theological education segregating clergy and laity; and second, an American-style penchant slouching toward unchecked pragmatism. An analysis of the obstacles that spring from these conditions is offered. Finally, the authors articulate a distinctive educational philosophy of Christian education and propose four distinctive, although not new, theological “tent posts” to guide professors and church leaders in conceptualizing how God's people might be better educated in faith for the 21st century.

Historical and Theological Analysis of the Pentecostal Church in Norway

The Pentecostal churches in Norway are comparatively small, and yet the influence of the Norwegian Pentecostals on global Pentecostalism has been significant. Pentecostalism is now the largest Free Church in Norway and the church that Barratt built to house the new tradition is still in use in central Oslo (then Kristiania) and still innovative in its mission and radical in its spirituality.' This essay will trace the development of the tradition founded by a de-frocked Methodist clergyman, persecuted in the press and attacked from the left and the right, to its role in defining the theology and praxis of Pentecostalism around the world. Contrary to what might be expected, the Norwegian Pentecostal church was not founded by North American missionaries, nor have the Norwegian Pentecostal churches ever been controlled by the North American churches. Like other European Pentecostal churches, indeed as the majority of the Pentecostal churches around the world, Norwegian Pentecostalism is and has always been an indigenous religious tradition with neither financial nor moral support from foreign churches.

The English Professors of Brazil: On the Diasporic Roots of the Yorùbá Nation

Melville J. Herskovits (e.g., 1966, 1941) argued that African Americans in virtually every American nation “retained” some greater or lesser cultural “memory” of the African past. Assuming that the cultures of the West African Fon, Yorùbá, and Ashanti (as reconstructed in the “ethnographic present”) represented the extant “base line,” or starting point, of African-American cultural history, Herskovits' “ethnohistorical” method posited that less-acculturated African-American groups instantiated the earlier historical stages of the more acculturated African-American groups. Thus, for example, spirit possession in the Brazilian Candomblé, could be taken to demonstrate the African derivation of “shouting,” or the behavior of those “filled with the Holy Spirit,” in black North American churches (Herskovits 1958[1941]:220–1). No less, the Candomblé, could be taken to represent an earlier stage of black North Americans' gradual syncretic adaptation, accommodation, and acculturation (Herskovits 1958[1941]:218). Herskovits' descriptions tend to represent the distinctive qualities of African-American cultures, in terms of enduring “deep-seated drives,” “bents,” and “underlying patterns.” On the other hand, Herskovits gives little attention to proximate historical and sociological mechanisms of their transmission. Dozens of scholars have usefully employed similar methods in the study of African cultural “memory” and adaptations. E.g., Arthur Ramos, Edison Carneiro, Ruth Landes, and Roger Bastide on Afro-Brazilians; Lydia Cabrera on Afro-Cubans; Herskovits himself on Haitians and Surinam Maroons; Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán on Afro-Mexicans; W. E. B. Du Bois, Joseph Holloway, Sterling Stuckey, Albert Raboteau, Robert Farris Thompson and Margaret Creel on blacks in the United States; and so forth. This study revises Herskovits' cultural history of the African diaspora and proposes, at the Afro-Latin American locus classicus of Herskovitsian studies, some non-linear alternatives to Herskovits' and others' visions of diasporas generally.

The Newbigin Gauntlet: Developing a Domestic Missiology for North America

The contextual missiology of the North American churches is poorly formed, at best. At the heart of the recent work of Lesslie Newbigin, there lies a challenge to develop a domestic missiology marked by the theological depth he has habitually brought to bear on missiological issues. To do so will require that we acknowledge the fundamentally new social circumstances in which the churches of North America now live, and pursue the answer to three questions in light of those circumstances: How must we grasp our identity? How must we seek the “common good”? And how must we tell the gospel?

Predictors of Reverse Culture Shock among North American Church of Christ Missionaries

The development of the Moore-Austin Reverse Culture Shock Scale (RCS) was an attempt to identify reentry adjustment difficulties among missionary adults. The subjects of the study were 255 North American Church of Christ missionaries. A 12-page questionnaire which included the RCS was mailed to each subject. The following variables were determined, through multiple regression analysis, to be significantly correlated with RCS scores: education level prior to mission assignment, months in last location, age range upon last return, marital status, expectation of difficulty, and type of school attended before mission assignment. Responses to open-ended questions suggested that there are difficulties encountered upon reentry which were not included in the RCS scale. Procedures such as factor analysis might be used in order to ascertain the major areas of difficulty which need to be included in future instruments.

The North American Churches and China, 1949–1981

The North American Churches and China, 1949–1981

CHURCH‐TO‐CHURCH RELATIONSHIP

International Review of MissionVolume 62, Issue 248 p. 425-432 CHURCH-TO-CHURCH RELATIONSHIP A Case Study of the Partnership between the Kyodan and North American Churches John Nakajima, John Nakajima This is a much condensed version of a paper delivered by Mr Nakajima, General Secretary of the National Christian Council of Japan, at the Bangkok Conference in January 1973, with certain statements updated in the text and footnotes. The full text may be obtained by writing the International Review of Mission office.Search for more papers by this author John Nakajima, John Nakajima This is a much condensed version of a paper delivered by Mr Nakajima, General Secretary of the National Christian Council of Japan, at the Bangkok Conference in January 1973, with certain statements updated in the text and footnotes. The full text may be obtained by writing the International Review of Mission office.Search for more papers by this author First published: October 1973 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6631.1973.tb02113.x Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume62, Issue248October 1973Pages 425-432 RelatedInformation

Can Political Factors Account for the Fact that Calvinism Rather than Anabaptism Came to Dominate the Dutch Reformation?

It is not surprising that the sixteenth century Anabaptist movement should gain increasing attention among American church historians. Anyone who becomes even slightly acquainted with that movement cannot help but observe that many of its features, such as its individualism, its rejection of infant baptism, its subjectivism, and its fragmentation into many diverse groups, seem to anticipate the kind of ecclesiastical developments that characterize much of North American church history. The parallel even extends to a number of individual phenomena: Many modern premillennialist movements hold views remarkably like those of Melchior Hoffman. The efforts of Jan de Bakker and Jan Beukelzoon to set up a Kingdom of God at Miinster were very like those of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, and the Latter Day Saints who followed them, to achieve a similar objective in the United States. In this case the parallel even extends to the polygamy that was introduced in both movements. Among the early Anabaptists Adam Pastor held beliefs which did not differ markedly from the anti-trinitarian doctrines of the present Jehovah's Witnesses. The existence of many such similarities makes the study of early Anabaptism a profitable one to the student of American church history.

The Kansas-Sudan Missionary Movement in the Y.M.C.A., 1889–1891

Among the significantly great historical achievements of the American Young Men's Christian Associations has been the planting of Associations in foreign countries. Paralleling the notable missionary outburst of the late nineteenth century among the North American churches, this distinctive program of the YMCA was inaugurated in the last years of the 1880's with the sending of Association secretaries to Japan and to India.1 Nourished in the student Y.M.C.A.'s and particularly evangelized at the pioneer student conferences held under the auspices of Dwight L. Moody in Northfield, Massachusetts, beginning in 1886,2 the missionary fervor aroused significant interest in many Associations. By 1916 there were 157 North American secretaries in 55 foreign countries, 140 of them in Asia.