North American Protestant Research Articles

Christian Citizens in a Democratic State: Is a True Separation of Church and State Really Possible?

In many North American Protestant circles, especially those with Baptist or Free Church roots, the notion of the total separation of church and state is presented as the ideal to be attained in all church and state relations. We are told that the state should have no legislative power to ordain anything in relation to church doctrine or practice, and that the church should be entirely excluded from all political, secular, or state actions. In this paper, we are going to suggest that such an approach to church–state relations (even though some might think that it flows from or is necessary for democracy) is, in fact, impossible in a true democracy. We will first consider the nature of the church and the state, and present three principles that Maritain suggests are first principles in this debate. We will then look at the classical notion of the “Citizen”. We will conclude by arguing that based upon the nature of a citizen, of the church, and of the state, a strict separation of church and state is, in fact, impossible.

Inclusive writing

This article documents the linguistic, disciplinary, geographical and ideological circulation of the notion of ‘inclusive writing/d’écriture inclusive’ in order to understand the French controversy surrounding the term. The article shows that North American Protestant feminist theologists first spread the expression in the 1970s. The expression then circulated in feminist circles in English and French, in Europe and North America, but also in the fields of disability and pedagogy. Its success in the French space, however, is not only due to its Protestant roots but also to a republican definition of inclusion emerging in France in the 1990s. By the time the controversy shot up, the paradigm of inclusion was thus loaded with its French republican meaning as much as its English and/or North American meaning, creating an ideological paradox that limits inclusive writing’s critical capacity and fails to question relations of domination.

Whom Do We Serve? Dismantling the Church Industrial Complex in North American Mainline Protestant Churches

Social justice is often identified as a central commitment in mainline Protestant churches in North America. However, it is often approached as a public-facing issue that engages broader society, rather than as a comprehensive value that also informs internal practices in those same North American Protestant congregations/denominations, particularly in the area of finance. This reality means that a profit orientation often informs and shapes practices, undermining the mission; this reality can be understood as part of an industrial complex. To counter this tendency, I present two themes that are rooted in a liberation-based critical understanding of inequality found in the World Council of Churches’ AGAPE (Alternative Globalization Affecting People and the Earth) statement. These two themes are as follows: that one’s personal financial resources (or lack thereof) are deeply connected to oppressive systemic factors, and that churches are called to exist in economic solidarity and communion with one another. I conclude by asserting that church finance must be rendered more coherent with churches’ own values and commitments to liberating justice as a matter of faith.

Religious Activities, Christian Media Consumption and Marital Quality among Protestants

Although associations between religiosity and marital quality have been demonstrated in previous research, mechanisms still remain unclear. Three 3-step hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine whether 10 individual, dyadic or family religious activities or uses of 7 forms of Christian media predicted positive relationship quality, negative interaction and intimate partner violence in a sample of North American Protestants. Joint spousal and family religious activities predicted higher levels of relationship quality. Individual activities, such as reading the Bible, and parent-child activities, such as praying with children and discussing Christians values with children, predicted lower levels of relationship quality. Listening to Christian talk radio and viewing Christian websites or blogs predicted lower levels of relationship quality. The authors inferred that individuals in low-quality relationships use activities such as reading the Bible, listening to Christian talk radio, and viewing Christian websites and blogs to seek information to improve relationships or promote healthy adaptation. Similarly, the authors speculated that praying with children and discussing spiritual values with them were seen as interventionary measures to protect children when parents were in low-quality relationships.

O romance missionário-protestante Candida: autoria feminina e relações de gênero na obra de Mary Hoge Wardlaw (séc. XIX-XX)

Dentre os inúmeros escritos produzidos por missionários protestantes que trabalharam no Brasil durante o século XIX está um romance publicado nos Estados Unidos no ano de 1902 intitulado Candida; or, by a way she knew not. A story from Ceara, o qual teve por autora a missionária presbiteriana Mary Hoge Wardlaw. Esta obra de caráter ficcional apontava como objetivo demonstrar aos seus leitores o processo de inserção do protestantismo na Província do Ceará na década de 1880. Não obstante, mais do que um relato de atuação missionária, o romance de Mrs. Wardlaw também se inseriu em um contexto de ampliação do espectro de atuação feminina no universo protestante norte-americano do fim do século XIX e princípio do século XX. Neste momento várias mulheres, através da ação missionária e da escrita (de memórias, cartas, romances, etc.) operaram determinado protagonismo feminino inserido em uma rede de relações assimétricas de gênero, atuando constantemente no campo de acomodações e astúcias. O presente artigo visa discutir, tendo por foco a obra de Mrs. Wardlaw, de que modo algumas missionárias protestantes em terras estrangeiras – por vezes negligenciadas em estudos acerca do protestantismo – atuaram e expuseram suas visões de mundo ao mesmo tempo em que estavam inseridas em um amplo e complexo jogo de relações de gênero, onde negociações e enfrentamentos nem sempre são de fácil percepção.

Saving Germany. North American Protestants and Christian Mission to West Germany, 1945–1974, by James C. Enns

Saving Germany. North American Protestants and Christian Mission to West Germany, 1945–1974, by James C. Enns

James C. Enns. Saving Germany: North American Protestants and Christian Mission to West Germany, 1945–1974.

James C. Enns. Saving Germany: North American Protestants and Christian Mission to West Germany, 1945–1974.

Book review: Saving Germany: North American Protestants and Christian Mission to West Germany, 1945–1974

Book review: Saving Germany: North American Protestants and Christian Mission to West Germany, 1945–1974

The Rise of Fundamentalisms and the Concept of Sin

Studies • volume 106 • number 422 183 The Rise of Fundamentalisms and the Concept of Sin1 Megan Loumagne Where are we? Conceptual artist Barbara Kruger’s piece entitled ‘You Are Not Yourself’ was created in 1982.2 The piece depicts the face of a woman in distress reflected in a shattered mirror, the accusation ‘you are not yourself’ overlaid on top. Kruger’s work has been highly acclaimed and heavily awarded, with installations in prominent art galleries around the world, and this image in particular captures something significant about the experience of life in an age of posts – post-modern, post-religion, post-structuralist, post-colonial, posteverything . It connotes pain, fragmentation, loss, disorientation, violence, uncertainty about identity, and more specifically, uncertainty about even the possibility of being able to understand one’s identity. Perhaps an even more apt slogan for this image would be, ‘You can’t know if you are yourself’. The anxiety evoked in the viewer mirrors the anxiety of the contemporary mind that cannot find anything reliable upon which to ground hope rather than despair as a fundamental orientation to existence. Thisinteriorfragmentationanddisorientation,causedbyavarietyofseismic shifts in philosophical, economic, sociological and scientific factors leads manyinourtimeto‘profoundfeelingsofalienationandnon-belonging’.3 Even though we live in the era of globalisation and electronic inter-connectedness, this has, it seems, paradoxically heightened rather than ameliorated feelings of loneliness and isolation. This pervasive sense of alienation, the lack of belonging and identity, the uncertainty and disorientation, are significant both for the consideration of the rise of fundamentalisms, as well as of contemporary developments in doctrines of sin. If Kruger’s image captures something significant about where we are, how did we get here? What does it have to do with doctrines of sin and with the Church more broadly? And how can we understand the rise of fundamentalisms? While there may be significant overlap among various fundamentalist The Rise of Fundamentalisms and the Concept of Sin 184 Studies • volume 106 • number 422 movements around the world, I focus on the example of fundamentalism within North American Protestantism because of its significant visibility in the media and the general public through figures like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, and the extreme fundamentalist activities of Westboro Baptist Church.4 There are certainly important connections to be made between North American Protestant fundamentalism and other fundamentalisms, but that task lies beyond the scope of this essay. Due to limitations of time and space, and because of my desire to avoid caricaturing fundamentalisms as one monolithic category, which wouldn’t reflect the complexities of reality, I primarily focus on North American Protestant fundamentalism. Additionally, this article does not pretend to present an exhaustive study of as controversial and complex a topic as fundamentalism. It simply seeks to illuminate some of the complexities of the relationship between fundamentalism and Christian reflection on sin, and to propose some considerations for contemporary theological reflection on sin in a time when fundamentalist movements are perhaps gaining renewed momentum. Relevant philosophical developments Understanding the rise of fundamentalism within North American Protestantism in all of its complexity would require a detailed analysis of the myriad factors – including wars, social movements, economic issues – that led to it. However, for the purposes of this paper, I focus mainly on philosophical and theological developments. To begin, I distinguish the term ‘fundamentalist’ from ‘conservative’ or ‘traditionalist’, following a similar move made by Martin Marty and R Scott Appleby in their encyclopedic eight-year study of various fundamentalisms around the world.5 While both conservatives and fundamentalists have a concern for orthodoxy, the term ‘fundamentalists’ refers to those who view themselves and their religious beliefs as under attack by the broader culture around them, and who are willing to engage in battle in a variety of different ways to defend what they perceive as religious truth. As Marty and Appleby describe, ‘Fundamentalists see themselves as militants . . . [they] begin as traditionalists who perceive some challenge or threat to their core identity, both social and personal. They react, they fight back with great innovative power’.6 This is not meant to imply that fundamentalists or religious people more broadly are not ‘under attack’ in some legitimate ways in our time, and Megan Loumagne...

The Unbounded Creator and the Bounded Creatures

The Unbounded Creator and the Bounded Creatures Charles P. Arand Some years ago, Gustav Wingren raised the concern that the church had neglected its rich theology of creation that served as the ontological foundation of salvation. Counter to the prominence of epistemology in the twentieth century, Wingren noted that Genesis came before Exodus for a reason.1 Without a robust theology of creation, the teaching of redemption would become unmoored and float away into a spiritualistic realm of escape. To be sure, North American Protestants focused on the creation-evolution debate as part of the culture wars sparked in many ways by the Scopes “monkey trial” in 1925. But in the process, they often truncated or reduced the topic of creation to merely a question of origins or protology. For at least three reasons the outlook is improving. First, the last two decades have witnessed a surge of interest in the stewardship of creation. Second, faith and science issues continue to be at the forefront of questions raised by young people today, especially if they wish to pursue a career in science.2 Third, the renewed attention given to the bodily resurrection of Jesus and the narrative of the new creation has stimulated reflection on creation in general. Another way of putting this is to say that creation is what the entire story is all about. Everything that God does takes place within this creation for the sake of this creation. Everything begins here; everything ends here. The first thing that the Bible says about God is that God creates (“In the beginning, God created . . .” Gen. 1:1). And the last thing the Bible says about God is that he creates anew (“Behold, I make all things new” Rev. 21:5). Everything in between moves from the first creation story to the second creation story. In this way, creating encompasses the full scope of God’s activity. Thus, “a doctrine of redemption is meaningful only when it swings within the larger orbit of a doctrine of creation.”3 [End Page 267] For the purposes of this paper, I will focus on the meaning and implications of the Christian confession that God created everything out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) since this takes us to the core of our understanding of both the creator and the creatures. From Irenaeus down to Luther, theologians have marveled at this powerful act of God.4 For example, when commenting on the text in Ezekiel regarding the valley of dry bones, Irenaeus exclaims, Surely it is much more difficult and incredible, from non-existent bones, and nerves, and veins, and the rest of man’s organization, to bring it about that all this should be, and to make man an animated and rational creature, than to reintegrate again that which had been created and then afterward decomposed into earth.5 The confession that God created everything out of nothing provides a framework for speaking about God as the unbounded creator and about us as bounded creatures. Such a framework can help us think through issues that arise at the intersections of science and theology with regard to their respective realms and methods. More importantly, it provides a key way for seeing the narrative unity of creation and re-creation. God first creates out of the nothingness of non-being and then creates again out of the nothingness of death. God’s creating out of nothing not only finds its definitive expression in the cross but there we also see it as an act of creative love. God’s Creative Love A year after posting the Ninety-Five Theses, Martin Luther prepared another set of theses for a disputation in Heidelberg. They provide a window into his theological method as he contrasts scholastic theology, as a theology that glories in human achievement, with a theology of the cross, as a theology that relies on the promise of the crucified and risen one. Peter Berger expressed the scandal well in contemporary terms. That God came into the world in the improbable figure of a small-town carpenter turned into itinerant preacher, who was executed as a criminal, despised [End Page 268] and abandoned, who was dead and...

Creating, Practicing, and Researching a Global Faith: Conceptualizations of World Christianity in the American Protestant Pastorate and Seminary Classroom, 1893 to the Present

ABSTRACT This article investigates how North American Protestants conceptualized and studied “world Christianity” from the turn of the twentieth century onward. It examines references to world Christianity in historic newspapers and scholarly books and surveys how North American Protestant conceptualizations of world Christianity translated into curriculum and professorship changes at three flagship Protestant seminaries: Union Theological Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Boston University’s School of Theology. It argues that world Christianity developed in the American Protestant pastorate and seminary classroom in relationship to three phenomena: world evangelization, worldwide ecumenism, and indigenization. During these three stages, American Protestants utilized “world Christianity” to describe their changing relationship to foreign mission and non-Western Christianity, particularly in light of shifting theological commitments at home and historical developments abroad. With each development, world Christianity transitioned from being a concept with America at its center to one reflecting a multipolar, global Christian faith.

Quality of life and mission

Missions activities often include efforts aimed at improving the physical well-being of others. These efforts have gained additional emphasis in recent years as North American Protestants have focused on missions activities that have tangible impacts on people’s well-being in contrast to activities with more spiritual impacts. This article uses the idea of “quality of life” to review the relationship of Christian mission to improving the physical well-being of others. Offering a brief sketch of missional activities undertaken in the New Testament, during the Roman Empire, through monasticism, by Anglo-American Reformers, and by 19th- and 20th-century North American missionaries, it concludes that the improvement of people’s quality of life shifted dramatically in reference to the church’s understanding of mission. Specifically, Christians changed from seeing the improvement of others’ quality of life as a means of people sharing in the salvation of Christ to that improvement as one of the chief ends of Christ’s salvific work.

Congregational Aid: North American Protestant Engagement in International Relief and Development

A review of large North American Protestant congregations (n = 423) engaging in global relief and development, or ‘holistic mission’ (HM), suggests that half engage in HM activities per year, with the majority of those activities focused on human and physical sectors. Most activities are led by religious NGOs or missionaries and about half are short-term. A mix of proximity, poverty, population, and policy variables direct short- and long-term aid. Findings provide a benchmark for enhancing learning and partnerships among churches, NGOs, and development scholars, ultimately enhancing the efficacy of Protestant aid.

Congregational Aid: North American Protestant Engagement in International Relief and Development

A review of large North American Protestant congregations (n = 423) engaging in global relief and development, or ‘holistic mission’ (HM), suggests that half engage in HM activities per year, with the majority of those activities focused on human and physical sectors. Most activities are led by religious NGOs or missionaries and about half are short-term. A mix of proximity, poverty, population, and policy variables direct short- and long-term aid. Findings provide a benchmark for enhancing learning and partnerships among churches, NGOs, and development scholars, ultimately enhancing the efficacy of Protestant aid.

Les Incertitudes de la nation en Angola: aux racines sociales de l'Unita by Didier Péclard

Reviews 266 Didier Péclard, Les Incertitudes de la nation en Angola: aux racines sociales de l’Unita (Paris: Éditions Karthala, 2015). 370 pages. Print. Reviewed by Iracema Dulley (CEBRAP — Brazilian Centre for Analysis and Planning) This book addresses the relations between Christian missions, Portuguese colonialism, local societies, and the emergence of UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) in the Central Highlands of Angola. The book starts with a puzzle: how could a movement that on the verge of Angola’s independence had just a few thousand members and no significant international support manage to declare a rival government — together with the FNLA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola) — in Huambo in November 1975? The government was short-lived and unrecognized by any foreign country, but UNITA would continue to challenge the legitimacy of the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) until the end of the bloody civil war, in 2002. In Savimbi’s retreat to Eastern Angola, he would be joined by a significant part of the Evangelical Congregational Church in Angola (IECA), known as the ‘church in the bush’. If UNITA’s ‘social roots’ include the Congregational church, Péclard’s analysis of the history of missionization in the Central Highlands outlines the conditions of possibility of this history, not its necessary causes. His examination of the architecture of the Congregational mission in the Central Highlands reveals both the introjection of an ethos in a long-term process of subjectification and the place of Christian missions as the only means of upward social mobility for the vast majority of Africans during Portuguese colonialism. The first chapter discusses the role of colonial knowledge in Angola and argues that the African population was rarely the object of detailed investigation. For the author, lusotropicalist ideology would promote the ontologization of the colonizer, not of colonial subjects, in its advocacy of Portuguese affability. The second chapter deals with the long-term relationship between the church and the colonial state and portrays the Portuguese New State as ‘Catholaicist’, i.e., marked by a separation of church and state in which the Catholic church was awarded privileges and funding in exchange for providing health and education services to Africans and promoting their ‘nationalization’ and ‘civilization’. Péclard relativizes the view according to which the Catholic Church is considered an extension of the colonial state by revealing the tensions that marked their relation; he also argues that while North American Protestant missionaries tended to be viewed as ‘denationalizing’, the Congregational mission’s diplomatic relations with the colonial state could ease tensions. The third chapter focuses on the implementation of the Congregational project from 1920 to 1950, a period in which the Highlands transitioned from caravan trade to agriculture. According to Péclard, the Congregational mission took advantage of the historical circumstances of sedentarization to build Reviews 267 ‘rural bastions’ relatively isolated from urban colonial society and undertake its work of ‘culturalist modernization’. The process of subjectification that ensued included transformations in agriculture, education, and the domestic space while retaining part of what was understood to be Umbundu tradition. The fourth chapter describes the challenges faced by Congregational missions from 1940 to 1960, a time of pauperization and proletarianization of the Highlands due to contract labour and the arrival of white settlers. The author describes the transformations in the Protestant project as a rural exodus and the inevitability of urbanization challenged its main pillars, rural life and relative isolation from the colonial world; he compares it with the Catholic missions, already inserted in urban areas and intimately connected to colonial society. The last chapter dwells both on the delayed participation of the Highlands in the uprisings and movements that challenged the colonial state from 1961 and on the repressive apparatus in the region, whose main targets were ‘assimilated’ subjects, especially Protestant ones. Repression and prosperity went hand in hand, as the ‘native statute’ was abolished in 1961 and economic growth provided opportunities for educated Africans. Péclard argues that while the Christian elite benefited from the colonial system that granted it privilege and status, the main opponents of the regime would nonetheless come from their ranks, given that education and...

Preliminary validation of the North American Protestant Fundamentalism Scale

The literature on Protestant fundamentalism is characterised by instruments that are unidimensional, largely assessing Christian orthodoxy, and use inconsistent conceptual definitions. The present study presents an effort to develop and test an instrument using Ammerman’s definition of North American Protestant fundamentalism as a multidimensional construct that includes four components: inerrancy of scripture, evangelism, premillenialism, and separatism. This model was confirmed statistically, and clear evidence of reliability and both convergent and divergent validity is presented. Relationships with other variables, while clearly showing overlap in anticipated directions, also show enough non-shared variance to justify continuing to view fundamentalism as a separate construct.

A Current Snapshot of North American Protestant Missions

International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 35, No. 1 I preparing for each new edition of the Mission Handbook, the Evangelism and Mission Information Service of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College surveys North American Protestant agencies and aggregates the data collected to get a statistical snapshot of the overall Protestant missions landscape.1 In preparation for the 2010–12 edition, in 2008 we surveyed 966 organizations (800 U.S., 166 Canadian), 144 more than for the previous edition (100 U.S., 44 Canadian).2 Altogether, in 2008 North American agencies reported a significant 9.7 percent increase in the total full-time missionary force they mobilized, compared with the 2005 survey.3 Readers must keep in mind that this synopsis (1) includes what the agencies actually reported to us and (2) does not include information from the ever-growing numbers of churches—especially megachurches—that are bypassing mission agencies in sending out cross-cultural workers.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Creationism

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Creationism

Reflection of a Liberal North American Protestant

Reflection of a Liberal North American Protestant

The Statistical State of the North American Protestant Missions Movement, from the Mission Handbook, 20th Edition

January 2008 T time has again arrived when we can get a fresh understanding of important aspects of the North American missions movement. The Mission Handbook, updated every two to four years, is a directory of mission organizations in the United States and Canada, with statistics. The 20th edition, Mission Handbook, 2007–2009: U.S. and Canadian Protestant Ministries Overseas, is now with us, reporting on 822 mission organizations—giving names, contact information, e-mail and Web addresses, descriptions of affiliations and ministries, purpose statements, and statistics on income, personnel, and countries of service.1 Hearty thanks to the Evangelism and Missions Information Service (at the Billy Graham Center of Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois) and the editors for the gift of this essential reference tool. Their task requires untiring perseverance, unending attention to detail, and unflagging diligence. This continental missions movement is a sprawling, diverse, chaotic enterprise—no small challenge to keep track of. With each edition the editors are careful to warn us that different mission agencies answer the same questions in different ways, and that the same mission agencies answer the same questions in different ways at different times. New agencies appear constantly, old agencies change constantly, many agencies give only partial information, and some refuse to give any information at all. Still, the Mission Handbook is the best we have; it is accurate enough to provide important facts and trends that can guide our understanding and action. Consider three major points that stand out from the findings.