The mainline churches have not, in code language, recognized the expiration of the Enlightenment and Enlightenment rationalism. The evangelicals have not noticed its expiration either -- an irony.
The carefully nurtured fiction that the locus of authority in the ABC resides in 6,300 autonomous’ congregations has become increasingly difficult to maintain. The author gives some "bare bones" suggestions concerning what the local associations of churches should do.
Russian Orthodoxy is deeply suspicious of people who promise social transformation.
The Unitarian Universalist church body’s Web site upholds a belief that "personal experience, conscience and reason should be the final authorities in religion. Underlying its actions is the belief that "ethical living is the supreme witness of religion."
The Disciples and the Churches of Christ’s seemingly separate futures will in no small measure depend on evaluations of the vitality and limitations of their diverse legacies.
America has been undergoing some sort of religious revival, but one that has not led to prosperity for most of the denominations. The challenge to churches, both left and right, will be in finding the balance between institutional self-preservation or self-assertiveness on the one hand and the act of living with open hands and hearts in service of others to interpret the surrounding world on the other.
Within such denominations as the United Presbyterian Church, the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church, there exist important and influential groups going counter to denominational leadership.
For all of us to be church, we must be clear in theological terms about why we must separate or why we should stay together before we determine how to separate or how to stay together.
The United Methodist Church has traditionally accepted pluralism, but the acceptace of a diversity of view is now under attack.
Southern Baptist conservatives won key presidential elections year after year, and after a final conservative presidential victory in 1989 in New Orleans, moderates gave up the battle and began taking steps toward forming their own moderate organizations, such as the Cooperative Fellowship.
Rather than disappearing, denominational boundaries have been reconstructed in ways that seem to keep them open and connected to a larger world. Rather than a strict denominationalism, distinctions are based more on ritual and doctrine than on social divisions.
Despite the problems confronting the Russian Orthodox Church today, and the issues that cloud its past, many positive things are happening.
Holiness and Pentecostal folk are busily engaged in creating all those agencies and patterns of church life that their maverick forebears found too confining.
While the West has struggled to come to terms with the relationship between modern forms of inquiry and ancient church dogma, the Orthodox seem to march on, untroubled by modern historical consciousness.
The author looks at Methodism as an international enterprise but at the same time, he penetrates beneath the surface of the Methodist institutions to grasp it’s heart, something that is elusive and important.
The Mormons inhabit a radically different world from the rest of Christendom. Never-the-less, without accepting the work at face value, it is possible to regard the Book of Mormon as the product of an extraordinary and profound act of the religious imagination.
The Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church of America must address themselves seriously to the schism which has marred the lives of both for more than a century. The great thing that has happened in the Reformed churches recently is a new awareness of themselves and of their responsibilities and their possibilities.
There is evidence that the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA)’s very real stylistic freedom is accompanied by a homogenous substance of beliefs and values. The most striking fact about the denomination is that nine out of ten of its members are “converts,” having grown up religiously somewhere else. Given the lack of membership growth, it is clear that UUA churches are in some sense “revolving doors.” Most of the newcomers have left some kind of liberal Protestantism behind, but we do not know where those who leave go next.
Transcendental Meditation is not a compromise with one’s own personal faith or religious convictions. It gives additional release from pressure and stress which allows our minds, bodies and spirits to soar to greater heights than previously experienced.
An overview of the origins and beliefs of New Thought, a religious movement growing out of 19th century Transcendentalism and mental healing practices. New Thought emphasizes the practical application of spiritual principles to support personal health, happiness, and enlightenment, and an increasing commitment to social justice issues.
In the past several decades there has been an increase in conversions to Orthodoxy. Although migration is small, the author looks at some of the reasons for this among both liberals and evangelicals.
Review of a book on the differences between Catholic and Protestant thought. The reformation sprang from a theological disagreement so fundamental that schism was inevitable and of which no amount of good will could have settled.
An Episcopal Church quarrel over the ordination of women, the Book of Common Prayer, who gets the property in separation and the division of memorial gifts.
The author considers the schisms within the Presbyterian Church. He urges the different sides to continue to talk to each other, and even to argue passionately with each other about crucial issues, but within the framework of a commitment to God.
As long as Presbyterians continue to club the other into submission with constitutional amendments, judicial cases and economic boycotts, we have no word for a world full of murderous divisions, most of them cloaked in religion.