Church History in an Age of Uncertainty: Historiographical Patterns in the United States, 1906-1990. Henry Warner Bowden

1992 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 642-643
Author(s):  
Martin E. Marty
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church History

VI. Examining Theological Appropriations of Problematic Historical Dissent

Horizons ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-154
Author(s):  
John P. Slattery
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Contemporary Problem ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church History ◽  
Holy See ◽  
Chattel Slavery ◽  
United States Today ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Modern Experience

This contribution will examine several theological methods used to understand morally egregious examples of historical dissent in the Catholic Church. From the 1600s to the late 1800s, large numbers of Catholics in the young United States dissented from the Holy See in one particularly egregious manner: their support for and defense of chattel slavery and the Atlantic slave trade. While chattel slavery is universally declared horrific and immoral, its vestiges have not been erased from church history, nor has its influence been eradicated in the modern experience of Christians in the United States today. After naming the contemporary problem caused by this historical example of dissent and analyzing theological approaches to ameliorate this problem, I will propose a theological-historical approach that may offer better solutions in the future.

Why Is There So Much Christianity in the United States? A Reply to Sommerville

2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 858-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Hollinger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church History ◽  
Voluntary Organizations ◽  
Secular Culture ◽  
The North ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Church

If we are going to explain the slow pace of de-Christianization for the United States relative to other industrialized societies in the North Atlantic West, we might well begin with the church-state relationship. The absence of an established church in the United States has enabled religious affiliation to function, like other voluntary organizations in “civil society,” as mediators between the individual and the nation. I conimented on this rather old idea in a book C. John Sommerville is kind enough to cite in another connection, Science, Jews, and Secular Culture, but since he does not take up this point, I will develop it a bit further here, before reacting to Sommerville's other concerns as expressed in his refreshingly fair-minded rejoinder to my essay in the March 2001 issue of Church History.

The Early Reception of Karl Barth's Theology in Britain: A Supplementary View

2001 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 504-527
Author(s):  
D. Densil Morgan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church History ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Theological Method ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
To Come ◽  
English Speaking World

One of the axioms of modern church history in Britain is that whereas Anglo-Saxon thought was on the whole impervious to the appeal and achievement of Karl Barth, it was among the Scots alone that the Swiss theologian's theories found any real resonance and creative response. Stephen Sykes in a 1979 volume of studies in Barth's theological method, mentions the somewhat bewildered response to his publications in Britain and the United States between 1925 and the mid-1980s and goes on to say that ‘from now onwards it is in Scotland that Barth is taken with the greatest seriousness in the English speaking world’. In a later volume of centenary essays, R. H. Roberts traced the reception of the theology of Karl Barth ‘in the Anglo-Saxon world’ by quoting the evidence of such late 1920s and early 1930s figures as J. H. Morrison, John McConnachie, H. R. Mackintosh, Norman Porteous and A. J. MacDonald to claim that ‘it is clear from an early stage that enthusiasm for Barth's work … was primarily a Scottish attribute’. In another essay in the same volume, Colin Gunton contrasted the usual English attitude to Barth with that of theologians from other lands: ‘For the most part and despite exceptions’, he claimed, ‘the English find it difficult to come to terms with the theology of Karl Barth’, while in a companion volume Geoffrey Bromiley noted that this was hardly the case for theologians and pastors ‘in such diverse lands as Switzerland, Germany, France, Holland, Hungary, and Scotland’. Again and again, it is Scotland which is emphasised as being the place within the British Isles where Barth's ideals took root.

Church History in an Age of Uncertainty: Historiographical Patterns in the United States, 1906-1990.

1992 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 305
Author(s):  
Robert Booth Fowler ◽  
Henry Warner Bowden ◽  
Martin E. Marty
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church History

Church Archives in the United States

1939 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-53
Author(s):  
William Warren Sweet
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church History ◽  
Research Worker ◽  
Long Time

Church archives in the United States have been a long time in receiving any serious consideration. The reason for the delay in giving attention to this subject is due largely to the fact that until recent years church archival materials were considered of slight importance on the part of the recognized historian. There have been, from the beginning of our history as a separate people, an abundance of materials bearing upon the development of organized religion. But any systematic attempt to gather church archival materials as such for the purpose of making them available for the historian and research worker was practically unheard of until more or less recent years. Among the influences which have been responsible for creating a live interest in church archives has been the fact that within the last twenty-five years the universities throughout the country have been turning out an ever increasing number of master's and doctor's theses on American church history subjects.

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