Theology as Entertainment: Oral Debate in American Religion

1998 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 499-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Brooks Holifield
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Churches Of Christ ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
The South ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Worship Service ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
Alexander Campbell

In a 1959 survey of 2,706 ministers of the Churches of Christ, an American denomination that grew out of the nineteenth-century reform movement of Alexander Campbell, the rhetorician James Swinney discovered 215 preachers who said that they had conducted public oral debates as a way of attracting converts and defending their tradition. During the previous half-century, they had held around 4,400 debates, each lasting from one to fourteen days, mainly in the rural areas and small towns of the South and lower Midwest. Another student of Campbell's movement has compiled a list of more than 9,000 such debates, around 500 in the nineteenth century and more than 8,500 in the twentieth. The forensic superstars included regional celebrities like J. D. Tant of Texas, who held more than 350 such contests between 1885 and 1941 and who argued that four people would attend a debate for every one who attended a worship service. His assertion calls for qualification, but it reminds us of a practice that once attracted widespread attention and that has continued to flourish in parts of American Protestantism.

The Apocalyptic Origins of Churches of Christ and the Triumph of Modernism

1992 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-214
Author(s):  
Richard T. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Churches Of Christ ◽  
Disciples Of Christ ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Alexander Campbell

The origins of the American-born Churches of Christ are exceedingly complex. While most historians have argued that Churches of Christ separated from Alexander Campbell's Disciples of Christ late in the nineteenth Century, this essay will suggest that the genesis of Churches of Christ was not a matter of Separation from the Disciples at all. Rather, Churches of Christ grew from two early nineteenth-century worldviews that coalesced and intertwined with one another in ways that often defy disentanglement. The first was the apocalyptic perspective of Barton W. Stone; the second was the radically sectarian mentality of the young and brash Alexander Campbell of the Christian Baptist period (1823-1830). As early as the 1830's, these two perspectives wed, brought together in part by the matchmaking power of poverty, marginality, and social estrangement. Together, they clearly shaped a portion of the Stone-Campbell movement that, in due time, would come to be known as a denomination separate from the Disciples; namely, the Churches of Christ.

A Theater of Violence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Jackson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Film History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The South ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Common ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Chapter 5 examines lynching, a longstanding practice in the United States that became more regionally associated with the South in the late nineteenth century, as a force in film history from the earliest days of the medium through a cycle of anti-lynching films during the years around midcentury. Paradoxically, the Western genre is important here, absorbing many of the common rituals and generating a powerful ideological defense of lynching. During different periods across this half-century, different attitudes about lynching led to a variety of film representations, culminating with a number of films in the late 1930s and beyond questioning both lynching and its cinematic traces.

Urban Exceptionalism in the American South

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Goldfield
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
The South ◽  
Urban South

While colonial New Englanders gathered around town commons, settlers in the Southern colonials sprawled out on farms and plantations. The distinctions had more to do with the varying objectives of these colonial settlements and the geography of deep-flowing rivers in the South than with any philosophical predilections. The Southern colonies did indeed sprout towns, but these were places of planters’ residences, planters’ enslaved Africans, and the plantation economy, an axis that would persist through the antebellum period. Still, the aspirations of urban Southerners differed little from their Northern counterparts in the decades before the Civil War. The institution of slavery and an economy emphasizing commercial agriculture hewed the countryside close to the urban South, not only in economics, but also in politics. The devastation of the Civil War rendered the ties between city and country in the South even tighter. The South participated in the industrial revolution primarily to the extent of processing crops. Factories were often located in small towns and did not typically contribute to urbanization. City boosters aggressively sought and subsidized industrial development, but a poorly educated labor force and the scarcity of capital restricted economic development. Southern cities were more successful in legalizing the South’s culture of white supremacy through legal segregation and the memorialization of the Confederacy. But the dislocations triggered by World War II and the billions of federal dollars poured into Southern urban infrastructure and industries generated hope among civic leaders for a postwar boom. The civil rights movement after 1950, with many of its most dramatic moments focused on the South’s cities, loosened the connection between Southern city and region as cities chose development rather than the stagnation that was certain to occur without a moderation of race relations. The predicted economic bonanza occurred. Young people left the rural areas and small towns of the South for the larger cities to find work in the postindustrial economy and, for the first time in over a century, the urban South received migrants in appreciable numbers from other parts of the country and the world. The lingering impact of spatial distinctions and historical differences (particularly those related to the Civil War) linger in Southern cities, but exceptionalism is a fading characteristic.

When Was Anti-Catholicism? The Case of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Wales

2005 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 308-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL O'LEARY
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Church

Anti-Catholicism was a pervasive influence on religious and political life in nineteenth-century Wales. Contrary to the views of Trystan Owain Hughes, it mirrored the chronology of anti-Catholic agitation in the rest of Great Britain. Welsh exceptionalism lies in the failure of militant Protestant organisations to recruit in Wales, and the assimilation of anti-Catholic rhetoric into the frictions between the Church of England and Nonconformity over the disestablishment of the Church. Furthermore, whereas the persistence of anti-Catholicism in twentieth-century Britain is primarily associated with cities like Liverpool and Glasgow, its continuing influence in Wales was largely confined to rural areas and small towns.

scholarly journals Urban Areas in the Transformation of the South: A Review of Modern History

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Total Population ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Fort Worth ◽  
The South ◽  
Southern Us

Since the 1940s, the southern US has been transformed from a region of backward agriculture, low-wage industries located in small towns and rural areas, and unrelenting racial segregation into a modern society and economy. In 1950, there were no metropolitan areas in the South with a population of one million or more, but 18 had populations in excess of one million in 2000. The populations of the Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Miami metropolitan areas grew to over 4 millions. Population growth in the 18 largest metropolitan areas accounts for 63% of the total population growth in the South from 1950 to 2000. The transformation of the South is, to a sizable extent, a transformation to an urbanized society. This paper documents this urbanization by examining population and employment growth in those 18 metropolitan areas.

Transgender clients in rural areas and small towns.

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 154-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie M. Koch ◽  
Douglas Knutson
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Small Towns

‘The Clach’: Alexander Mackenzie and the Land Question in the Late-Nineteenth Century Highlands and Islands

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Early Experiences ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Land Question

This article uses the career and writings of the Highland land reformer Alexander Mackenzie, to shed new light on the evolution of Highland land reform in the years leading up to the Crofters' Act of 1886. Mackenzie's output as a writer and journalist shows that his early experiences of living and working on the land are vital to understanding his approach to the land question, and led him to focus not on abstract or ideal principles but on building popular consensus to secure the most pressing reforms. This moderate and pragmatic approach was not universally popular though, especially among Mackenzie's more radical reformist contemporaries. The tensions these disagreements created are symptomatic of the problems that beset the ‘Crofting Community’ in the 1880s and ‘90s: problems that would eventually cause the land reform movement to split. Nevertheless, Mackenzie's influence on the Crofters’ War was huge, and deserves greater scholarly recognition.

Water and sanitation policies for improving health in South Africa: overcoming the institutional legacy of apartheid

Water Policy ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 627-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edina Sinanovic ◽  
Sandi Mbatsha ◽  
Stephen Gundry ◽  
Jim Wright ◽  
Clas Rehnberg
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
The South ◽  
Financing System ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Sanitation And Hygiene ◽  
Access To Water ◽  
New Policies

The burden of water-related disease is closely related to both the socio-economic situation and public health issues like access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene services. Poverty eradication, through improved access to water and sanitation, is the South African government's major priority. This is partly achieved through subsidising the cost of water and sanitation provision to the poor in rural areas. Whilst the new policies have made a remarkable impact on improved access to water and sanitation services, a general problem since the new approach in 1994 has been the lack of integration of policies for water and sanitation and health. This paper analyses the policies concerning rural water supply and sanitation in South Africa. It considers the structure of institutions, the division of responsibilities and legislated and financial capacity of the South Africa's water sector. A more integrated approach for the policies aiming at water access, sanitation and health is needed. In addition, as the local government's capacity to implement different programmes is limited, a review of the financing system is necessary.

scholarly journals Homeless on Main Street: Using Photovoice to Highlight Older Adults Among the Hidden Homeless

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 728-728
Author(s):  
H Shellae Versey
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Small Towns ◽  
Photo Elicitation ◽  
Service Agency ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Community Based Interventions ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Formerly Homeless

Abstract Homelessness is a reality for a growing number of Americans living in small towns and rural areas. However, unlike in cities, housing instability may be less visible. Using a photo-elicitation method (i.e., Photovoice), this study explores the meaning of place and obscured visibility to currently and formerly homeless older adults living in a small town in central Connecticut. Participants (N = 27) were recruited from a local service agency, given cameras and asked to photograph areas around town that were meaningful to them. Photographs were developed and followed by in-person, semi-structured interviews with participants in which photos and experiences during the project were discussed. Primary themes included belonging, generativity, social isolation, and place-making as meaning-making. The study culminated in a community photography exhibition in which photographs from the project were displayed in public spaces around town. Implications for community-based interventions to reach homeless groups in rural areas are discussed. Part of a symposium sponsored by the Qualitative Research Interest Group.

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