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Article

Will the Evangelical Church Remove the Color Line?: Historical Reflections on Divided by Faith

Sociologists Michael Emerson and Christian Smith asked in their book Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America: will the evangelical church remove the color line? Phillip Luke Sinitiere offers a “history” of Divided by Faith since its publication in 2000. This article traces out the book’s impact on scholars, accounting…
October 15, 2013
Article

Rehabilitating Willow Creek: Megachurches, De Certeau, and the Tactics of Navigating Consumer Culture

Introduction The American religious landscape is increasingly dominated by the influence of megachurches. A common criticism of megachurches is that they reinforce the bad habits of consumer culture. They do so by commodifying religion for the easy consumption of the religious consumer. Using Vince Miller’s account of consumer culture, and Michel De Certeau’s theoretical project…
October 15, 2013
Book Review

Management and the Gospel: Luke’s Radical Message for the First and Twenty-First Centuries

Reviewed by Craig Hinnenkamp, Global Commerce and Management, Whitworth University An increasing number of writers in both Christian and secular journals are calling for a fundamental change in the basic orientation and purpose of business. Articulated from a faith-based perspective, J. Van Duzer et al. proposes the purpose of business is to serve God through…
October 15, 2013
Review Essays

Art and Theology—A Review Essay

Katie Kresser is Associate Professor of Art History at Seattle Pacific University. This essay treats three recent works on the subject of art and theology, ranging from a simple handbook of Christian symbols (Judith Couchman’s Art of Faith) to a dense and learned discussion of postmodern art and philosophy (Richard Viladesau’s Theological Aesthetics). The wholly…
October 15, 2013
Article

Problems and Possibilities of Sociology as Prophetic

Many Christian sociologists have experienced the juxtaposition of those two identities as casting them into a socially prophetic role. Sociology often places the Christian sociologist as one who speaks to the established Christian community rather than for it. Dennis W. Hiebert traces the development of the classic distinction between the sociological concepts of priest and…
October 15, 2013
Reviews

Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism

Reviewed by Philip D. Byers, Residence Life, Bethel University David R. Swartz has produced a book that is at once innovative historiography and enlivening prose. Using the 1973 Thanksgiving Workshop of Evangelical Social Concern and its resulting “Chicago Declaration” as his framework, Swartz narrates and analyzes the mid-twentieth-century progressive movement in American evangelicalism. Examining many…
July 15, 2013
Review and Response

From Memory to Imagination— A Review Essay

Steven R. Guthrie is Associate Professor of Religion at Belmont University. We have reached a decisive moment in Western culture, a moment of monumental consequence, for the church generally and for its practice of music specifically. This claim is at the heart of C. Randall Bradley’s From Memory to Imagination: Reforming the Church’s Music. Bradley…
July 15, 2013
Reviews

Victorian Parables

Reviewed by Bernadette Waterman Ward, Literature, University of Dallas Susan Colón’s concise, clear book argues that Victorian realism is particularly fertile ground for parables and thus undercuts many common presumptions in literary studies. Her opening chapters are theoretical, dealing first with creating a working definition of parables and secondly with dismantling some illusions about the…
July 15, 2013
Reviews

Reforming Hollywood: How American Protestants Fought for Freedom at the Movies

Reviewed by Crystal Downing, English and Film Studies, Messiah College Several years ago I began a book review with these words: “Movies can elicit profound, sometimes dismaying, reflections about the reciprocal influence between religion and society, faith and culture, belief and behavior. Rarely, however, do filmgoers consider the influence of religion on the production of…
July 15, 2013