Church and Civil Society PDF Download

Author: Michael Walker
Publisher: AFRICAN SUN MeDIA
ISBN: 1928355137
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
Germany and South Africa experienced drastic social transitions with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1986 and the end of Apartheid in 1994. This book consists of a collection of essays from German and South African theologians who analyse the role that religious communities had, and are still playing within the respective civil societies. The concept and texture of civil society are analysed; case studies are presented; theological perspectives are given on the relation between church, state and civil society; and guidelines are provided for the healing role that Christian religious communities can play in Germany and South Africa. This book is mainly directed at theologians and scholars in religious studies, however, sociologists and political philosophers may also find the essays informative. Besides the wide variety of theological approaches; sociological and empirical data; and practical theological perspective, the book also yields interesting comparative analysis on two societies in transition.

Author: David Herbert
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135190521X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
This book presents the first full-length study of the relationship between religion and the controversial concept of civil society. Across the world in the last two decades of the twentieth century religions re-entered public space as influential discursive and symbolic systems apparently beyond the control of either traditional religious authorising institutions or states. This differentiation of religion from traditional institutions and entry into secular public spheres carries both dangers and possible benefits for democracy. Offering a fresh interdisciplinary approach to understanding religion in contemporary societies, this book provides an invaluable resource for students and researchers in religious studies, sociology, politics and political philosophy, theology, international relations and legal studies. Part one presents a critical introduction to the interaction between religion, modernization and postmodernization in Western and non-Western settings (America, Europe, the Middle East and India), focussing on discourses of human rights, civil society and the public sphere, and the controversial question of their cross-cultural application. Part two examines religion and civil society through case studies of Egypt, Bosnia and Muslim minorities in Britain, and compares Poland as an example of a Christian majority society that has experienced the public reassertion of religion.

Author: George Weigel
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0465094341
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
A powerful new interpretation of Catholicism's dramatic encounter with modernity, by one of America's leading intellectuals Throughout much of the nineteenth century, both secular and Catholic leaders assumed that the Church and the modern world were locked in a battle to the death. The triumph of modernity would not only finish the Church as a consequential player in world history; it would also lead to the death of religious conviction. But today, the Catholic Church is far more vital and consequential than it was 150 years ago. Ironically, in confronting modernity, the Catholic Church rediscovered its evangelical essence. In the process, Catholicism developed intellectual tools capable of rescuing the imperiled modern project. A richly rendered, deeply learned, and powerfully argued account of two centuries of profound change in the church and the world, The Irony of Modern Catholic History reveals how Catholicism offers twenty-first century essential truths for our survival and flourishing.

Author: Francis Sullivan
Publisher: ATF Imprint
ISBN: 9781920691103
Category : Church and state
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This work explores the relationship between church, state, markets and civil society. It focuses on the tension between the churches' responsibilities and contractual obligations as service provider in a particular political and economic context.

Author: John D. Brewer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199694028
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Religion is traditionally portrayed as nothing but trouble in Ireland, but the churches played a key role in Northern Ireland's peace process. This study challenges many existing assumptions about the peace process, drawing on four years of interviewing with those involved, including church leaders, politicians, and paramilitary members.

Author: Mark Juergensmeyer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198040695
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
The extraordinary changes in world society at the beginning of the 21st century have involved religion to a degree that would have amazed earlier observers of modernity. Within the past decade religion has been associated with some of the world's most strident forms of political encounter, including new movements of nationalism, the clerical leadership of political sects, and the religiously motivated acts of terrorism. Religion seems to be trying to tear the planet apart, even as other cultural forces seem to be trying to pull it together. The technology of the Internet, film, television, cell phones, and other forms of rapid universal communication seem to be knitting the world into a single social fabric. Consumer franchises and popular culture seem to be making the world a single global city. Religion seems to be at odds with all of this. Is religion the natural enemy of globalization? The essays in this volume explore the difficulties and possibilities of a diversity of religious groups occupying the same civil society. The authors avoid simplistic generalizations. Religion, they show, is not only identified with the culture and politics of the hostile anti-urban village--it is not simply the jihad that Benjamin Barber identified as the opponent of the homogenous global culture of McWorld. True, some religious activists have blown things up. But others have tried to smooth things over. Even the religious opposition to globalization is nuanced. Some violent activists (like Hindu extremists in India) want a new religious state. Others, like Christian militias or al Qaeda, envision a transnational religious entity--a kind of religious globalization to supplant the secular one. Prophetic religious voices call for moderation, justice, and environmental protection. Religion, these essays demonstrate, plays diverse and sometimes contradictory roles in the new cultural globalization. In a global culture the shared values of different religious traditions can provide a collective sense of virtuous conduct in public life. But religion can also support the position of enemies of global society--those who see in globalization the effort to impose the values and power of one country over the others.

Author: Jeanne Heffernan Schindler
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739108840
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
A work of contemporary Christian political thought, this volume addresses the crisis of modern democracy evident in the decline of the institutions of civil society and their theoretical justification. Drawing upon a rich store of social and political reflection found in the Catholic and Neo-Calvinist traditions, the essays mount a robust defense of the irreducible identity and value of the social institutions_family, neighborhood, church, civic association_that serve as the connective tissue of a political community.

Author: Robert Wuthnow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400832063
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
On January 29, 2001, President George W. Bush signed an executive order creating the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. This action marked a key step toward institutionalizing an idea that emerged in the mid-1990s under the Clinton administration--the transfer of some social programs from government control to religious organizations. However, despite an increasingly vocal, ideologically charged national debate--a debate centered on such questions as: What are these organizations doing? How well are they doing it? Should they be supported with tax dollars?--solid answers have been few. In Saving America? Robert Wuthnow provides a wealth of up-to-date information whose absence, until now, has hindered the pursuit of answers. Assembling and analyzing new evidence from research he and others have conducted, he reveals what social support faith-based agencies are capable of providing. Among the many questions he addresses: Are congregations effective vehicles for providing broad-based social programs, or are they best at supporting their own members? How many local congregations have formal programs to assist needy families? How much money do such programs represent? How many specialized faith-based service agencies are there, and which are most effective? Are religious organizations promoting trust, love, and compassion? The answers that emerge demonstrate that American religion is helping needy families and that it is, more broadly, fostering civil society. Yet religion alone cannot save America from the broad problems it faces in providing social services to those who need them most. Elegantly written, Saving America? represents an authoritative and evenhanded benchmark of information for the current--and the coming--debate.

Author: Shun-hing Chan
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004459375
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This book examines the complex relationships of civil society and Christianity in Greater China. Different authors investigate to what extent Christians demonstrate the quality of civic virtues and reflect on the difficulties of applying civil society theories to Chinese societies.

Author: Lida V. Nedilsky
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781481300322
Category : Christianity
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Lida V. Nedilsky captures the public ramifications of a personal, Christian faith at the time of Hong Kong's pivotal political turmoil. From 1997 to 2008, in the much-anticipated reintegration of Hong Kong into Chinese sovereignty, she conducted detailed interviews of more than fifty Hong Kong people and then followed their daily lives, documenting their involvement at the intersection of church and state. Citizens of Hong Kong enjoy abundant membership options, both social and religious, under Hong Kong's free market culture. Whether identifying as Catholic or Protestant, or growing up in religious or secular households, Nedilsky's interviewees share an important characteristic: a story of choosing faith. Across the spheres of family and church, as well as civic organizations and workplaces, Nedilsky shows how individuals break and forge bonds, enter and exit commitments, and transform the public ends of choice itself. From this intimate, firsthand vantage point, Converts to Civil Society reveals that people's independent movements not only invigorate and shape religious community but also enliven a wider public life.