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Secular Culture (secular + culture)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

Homosexuality and the Church's Witness in the ELCA's Current Struggle

DIALOG, Issue 2 2005
By Marc Kolden
Abstract:, The basis for holding the traditional Christian position against same-sex sexual intimacy is sufficiently well-supported by arguments from scripture and Christian traditions of moral reasoning to vote to continue the present ELCA policies and practices regarding sexual conduct. Also, arguments for revising the traditional view are flawed morally and theologically. Despite the momentum of secular culture in North America and Europe, the ELCA should resist any changes in its policies and any relaxation in its disciplining of those who disregard its present practices. This will be difficult, because many proponents for change have raised their position to the level of a de facto article of faith, that is, something that they consider to be necessary (particularly as it concerns ordination), and thus they will do everything possible to secure acceptance of their position. [source]

Global Religious Transformations, Political Vision and Christian Witness,

INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF MISSION, Issue 375 2005
Vinoth Ramachandra
From the nineteenth-century onwards religion has been, and continues to be, an important resource for nationalist, modernizing movements. What was true of Protestant Christianity in the world of Victorian Britain also holds for the nationalist transformations of Hindu Neo-Vedanta, Theravada Buddhism, Shintoism and Shi'ite Islam in the non-Western world. Globalizing practises both corrode inherited cultural and personal identities and, at the same time, stimulate the revitalisation of particular identities as a way of gaining more influence in the new global order. However, it would be a gross distortion to identify the global transformations of Islam, and indeed of other world religions, with their more violent and fanatical forms. The globalization of local conflicts serves powerful propaganda purposes on all sides. If global Christian witness in the political arena is to carry integrity, this essay argues for the following responses, wherever we may happen to live: (a) Learning the history behind the stories of ,religious violence' reported in the secular media; (b) Identifying and building relationships with the more self-critical voices within the other religious traditions and communities, so avoiding simplistic generalizations and stereotyping of others; (c) Actively engaging in the political quest for truly participatory democracies that honour cultural and religious differences. In a hegemonic secular culture, as in the liberal democracies of the West, authentic cross-cultural engagement is circumvented. There is a militant secularist ,orthodoxy' that is as destructive of authentic pluralism as its fundamentalist religious counterpart. The credibility of the global Church will depend on whether Christians can resist the totalising identities imposed on them by their nation-states and/or their ethnic communities, and grasp that their primary allegiance is to Jesus Christ and his universal reign. [source]

Catholic Social Policy and U.S. Health Care Reform: A Relationship Revisited

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2001
Michael V. Angrosino
The Roman Catholic Church is the single largest denomination in the United States and the one with the most extensive provider stake in health (and related social service) care. As a follow-up to an earlier analysis of the Catholic role in the thwarted health care reform effort of1993,94, this article looks at the revival of interest in reform and at the rationale behind and strategy of the Catholic Church's current agenda-setting initiative. The emphasis in this article is on the delicate relationship between organized religion and social policy in a society with an officially secular culture, [health care reform, policy analysis, Catholic social policy] [source]

Church and Culture: Protestant and Catholic Modernities

NEW BLACKFRIARS, Issue 1026 2009
Anthony J. Carroll SJ
Abstract This article reviews the church and culture relationship developed in Gaudium et Spes and Lumen Gentium and proposes a Catholic account of modernity as a way in which the contemporary mission of the church in today's culture can be creatively and faithfully carried forward. After an initial outlining of the definitions of church and culture proposed by the Vatican documents, I then go on to position my proposal of a Catholic modernity in relation to some important current accounts of the church and culture relationship that tend towards a rejection of secular culture. I argue that Protestant accounts of modernity have dominated in philosophical and sociological theories and draw on my previous work on Max Weber to illustrate the significance of this for developing a Catholic account of modernity. I conclude by sketching some of the important issues which would need to be addressed in formulating a systematic account of a Catholic modernity. [source]