The Christian Church in the Cold War

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Publisher : Viking Adult
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Christian Church in the Cold War by : Owen Chadwick

Download or read book The Christian Church in the Cold War written by Owen Chadwick and published by Viking Adult. This book was released on 1992 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From the end of the Second World War until the rise of Gorbachev the division of Europe was the central fact in world politics - for individuals, nations and the different Christian Churches. Amid the ferocious polemics of the Cold War era neutrality was impossible." "The pressures of modernity led to the Second Vatican Council and affected Churches on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Almost all had to adapt to declining congregations, concerns about human rights and women's role in religion, and new attitudes to abortion, contraception and divorce. Yet day-to-day problems in the East and West were utterly different." "In Eastern Europe, the Churches were victims of state control, savage ideological attacks, show trials and occasional physical violence. Critics dwelt on their sometimes inglorious record of compromise and collaboration under fascist regimes, despite the crucial role of the religious resistance in fighting Nazism. Later Church leaders - Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox - often continued to tread a delicate path, but Polish priests helped to oversee the birth of Solidarity, and oppressed nations drew hope from the symbols and ceremonies of their Christian past. Successive Popes, meanwhile, were torn between hatred for Marxism's militant atheism and a pragmatic desire not to endanger the Catholics of Eastern Europe." "The post-war West, by contrast, has seen different countries adapting their own complex arrangements about relations between Church and State. Traditional practices in the great monastic orders, the language of the liturgy and pilgrimages to saints' shrines came under fresh scrutiny, although the charismatic movement proved astonishingly successful. Yet how deeply have the churches come to terms with the fierce winds of modernity? Where religion is tolerated, and even encouraged, do people truly believe what East Europeans know from bitter experience - that 'the religious conscience is an ultimate safeguard of human freedom'?" "Owen Chadwick is General Editor of Penguin's scholarly and comprehensive series The History of the Church and contributed an earlier book, The Reformation. The series starts with the first Disciples. This volume concludes in the late twentieth century - as the Churches struggle to face new global challenges and opportunities."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

North American Churches and the Cold War

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Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN 13 : 146745057X
Total Pages : 546 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (674 download)

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Book Synopsis North American Churches and the Cold War by : Paul B. Mojzes

Download or read book North American Churches and the Cold War written by Paul B. Mojzes and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History textbooks typically list 1945–1990 as the Cold War years, but it is clear that tensions from that period are still influencing world politics today. While much attention is given to political and social responses to those first nuclear threats, none has been given to the reactions of Christian churches. North American Churches and the Cold War offers the first systematic reflection on the diverse responses of Canadian and American churches to potential nuclear disaster. A mix of scholars and church leaders, the contributors analyze the anxieties, dilemmas, and hopes that Christian churches felt as World War II gave way to the nuclear age. As they faced either nuclear annihilation or peaceful reconciliation, Christians were forced to take stands on such issues as war, communism, and their relationship to Christians in Eastern Europe. As we continue to navigate the nuclear era, this book provides insight into Chris-tian responses to future adversities and conflicts. CONTRIBUTORS William Alexander Blaikie James Christie Nicholas Denysenko Gary Dorrien Mark Thomas Edwards Peter Eisenstadt Jill K. Gill Michael Graziano Barbara Green Raymond Haberski Jr. Jeremy Hatfield Gordon L. Heath D. Oliver Herbel Norman Hjelm Daniel G. Hummel Dianne Kirby Leonid Kishkovsky Nadieszda Kizenko John Lindner David Little Joseph Loya Paul Mojzes Andrei V. Psarev Bruce Rigdon Walter Sawatsky Axel R. Schäfer Todd Scribner Gayle Thrift Steven M. Tipton Frederick Trost Lucian Turcescu Charles West James E. Will Lois Wilson

Unfinished History

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Publisher : Evangelische Verlagsanstalt
ISBN 13 : 3374047467
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Unfinished History by : Philip L. Wickeri

Download or read book Unfinished History written by Philip L. Wickeri and published by Evangelische Verlagsanstalt. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first collection of essays to discuss the impact of the Cold War (1945-1990) on Christianity in East Asia. In historical overviews, case studies and theological reflections, scholars from Asia, Europe and North America explore the variety of ways in which the Cold War has shaped the churches' involvement in society, politics and culture. The Cold War continues to have an impact the Korean peninsula, in Greater China and throughout the region. Churches are challenged to address the issues of the past that affect Christian life today. [Die in diesem Band gesammelten Aufsätze setzen sich erstmals aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven mit den Auswirkungen des Kalten Krieges (1945-1990) auf das Christentum in Ostasien auseinander. In geschichtlichen Übersichten, Fallbeispielen und theologischen Erörterungen erkunden Wissenschaftler aus Asien, Europa und Nordamerika die vielfältigen Wege in denen er das Engagement der Kirchen in Gesellschaft, Politik und Kultur beeinflußt hat. Der Kalte Krieg wirkt auf der Koreanischen Halbinsel, China und vielen anderen Ländern der Region noch stets nach. Die Kirchen sind herausgefordert, sich diesem geschichtlichem Erbe zu stellen, das Auswirkungen bis in das christliche Leben heute hat.]

Religion and the Cold War

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1403919577
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (39 download)

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Book Synopsis Religion and the Cold War by : D. Kirby

Download or read book Religion and the Cold War written by D. Kirby and published by Springer. This book was released on 2002-12-13 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although seen widely as the twentieth-century's great religious war, as a conflict between the god-fearing and the godless, the religious dimension of the Cold War has never been subjected to a scholarly critique. This unique study shows why religion is a key Cold War variable. A specially commissioned collection of new scholarship, it provides fresh insights into the complex nature of the Cold War. It has profound resonance today with the resurgence of religion as a political force in global society.

Religion and the Cold War

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Publisher : Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN 13 : 0826518524
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis Religion and the Cold War by : Philip Emil Muehlenbeck

Download or read book Religion and the Cold War written by Philip Emil Muehlenbeck and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The influence of faith in the conflicts that defined the Cold War

Eastern Christianity and the Cold War, 1945-91

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135233829
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (352 download)

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Book Synopsis Eastern Christianity and the Cold War, 1945-91 by :

Download or read book Eastern Christianity and the Cold War, 1945-91 written by and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII

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Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN 13 : 0773569944
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (735 download)

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Book Synopsis Lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII by : Peter C. Kent

Download or read book Lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII written by Peter C. Kent and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2002-05-21 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Lonely Cold War of Pope Pius XII Peter Kent shows how the Catholic Church was able to continue to exist on both sides of the Iron Curtain in spite of the division of Europe after the Second World War. Although Christian democracy became increasingly influential in western Europe, the struggle to preserve the position and rights of the Church in the east was much more difficult. When east European governments, under Moscow's direction, began their offensive against the independence of the Church in 1948, the papacy found that it stood alone, with little assistance from the U.S. Kent offers a new assessment of Pius XII, extending the study of his career and papacy beyond the Second World War. He also examines the origins of the Cold War, the European perspective on American and Soviet policies, and the diplomatic role and influence of the Roman Catholic Church.

God's Spies

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Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1467456403
Total Pages : 319 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (674 download)

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Book Synopsis God's Spies by : Elisabeth Braw

Download or read book God's Spies written by Elisabeth Braw and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The real-life cloak-and-dagger story of how East Germany’s notorious spy agency infiltrated churches here and abroad East Germany only existed for a short forty years, but in that time, the country’s secret police, the Stasi, developed a highly successful “church department” that—using persuasion rather than threats—managed to recruit an extraordinary stable of clergy spies. Pastors, professors, seminary students, and even bishops spied on colleagues, other Christians, and anyone else they could report about to their handlers in the Stasi. Thanks to its pastor spies, the Church Department (official name: Department XX/4) knew exactly what was happening and being planned in the country’s predominantly Lutheran churches. Yet ultimately it failed in its mission: despite knowing virtually everything about East German Christians, the Stasi couldn’t prevent the church-led protests that erupted in 1989 and brought down the Berlin Wall.

Cold War Mary

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Publisher : Leuven University Press
ISBN 13 : 9462702519
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (627 download)

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Book Synopsis Cold War Mary by : Peter Jan Margry

Download or read book Cold War Mary written by Peter Jan Margry and published by Leuven University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-28 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One hardly known but fascinating aspect of the Cold War was the use of the holy Virgin Mary as a warrior against atheist ideologies. After the Second World War, there was a remarkable rise in the West of religiously inflected rhetoric against what was characterised as “godless communism”. The leaders of the Roman Catholic Church not only urged their followers to resist socialism, but along with many prominent Catholic laity and activist movements they marshaled the support of Catholics into a spiritual holy war. In this book renowned experts address a variety of grassroots and Church initiatives related to Marian politics, the hausse of Marian apparitions during the Cold War period, and the present-day revival of Marian devotional culture. By identifying and analysing the militant side of Mary in the Cold War context on a global scale for the first time, Cold War Mary will attract readers interested in religious history, history of the Cold War, and twentieth-century international history.

The Dangerous God

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Publisher : Northern Illinois University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501757695
Total Pages : 291 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis The Dangerous God by : Dominic Erdozain

Download or read book The Dangerous God written by Dominic Erdozain and published by Northern Illinois University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the heart of the Soviet experiment was a belief in the impermanence of the human spirit: souls could be engineered; conscience could be destroyed. The project was, in many ways, chillingly successful. But the ultimate failure of a totalitarian regime to fulfill its ambitions for social and spiritual mastery had roots deeper than the deficiencies of the Soviet leadership or the chaos of a "command" economy. Beneath the rhetoric of scientific communism was a culture of intellectual and cultural dissidence, which may be regarded as the "prehistory of perestroika." This volume explores the contribution of Christian thought and belief to this culture of dissent and survival, showing how religious and secular streams of resistance joined in an unexpected and powerful partnership. The essays in The Dangerous God seek to shed light on the dynamic and subversive capacities of religious faith in a context of brutal oppression, while acknowledging the often-collusive relationship between clerical elites and the Soviet authorities. Against the Marxist notion of the "ideological" function of religion, the authors set the example of people for whom faith was more than an opiate; against an enduring mythology of secularization, they propose the centrality of religious faith in the intellectual, political, and cultural life of the late modern era. This volume will appeal to specialists on religion in Soviet history as well as those interested in the history of religion under totalitarian regimes.

A Gospel for the Poor

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Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 081225094X
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis A Gospel for the Poor by : David C. Kirkpatrick

Download or read book A Gospel for the Poor written by David C. Kirkpatrick and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2019-06-21 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1974, the International Congress on World Evangelization met in Lausanne, Switzerland. Gathering together nearly 2,500 Protestant evangelical leaders from more than 150 countries and 135 denominations, it rivaled Vatican II in terms of its influence. But as David C. Kirkpatrick argues in A Gospel for the Poor, the Lausanne Congress was most influential because, for the first time, theologians from the Global South gained a place at the table of the world's evangelical leadership—bringing their nascent brand of social Christianity with them. Leading up to this momentous occasion, after World War II, there emerged in various parts of the world an embryonic yet discernible progressive coalition of thinkers who were embedded in global evangelical organizations and educational institutions such as the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, and the International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians. Within these groups, Latin Americans had an especially strong voice, for they had honed their theology as a religious minority, having defined it against two perceived ideological excesses: Marxist-inflected Catholic liberation theology and the conservative political loyalties of the U.S. Religious Right. In this context, transnational conversations provoked the rise of progressive evangelical politics, the explosion of Christian mission and relief organizations, and the infusion of social justice into the very mission of evangelicals around the world and across a broad spectrum of denominations. Drawing upon bilingual interviews and archives and personal papers from three continents, Kirkpatrick adopts a transnational perspective to tell the story of how a Cold War generation of progressive Latin Americans, including seminal figures such as Ecuadorian René Padilla and Peruvian Samuel Escobar, developed, named, and exported their version of social Christianity to an evolving coalition of global evangelicals.

A Pope and a President

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Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1684516358
Total Pages : 549 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (845 download)

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Book Synopsis A Pope and a President by : Paul Kengor

Download or read book A Pope and a President written by Paul Kengor and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-07-18 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even as historians credit Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II with hastening the end of the Cold War, they have failed to recognize the depth or significance of the bond that developed between the two leaders. Acclaimed scholar and bestselling author Paul Kengor changes that. In this fascinating book, he reveals a singular bond—which included a spiritual connection between the Catholic pope and the Protestant president—that drove the two men to confront what they knew to be the great evil of the twentieth century: Soviet communism. Reagan and John Paul II almost didn't have the opportunity to forge this relationship: just six weeks apart in the spring of 1981, they took bullets from would-be assassins. But their strikingly similar near-death experiences brought them close together—to Moscow's dismay.Based on Kengor's tireless archival digging and his unique access to Reagan insiders, A Pope and a President is full of revelations. It takes you inside private meetings between Reagan and John Paul II and into the Oval Office, the Vatican, the CIA, the Kremlin, and many points beyond. Nancy Reagan called John Paul II her husband's "closest friend"; Reagan himself told Polish visitors that the pope was his "best friend." When you read this book, you will understand why. As kindred spirits, Ronald Reagan and John Paul II united in pursuit of a supreme objective—and in doing so they changed history.

God-Fearing and Free

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674058844
Total Pages : 449 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis God-Fearing and Free by : Jason W. Stevens

Download or read book God-Fearing and Free written by Jason W. Stevens and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion has been on the rise in America for decades—which strikes many as a shocking new development. To the contrary, Jason Stevens asserts, the rumors of the death of God were premature. Americans have always conducted their cultural life through religious symbols, never more so than during the Cold War. In God-Fearing and Free, Stevens discloses how the nation, on top of the world and torn between grandiose self-congratulation and doubt about the future, opened the way for a new master narrative. The book shows how the American public, powered by a national religious revival, was purposefully disillusioned regarding the country’s mythical innocence and fortified for an epochal struggle with totalitarianism. Stevens reveals how the Augustinian doctrine of original sin was refurbished and then mobilized in a variety of cultural discourses that aimed to shore up democratic society against threats preying on the nation’s internal weaknesses. Suddenly, innocence no longer meant a clear conscience. Instead it became synonymous with totalitarian ideologies of the fascist right or the communist left, whose notions of perfectability were dangerously close to millenarian ideals at the heart of American Protestant tradition. As America became riddled with self-doubt, ruminations on the meaning of power and the future of the globe during the “American Century” renewed the impetus to religion. Covering a wide selection of narrative and cultural forms, Stevens shows how writers, artists, and intellectuals, the devout as well as the nonreligious, disseminated the terms of this cultural dialogue, disputing, refining, and challenging it—effectively making the conservative case against modernity as liberals floundered.

God's Cold Warrior

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Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1467462144
Total Pages : 309 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (674 download)

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Book Synopsis God's Cold Warrior by : John D. Wilsey

Download or read book God's Cold Warrior written by John D. Wilsey and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When John Foster Dulles died in 1959, he was given the largest American state funeral since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s in 1945. President Eisenhower called Dulles—his longtime secretary of state—“one of the truly great men of our time,” and a few years later the new commercial airport outside Washington, DC, was christened the Dulles International Airport in his honor. His star has fallen significantly since that time, but his influence remains indelible—most especially regarding his role in bringing the worldview of American exceptionalism to the forefront of US foreign policy during the Cold War era, a worldview that has long outlived him. God’s Cold Warrior recounts how Dulles’s faith commitments from his Presbyterian upbringing found fertile soil in the anti-communist crusades of the mid-twentieth century. After attending the Oxford Ecumenical Church Conference in 1937, he wrote about his realization that “the spirit of Christianity, of which I learned as a boy, was really that of which the world now stood in very great need, not merely to save souls, but to solve the practical problems of international affairs.” Dulles believed that America was chosen by God to defend the freedom of all those vulnerable to the godless tyranny of communism, and he carried out this religious vision in every aspect of his diplomatic and political work. He was conspicuous among those US officials in the twentieth century that prominently combined their religious convictions and public service, making his life and faith key to understanding the interconnectedness of God and country in US foreign affairs.

A Catholic Cold War

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Publisher : Fordham Univ Press
ISBN 13 : 9780823224593
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (245 download)

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Book Synopsis A Catholic Cold War by : Patrick H. McNamara

Download or read book A Catholic Cold War written by Patrick H. McNamara and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first biography in 42 years of the priest and educator who became one of the most important political forces in America's Cold War against communism.

Christian Science in East Germany

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Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781484989838
Total Pages : 132 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (898 download)

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Book Synopsis Christian Science in East Germany by : Gregory W. Sandford

Download or read book Christian Science in East Germany written by Gregory W. Sandford and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-06-09 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christian Science as a religious denomination was banned and persecuted under the Nazis, reinstated under the Soviet Military Administration in eastern Germany after World War II, and then once again forbidden to organize by the new East German state (German Democratic Republic, or GDR) in 1951. Reasons for this decision were first the alleged danger to public health posed by its spiritual healing activities and second its close American connections. Over the following decades, despite persecution by the East German secret police ("Stasi"), small groups of Christian Scientists continued to meet in private homes, disguising their religious gatherings as birthday parties or similar social events. They also found various ways to smuggle in Christian Science literature they needed for informal religious services and to carry on spiritual healing. There were occasional arrests, interrogations, and even rare prosecutions, but these isolated underground activities went on without serious interruption. Efforts by East German Christian Scientists to get the 1951 decision reversed, supported from a distance by the Mother Church in Boston, were repeatedly rebuffed during the 1960s and '70s. Official attitudes began to moderate in the mid-1980s, however, as a result of the evolving international climate, personnel changes in the State Secretariat for Church Affairs, the growth of dissident activities within mainstream GDR churches, and the intercession of the U.S. Embassy in East Berlin. Parallel with more conciliatory policies toward other religious minorities such as Mormons and Jews, GDR authorities came to see Christian Scientists as an inoffensive minority whose toleration might actually improve East Germany's image. With the active support of the Ministry for State Security, they were granted special permission to receive religious literature from Boston in 1985. Later, a week before the Berlin Wall opened in 1989, Christian Science was officially recognized as a legal denomination-the only such recognition ever formally granted by the GDR government to a new religious organization. The concessions made to Christian Science illustrate the degree to which the GDR in its final days was willing to compromise ideology in hopes of gaining stability and legitimacy. Seen objectively, it seems inconsistent for a regime committed to an atheist philosophy to accept spiritual healing as a safe alternative to medicine. The decision to recognize Christian Science appears to have been influenced not only by political considerations, however, but also by the positive impression made by the character and quiet determination of the Christian Scientists themselves. In that respect, the tiny community of Christian Scientists made their own contribution to East Germany's "gentle revolution."

Guatemala's Catholic Revolution

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Publisher : University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN 13 : 0268104441
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (681 download)

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Book Synopsis Guatemala's Catholic Revolution by : Bonar L. Hernández Sandoval

Download or read book Guatemala's Catholic Revolution written by Bonar L. Hernández Sandoval and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2018-11-30 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guatemala’s Catholic Revolution is an account of the resurgence of Guatemalan Catholicism during the twentieth century. By the late 1960s, an increasing number of Mayan peasants had emerged as religious and social leaders in rural Guatemala. They assumed central roles within the Catholic Church: teaching the catechism, preaching the Gospel, and promoting Church-directed social projects. Influenced by their daily religious and social realities, the development initiatives of the Cold War, and the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), they became part of Latin America’s burgeoning progressive Catholic spirit. Hernández Sandoval examines the origins of this progressive trajectory in his fascinating new book. After researching previously untapped church archives in Guatemala and Vatican City, as well as mission records found in the United States, Hernández Sandoval analyzes popular visions of the Church, the interaction between indigenous Mayan communities and clerics, and the connection between religious and socioeconomic change. Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, the Guatemalan Catholic Church began to resurface as an institutional force after being greatly diminished by the anticlerical reforms of the nineteenth century. This revival, fueled by papal power, an increase in church-sponsored lay organizations, and the immigration of missionaries from the United States, prompted seismic changes within the rural church by the 1950s. The projects begun and developed by the missionaries with the support of Mayan parishioners, originally meant to expand sacramentalism, eventually became part of a national and international program of development that uplifted underdeveloped rural communities. Thus, by the end of the 1960s, these rural Catholic communities had become part of a “Catholic revolution,” a reformist, or progressive, trajectory whose proponents promoted rural development and the formation of a new generation of Mayan community leaders. This book will be of special interest to scholars of transnational Catholicism, popular religion, and religion and society during the Cold War in Latin America.