Reformed resurgence: the new Calvinist movement and the battle over American evangelicalism
"One of the biggest movements in American Christianity, especially among younger Evangelicals, is a groundswell of interest in the Reformed tradition. In Reformed Resurgence, Vermurlen provides a comprehensive sociological account of this New Calvinist phenomenon-and what it entails for the bro...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subito Delivery Service: | Order now. |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
New York
Oxford University Press
2020
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| In: | Year: 2020 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
USA
/ Calvinism
/ Evangelical movement
/ Religious change
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| Further subjects: | B
Big churches (United States)
Sociological aspects
B Christian Sociology Reformed Church B Calvinism (United States) Sociological aspects B Evangelicalism (United States) Sociological aspects B Religion and sociology (United States) |
| Summary: | "One of the biggest movements in American Christianity, especially among younger Evangelicals, is a groundswell of interest in the Reformed tradition. In Reformed Resurgence, Vermurlen provides a comprehensive sociological account of this New Calvinist phenomenon-and what it entails for the broader Evangelical landscape in the United States. Vermurlen's explanation of the Reformed resurgence develops a new theory for understanding how conservative religion can be strong and thriving in the hypermodern Western world. It is a paradigm using and expanding on strategic action field theory, a recent framework proposed for the study of movements and organizations but rarely applied to religion. This approach to religion moves beyond market dynamics and cultural happenstance and instead shows how religious strength can be "fought for and won" as the direct result of religious leaders' strategic actions and conflicts. But the battle comes at a cost. In the same storyline by which conservative Calvinistic belief experiences a resurgence in its field, present-day American Evangelicalism has turned in on itself. Because a field-theoretic model of strength is premised upon an underlying current of disunity and conflict, it has baked into it a concomitant element of significant overall religious weakness. The vision of Evangelicalism in the United States, in the end, consists of pockets of subcultural and local strength within a broader framework of secularization as "cultural entropy," as religious meanings and coherence fall apart"-- |
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| Item Description: | "This book is a revised and expanded version of my doctoral dissertation completed in the Department of Sociology at University of Notre Dame in 2016. " Includes bibliographical references and index |
| ISBN: | 0190073519 |