Evangelism and Popular Culture: Reflections and Questions from an International Study Process
This article reports on the work and the deliberations of the United Evangelical Mission's Working Group on Evangelism and Popular Culture. Working with rough heuristic categories, the group identifies Protestantism's discomfort with popular cultural expressions and finds it rooted in Prot...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2014
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| In: |
International review of mission
Year: 2014, Volume: 103, Issue: 2, Pages: 215-226 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | This article reports on the work and the deliberations of the United Evangelical Mission's Working Group on Evangelism and Popular Culture. Working with rough heuristic categories, the group identifies Protestantism's discomfort with popular cultural expressions and finds it rooted in Protestant history and modernist cultural theory. Using a postmodernist approach that looks at ways of meaning making in popular culture, the group calls for theological discernment and the identification of the work of the Holy Spirit within popular cultural expressions. Following J. K. A. Smith, liturgies are identified as shaping human identities. Secular, thick liturgies are often far more influential than Christian thin practices. Popular culture is a mirror of groundbreaking social change, but classical Protestant churches still follow the organizational principles of the 19th century. The group argues that to evangelize within popular culture, these churches will have to change their shape and structures, becoming missional but not consumer-driven. |
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| ISSN: | 1758-6631 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: International review of mission
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/irom.12058 |
