evangelicalism - bible believers, ammerman

Question 1

general

Answer 1

• Coming into existence of fundamentalism = dispensationalism, John Nelson Derby
  o Derby = God divided activity into 7 dispensations
  o Applies historical scheme to God
  o Next important event = rapture. First important event was resurrection

Question 2

biography

Answer 2

• Grew up as a preacher’s child
• Discovered how little sociologists knew about fundamentalism
• Was part of congregation of ‘Southside Gospel Church’ – they knew that she was a researcher
• Focus = on individuals
• Attended church, sang in the choir etc

Question 3

Impact of biography on study

Answer 3

• Evangelical upbringing made it easier to assimilate into ‘born-again’ community – could speak from the perspective of an insider
• Was accepted by most of the congregation – gained real insight into function of the church
• Promised to give accurate insider view of fundamentalism

Question 4

Ammerman considers

Answer 4

• The form of the movement
• Theology
• Relationships between leaders and followers
• Relationships between husbands and wives

Question 5

Religious Imaginations

Answer 5

• Religious groups map the world they form part of. Emphasis on healing and renewal
• Often political, sometimes religious vision with regards to the state
• Second Coming = solution to disorder. Abolition of status quo. Introduction of perfect order – somewhat passive
• Political effects emerge within religious imaginings e.g. in Church
  Debate = internal. Effects = external

Question 6

Dominant themes in sociology and how this opposes the fundamentalist mind-set

Answer 6

• ‘For many, the church should know its place and stay in it.
• Preachers should not meddle in politics or business or even in decisions about whether couples should stay married.
• The relegation of RE to an insignificant and/or private segment of life is a dominant theme in both sociological circles and popular accounts. But that is not the only form of RE postulated by those who see modernity as essentially secular.
• Theorists see RE not at the periphery but at the core of identity, so they postulate an individualised world view as the modern RE alternative.
• RE is found in the individual’s attempts to construct coherence. Yet for fundamentalists, RE is not grounded in their own individual solutions to life’s problems. RE is grounded in an institution and a document, both of which make the claim to ultimate truth.’

Question 7

Fundamentalist view of the modern world

Answer 7

• ‘For the people involved in fundamentalism, a hospitable cultural climate is an irrelevant explanation. As they see it, the modern world is doomed. Surviving in the interim is simply a daily effort to live a separated life and to share the plan of salvation.’

Question 8

Aim of the study

Answer 8

• ‘this study is an effort to introduce the lives of ordinary fundamentalists into the larger discussion of fundamentalism’s place in American society. fundamentalism is examined here not as a cultural or pol phenomenon but as a way of life. The primary units of analysis are individuals and the groups to which they most immediately belong. We will learn why fundamentalism exists by listening to the stories of the people who have chosen it.’
• Wanted to observe shared meanings of the group and undercover the assumptions associated with their everyday lives

Question 9

Fundamentalist attitude to secular researchers

Answer 9

• distrustful
• sociologists are seen as chief among the ‘secular humanists’ who have corrupted trad ways of thinking. We use secular categories to explain everything, ignoring the actions of almighty God

Question 10

nature of study

Answer 10

• sample of 13 interviews
• 62 adult members, 12 adult non-members and 4 children.
• Thinks that the stereotypes associated with the fundamentalist movement have been exaggerated

Question 11

The Church

Answer 11

• Pastor = Ronald Thompson
• Church members have normal jobs, average houses etc.
• ‘On the other hand, neither the style nor the content of their Sunday morning service is at all typical. What distinguishes this group of people is not demographic categories but their participation in a social and ideological world that becomes for them all-encompassing. These ordinary people are shaped by the ideas and expectations that have come to be known as Fundamentalism, and those ideas give them their extraordinary identity and way of life.’

Question 12

How can we observe what believers assume to be God’s will?

Answer 12

• Must look at how they pray
• What they pray about is what they presume God to care most about, and at southside the most prevalent concern is salvation.
• Members are sure that God’s plan for the world and for individuals rests on the universal need to accept Christ as personal saviour. Everything is organised around that one fact.
• Believers often celebrate their spiritual birthdays as well as their earthly ones.

Question 13

Prayer and everyday divine activities

Answer 13

• ‘when believers talk w each other and address God in their prayers, everyday divine activities are very much in their minds.
• If they are not married, they look for God’s will among the potential mates they know.
• If they are unemployed or unhappy in their work, they listen for clues to God’s vocational plan.
• Almost anything, good or bad, can be explained as God’s doing.’

Question 14

The world that they construct – morality

Answer 14

• God has an orderly and absolute plan
• Clear definition of right and wrong
• Can be reassuring for those who struggle to find meaning in life

Question 15

view of the bible

Answer 15

• The bible is God’s word and it contains the answer to whatever questions they or anyone else might have.
• The Bible, however, is not just to be believed; it is to be lived
• They consequently have a mixed attitude toward education – Bible is source of scientific authority

Question 16

Role of the Pastor and Authority

Answer 16

• His authority is not just because of the quantity of influence but also a matter of principle – the pastor is the shepherd of the sheep
• Must submit to authority of the pastor
• Authority = biblical model for social institutions
• Many actions are motivated by authority
• Authority is Biblically grounded – cannot doubt WofG
• ‘Referring to scriptural and pastoral authority is one of the primary ways that the people of southside maintain and repair the world they have constructed for themselves.’
• Primary interpreter of scripture

Question 17

God’s will and scriptural authority

Answer 17

• ‘When members of southside are searching for God’s will, they often say that they are looking for ‘open doors’. They are looking for opportunities that seem too good to be coincidental.’
• Scripture = ultimate authority
• Scripture is brought to life through the pastor, church leaders etc.
  o Interpretive key for how to respond to God’s will
  o Should learn from pastor and look for signs of God’s activity
  This is key to maintaining a world with reason and order

Question 18

General attitudes to theodicy

Answer 18

• Problematic as they view God as controlling everything
• But not really an issue for Southside
• As with everything else in their lives, the people of southside approach suffering and death w confidence that there are knowable reasons, that evil events somehow fit into God’s plan.
• E.g. Connie Meyer, handicapped since birth
  o “I mean, if he wanted me running around, I could run around”. This explanation reflects a kind of blind surrender, but she also reaches for a more tangible reason: “If I wasn’t handicapped, who knows if I would have been saved or not.”
• Prefer to emphasise evil as part of God’s will than attempting to find a logical reason for the presence of evil
• Emphasis on wider plan inc. salvation, witnessing etc.
• Will always be able to make sense of their lives, even in hard times

Question 19

Attitudes to theodicy re. Incarnation

Answer 19

• Theodicy of Incarnation: God became man and suffered so that human pain may be more bearable
• Trust in JC’s imminent return – will change trouble into joy in heaven
• Connie: “I hope when we get to heaven, I’ll be walking around too”.
• ‘Whatever explanation believers choose, the most important goal is simply to place potentially disturbing events under the canopy of God’s plan. Whatever happens is just part of God’s strategy for bringing individuals to salvation, strengthening their faith and bringing the events of history to a climactic close’
• emphasis on faith – foundation of world-view. Keeps them separate from a subjective and disorderly modern world

Question 20

Becoming a new creature

Answer 20

• more than mere intellectual assent
• Believers often say that what is required is ‘heart knowledge’ not ‘head knowledge’.
• To become a believer in JC means to turn your life over to his direction and let him live in your heart.
• Change in lifestyle results in believers perceiving themselves as different to other Xians – worship, theology, lifestyle etc.
• Do not view liberals as true Xians – heretical. Same with RCC as they do not view Bible as literal WofG
  o Interesting relationship with RCC as many people turned from RCC to Southside – people are aware of the barrier that has resulted

Question 21

Salvation

Answer 21

• ‘Salvation is more important than race. For believers, salvation marks the boundary between darkness and light, between misery and joy, between orthodoxy and heresy.’
• Believers expect salvation to produce a change in a person’s life.
• Bonnie Towles said of her husband, “he still maintains that he is not saved. If you ask him outright, he says, ‘No.’ But he’s so totally different that I think only the Lord could do that”.

Question 22

Purity and Cleansing

Answer 22

• ‘The members of southside have specific ideas about what things in a life need to be cleared out. Because they see their own lives as characterised by confidence, they are suspicious of people who have not given up their worries.’
• Outsiders drink, swear and are sexually liberal
• Saved people = disciplined and ascetic
• Want to separate themselves from a world marked by drinking/dancing and casual sex

Question 23

Relationship with outsiders

Answer 23

• Need to live in same world as unsaved
• Interaction with outsiders is inevitable and should involve some form of proselytising
• World = mission field full of unsaved people
  Methods inc. silent witness of differentness or aggressive attempts at persuading

Question 24

Witnessing and implication on familial relationships

Answer 24

• Witnessing = hard
• ‘Relationships are difficult to maintain when one party insists that there is something wrong with the other. For these people “separation from the world” has meant leaving loved ones behind. It is extremely difficult to maintain an intimate tie across the gulf between the saved and the damned.’
• Separation from family = most painful
• ‘They venture into the outside world only to try to snatch away the few people who seem open to salvation. On the inside, those who are saved form a tightly knit family, a brotherhood that is distinct in belief, lang and lifestyle from the unsaved world outside.’

Question 25

Biblical basis of witnessing and aim

Answer 25

• in the NT, they keep returning to Paul’s command to “put on the whole armour of God” (Eph 6:11). Until JC returns, believers expect to be at war with the world.

Question 26

Church activities as a framework

Answer 26

• ‘for the members of southside, this dizzying round of church activities can effectively shut out the influences of the world. At church believers are sheltered by the fundamentalist ideas that make of the world a sensible place.’
• Church activities = framework for believer. Nurtures the believer in order to sustain faith
• People tend to be very committed to congregation – invest time, money etc

Question 27

Pastor Thompson interaction with congregation

Answer 27

• Actual intimate conversations between pastor and parishioners are rare.
• Most members see him only in his ritualised roles and maintain an idealised view of his character.
• Jim Forester said “I look at our pastor and just the tremendous person he is”.
• Pastor = most powerful ‘man of God’ out of the congregation of ‘men of God’
• Some join/leave because of the Pastor – church began as a split

Question 28

gender roles

Answer 28

• Women are not involved in power structure – cannot teach/serve
• Xian house = headed by saved man, responsible for physical, emotional, spiritual needs of the household
• Accompanied by a woman who is an obedient wife and mother
• Role = maintaining home and caring for children. Cooking, cleaning and looking after the children
• Rebecca Hughes talking about a family decision like moving: “I’d like my husband to be the head of the house. I believe it’s a decision that we both have to talk about, but I believe that in the end the husband decides”. Although the husband decides, the couple should talk it over, coming up w a consensus they believe to be God’s will. The ideal of male domination is thus subtly accommodated to the reality of modern expectations for equality.
• Church kids learn that what a person is allowed to do depends on who that person is: girls are not boys. From the earliest ages, there are separate activities, different styles of dress, and divergent expectations for boys and girls, building and reinforcing the idea that God made the sexes to be different.

Question 29

marriage

Answer 29

• Xian wives are both powerful and powerless – power of persuasion based on involvement in family life. Most choose to submit
• Janet Slavin said “being submissive, the way I understand it, does leave me an active role and doesn’t leave me in a quiet, nowhere role”.
• Women do not suffer from divorce/unhappy homes because they have rules for clear division of labour and authority – many say fundamentalist beliefs have saved marriage
• Southside’s husbands and wives must find ways to live with the tension between fundamentalist norms for fam structure and modern norms of individuality and equality.
• Most women learn to influence family decision making while still deferring to their husbands’ authority. For a few, the model is oppressive and brings adverse psychological consequences. But for most of Southside’s families, the ideals and the compromises offer a viable model, a model many claim has saved their marriages.

Question 30

Methods of evangelising

Answer 30

• Inviting the lost to church
• Radio ministry
• Teaching the young
• Church bus ministry
• Visitation programs

Question 31

Converts in Southside

Answer 31

• ½ of current congregation = recruited as adults
• most converts experienced crisis/transition
• Southside gave them a framework within which to interpret the devil that plagued them
• Offered hope that God’s power would rescue them from hell

Question 32

Fundamentalism as a coping strategy

Answer 32

• The world fundamentalists have constructed is, by definition, then, a world in opposition.
• Because they see the outside world as chaotic, their world is full of order. they believe that God has a plan for every detail of life and find meaning for their lives in trying to follow God’s plan.
• Provides grounding perspective for those who feel unstable in an unforgiving and untrustworthy world

Question 33

Irony for Southside believers

Answer 33

• One such irony is the nature of power these people possess. While claiming that all power belongs to God, they acrtively appropriate some of that power as their own. While claiming that life must be lived by unchanging rules, the rules themselves often provide opportunities for adaption and change. The very act of marking off boundaries between themselves and the rest of the world allows a vastly increased sense of efficacy within the social territory they claim as their own. The ideology, then, is a flexible one. It neither dooms believers to passive waiting for another world nor gives them unconditional power in this world.

Question 34

Pluralism and legitimacy of modern world

Answer 34

• Unable to deal with pluralism
• Unlikely that there will be social cohesion – fundamentalism would need to become tolerant of pluralism in order to win against modernity
• ‘As long as there is a modern world characterised by seeming chaos, there will be believers who react to that world by refusing to grant it legitimacy. Although some may do so in solitary reflection, most will seek out social structures in which certainty can take place of doubt, in which clear rules and authority can take the place of subjectivity, and in which truth is truth without compromise. Churches like Southside provide such modern wanderers a home. They provide an all-encompassing sacred canopy in which belief is possible.’