To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: Emergent church.
Journal articles on the topic 'Emergent church'
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 50 journal articles for your research on the topic 'Emergent church.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse journal articles on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
Jones, Tony. "The Emergent Church." Tikkun 23, no. 3 (May 2008): 10–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/08879982-2008-3005.
Full text
2
Sheridan, Tim, and Jurgens Hendriks. "The Emergent Church movement." Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif 53, no. 3-4 (February 6, 2013): 312. http://dx.doi.org/10.5952/53-3-4-271.
Full text
3
Nesvig, Martin Austin. "Religious Chicanery in Michoacán's Emergent Church." Colonial Latin American Review 17, no. 2 (December 2008): 213–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10609160802393849.
Full text
4
Jamieson, Alan. "Post-church groups and their place as emergent forms of church." International journal for the Study of the Christian Church 6, no. 1 (March 2006): 65–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14742250500484493.
Full text
5
WEBER, FRIEDRICH, and CHARLOTTE METHUEN. "The Architecture of Faith under National Socialism: Lutheran Church Building(s) in Braunschweig, 1933–1945." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 66, no. 2 (April 2015): 340–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046913002571.
Full textAbstract:
It has frequently been assumed that church building ceased after the National Socialists came to power in Germany in 1933. This article shows that it continued, and considers the reasons why this was the case. Focussing on churches built in the Church of Braunschweig between 1933 and 1936, it explores the interactions between emergent priorities for church architecture and the rhetoric of National Socialist ideology, and traces their influence on the building of new Protestant churches in Braunschweig. It examines the way in which Braunschweig Cathedral was reordered in accordance with National Socialist interests, and the ambiguity which such a reordering implied for the on-going Christian life of the congregation. It concludes that church building was widely understood to be a part of the National Socialist programme for creating employment, but was also used to emphasise the continuing role of the Church in building community. However, there is still much work to be done to investigate the ways in which churches and congregations interacted with National Socialism in their day-to-day existence.
6
Hawtrey, Kim, and John Lunn. "The Emergent Church, Socio-Economics and Christian Mission." Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies 27, no. 2 (March 19, 2010): 65–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265378809357804.
Full text
7
Dovlo, Elom. "African Culture and Emergent Church Forms in Ghana." Exchange 33, no. 1 (2004): 28–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1572543041172639.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThe author gives a review of the African Independent Churches, African Initiated Churches or Spiritual Churches, as he prefers to call them, in West Africa. He also pays attention to the relationship of these churches to the so-called mainline churches. He shows the charismatic renewal that took place in the Spiritual Churches. Furthermore Dovlo turns his eyes to the relationship between the Western mainline churches and the African mainline churches and he makes clear that between all these diff erent types of churches an intra-cultural dialogue is going on. So Dovlo concludes omit that in spite of all tensions between them all churches need each other to communicate the hope of a God who is coming.
8
Keuss, Jeff. "The emergent church and neo-correlational theology after Tillich, Schleiermacher and Browning." Scottish Journal of Theology 61, no. 4 (November 2008): 450–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0036930608004201.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractWhat has ‘emerged’ in the ‘emerging church’ movement, through writers such as Brian McLaren, is merely a new form of correlational theology – or what I will term ‘neo-correlational theology’. This ‘emergent’ movement aligns itself with Paul Tillich's systematic presentation of what he termed a ‘theology of culture’ addressed in his 1919 lecture ‘Über die Idee einer Theologie der Kultur’ and is deeply rooted in theological essentialisms aligned with Friedrich Schleiermacher and Don Browning. While many adherents of the Emergent movement have recently attempted to catalogue its theological legacy, this article will address three key emphases which haunt the corners of its discourse yet remain largely unacknowledged. First, the heritage of Schleiermacher's notion of ‘feeling’ as an authentic categorical form of knowledge forged through radical reflexivity which is the proper domain for authenticity in the Emergent movement. Second, as underscored in Tillich's Theology of Culture, the church as ‘emergent’ is profoundly imminent and therefore necessarily social, positivistic and historical. Third, theological anthropology is understood primarily through our freedom over and (at times) against the necessity of redemption. The question this article will address is whether or not such an approach reimagined as ‘neo-correlational theology’ and actualised through the ‘emerging church’ movement tacitly relies upon a more traditional theology which it explicitly rejects.
9
Quagrainie, Fanny Adams, Abigail Opoku Mensah, and Alex Yaw Adom. "Christian entrepreneurial activities and micro women entrepreneurship development." Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy 12, no. 5 (November 6, 2018): 657–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jec-03-2018-0025.
Full textAbstract:
Purpose Review of literature suggests mixed findings on the relationship between the church and micro women entrepreneurship development. This signals that questions remain about the roles of churches in entrepreneurial development. Thus, this paper aims to explore what entrepreneurial activities are provided by churches to their micro women entrepreneurs and how do these activities influence their entrepreneurial start up and growth. Design/methodology/approach Phenomenological research methodologies were used to purposive collected data from 38 women entrepreneurs and four church administers in Tema. Results were analyzed using the emergent strategy. Findings The results suggest that churches provided four entrepreneurial activities which are categorized as finance, networking, promotion of self-confidence and impartation of ethical values. These factors promoted the growth of women entrepreneurial growth but not the start-up of entrepreneurial ventures. The study concluded that the church should provide more support for new entrepreneurial ventures. Therefore, embeddedness because of membership of a church is a critical part of women entrepreneurship development. Research limitations/implications Further studies will need to replicate these findings with other types of businesses, in other locations. Practical implications This study suggests that policymakers should be working in conjunction with churches in a bid to promote micro women entrepreneurship development. Originality/value Limited research has been conducted on church entrepreneurial activities in the development of micro women entrepreneurs in developing economies such as Ghana. This empirical research provides important insights into this field.
10
Hauriasi, Abraham, Karen Van-Peursem, and Howard Davey. "Budget processes in the Anglican Church of Melanesia: an emergent ethnic identity." Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 29, no. 8 (October 17, 2016): 1294–319. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/aaaj-07-2015-2112.
Full textAbstract:
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate ethnic identities emerging from the budgetary processes of the Anglican Church of Melanesia (COM) – the Solomon Islands. Design/methodology/approach An interpretive and case-based methodology is employed. Fieldwork consists of 27 interviews, document analysis and lived-observations. Ethnic identity and concepts of the indigenous culture inform the analysis. Findings Findings demonstrate how Church-led practices merge with indigenous processes and how, together, members negotiate their way through this complex budgeting process. A broadened network and community (wantok) is revealed, and through a sympathetic melding of Melanesian and Church tradition, a new ethnic-identity emerges. Issues of parishioners’ isolation, women’s roles and central accountability are not, as yet, fully integrated into this emerging identity. Research limitations/implications There may be value in prioritising “people” over “timelines”, “discussion” over “deadlines” and in respecting local traditions in order to nurture the foundation for new identities. Also, and as evidenced, “nationhood” should not be assumed to be a powerful force in defining ethnic identity. Practical implications The value of respecting the complex interaction between tribal tradition and Church values by those in power is revealed. Social implications “Ethnic identity” is revealed as a complex notion in the Solomon Islands Anglican COM. Originality/value A long-isolated culture’s construction of self-identity in the context of the COM is revealed.
11
Burge, Ryan P., and Paul A. Djupe. "An Emergent Threat: Christian Clergy Perceptions of the Emerging Church Movement." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 56, no. 1 (March 2017): 26–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12324.
Full text
12
Burge, Ryan P., and Paul A. Djupe. "Emergent Church Practices in America: Inclusion and Deliberation in American Congregations." Review of Religious Research 57, no. 1 (March 27, 2014): 1–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13644-014-0157-2.
Full text
13
Percy, Martyn. "Emergent Archiepiscopal Leadership within the Anglican Communion." Journal of Anglican Studies 14, no. 1 (March 18, 2015): 46–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1740355315000029.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractEach Archbishop of Canterbury has a distinctive style of leadership. To some extent, this will always be shaped and framed by prevalent contemporary cultures of leadership that are to be found within wider society. The paper examines and questions some aspects in the development of the current Archbishop of Canterbury's role. It argues that the combination of a certain kind of charismatic leadership, coupled to enhanced managerial organization, may be preventing the prospect of theological acuity and spiritual wisdom playing a more significant role in the continual formation of ecclesial polity in the Church of England, and across the wider Anglican Communion.
14
McCrea, Heather L. "On Sacred Ground: The Church and Burial Rites in Nineteenth-Century Yucatáán, Mexico." Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 23, no. 1 (2007): 33–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/msem.2007.23.1.33.
Full textAbstract:
Throughout mid-nineteenth century epidemics of cholera, smallpox, and yellow fever, state and Church officials vied for control over the sacred terrain of cemetery management and burial regulations. Amidst sweeping national attacks on Church privilege, state officials crafted policies to contain contagion and undermine Church authority over the sacred realm of death. Between 1847 and 1855, mortality skyrocketed in Yucatáán from the dual calamities of disease and the civil war known as the Caste War. As the war unfolded and epidemics persisted, residents were drawn into a power struggle between emergent public health policies and long-practiced Catholic and Maya burial customs.
15
Harp, Gillis J. "“We cannot spare you”: Phillips Brooks's Break with the Evangelical Party, 1859–1873." Church History 68, no. 4 (December 1999): 930–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3170210.
Full textAbstract:
Despite renewed scholarly interest in Evangelical Episcopalianism recently, important questions persist about the party's demise in the last third of the nineteenth century. Though church historians have advanced some plausible explanations for its disappearance, these interpretations need now to be tested by more narrowly focused studies of individuals, both committed party men and their less partisan allies. Concomitant questions also linger about the relationship between Evangelicals and the emergent Broad Church movement within the American church and within the Anglican communion generally. Exactly how did Low Church Evangelicals become Low Church liberals by the turn of the century? More importantly, this subject has a broader significance for the history of American Christianity at large. Pursuing the foregoing questions can shed considerable light on the parallel transformation of a moderately Reformed American evangelicalism into turn-of-the-century liberal Protestantism.
16
Stockdale, Todd J. "A sociology of mystic practices: use and adaptation in the emergent church." Practical Theology 12, no. 2 (March 15, 2019): 226–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1756073x.2019.1600117.
Full text
17
Bell, Daniel M. "Trump as Mirror for the Church: Death and Despair, Hope and Resurrection of the Church." Religions 11, no. 3 (February 27, 2020): 107. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel11030107.
Full textAbstract:
The election of Donald Trump inaugurated a wave of anxiety-bordering-on-despair among various peoples hoping for another, better world. This paper considers whether Trump deserves such acclaim in the sense that Trump is at best a symptom or cipher that can be approached by heeding Martin Luther’s observation that our politicians reflect who we are. To make this argument first I draw upon the work of Andrew Bacevich to suggest a certain continuity rather than apocalyptic break in recent American politics. Then I ask what the production of such politicians and politics says about American Christianity, which is far more frightening than the fleeting ascendancy of a mere Trump. In particular, using the National Study of Youth and Religion I suggest that the church in America suffers from a widespread failure of formation in the faith. What are we to make of this failure? Whence cometh hope? Building on Ephraim Radner’s interrogation of the divided church and on Jonathan Lear’s exploration of radical hope in the wake of cultural devastation, I will suggest both a theologically appropriate despair and also a hope for emergent forms and practices of faith capable of resisting the darkness of these times.
18
Gousmett, Chris. "EMERGENT EVOLUTION, AUGUSTINE, INTELLIGENT DESIGN, AND MIRACLES." Philosophia Reformata 76, no. 1 (November 17, 2011): 119–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22116117-90000506.
Full textAbstract:
Jacob Klapwijk appeals to Augustine on two distinct issues which are closely linked. The first concerns the approach to which Klapwijk commits himself: faith seeking understanding. He calls it Augustinian. I show in this essay that there is a considerable gap between what Augustine means by it and what Klapwijk does with it. Augustine means that what I believe I must seek to understand. Klapwijk means that faith opens up the whole world of science and philosophy to the believer. The second issue is that Klapwijk finds in the Church Father a view of time which he wants to appropriate: God created out of nothing and thus time itself is also a creature which began with the creation. I show that his affirmation of this doctrine comes with a price. He cannot simply set aside what he calls Scholasticism. In the final paragraph I attempt to show that at a deeper level Klapwijk does indeed stand in the Augustinian tradition.
19
Gibson, William T. "Nepotism, Family, and Merit: The Church of England in the Eighteenth Century." Journal of Family History 18, no. 2 (March 1993): 179–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/036319909301800201.
Full textAbstract:
The debate on nepotism in the eighteenth century has developed more fully in the last five than in the preceding fifty years. Within the emergent professions nepotism was difficult to distinguish from the hereditary nature of recruitment into the Church, the law, and the army. The debate on nepotism in the Church has produced contrasting views, one regarding nepotism as a feature of the corruption and abuse that dogged the Church after 1714, the other suggesting that nepotism not only served a specific function, as it did among the laity, but was accorded moral legitimacy by contemporaries. The article suggests that nepotism took its place within the structure of patronage which included the recommendation of deserving clergy to the purveyors of patronage and the nomination of men of talent from the universities to the households of bishops.
20
HARP, GILLIS J. "The Young Phillips Brooks: A Reassessment." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 49, no. 4 (October 1998): 652–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046998006253.
Full textAbstract:
Phillips Brooks was undeniably one of the most popular preachers of Gilded Age America. Sydney Ahlstrom described Brooks and the liberal Congregationalist Henry Ward Beecher as ‘in a class by themselves, envied and emulated the country over’. Unlike Beecher, however, the rector of Trinity Church, Boston, subsequently Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts, has attracted remarkably little scholarly attention. His few biographers have rarely attempted to place his thought or career in their social or intellectual contexts. With one recent notable exception, little of scholarly value has been written about Brooks. The older biographies have tended to portray him as initially rooted in the evangelical tradition, even though he subsequently became a leader of the emergent Broad Church party. Alexander V. G. Allen concludes, for example, that by the close of his seminary training, Brooks ‘freely accepted the leading truths which are known as Evangelical’. E. Clowes Chorley asserts simply that ‘Brooks never drifted from the heart of Evangelical religion’. Allen and others stress the evangelical origins of Brooks's thought in order to argue for the continuity between the evangelical and liberal streams within American Anglicanism. This portrayal of Brooks as a churchman who somehow retained the essence of an early evangelicalism while later embracing his Church's liberal future has served what Allen Guelzo has aptly called the ‘myth of synthesis’ in Episcopal historiography. Such an interpretation does not view Evangelicals as being forced out of the Church in the 1870s but posits a benign creative synthesis that enabled the Church to transcend the aberrant party battles of the mid century.
21
Berryman, Phillip. "Churches as Winners and Losers in the Network Society." Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 41, no. 4 (1999): 21–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/166189.
Full textAbstract:
This essay argues that Manuel Castells’s explorations of networks and the emergent network society in his recent trilogy The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture may offer useful clues to recent religious developments in Latin America. In this regard, Pentecostalism, by adopting a logic of horizontal integration, rapid response, and flexible production, might be more successful than the Catholic Church in attracting followers.
22
Wigner, Dann. "Icons: A Case Study in Spiritual Borrowing between Eastern Orthodoxy and the Emergent Church." Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 18, no. 1 (2018): 78–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/scs.2018.0005.
Full text
23
Burns, Charlene. "The Meek Are Not Weak: Critical Realist Hermeneutics and Social Justice in the Emergent Church." International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society 3, no. 2 (2013): 39–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.18848/2154-8633/cgp/v03i02/51046.
Full text
24
Justice, Deborah. "When Church and Cinema Combine: Blurring Boundaries through Media-savvy Evangelicalism." Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture 3, no. 1 (December 6, 2014): 84–119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/21659214-90000042.
Full textAbstract:
The use of social media presents new religious groups with opportunities to assert themselves in contrast to established religious institutions. Intersections of church and cinema form a central part of this phenomenon. On one hand, many churches embrace digital media, from Hollywood clips in sermons to sermons delivered entirely via video feed. Similarly and overlapping with this use of media, churches in cinemas have emerged around the world as a new form of Sunday morning worship. This paper investigates intersections of church and cinema through case studies of two representative congregations. CityChurch, in Würzburg, Germany, is a free evangelical faith community that meets in a downtown Cineplex for Sunday worship. LCBC (Lives Changed by Christ) is one of the largest multi-sited megachurches on the American East Coast. While LCBC’s main campus offers live preaching, sermons are digitally streamed to the rest. Both CityChurch and LCBC exemplify growing numbers of faith communities that rely on popular musical and social media to 1) redefine local and global religious relationships and 2) claim identity as both culturally alternative and spiritually authentic. By engaging with international flows of worship music, films, and viral internet sensations, new media-centered faith communities like CityChurch and LCBC reconfigure established sacred soundscapes. CityChurch’s use of music and media strategically differentiates the congregation from neighboring traditional forms of German Christianity while strengthening connections to the imagined global evangelical community. LCBC creates what cultural geographer Justin Wilford dubs a “postsuburban sacrality” that carves out meaning from the banality of strip-mall-studded suburban existence. Analyzing the dynamics of music and media in these new worship spaces assumes growing importance as transnational music and media choices play an increasingly a central role in locally differentiating emergent worship communities from historically hegemonic religious neighbors.
25
Motak, Dominika, Joanna Krotofil, and Dorota Wójciak. "The Battle for Symbolic Power: Kraków as a Stage of Renegotiation of the Social Position of the Catholic Church in Poland." Religions 12, no. 8 (July 31, 2021): 594. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel12080594.
Full textAbstract:
In academic and popular discourses, Poland has been consistently described as a “Catholic country”. However, the level of identification with the Catholic Church in Poland has been gradually declining in the last three decades. In this paper, we explore the recent wave of civil protests which began in October 2020 as a reaction to the new restrictions on legal access to abortion. Thousands of people took to the streets to participate in what became known as “the Women’s Strike”. The protesters not only rejected the government but also dissented from the Catholic Church and its strong influence over the Polish state. The case study presented here focuses on the events that took place in Kraków, particularly the protests around the famous “Pope’s window”. We identify the symbolic tools used by the protesters and explore the connection between “Women’s Strike”, the emergent discourses on the poor handling of the sexual abuse problems in the Catholic Church by John Paul II and his close associates, and the growing contestation of Church’s position towards LGBTQ+. We employ the notion of crisis to discuss the implications of the mass protests to the transformation of the Catholic landscape in Poland.
26
Ewick, Patricia, and Marc Steinberg. "The Dilemmas of Social Movement Identity and the Case of the Voice of the Faithful." Mobilization: An International Quarterly 19, no. 2 (June 1, 2014): 209–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.17813/maiq.19.2.a566816646930227.
Full textAbstract:
This article focuses on the dilemmic nature of identity for challengers within organizations and on their emergent responses. It is based on ethnographic research of one affiliate of Voice of the Faithful, a group of Catholics that formed in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The abiding faith of the group and their commitment to change the church created a dilemma that encapsulates the central question of this article: how do challengers pursuing change of an institution balance commitment and critique, mainstream membership and otherness? Internal challengers manage these dilemmas by rescripting existing stories and telling novel ones to navigate group boundaries and formulate new understandings of their individual and collective pasts, presents, and futures. We trace the ways in which challengers work through contradictions and ambiguity in their emergent identities. This provides an opportunity to explore the existential dimensions of collective identity and focus on the processual nature of storytelling.
27
Boyer, John W. "Religion and Political Development in Central Europe around 1900: A View from Vienna." Austrian History Yearbook 25 (January 1994): 13–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0067237800006305.
Full textAbstract:
To view the church-state problem from Vienna in 1900 is to view it from the capital of an ancient Catholic state in a multiethnic cultural arena, a world in which Catholicism strove, at least officially, to be supranational, and in which, although there was no Catholic nation, there was a preeminent and distinguished Catholic dynasty. This was a world in which large numbers of Austrians—many of them in rural areas—continued to affirm popular religious affections and loyalties throughout the century—values and practices that if not always consonant with official Catholic doctrine, at least afforded the hierarchical church and sympathetic aristocratic and bourgeois elites the ready opportunity to claim Catholicism as not only a historic and true but also a public and mass religion. At the same time, the long-term heritage of Josephinist state control of the church had powerful negative effects on active religiosity and religious identity, especially among the emergent Bürgertum and urban inhabitants of the monarchy. The Concordat of 1855—coming after the failed revolution of 1848–49 and on the heels of the imposition of neoabsolutist rule—was an imprudent decision precisely because it alienated both the Josephinist state and incipient bürgerlich society.
28
OLIVER, KENDRICK. "The Origin and Development of Prison Fellowship International: Pluralism, Ecumenism and American Leadership in the Evangelical World 1974–2006." Journal of American Studies 51, no. 4 (October 10, 2017): 1221–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021875816001389.
Full textAbstract:
Established in 1979 by Watergate felon Charles Colson, Prison Fellowship International (PFI) is now one of the largest para-church organizations in world evangelicalism. This article explains PFI's origins with reference to the existence of a transnational evangelical network, the compatibility of PFI's mission with the emergent theme of evangelical social concern, and a general crisis of penology across a number of Western countries. It explores the creative tension between Colson's empire-building instincts and the desire of PFI affiliates to influence the direction of the organization, revealing the transactional manner in which American evangelicals exercised global leadership in the late twentieth century.
29
Booth, Phil. "Saints and Soteriology in Sophronius Sophista’s Miracles of Cyrus and John." Studies in Church History 45 (2009): 52–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0424208400002412.
Full textAbstract:
Tensions between public and private forms of religiosity have been endemic to Christianity since its institutionalization during the first four centuries AD. That process was in part characterized by the clerical curtailment of alternative routes of divine access which bypassed the structures of the Church and the controls which it operated: most notably, Scripture and sacrament. Acts had imagined the last Christian days as a spiritual age of prophecy, visions and dreams, but the rapid association of such phenomena with rigorist, schismatic or heretical groups – particularly the Gnostics, Montanists and Manichaeans – rendered them suspect if scripturally unassailable. Dreaming – ‘the paradigm of the open frontier’, ‘epiphany’s most open level’ – became strictly delineated by episcopally defined typologies which restricted access to the divine and necessitated arbitration, thus protecting the centrality and authority of the Church. Those typologies not only emphasized the relative rarity of divinely inspired dreams (as opposed to the physiological or demonic), they also stressed the special status of the recipient. They thus partook of a late antique professionalization of the holy by which an emergent spiritual elite attempted to exercise an unprecedented monopoly on the supernatural.
30
Bromley, David G., and J. Gordon Melton. "Reconceptualizing Types of Religious Organization." Nova Religio 15, no. 3 (February 1, 2012): 4–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2012.15.3.4.
Full textAbstract:
One important theoretical task in the study of religion is distinguishing among the different organizational forms that religious groups assume. The most influential typology of religious organization has been based upon distinctions of church, denomination, sect, and cult. However, the various formulations of this typology have proved problematic, theoretically and empirically, and of little use to new religions scholars. We propose a relational approach to categorizing religious groups based on the social and cultural relationship of a group to established institutions (including religion). This approach yields four types of tradition groups: dominant, sectarian, alternative, and emergent. We argue that a relationally based typology is particularly useful in mapping religious economies, conducting comparative analysis, and tracking the changing status of religious groups over time.
31
Weng, Juyang. "Autonomous Programming for General Purposes: Theory." International Journal of Humanoid Robotics 17, no. 04 (August 2020): 2050016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/s0219843620500164.
Full textAbstract:
The universal Turing Machine (TM) is a model for Von Neumann computers — general-purpose computers. A human brain, linked with its biological body, can inside-skull-autonomously learn a universal TM so that he acts as a general-purpose computer and writes a computer program for any practical purposes. It is unknown whether a robot can accomplish the same. This theoretical work shows how the Developmental Network (DN), linked with its robot body, can accomplish this. Unlike a traditional TM, the TM learned by DN is a super TM — Grounded, Emergent, Natural, Incremental, Skulled, Attentive, Motivated, and Abstractive (GENISAMA). A DN is free of any central controller (e.g., Master Map, convolution, or error back-propagation). Its learning from a teacher TM is one transition observation at a time, immediate, and error-free until all its neurons have been initialized by early observed teacher transitions. From that point on, the DN is no longer error-free but is always optimal at every time instance in the sense of maximal likelihood, conditioned on its limited computational resources and the learning experience. This paper extends the Church–Turing thesis to a stronger version — a GENISAMA TM is capable of Autonomous Programming for General Purposes (APFGP) — and proves both the Church–Turing thesis and its stronger version.
32
Knox, Robert, Michael O. Adams, and Gbolahan S. Osho. "History and Relevance of Patronage, the Civil Service Reform and the Pendleton Act: The Rationale for Congressional Intervention." Journal of Public Administration and Governance 7, no. 2 (May 3, 2017): 55. http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/jpag.v7i2.10950.
Full textAbstract:
The ownership of land determined ones importance. However, the church was one of the largest single property holders in Italy. By the 11th century, Bishops were competing with wealthy rural families to become patrons” of local land – owners. To combat the political problems in 1867 The Tenure of Office Act was passed during Andrew Jackson term; Congress passed the Act in an effort to secure a greater role in the appointive process. The act specific that those appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate could only be removed from office with the Senate’s approval. Hence, the goal of this research is to examine the implications of political pressure on the evolutionary process with new emergent paradigm characterized by three anti-government values: personal accountability limited and decentralized government, and community responsibility for delivery or social services.
33
Jae-Weon Yoo. "A Study of the Possibility of Theologizing the Emergent Church Movement: Focused on the Ancient-Future Approach of Robert E. Webber." Korea Presbyterian Journal of Theology ll, no. 43 (December 2011): 255–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.15757/kpjt.2011..43.011.
Full text
34
Gibson, William T. "The Professionalization of an Elite: The Nineteenth Century Episcopate." Albion 23, no. 3 (1991): 459–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/4051112.
Full textAbstract:
A number of Victorian writers identified a change in the episcopate in the nineteenth century: Dean Burgon, for example, believed that a remodeled episcopacy emerged at this time. Historians have advanced the view that the changes were generated by the Whig ecclesiastical reforms of the 1830s. Indeed it is part of the schemata of ecclesiastical history that bishops in the eighteenth century were fundamentally different from those in the nineteenth century. Yet, as C. K. Francis Brown admitted, there has been no attempt to establish a pattern of this in the career and social history of the nineteenth century episcopate. This is all the more surprising since a structuralist analysis of the Caroline and Hanoverian episcopate has existed for some years. The traditional view of Church history, that the ecclesiastical reforms of the 1830s and 1840s were the principal engine of change, have tended to overlook the structural changes in bishops' career patterns and that there was a change in the concept of the episcopal function. The context of this changed concept of episcopal duty is important. Recent work on the professionalization of the clergy has focused on the immediate impact of the Reformation and the development of the Church as a profession up to the early eighteenth century. Rosemary O'Day and Geoffrey Holmes have demonstrated that between 1580 and 1730 the clerical profession became increasingly stratified. The overpopulation of the clergy in the eighteenth century accelerated this trend, establishing a Church in which there were extremes of wealth and poverty. At the same time the clergy were subject to greater lay control than any other emergent profession. This tension between professionalization and institutions of the state has been examined in other occupations, but throughout the nineteenth century it grew stronger in the Church. From patronage of a living to nomination to a see, laity dominated the Church. In spite of Whig reforms of the 1830s and 1840s lay control established strict parameters within which the professionalization of the episcopate occurred. The effect of control from outside the Church was that the paths to the bench of bishops remained more numerous and varied than the limited paths to the elite of other professions like the judiciary. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also saw functional trends that brought about the professionalization of the clergy. These changes have been thoroughly analyzed by Anthony Russell. The self-conscious spirituality of the Tractarian movement also effected changes in the popular view of the clerical function, and the episcopate was not immune to these changes. By the closing decades of the nineteenth-century bishops were appointed whose careers had been touched by these trends. Equally important were developments within the episcopate that altered the bishops' roles.
35
Riches, Tanya. "Can We Still Sing the Lyrics “Come Holy Spirit”?" PNEUMA 38, no. 3 (2016): 274–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700747-03803004.
Full textAbstract:
Australian Pentecostals, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, are speaking new tongues in their worship practices, forming new poetic languages of singing and conversation relevant for spatially dislocated twenty-first-century life. Using Nimi Wariboko’s three-city model offered in Charismatic City and the Public Resurgence of Religion, this article assesses Australian pentecostal worship practice in light of his “Charismatic City.” The article suggests that this emergent, poetic language of Spirit empowerment situates the worshipper in a rhizomatic network that flows with pentecostal energies, forming a new commons or space that is the basis of its global civil society. It presents two local case studies from Hillsong Church’s pneumatological song repertoire (1996–2006), and yarning conversation rituals at Ganggalah Church led by Aboriginal Australian pastors. These new languages identify and attune participants to the Spirit’s work in the world, particularly useful for urban cities and cyberspace.
36
Burroughs, Benjamin, and Gavin Feller. "Religious Memetics." Journal of Communication Inquiry 39, no. 4 (September 28, 2015): 357–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0196859915603096.
Full textAbstract:
Recently leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormon) faith have called upon members to “sweep the earth” with positive religious messages through social media. This digital moment in Mormonism exemplifies the interrelation and concomitant tension between everyday lived religion, technology, and religious institutions. While studies on digital religion have emphasized the push of participatory culture into everyday lived religion, this research on religious memes contributes to an emergent vein of digital religion scholarship focused on institutional authority. In our analysis of the “doubt your doubts” meme and antimemes we theorize religious memetics as a space for the reconnection of the everydayness of religious practice, which boils down meaningful moments of faith into facile, nonthreatening avenues for sharing religion. While this is beneficial for institutions, the reflexive and metonymic function of religious memes ruptures routine, offering participants momentary pauses from the demands of orthodox religious life.
37
Roelofs, H. Mark. "Liberation Theology: The Recovery of Biblical Radicalism." American Political Science Review 82, no. 2 (June 1988): 549–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1957400.
Full textAbstract:
Liberation theology is not a Marxism in Christian disguise. It is the recovery of a biblical radicalism that has been harbored in the Judeo-Christian tradition virtually from its founding. As such, liberation theology is the revitalization of one of the most profound social, political, economic, and religious challenges to established hierarchies that the West has ever known. Liberation theologians turn to modern Marxism chiefly to gain a comprehensive understanding of contemporary class conflict and poverty. Their primary concerns remain to define themselves as an “emergent church” in the biblical tradition, and to reflect upon the praxis of the “base community” movement they have spawned throughout Latin America. However, the principal liberation theologians of our day exhibit persistent ambiguities about how individuals should relate to their communities. The biblical materials suggest certain solutions to them, but ones so radical that not even the most extreme of the liberation theologians appear ready to embrace them.
38
Beck, Scott R. "Orders of Hunger and Heaven: Neoliberalism, Christian Charity and Homelessness in Taiwan." Religions 12, no. 4 (March 29, 2021): 239. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel12040239.
Full textAbstract:
Based on an ethnographic study of a Christian charity in Taipei, Taiwan, this paper examines how the mixing of “orders of worth” (Boltanski and Thevenot) is negotiated among charity workers and homeless people in the field setting. The organization, Grace Home Church, has two official goals: (1) to glorify God; (2) to assist homeless people. This mix of sacred and secular purposes often produces tensions, with the fundamental tension being between what the charity seeks to provide (salvation) versus what the homeless commonly want to be provided (food). As an analytic tool, I utilize Boltanski and Thevenot’s framework to link emergent tensions with broader social forces, such as neoliberalism, the welfare state, and religion. I will argue that charity workers as well as homeless individuals who have accepted Christianity attempt to separate the market and inspired orders through signifying practices that maintain a symbolic order, thereby justifying a sacred mission (for the charity organization) and self-worth (for the homeless).
39
Shanahan, Mairead. "‘An Unstoppable Force for Good’?: How Neoliberal Governance Facilitated the Growth of Australian Suburban-Based Pentecostal Megachurches." Religions 10, no. 11 (November 3, 2019): 608. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel10110608.
Full textAbstract:
Hillsong Church has received significant scholarly attention, which has observed the church’s rapid local and global growth. Several other Australian-based Pentecostal churches demonstrate a similar growth trajectory to Hillsong Church, namely: C3 Church, Citipointe Church, Planetshakers, and Influencers Church. To further scholarly understanding of aspects of this rapid growth, this paper discusses the emergence of economic rationalist policies which led to the neoliberal governance context in Australia. The paper argues that the emergence of this policy context, which emphasises marketization and privatisation, provided opportunities for suburban-based Pentecostal churches to expand activities beyond conducting worship services. The paper analyses materials produced by Hillsong Church, C3 Church, Citipointe Church, Planetshakers, and Influencers Church and associated educational, charity, and financial organisations. Through this analysis, the paper finds that the emergence of a neoliberal governance context in Australia provided opportunities for these churches to expand activities beyond traditional worship ceremonies to include additional activities such as running schools, Bible colleges, community care organisations, charity ventures, and financial institutions. The paper shows how economic rationalism and neoliberalism assisted in providing a context within which Australian-based suburban Pentecostal churches were able to take opportunities to grow aspects of church organisation, which helped to develop a global megachurch status. In this way, these churches took up opportunities that changes in political circumstances in Australia provided, developing a theology of growth actualised in expanding church-branded activities around the globe.
40
Orlowski, Paul. "The Light to the Left: Conceptions of Social Justice Among Christian Social Studies Teachers." in education 23, no. 1 (June 7, 2017): 66–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.37119/ojs2017.v23i1.315.
Full textAbstract:
This article describes a study that took place in Saskatchewan, Canada, during 2013-2014. Ten practicing high school social studies teachers who self-identified as Christian answered an unsolicited invitation to participate in a qualitative study about the ways in which they think about social justice. Almost evenly split between Catholic and Protestant, female and male, and urban and rural, most participants were very progressive in their thinking about important economic and social issues. For example, all supported paying taxes and the social welfare state, and almost all supported gay rights and feminism. As well, an important emergent theme arose: The majority spoke about breaking from the teachings of their church if the teachings did not fit with contemporary society. All of them claimed that their faith influenced their thinking about social justice. The study challenges some secular notions about the values held by Christian social studies teachers. Situated in Canada, the study challenges American research findings about the political ideology and values of Christian social studies teachers. Keywords: social studies education; teaching for social justice; controversial issues; teacher beliefs; Christian teaching
41
Cornelio, Jayeel Serrano. "Billboard Advertising and Sexualisation in Metro Manila." European Journal of East Asian Studies 13, no. 1 (2014): 68–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15700615-01301006.
Full textAbstract:
Several billboard ads in Metro Manila have stirred controversy in the past decade for using images suggesting sexual acts or revealing private body parts. Politicians and church leaders have criticised them as being ‘indecent’ or ‘pornographic’. But in spite of this advertising strategy being abandoned, a fresh wave of billboards in Metro Manila has continued to use sexualised images, arguably in innovative ways. A content analysis of some of these billboards suggests that two representational techniques are emergent: purposive and referential. Public criticisms have then been strategically circumvented. The discourses that have surrounded billboard sexualisation in Metro Manila unravel the moral conservatism of religious institutions and the state. The purposive and referential techniques on billboards are an attempt to navigate such conservatism. Two possibilities are discernible. As the attention is on viewers’ imagination, the referential technique affords space for the cultural critique of these norms. In contrast, the purposive technique is limited as it focuses on the product’s benefit to the customer. This has led to the reinforcement of sexual stereotypes concerning masculinity and femininity, for example. The article ends by reflecting on the state of sexualisation in Metro Manila.
42
Van Gelder, Craig. "A Great New Fact of Our Day: America as Mission Field." Missiology: An International Review 19, no. 4 (October 1991): 409–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009182969101900402.
Full textAbstract:
This article identifies the shifts which have taken place within America both in the broader culture and in the churches working in that context. The thesis is that the modern project developed through decades of Enlightenment-based culture has become uncentered in the midst of the emergence of a postmodern culture. Moreover, the churched culture which accompanied the development of this modern project has collapsed, forcing the church to reposition itself within a new landscape. The result of these shifts is that America must now be seen as a mission field.
43
Mohr, Adam. "Faith Tabernacle Congregation, the 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic and Classical Pentecostalism in Colonial West Africa." Studies in World Christianity 26, no. 3 (November 2020): 219–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/swc.2020.0307.
Full textAbstract:
The 1918–19 influenza pandemic killed between 30 and 50 million people worldwide. In Sub-Saharan Africa, as Terence Ranger points out, the pandemic left an indelible mark, including the unforeseen emergence of anti-medical religious movements. None were as significant as Faith Tabernacle Congregation, the Philadelphia-based divine-healing church that spurred a massive revival in West Africa – and a network stretching from Ivory Coast to Nigeria – without ever sending missionaries. They evangelised through personal letters exchanged across the Atlantic, and Faith Tabernacle literature sent from Philadelphia to various leaders in West Africa. The 1918–19 influenza pandemic was the spark that led to the church's massive growth, from one small branch before the pandemic began in 1918 to 10,500 members and nearly 250 branches of Faith Tabernacle in West Africa at its zenith in 1926. After the church's rapid demise between 1926 and 1929, leaders of Faith Tabernacle established most of the oldest Pentecostal Churches in the Gold Coast and Nigeria – such as the Apostolic Faith, the Apostolic Church, the Christ Apostolic Church and the Assemblies of God (Nigeria). Classical Pentecostalism, therefore, is Faith Tabernacle's legacy in West Africa, while abstinence from orthodox medicine continued to be debated within these Pentecostal circles.
44
O'Connell, Lauren M. "Afterlives of the Tour Saint-Jacques: Plotting the Perceptual History of an Urban Fragment." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 60, no. 4 (December 1, 2001): 450–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/991730.
Full textAbstract:
Appended to a medieval Parisian church in the sixteenth century and stranded by revolutionary destruction, the Gothic Tour Saint-Jacques figures prominently in the city's nineteenth- and twentieth-century architectural imagination. This study of the modern afterlives of an emblematic monument, featured in the projects of Haussmann, Le Corbusier, and the surrealists, uses the lens of "perceptual history," or a plotting of the ways in which the site has been read and inhabited over time, to argue that successive representations of a city fabric have a transformative effect on the lived reality of that fabric. To anchor this rumination within a larger speculation on the how and why of heritage making, we focus as well on the tower's emergent patrimonial status, consolidated by the physical fixes of repeated restoration and the fixing of its image by graphic and photographic representation. The traumas of the tower's particular semantic journey offer compelling evidence of the availability of symbolic redefinition as a viable and even necessary option for historic architectures under pressure in our inherited city centers. Repeatedly spared by its own mutability, the Tour Saint-Jacques would now appear inviolate, embraced as a trace of an unrecoverable past, a contact zone between contemporary Parisians and their forebears.
45
Bickford, John H., Zarek O. Nolen, and Andrew A. Cougill. "Religious freedom, civic responsibility and local history: an embedded action inquiry." Social Studies Research and Practice 15, no. 2 (August 29, 2020): 211–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ssrp-02-2020-0009.
Full textAbstract:
PurposeThis theory-into-practice article centers on American history through the optics of one religious organization's contestations – the Elim Springs Church of Jesus Christ, or Harshmanites as they are commonly known – with state and society. Secondary students explore the history and myriad responses from citizens and the federal government, which provides insight into what it means to be an American.Design/methodology/approachEmbedded action inquiry (EAI) couples investigation with informed action. This whole-class exploration of 19th and 20th century American history transforms into individual, independent inquiries about related historical and current civil liberty contestations. Students communicate newly generated, fully substantiated understandings first to an academic audience and then to the community.FindingsTeachers direct students' historical reading, thinking and writing toward informed civic participation. Engaging primary and secondary sources spark students' curiosity and scrutiny; writing prompts and scaffolding guide students' text-based articulations.Originality/valueHarshmanite history, initiated by an iconic leader and maintained by the congregation into its 3rd century, illuminates the best and worst aspects of America. Secondary social studies students can examine emergent, local tensions when citizens' religious freedoms confront civic duty and societal responses. Through EAI, a novel adaptation of inquiry, students make meaning out of the local history and contribute to civic dialogue.
46
Upham, Finn, and Julie Cumming. "Auditory Streaming Complexity and Renaissance Mass Cycles." Empirical Musicology Review 15, no. 3-4 (June 28, 2021): 202–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/emr.v15i3-4.7980.
Full textAbstract:
How did Renaissance listeners experience the polyphonic mass ordinary cycle in the soundscape of the church? We hypothesize that the textural differences in complexity between mass movements allowed listeners to track the progress of the service, regardless of intelligibility of the text or sophisticated musical knowledge. Building on the principles of auditory scene analysis, this article introduces the Auditory Streaming Complexity Estimate, a measure to evaluate the blending or separation of each part in polyphony, resulting in a moment-by-moment tally of how many independent streams or sound objects might be heard. When applied to symbolic scores for a corpus of 216 polyphonic mass ordinary cycles composed between c. 1450 and 1600, we show that the Streaming Complexity Estimate captures information distinct from the number of parts in the score or the distribution of voices active through the piece. While composers did not all follow the same relative complexity strategy for mass ordinary movements, there is a robust hierarchy emergent from the corpus as a whole: a shallow V shape with the Credo as the least complex and the Agnus Dei as the most. The streaming complexity of masses also significantly increased over the years represented in this corpus.
47
Moise, Rhoda K., Donaldson F. Conserve, Bilikisu Elewonibi, Lori A. Francis, and Rhonda BeLue. "Diabetes Knowledge, Management, and Prevention Among Haitian Immigrants in Philadelphia." Diabetes Educator 43, no. 4 (June 19, 2017): 341–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0145721717715418.
Full textAbstract:
Purpose Guided by the PEN-3 Cultural Model, the purpose of this study is to generate culturally framed insight into diabetes knowledge, management, and prevention among Haitians. Despite the disproportionate distribution of type II diabetes mellitus among US minorities, limited research explores outcomes within racial ethnic groups. It is particularly important to disaggregate the large racial-ethnic groups of black given the population growth among foreign-born blacks, such as Haitians, whose population has more than quadrupled in recent decades. Methods Focus group interviews were employed to understand diabetes knowledge, management, and prevention in the Haitian immigrant population in Philadelphia. Interviews were conducted in 2 groups: (1) people living with diabetes and (2) an at-risk sample for diabetes (defined as 30 and older with self-reported family history of diabetes). Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim in preparation for content analysis. Results Of the 10 participants, who were recruited through a Philadelphia church-based population, ages ranged from 41 to 91, with an average of 65. Content analysis revealed 3 emergent themes across: (1) cultural identity, including person, extended family, and neighborhood; (2) relationships and expectations, including perceptions, enablers, and nurturers; and (3) cultural empowerment, including positive, existential, and negative. Conclusions Results may inform culturally appropriate diabetes interventions for Haitians. Future research should explore compliance with food recommendations as well as the cultural competency of health care professional’s information delivery.
48
Li, Chien-Hui. "A Union of Christianity, Humanity, and Philanthropy: The Christian Tradition and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Nineteenth-Century England." Society & Animals 8, no. 3 (2000): 265–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853000511122.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThis paper offers an historical perspective to the discussion of the relationship between Christianity and nonhuman-human animal relationships by examining the animal protection movement in English society as it first took root in the nineteenth century. The paper argues that the Christian beliefs of many in the movement, especially the evangelical outlook of their faith, in a considerable way affected the character as well as the aims and scope of the emergent British animal welfare movement - although the church authorities did not take an active part in the discussion and betterment of the conditions of animals. An explicitly Christian discourse, important in creating and sustaining the important philanthropic tradition in Britain, mobilized the movement. The paper also traces the gradual decrease of the centrality of the movement's Christian elements later in the century when evolutionary ideas as well as other developments in society shed alternative light on the relationship between human and nonhuman animals and brought about different trends in the movement. This paper sees Christianity not as a static and defining source of influence but as a rich tradition containing diverse elements that people drew upon and used to create meanings for them. The paper implicitly suggests that both a religion's doctrines in theory and the outcome of a complex interaction with the changing society in which the religion is practiced determine its potential to influence animal-human relationships.
49
Li, Chien-hui. "A Union of Christianity, Humanity, and Philanthropy: The Christian Tradition and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Nineteenth-Century England." Society & Animals 8, no. 1 (2000): 265–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853000x00174.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThis paper offers an historical perspective to the discussion of the relationship between Christianity and nonhuman-human animal relationships by examining the animal protection movement in English society as it first took root in the nineteenth century. The paper argues that the Christian beliefs of many in the movement, especially the evangelical outlook of their faith, in a considerable way affected the character as well as the aims and scope of the emergent British animal welfare movement - although the church authorities did not take an active part in the discussion and betterment of the conditions of animals. An explicitly Christian discourse, important in creating and sustaining the important philanthropic tradition in Britain, mobilized the movement. The paper also traces the gradual decrease of the centrality of the movement's Christian elements later in the century when evolutionary ideas as well as other developments in society shed ahternative light on the relationship between human and nonhuman animals and brought about different trends in the movement. This paper sees Christianity not as a static and defining source of influence but as a rich tradition containing diverse elements that people drew upon and used to create meanings for them. The paper implicitly suggests that both a religion's doctrines in theory and the outcome of a complex interaction with the changing society in which the religion is practiced determine its potential to influence animal-human relationships.
50
Hagler, Anderson. "Exhuming the Nahualli: Shapeshifting, Idolatry, and Orthodoxy in Colonial Mexico." Americas 78, no. 2 (April 2021): 197–228. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/tam.2020.135.
Full textAbstract:
AbstractThis article examines the relationship between ritual specialists, nanahualtin or nahualistas (pl.) and nahualli or nahual (sing.), and healing practices, adding context to the social roles they fulfilled and the range of feats they performed. The cases examined here reveal that nanahualtin operated as intellectuals in their communities because of their ability to control animals, prognosticate, and heal or harm individuals at will. Some nanahualtin shapeshifted from humans to animals while others possessed animal companions. The elevated status of nanahualtin led commoners to seek their advice, which conflicted with the established orthodoxy of the Catholic Church. Because clergymen championed the sacraments as the best way to access the divine, non-orthodox rituals performed in mountains, rivers, and caves were derided as idolatrous devil worship.The 11 criminal and Mexican Inquisition cases examined here range from 1599 to 1801. Two seventeenth-century cases (1678 and 1685) and one eighteenth-century case (1701) contain Nahuatl phrases and testimonies from Chiapas and Tlaxcala, respectively. The cases from Chiapas demonstrate the use of Nahuatl as a vehicular language outside the central valley of Mexico. This article examines the gender of the animals into which ritual specialists transformed as an emergent category from trial records, which provides insight into Catholic officials’ understanding of the nahualli. Last, this study notes social divisions between rural and urban clergy regarding the power of nanahualtin and the efficacy of their magic.