Browsing by Subject "Church history"

“Building Community Across Walls: A History of an Integrated Church Amid a Gentrifying Neighborhood in Charleston, South Carolina” is a study focused upon the integrated history of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, the congregation I serve in downtown Charleston. The church, which was an African American congregation for much of the twentieth century, integrated in the late 1980’s following the gentrification of our Ansonborough neighborhood. This ethnographic study, centered upon formal interviews with both black and white members of my church who experienced this integration together, in addition to clergy and community leaders, is an attempt to both accurately share this history and to critically examine it to mine how it might inform St. Stephen’s present and future. This study makes the argument that St. Stephen’s history of integration must be understood amid the backdrop of urban gentrification and the ways in which this social phenomenon is impacting downtown congregation’s like my own.

This project will therefore be critically examining the intersection of race and gentrification and the ways in which these forces impact any church trying to build community across the “walls” of various social boundaries in urban areas. The argument of this thesis is that no such community can be sustained without awareness of these forces and an ongoing and intentional commitment to diversity, to combating racism and the ongoing reality of white supremacy in our country.

This thesis will have four parts. The first part will aim to offer critical background meant to put St. Stephen’s story into proper context. Chapter one will detail a short overview of the issue of gentrification and focus specifically on its impact upon African Americans. Chapter two will offer a brief reflection on the significance of the black church to African American identity, culture, and collective memory. This chapter intends to impress upon the reader what is at stake and what is potentially lost when an all-black church wrestles with whether to integrate. These chapters will enable a better understanding and more accurate interpretation of St. Stephen’s story of integration.

The St. Stephen’s story will be explored through a series of ethnographic interviews I’ve conducted with nearly twenty-five black and white members of the church – lay and ordained – who lived through that history together. Archival material will also be utilized and woven into a reflection on the interview responses to deepen learnings and glean insights. Prior to parts two, three, and four pertaining to St. Stephen’s, a brief author’s note will appear. This note will include a fuller description of my interview sample and size along with an acknowledgement of potential biases and the fallibility inherent in a project based upon memory.

The second part will outline and detail St. Stephen’s history leading up to integration. It will include a third chapter that consists of a short early history of my parish and a fourth chapter laying out St. Stephen’s eventful African American history from the early decades of the twentieth century to the late 1980’s. Chapter five will include a description of the gentrification of the church’s Ansonborough neighborhood through historic preservation efforts, spearheaded by the Historic Charleston Foundation, that led to the integration of the parish.

Part three will focus on the parish’s intentional integration. Chapters six through thirteen will constitute the heart of this thesis: an accounting of St. Stephen’s late 1980’s to early 1990’s collective experience and a critical reflection upon its successes, points of tension, and missed opportunities.

Part four will consist of a detailed accounting of St. Stephen’s story since its integrative period in chapter fourteen and fifteen. Chapters sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen will include reflections upon the what the lessons of our past offer us today. I will then highlight a few significant questions for further study and reflection in chapters nineteen and twenty followed by a conclusion.

This thesis, in part, seeks to provide a foundation for understanding the Christian call to ministry with those who are poor and suffering, specifically with the asylum seeker. It is a resource and formation guide for congregations and individuals sensing a call from God to extend themselves in this way. The project provides a foundation of Christian history and Scripture that speaks to the call of Christ to deny self and follow him in ministry with the least—those who are hungry, thirsty, poor, and forgotten. Included is some guidance on how to structure a ministry of this sort, important questions to consider, and reflection upon leadership challenges that arise in this type of work. It tells the story of one congregation’s approach to developing a ministry of a hospitality house for asylum-seekers and why churches should recover the discipline of hospitality.

St. Ambrose of Milan led the church to seek ministry with the poor as a mark of virtuous Christian life. With an emphasis on the sacrament of holy baptism, Ambrose demonstrated how to reciprocate God’s love by clarifying the poor as treasures in God’s economy.

While there is great reason to laud its innovative economic development and valiant leadership, this research shows how the Roman Empire failed humanity with exploitive treatment of the poor. Likewise, this research exemplifies how Ambrose’s pedagogical leadership exposes the church’s failure to lead, paving a road of justice for the poor with equality, charity, and sacrificial giving.

This thesis argues Ambrose sought to contextually reframe the church’s understanding of incarnational leadership as a form of liberality. Ambrose’s On Joseph sermon revealed the threat of prodigality and greed when Joseph is faced with his own leadership power in the pit, in the prison, and in the palace. The thesis provides substantial evidence how God’s justice and Joseph’s leadership grounded in liberality create space for grace and empathy in family relations, human social consciousness, and community economic empowerment. This work argues that Ambrose’s exemplary contextual reframing of church resources and ministry practices proves as a model for philanthropic leadership against the unintended practice of toxic charity. This work also illustrates strategic practices to identify toxic charity and to embrace a virtuous life of giving. Furthermore, this research exhibits how the virtue of liberality plays an impactful role in philanthropic traditions as strong pillars in Christian ministry today.

St. Ambrose of Milan led the church to seek ministry with the poor as a mark of virtuous Christian life. With an emphasis on the sacrament of holy baptism, Ambrose demonstrated how to reciprocate God’s love by clarifying the poor as treasures in God’s economy.

While there is great reason to laud its innovative economic development and valiant leadership, this research shows how the Roman Empire failed humanity with exploitive treatment of the poor. Likewise, this research exemplifies how Ambrose’s pedagogical leadership exposes the church’s failure to lead, paving a road of justice for the poor with equality, charity, and sacrificial giving.

This thesis argues Ambrose sought to contextually reframe the church’s understanding of incarnational leadership as a form of liberality. Ambrose’s On Joseph sermon revealed the threat of prodigality and greed when Joseph is faced with his own leadership power in the pit, in the prison, and in the palace. The thesis provides substantial evidence how God’s justice and Joseph’s leadership grounded in liberality create space for grace and empathy in family relations, human social consciousness, and community economic empowerment. This work argues that Ambrose’s exemplary contextual reframing of church resources and ministry practices proves as a model for philanthropic leadership against the unintended practice of toxic charity. This work also illustrates strategic practices to identify toxic charity and to embrace a virtuous life of giving. Furthermore, this research exhibits how the virtue of liberality plays an impactful role in philanthropic traditions as strong pillars in Christian ministry today.

This dissertation examines the historical and theological context of the means of grace in the theology of John Wesley with the aim of identifying its central role in his soteriology. Examining the means of grace in its historical context requires locating the emergence of the means of grace in the English theological lexicon prior to Wesley and tracing Wesley's own inheritance of that tradition. The task of placing the means of grace within the context of Wesley's broader theological framework involves explaining how the means of grace, as disciplined practices engaged within the community of faith, lie at the heart of his soteriology as it finds expression in the Christian life. It is argued that the best way to conceive of the means of grace in Wesley's theology is as the "sacramental grammar" of his thought, grounded in the Wesleyan idea of social holiness, which names both the communal arena in which the means of grace are practiced and the salvific reality experienced by those joined together in such practice.

Chapter 1 introduces the topic and explains the thesis. It describes the plan and scope of the dissertation, which is to locate John Wesley's doctrine of the means of grace in its historical and theological context. It lays out the approach, method, and sources for the project with reference to major scholarly texts that are engaged as well as the primary source material utilized. The chapter concludes by noting that, in addition to elucidating aspects of John Wesley's understanding of the means of grace not present in scholarship up to this point, it also intends to serve as a way to bring discipline to the use of Wesleyan language for the means of grace in contemporary Wesleyan scholarship.

Chapter 2 - "The History of the Means of Grace: 16th and 17th Centuries" - analyzes the emergence of the language of the means of grace in the Church of England after the period of the Reformation. The chapter argues that the concept of the means of grace emerged as a way to describe the way God can be experienced through activities of devotion and worship, specifically after the loss of the full Roman Catholic sacramental system. It traces the particular use of the means of grace in Puritan practical divinity and examines its inclusion in the Book of Common Prayer. The chapter concludes with a study of John Norris' use of "means of grace" as an example of doctrinal development at the beginning of the 18th century.

Chapter 3 - "The Reception and Development of the Means of Grace in John Wesley" - demonstrates Wesley's reception of the means of grace during the period of Oxford Methodism. It then goes on to trace Wesley's development of the means of grace specifically in relation to the influences of mysticism and Moravianism. The period it covers is from 1731 to 1746, at which time, it is argued, Wesley's doctrine of the means of grace had reached a level of maturity as embodied in his publication of the sermon, "The Means of Grace."

Chapter 4 - "The Content of the Means of Grace in John Wesley's Theology" - analyzes the means of grace in Wesley's theology with respect to two main considerations: the nature of grace and the nature of the means themselves as "practices." It also examines Wesley's categories of instituted means, prudential means, and general means, noting aspects of Wesley's distinctive understanding of each category.

Chapter 5 - "The Character and Context of the Means of Grace" - brings the preceding work of the dissertation into a consideration of the nature of salvation in Wesley, specifically in relation to Wesley's understanding of present salvation as the recovery of holiness of heart and life. It then argues that Wesley's doctrine of the means of grace is best characterized through an intersection of the notion of "social holiness" as the environmental context in which the means of grace are practiced and holiness becomes manifest in the Christian community.

Conclusion - The dissertation ends with a conclusion that summarizes the preceding chapters and underscores the significance of social holiness in understanding the context of the means of grace in Wesley's theology and practice of ministry.

As a saint with no biblical or historical basis for her legend, St. Anne could change radically over time with cultural and doctrinal shifts even as her status as Mary's mother remained at the core of her legend and provided an appearance of consistency. "Mother, Matron, Matriarch: Sanctity and Social Change in the Cult of St. Anne, 1450-1750" takes issue with the general view that the cult of St. Anne in Northern Europe flourished in the late Middle Ages, only to wither away in the Reformation, and advances a new understanding of it. It does so by taking a longer view, beginning around 1450 and extending to 1750 in order to show how St. Anne's cult and the Holy Kinship elucidated long-term shifts in religious and cultural mores regarding the relationships between domesticity and sanctity, what constituted properly pious lay behavior, and attitudes towards women (in particular older women). Materials used include vita, devotional texts, confraternal records, sermons, treatises, and works of art across the time period under investigation. After a definite period of decline during the mid-sixteenth century (as evidenced by lower pilgrimage statistics, confraternity records, and a lack of text production), St. Anne enjoyed a revival in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Catholicism in a "purified" form, reconfigured to suit new religious and social norms which emphasized patriarchal authority within the household and obedience to the Catholic Church among the laity. In this context, St. Anne became a humble, pious widow whose own purity serves as proof of Mary's Immaculate Conception, and whose meek devotion to her holy daughter and grandson exemplified properly obedient reverence for the laity.

Ambrose, bishop of Milan, was one of the most outspoken advocates of Christian female virginity in the fourth century C.E. This dissertation examines his writings on virginity in the interest of illuminating the historical and social contexts of his teachings. Considering Ambrose's treatises on virginity as literary productions with social, political, and theological functions in Milanese society, I look at the various ways in which the bishop of Milan formulated ascetic discourse in response to the needs and expectations of his audience. Furthermore, I attend to the various discontinuities in Ambrose's ascetic writings in the hope of illuminating what kinds of ideological work these texts were intended to perform by the bishop within Milanese society and beyond.

In the first part of this dissertation, I consider the mechanisms of language and rhetoric promoting virginity in context of the Nicene-Homoian debate, highlighting the fluidity and flexibility of ascetic language in the late fourth century. While in his earliest teachings Ambrose expounds virginity in ways that reflect and support a Nicene understanding of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, his later ascetic writings display his use of anti-Homoian rhetoric in order to support his virginal ideals when they are challenged by Jovinian and others. In the second part, I examine some of the various ways in which the bishop formulated his teachings of virginity in response to the complaints and criticisms of lay members of the Christian community in Milan and elsewhere. I scrutinize the bishop's rhetorical expositions of Biblical figures such as Mary, Eve, the bride of the Song of Songs, and the Jews as a means of furthering his ascetic agenda, and consider his adaptation of a female voice to avoid incurring further criticism. Finally, I consider the role that the bishop's ascetic interests may have played in the so-called Altar of Victory controversy of 384. Largely at stake in Ambrose's dispute with the Roman senator Symmachus, I argue, were the rights and privileges of the Vestal Virgins, a well-established pagan ideology of virginity whose continued prominence and existence was largely unconscionable to the bishop. Ambrose's involvement in the controversy was partly attributable to his interest in ensuring the restriction of Vestal privileges as he perceived the cult to be in direct social and ideological competition with Christian virginity. Together, these three parts attempt to demonstrate the highly fluid and flexible nature of virginity discourse in the late fourth century and to draw attention to some of the socio-theological negotiations that took place as the cult of virginity gained increasing prominence in the Christian church.