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California
Lifestyle
FREDERICK J. GAISER
(see full text of essay under “Editorial”)
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The religious
culture of the American West has become considerably complicated, including a
large population of “unchurched,” but also
adherents of every conceivable new religion or expression of “spirituality”
(including resurgent Native spirituality), growing numbers of Mormons, and
many very conservative Christian groups, made the more so perhaps in reaction
to the prevailing syncretistic or agnostic brew.
What will this mean? What will constitute a form of Christian faith and life
suitable for the American West? And as made-in-the-West culture seeps
eastward back across the mountains (and worldwide via the media), how will it
influence church life everywhere? Will this be for good or ill?
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Articles
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Religion in the American West: Its History and Probable
Future
FERENC MORTON SZASZ
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Religion played an important, if often overlooked, part
in the shaping of the American West. Now, religion in the West serves as a
paradigm for the shape of twenty-first century religion in the United States.
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Re-viewing the Meaning of America’s West: Five Images in
Low and High Resolution
GAIL MCGREW
EIFRIG
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In low resolution, we view the West in sometimes
quaint, sometimes moving images. In higher resolution, we consider the not
always benign meaning of the images. Undoing some of our western myth might
show us just how limited is our vision and how great our need.
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Mormon Growth and Practices: Christian Theological
Reflections
PATRICK R.
KEIFERT
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Mormonism, despite its manifest departures from
orthodox Christian faith, models practices of relating faith and everyday
life that can be significantly instructive for Christian congregations.
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The Religious Geography of the Pacific
Northwest
PATRICIA O’CONNELL
KILLEN
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What does it mean when the primary religious identity
of an entire region is “unchurched”? Consideration
of the religious geography of the Pacific Northwest
can provide insights for church people everywhere concerned with the place of
religion in a complex, postmodern culture.
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Shaping the Public Square: Protestants and
Catholics in the History of the Pacific Northwest
DALE E. SODEN
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Mainline Protestant and Catholic churches have been
influential in shaping the history of the Pacific
Northwest. But times and cultures change. Will these churches
meet the challenge? Or will they simply fade away?
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God’s Song in a Strange
Land: Early Lutheran Pastors in
San Francisco
RICHARD O. JOHNSON
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Early California
was a tough place to preach the gospel. But ministers came, including
Lutheran ones. Their stories present a fascinating picture of the problems
and challenges of those who would establish Lutheranism in the Golden
State—then and now.
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Reading
Acts 16:6–40 on the Edges of the Navajo Reservation
JEFFREY L. STALEY
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Reading Acts 16 in conversation with experiences and
literature of the American West offers new insights into how the old and new
might creatively interact when they meet at significant cultural and
religious borders.
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Perspectives on Paul
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The 2003–2004 Essay Prize for Doctoral Candidates:
Grace and Gift in Luther and Paul
STEPHAN K. TURNBULL
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Was Luther just wrong about Paul, as some recent New
Testament scholarship claims? An examination of Luther’s distinction between
“grace” and “gift” might help mediate that argument.
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The Groans of “Brother Saul”: An Exploratory
Reading of Romans 8 for
“Survival”
EMERSON B. POWERY
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Many liberation theologians have shunned or opposed
Pauline theology, seeing it as having contributed to systems of oppression.
But Paul’s emphasis on the groaning of the Spirit implies disorder. It
encourages us also to see the disorder and to join the Spirit’s groaning,
turning our groans into action.
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Resources
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Texts in Context: Treasures
and Abundance: Preaching the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13–21)
DAVID A DAVIS
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Preaching through the summer from the Lucan pericopes takes the
congregation with Jesus on a journey to Jerusalem—one
in which his coming passion and death are viewed in the light of his earthly
teaching and ministry (and vice versa).
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Face to Face: Lay Preaching
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A Blessed Necessity
DIANE MELBYE
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A
Mixed Bag
CRAIG BOEHLKE
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Reviews
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Esther, by
Carol M. Bechtel
ROGER W. ANDERSON JR.
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Understanding Old Testament Ethics, by John Barton
BOHDAN HROBON
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Critical Social Theory: Prophetic Reason, Civil
Society, and Christian Imagination, by Gary M. Simpson
ROBERT W. MCINTYRE
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The Da Vinci Code, by Dan
Brown
HANS WIERSMA
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Lost Icons: Reflections on Cultural Bereavement, by
Rowan Williams
ROBERT BRUSIC
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Elvis in Jerusalem:
Post-Zionism and the Americanization of Israel, by Tom Segev
ROBERT SMITH
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