The Re-forming Tradition: Presbyterians and Mainstream Protestantism

Front Cover
Milton J. Coalter, John M. Mulder, Louis Weeks
Westminster John Knox Press, Jan 1, 1992 - Religion - 355 pages

This book challenges American Presbyterians to remember their calling as Christians. The author believes that Presbyterians are summoned to a character of life that will awaken and address the religious questions of today with powerful and persuasive Christian perspectives and answers. By recognizing again the message of the good news of the gospel and by speaking directly to our world, the authors tell how American Presbyterians can recover their identity as Reformed Christians and continue to make a creative contribution to the witness of the church in the world.

Through its examination of American Presbyterianism, the Presbyterian Presence series illuminates patterns of change in mainstream Protestantism and American religious and cultural life in the twentieth century.

 

Contents

Series Foreword
13
Introduction
21
The Twentieth
33
The American Cultural Landscape
48
Conclusion
63
Whither the Mainstream Protestants?
67
Religious Preference in Contemporary
71
Switching Between Denominations
78
Ministries with Racial Ethnic
171
The Ecumenical Movement
177
Presbyterian Educational Resource Materials
180
From Old to New Agendas
186
Presbyterian Womens Organizations
199
The Use of the Bible in Presbyterian Curricula
205
Changing Leadership Patterns in the Presbyterian
235
Ecumenism and Denominational
237

Membership Decline
86
American Presbyterians and the Colonial
92
The Age of Incorporation
100
The New Denomination
113
Women and Changing Understandings of Ordination
134
Erskine Clarke
149
A Case Study in
150
Allocation of Giving in the Presbyterian Church in
154
Reform Means Revitalizing Education
261
Reform Means Recovery of Theological
273
Contexts for a History of Asian American Presbyterian
280
Conclusion
285
Selected Readings
333
Index
345
Transformations in Administrative Leadership in
355
Copyright

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About the author (1992)

Milton J. Coalter is Library Directorand William B. and Mildred L. Nivison Professor at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Virgina. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). John M. Mulder was formerly President and Professor of Historical Theology at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of several books on Presbyterian history. Louis B. Weeks is President Emeritus of Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and is the author or editor of twelve books on Presbyterianism and mainstream Protestantism.

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