PASSION MEETS THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION BERWICK CAMP THURSDAY, JULY - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE: PASSION MEETS THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

BERWICK CAMP THURSDAY, JULY 30, 2015

AGENDA FOR THURSDAY MORNING

• A brief digression: Church Attendance
• The Post-War Context: We Have Questions!
• Reshaping Sunday
• Abolishing the Laity
• Youth Movements: Jesus People, SCM, Kairos
• Taking it to the Streets – Urban training projects

BREAK

• Activity Time

Sandra Beardsall/July 2015 Berwick Camp

PROTESTANT CHURCH ATTENDANCE: CHALLENGING THE MYTH

• Prior to Mid-1800s: Church attendance was spotty (although the church had

significant power in society)

• The wealthy “owned” or “rented” prominent pews and usually filled them
• Others did not feel compelled to attend except on special occasions
• Mid-1800s to 1950s: Evangelization (tracts, religious “spectacles”) led to

massive increase in Sunday attendance in Protestant churches – unparalleled, as far as we can tell, in history

Sandra Beardsall/July 2015 Berwick Camp

POST-WAR CANADIAN CONTEXT: 1945-65 65

• Worldwide demand for Canadian resources

as Europe rebuilds and North American economy grows

• Women return to homemaking (from war

work)

• Technology booms: TV enters most homes
• Population expands rapidly due to births and

immigration

• Suburbs, schools, new universities,

community colleges

• New churches; existing churches build

“education wings”

• “Welfare State” emerges
• Quebec’s Quiet Revolution

Sandra Beardsall/July 2015 Berwick Camp

POST-WAR CANADIAN CONTEXT: 1965-85 85

• Canada celebrates its Centennial - growing sense of

national identity

• Human Freedom Movements:
• Second-Wave Feminism
• US: Civil Rights; American Indian Movement
• Ending colonial ties in Africa, Asia
• Most immigrants are now non-Northern European
• “Multiculturalism” ; Quebec sovereignty debates
• Rapid secularization leads to loss of churches’

cultural power and fall in membership

• Youth Culture: Protest against the “Establishment”
• Growth and Empowerment of American Religious

Right

Sandra Beardsall/July 2015 Berwick Camp

Sandra Beardsall/July 2015 Berwick Camp

THE CHURCH RESPONDS: RESHAPING THE SUNDAY EXPERIENCE

• Desire to respond to the new realities releases a variety of responses for

Christian life:

• “A New Creed” (1968)
• New Hymn Books: 1971, 1995 – fresh theological language, then inclusive

language, global music, shorter songs

• Liturgy: Ecumenical movement (esp engagement with Roman Catholics) leads

to use of lectionary, more frequent communion; fuller liturgical life

• Language: Major shift in ways of speaking about humanity, God, and all of life
• Ecumenical Partnerships: Theological Education; Justice Initiatives; Shared

Ministry congregations; almost to the altar with the Anglicans!

• … Which of these were/are passions for you?

Sandra Beardsall/July 2015 Berwick Camp

THE CHURCH RESPONDS: “ABOLISHING THE LAITY”

• 1950s-60s – United Church sees a need to

educate and reinvigorate adult membership

• Lay Training Centres are built across the

country to prepare the laity for their lay ministries

• “New Curriculum” is first released to

adults

• Question: Did the “re-empowerment” of

the laity adequately address a new role for the ordered ministry?

Sandra Beardsall/July 2015 Berwick Camp

THE CHURCH RESPONDS: JE JESUS PEOPLE, SCM, KAIROS

• Churches seek new approaches to youth and

youth culture, along with continuing leadership progams: CGIT, Tuxis, Hi-C, etc.

• Some young adults find a home in the “Jesus

People” movement: anti-materialistic, anti- mechanistic, collective living, charismatic, apocalyptic

• Student Christian Movement focuses on justice
• YPU becomes “Kairos” – justice-focused
• rganization for young adults

Sandra Beardsall/July 2015 Berwick Camp

THE CHURCH RESPONDS: “URBAN TRAINING”

• Ecumenical impulse to link theology, economics,

unions, industry – through action as well as theory

• 1945 – First SCM “Student-in-Industry” Work

Camp formed in Welland ON

• Students work in industry; live collectively

and discuss theories of social change

• Some students choose to work permanently

in blue collar industry as their Christian vocation

• Canadian Urban Training Project (CUT) trains

theological students and others in urban activism around poverty and homelessness

“Some of us have to get onto the frontier, where there are no beaten paths of how or what to do….The ‘other’ world of the working man … is completely isolated from the church….God will have us where the people are, with them in their life and work…”

• Bob Miller, co-founder of

Howland House worker co-op

Sandra Beardsall/July 2015 Berwick Camp

PASSIONATE RESPONSES?

Each of these approaches:

• Reshaping Sunday
• Education for Empowerment of

the Laity

• Engagement with Disaffected

Youth

• Entrenchment in urban social

issues was initiated by passionate advocates for new ways to live the Gospel in the late 20th century.

• How well did they engender

passion in Canadian Christians?

Sandra Beardsall/July 2015 Berwick Camp

ACTIVITY TIME FOR…

• 1. ACTIVE BODIES: Skit/Role Play - “Mom/Dad, I’ve joined the

Jesus People.”

• 2. ACTIVE MINDS: Re-describing Humanity – discussion of a brief

excerpt by Maurice Boutin (see handout)

• 3. ACTIVE IMAGINATIONS: Meditations on being “Realer” (see

handout)

Sandra Beardsall/July 2015 Berwick Camp