The Cultural Turn: Empirical Studies and their Implications

This essay uses empirical studies to engage Richard Miller’s advocacy of a “cultural turn” in the study of religious ethics found in Friends and Other Strangers. The particular kind of empirical research I highlight here, cultural cognition, emphasizes the ways that belonging to a cultural group influences one’s reasoning when faced with controversial issues involving disputed facts. This approach underscores the significance of the cultural turn, but it also raises some important challenges for Miller’s accounts of moral psychology and public reason. I work to elucidate what those challenges are and point to some ways that taking cultural cognition seriously might open up fresh avenues for addressing perennial ethical issues.     

Pan-Africanism and African-American Liberation in a Postmodern World: A Review Essay

This review essay explores Josiah Young's project of developing a liberatory Pan-Africanism that is attuned to cultural diversity and Victor Anderson's advocacy of postmodern cultural criticism in African-American religious thought. After situating African-American religious thought as a branch of Africana thought, the author examines these two religious thinkers' work as an effort to forge a position on African-American religious thought—including its relation to theology—in an age where even theory is treated as a god that is about to die. At the conclusion, secularism emerges as a religious project that normatively undergirds the methodological dimensions of these works.     

Truly Inclusive or Uniformly Liberal? An Analysis of the Politics of the Emerging Church

The emergent church movement has fashioned itself as an alternative for Christians who do not want to walk away from their faith, but feel uncomfortable with the dogmatic conservatism found in mainstream evangelicalism. The emerging church movement has portrayed itself as diverse and inclusive, which is a direct result of evading ingroup‐outgroup boundaries. However, despite the desire for a plurality of opinions, the movement's leaders have been known to take political positions that are largely left‐leaning. We use the first dataset known to gather this identity from a sample of Protestant clergy, and assess whether denominationally connected emergent church clergy do, in fact, present a distinctive political profile. Emergent clergy are what they say they are—diverse and inclusive—while they are, on average, more liberal than nonemergent clergy in the sample.     

The Search for a Current Mission Model in Cambodia

This paper is a contribution to the debate on the current mission model of the church in Southeast Asia. Scholars from St Elizabeth University in Bratislava, Slovakia, have performed qualitative research to examine the present mission model in Cambodia. Research was conducted on a sample of Catholic missionaries who have worked in Cambodia for a longer period of time. On the basis of this qualitative study, we have outlined and proposed some characteristics for today’s mission model in that country. Features included and emphasized dialogue with Buddhism, formation of spiritually mature people, social promotion and social inclusion, community development, the shift in inculturation regarding value systems, working in small groups, and reconciliation between ethnic communities.     

Charles F. Mackenzie and Early Colonial Racism

Archdeacon Charles F. Mackenzie ministered in the diocese of Natal in South Africa from 1855 to 1859. The early days of the diocese and the colony of Natal were characterized by conflict both inside and outside the church. The church conflict of Bishop John Colenso is perhaps most infamous. Mackenzie attempted to navigate this space and minister to settlers, soldiers, and Africans alike. This article draws on primary sources to explore the life and times of Mackenzie and argues that despite Mackenzie's remarkable story, the inseparability of coloniality from the missionary endeavour, racism, and the civilizing narrative was inescapable. Racism has evolved and is still a challenge for many churches.