The New Measures

Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-0-521-87131-0
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 356 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 684 g

The New Measures: A Theological History of Democratic Practice brings thick cultural history to contemporary debates about religion and democracy. Combining histories of performance, space, institutions, and ideas, the book tells the story of the 'new measures' that circulated in the religious revivals of the 1820s and '30s and traces the role of these practices in the development of democratic culture in the United States. The book borrows resources from Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno to remember the new measures from an eschatological point of view. That eschatological perspective holds together close empirical studies and explicitly theological hopes. The book's attention to detail moves it beyond abstraction and caricature to a more materialist political theology. And its eschatological hope resists narratives of progress and decline to understand American democracy as both tangled in contradiction and caught up in redemption.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Smith, Ted A.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Demokratie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

The Flyer: a preface for theologians, ethicists, historians, and homileticians; The Fugleman: a brief drill in methodology; 1. Some measures are plainly necessary; 2. You must have something new; 3. Sinners bound to change their own hearts; 4. Whosoever will; 5. The measure of self.

Über Autor(innen)

Smith, Ted A.
Ted A. Smith is Assistant Professor of Ethics and Preaching as well as the director of the Program in Theology and Practice at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School He is co-author, along with Thomas G. Long, of an upcoming book on the history of preaching in the United States.