Public Pulpits: Methodists and Mainline Churches in the Moral Argument of Public Life [Hardcover]

Steven M. Tipton (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226804747 | ISBN-13: 978-0226804743 | Publication Date: March 1, 2008

Since the 2000 presidential election, debate over the role of religion in public life has followed a narrow course as pundits and politicians alike have focused on the influence wielded by conservative Christians. But what about more mainstream Christians? Here, Steven M. Tipton examines the political activities of Methodists and mainline churches in this groundbreaking investigation into a generation of denominational strife among church officials, lobbyists, and activists. The result is an unusually detailed and thoughtful account that upends common stereotypes while asking searching questions about the contested relationship between church and state.

Documenting a wide range of reactions to two radically different events—the invasion of Iraq and the creation of the faith-based initiatives program—Tipton charts the new terrain of religious and moral argument under the Bush administration from Pat Robertson to Jim Wallis. He then turns to the case of the United Methodist Church, of which President Bush is a member, to uncover the twentieth-century history of their political advocacy, culminating in current threats to split the Church between liberal peace-and-justice activists and crusaders for evangelical renewal. Public Pulpits balances the firsthand drama of this internal account with a meditative exploration of the wider social impact that mainline churches have had in a time of diverging fortunes and diminished dreams of progress.

An eminently fair-minded and ethically astute analysis of how churches keep moral issues alive in politics, Public Pulpits delves deep into mainline Protestant efforts to enlarge civic conscience and cast clearer light on the commonweal and offers a masterly overview of public religion in America.

(20070329)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Tipton’s rich, revelatory study of conflict and crisis in the United Methodist Church at the heart of mainline Protestantism enables us to grasp the place of churches in the American polis, and judge their political moves and moral advocacy, as no nonpartisan has done to date. With a gift for finding the issues behind the issues, this book brings into full focus the churches’ seething struggles. All the way from the Cold War through the culture wars to the war in Iraq, it shows how alive these struggles have come to be for the faithful on every side, and how fateful for our society.”—Martin Marty

(Martin Marty 20071210)

“We cannot answer the call to discern and do God’s will on earth, among the nations, without loving our diverse neighbors and engaging them in public argument as members one of another in one body. To discover how this demanding drama unfolds in America today, enter into the tumult, wisdom, and grace that fill this brilliant book.”—Desmond Tutu

(Desmond Tutu )

“Much of the sense we have of ourselves, both as individuals and as a nation, derives from the teachings of mainline religious groups long at the vital center of American culture and now challenged from the religious right and secular left in ways never before experienced. Because their influence entirely transcends the secular/sacred divide, working in our public, political, economic, and family lives as well as our worship, Steven Tipton’s magisterial book helps us understand their response to a crisis not only at the center of our religious life but at the center of American cultural history.”—Robert N. Bellah

(Robert N. Bellah )

"In many respects, this book represents a breakthrough. . . . In a field rife with studies about the role of the Christian right, the book represents welcome nuanced attention to mainline Protestant efforts at public moral advocacy. . . . Public Pulpits should be read by all those in the churches, at whatever level, who are engaged in social teaching and moral advocacy. For those less interested in cvhurches, it illuminates the kind of moral argument in public life that will best enhance our communal purposes."—John A. Coleman, America

(John A. Coleman America )

"The book shines as an interdisciplinary text, for Tipton weds the balanced analytical framework of social science research with meditative explorations that are more common in books geared toward audiences in religious studies. . . . A valuable resource for every scholar and student interested in American religion. . . . Tipton shows us why we must attend to the breadth of religious traditions in the United States and provides a model for examining one tradition with texture and depth."

(D. Michael Lindsay American Journal of Sociology )

About the Author

Steven M. Tipton teaches sociology and religion at Emory University and its Candler School of Theology. He is a coauthor of Habits of the Heart and The Good Society, and the author of Getting Saved from the Sixties.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (March 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226804747
• ISBN-13: 978-0226804743
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #529,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Book Examines Political Role of Mainline Churches, October 9, 2009

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Center for the Study of Law and Religion at E... (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Public Pulpits: Methodists and Mainline Churches in the Moral Argument of Public Life (Hardcover)

When presidential hopeful Barack Obama gave a landmark speech on race in America in response to searing slices of sermons preached by his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr., it underscored just how powerfully judgments of right and wrong can ring out in public from the pulpit, notes Emory Professor Steven Tipton. It also showed how arguably they can ring true or false to the diverse experience of a people pledged to form a more perfect political union.

"Pulpit, pew, and public square frame parts we play in the moral drama and cultural conversation we share as faithful citizens, even as we agree that church and state should be `separate' institutions, each governed by their own free members," said Tipton, a co-author of Habits of the Heart who teaches sociology and religion at Emory and its Candler School of Theology, and serves as a senior fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University(CSLR).

Tipton brings a fine-grained focus to the vivid interplay of religious faith and public life in Public Pulpits: Methodists and Mainline Churches in the Moral Argument of Public Life, just published by the University of Chicago Press.

While much has been made of political influence exerted from the religious right, Public Pulpits explores the contested efforts of mainline Protestant churches to remake the religious center among Americans today and enlarge their civic conscience. Drawing from a decade's fieldwork on Capitol Hill and at denominational conferences across the country, Tipton probes the firsthand social experience and moral insight of national church leaders and activists, and their parachurch allies and adversaries.

He begins by charting the course of moral arguments between the Bush Administration and the mainline churches-- Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and United Church of Christ--over two major issues: going to war in Iraq and doing good for the needy at home through faith-based initiatives. Opposition to war in Iraq was widespread among mainline church leaders, who argued that a pre-emptive attack would betray just-war and just-peace principles rooted in Christian tradition. They made public pleas to Bush to respond to reason and revelation alike, saying, "Jesus changed your heart. Now let him change your mind." On the contrary, President Bush invoked his own conviction that "everybody wants to be free, and God wants them to be free."

In proposing faith-based initiatives to fund charitable providers of social services, Bush lifted up a Good-Samaritan vision of compassionate citizens volunteering to heal and help their needy neighbors help themselves. But faithful charity cannot silence the biblical call for social justice, countered many mainline churches, or excuse government from facing its responsibilities to assure adequate health care, affordable housing, and living wages for all Americans.

Tipton reaches deep into the heart of denominational strife in United Methodism, analyzing the progressive "prophetic witness" of the General Board of Church and Society at odds with the Evangelical crusade for "scriptural renewal" led by the Good News Movement. He traces how the Institute for Religion and Democracy combined a fluent religious lobby with a potent political-action committee to catalyze an alliance of Evangelical renewal groups and Neo-Conservative political forces to combat the mainline churches. "These culture wars actually began in cold-war infighting over Vietnam among radical labor factions, the AFL-CIO, and both major political parties before being born again in the Reagan White House," said Tipton.

Public Pulpits also sets out struggles across the mainline churches in Washington to balance "witnessing and winning" by unifying moral advocacy and education with political mobilization and community organizing. Tipton maps the churches' collaboration in the vigorous rise and painful fall of Interfaith Impact for Justice and Peace, and their frustrating campaign for universal healthcare reform; their cooperation and clashing with the National Council of Churches in its efforts to come to the aid of the Clinton White House and counter-punch the religious right in the 1990s; and their drive to remake the religious center in a shifting ecology of key issues, presidential polices, and values-voter politics since 2000.

In a denominational society such as ours, Public Pulpits asks, how can the mainline Protestant churches practice their moral advocacy and teaching more fully in accord with their self-understanding as a truly conciliar and catholic public church? "Can they help us engage one another in public argument over how we should govern ourselves, even as we embrace one another in mutual care and shared responsibility for the commonweal? That is a prospect worthy of thought as well as prayer."

***

The Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University is home to world-class scholars and forums on the religious foundations of law, politics, and society. It offers first-rank expertise on how the teachings and practices of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have shaped and can continue to transform the fundamental ideas and institutions of our public and private lives. The scholarship of CSLR faculty provides the latest perspectives, while its conferences and public forums foster reasoned and robust public debate.