Sublime

Gaining status.

There are many ordinary blacks who point to Jesus’ suffering as a source of empowerment in their struggle to survive with dignity in a world they did not create.

This is the final remnant of the Christianity of their ancestors, the last enduring bit of their inheritance: a social gospel, without the gospel. For all of them, the sole proof of redemption is the holding of a proper sense of social ills. The only available confidence about their salvation, as something superadded to experience, is the self-este

The masses of the people are poor. If we dare take the position that in Jesus there was at work some radical destiny, it would be safe to say that in his poverty he was more truly Son of man than he would have been if the incident of family or birth had made him a rich son of Israel. It is not a…

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It is a lens through which all Americans experience and interpret the social world, and the rejection or embrace of it motivates them toward very different ends.

The sociologists state candidly their basic conclusion: the congregations that reared these young people offered them no compelling reasons or training about how and why “Christianity is special” (Hoge, 13-18).

Religion in a secular age is a private affair. That’s why the courts, media, and other cultural gatekeepers respond with incredulity when believers claim constitutional protection for their right to practice religion in the public square.

Moreover, the size of the average person’s social network decreased by one-third in the same time.2 In fact, more people say that they don’t have a confidante than those who say that they do.3 Americans, particularly those under thirty, are not participating in formal religious organizations as much as people did even a generation ago.