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- Title
THE PENTECOSTAL IMMIGRANTS: A STUDY OF AN ETHNIC CENTRAL CITY CHURCH.
- Authors
Parsons, Anne
- Abstract
A thought provoking book by Gibson Winter, "The Suburban Captivity of the Churches," raised a challenge for contemporary American Protestantism. His major thesis is that the denominational churches in the suburbs have lost the sense of mission and ministry, and along with it the sense of the church as a community based on faith, as a consequence of a number of complex processes characterizing the development of modern metropolitan areas. The congregation thus becomes a social grouping which is subtly distinguished from significant other congregations in terms of similarity of socio-economic status and consumption styles. The suburban, churches are seen not only as using socio-economic criteria as the primary basis for membership, but also as being introverted in the sense that their multitudinous "organizational" activities have as their primary end their own perpetuation. The urban working-class is made up of immigrants and their descendants, and the original Anglo-Saxon settlers have been pushed or repulsed outwards into the suburbs as new arrivals have taken over their former homes. The article concludes that one major way of leading an exodus from the suburban captivity would be the establishment of more meaningful links between the suburban denominational churches and both the central city congregations and the movements of the spirit in the underdeveloped world.
- Subjects
SUBURBAN churches; CHURCH &; the world; PROTESTANTISM; PENTECOSTALS; RELIGIOUS institutions; RELIGIOUS gatherings
- Publication
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1965, Vol 4, Issue 2, p183
- ISSN
0021-8294
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/1384137