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As the highest internal decision-making body within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the General Synod began, from 1876, congregating in Turku every tenth, and then eventually, every fifth year. By the 1960s, this decision-making system was becoming unsatisfactory. An extensive project to answer to the general ideals of the era and to strengthen the efficiency and democracy of the Church administration was initiated. The reformed General Synod got underway in 1974 with biannual gatherings. It was a body consisting of 108 members, including lay representatives, clergymen and the bishops. The General Synod retained its right to decide on ecclesiastical books and continued to hold the sole right to make proposals regarding the Church Act. A new task was to decide on the budget of the entire Church organisation and to steer the activities of the Church as a whole. Additionally, the General Synod received the general authority to handle any issues related to faith and doctrine, such as ecumenical issues. The book Kansankirkko ristipaineessa (A national folk church under conflicting pressures) takes a close look at the General Synod representatives during the years 1974–2011 and clarifies who the members of the Synod were, how they were elected and what they achieved. The study examines which of these persons held the most power, and what types of coalitions stood out within the work of the General Synod. In addition, the book aims to provide a general overall picture of the General Synod in relation to the Church, economic life, legislation, theological dialogue and the media. The study examines how well the intentions that drove the reform of the General Synod were realised and whether the General Synod was actually progressing as slowly or as briskly as expressed by different observers at different times. Discussions surrounding female ordination, sexual ethics and ecclesiastical books indicate the position of the General Synod within an increasingly diversified society. During the first decade of the 2000s, the General Synod experienced a similar revolution in terms of values as it had when preparing the reform of the Synod around the turn of the 1960s and 70s. The Church began to find itself once again in a missionary situation.

Protestantism & Protestant Churches

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How did California Mennonites confront the challenges and promises of modernity?Books about Mennonites have centered primarily on the East Coast and the Midwest, where the majority of Mennonite communities in the United States are located. But these narratives neglect the unique history of the multitude of Mennonites living on the West Coast. In California Mennonites, Brian Froese relies on archival church records to examine the Mennonite experience in the Golden State, from the nineteenth-century migrants who came in search of sunshine and fertile soil to the traditionally agrarian community that struggled with issues of urbanization, race, gender, education, and labor in the twentieth century to the evangelically oriented, partially assimilated Mennonites of today.Froese places Mennonite experiences against a backdrop of major historical events, including World War II and Vietnam, and social issues, from labor disputes to the evolution of mental health care. California Mennonites include people who embrace a range of ideologies: many are historically rooted in the sixteenth-century Reformation ideals of the early Anabaptists (pacifism, congregationalism, discipleship); some embrace twentieth-century American evangelicalism (missions, Billy Graham); and others are committed to a type of social justice that involves forging practical ties to secular government programs while maintaining a quiet connection to religion. Through their experiences of religious diversity, changing demographics, and war, California Mennonites have wrestled with complicated questions of what it means to be American, Mennonite, and modern. This book—the first of its kind—will appeal to historians and religious studies scholars alike.

Protestantism & Protestant Churches

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Theology --- Protestant churches --- Doctrines

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This book makes visible an important but largely neglected aspect of Christian missions: its transnational character. An interdisciplinary group of scholars present case-studies on missions and individual missionaries, unified by a common vision of expanding a Christian Empire “to the ends of the world”. Examples range from Madagascar, South-Africa, Palestine, Turkey, Tibet, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Canada and Britain. Engaging in activities from education, health care and development aid to religion, ethnography and collection of material culture, Christian missionaries considered themselves as global actors working for the benefit of common humanity. Yet, the missionaries came from, and operated within a variety of nation-states. Thus this volume demonstrates how processes on a national level are closely linked to larger transnational processes.

Protestant churches --- Missions --- History

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L'ouvrage se veut une contribution à un projet de sociologie internormative et sociohistorique de la laïcite analysant la pluralite des discours sur le religieux et sur la laïcite, ainsi que leurs mediations juridiques, et plus largement societales.

Evangelicalism --- Secularism. --- Protestant churches.