Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Archives
    • By Issue
    • By Article
    • By PDF (2008-14)
    • By PDF (1985-97)
    • All Articles
  • Sections
    • Current Research
    • Findings & Footnotes
    • On/File
  • Google Search
You are here: Home / Archive / Southern Baptists’ Advent devotion suggests liturgical turn

Southern Baptists’ Advent devotion suggests liturgical turn

January 1, 2016 by Richard Cimino

Print-friendly
Advent observances across Southern Baptist Convention congregations have spiked recently. Creative Commons image by Yvonne Bentele

Advent observances across Southern Baptist Convention congregations have spiked recently. Creative Commons image by Yvonne Bentele

Southern Baptists are showing a new interest in liturgical observances such as Advent, possibly reflecting a “pushback” among evangelicals against the contemporary worship movement, according to an article in Baptist Press (Dec. 11). The news service reports that LifeWay Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has recently published Advent devotional books, and has included advice for observing Advent in at least two holiday magazines this year. North Carolina’s Biblical Recorder, an SBC journal, commended Advent to its readers, offering them a list of Advent resources. SBC congregations across America lit Advent candles weekly, with many of them purchased from LifeWay reports David Roach. Church historian Stan Norman is cited as saying that while observing Advent was once viewed as too liturgical or “high church,” such practices and objects as Advent wreaths, calendars, and readings “seem to provide a bit of structure in a tradition that has maybe gone too far without structure.” He adds that the Christ-centered focus that is part of Advent observances may be seen as needed “in a cultural context in which we are battered on every side to be diverted away from that.”

Print-friendly

Filed Under: Archive, Domestic

Also in this issue

  • Featured Story: The secular and the religious in 2015 and beyond
  • Veganism as quasi-religion?
  • Reform Jews more committed to Israel than usually assumed
  • Current Research: January 2016
  • Spaces for Russian Orthodox dissent, innovation in provinces
  • ‘New Haredim’ making strides toward Israeli mainstream
  • Shia Islam takes center stage in Middle East’s interreligious diplomacy
  • New stage of religion- science dialogue strikes harmony in Islam
  • Social media giving participants greater say in shaping Chinese folk religions
  • Findings & Footnotes: January 2016

Search the Site

Download the first issue of RELIGION WATCH (1980)

Download the first issue of RELIGION WATCH (1980)

Click on the image for downloading

© 2016-2020 Richard Cimino / Religioscope
·News Pro Theme · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · WordPress