In this work of qualitative sociology, Anna Strhan offers an in-depth
study of the everyday lives of members of a conservative evangelical
Anglican church in London. 'St John's' is a vibrant church, with a
congregation of young and middle-aged members, one in which the life
of the mind is important, and faith is both a comfort and a struggle -
a way of questioning the order of things within society and for
themselves. The congregants of St John's see themselves as
increasingly counter-cultural, moving against the grain of wider
culture in London and in British society, yet they take pride in this,
and see it as a central element of being Christian. This book reveals
the processes through which the congregants of St John's learn to
understand themselves as 'aliens and strangers' in the world,
demonstrating the precariousness of projects of staking out boundaries
of moral distinctiveness. Through focusing on their interactions
within and outside the church, Strhan shows how the everyday
experiences of members of St John's are simultaneously shaped by the
secular norms of their workplaces and other city spaces and by moral
and temporal orientations of their faith that rub against these. Thus
their self-identification as 'aliens and strangers' both articulates
and constructs an ambition to be different from others around them in
the city, rooted in a consciousness of the extent to which their
hopes, concerns, and longings are simultaneously shaped by their being
in the world.
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The Struggle for Coherence in the Everyday Lives of Evangelicals
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780191036545
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Oxford University Press Academic UK
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter