Religious Documents and the Establishment Clause

A priest, a rabbi, and an imam walk into a contract lawyer\u27s office. Fortunately, this is not the opening of a lawyer joke, but it might well be the prelude to a complicated constitutional question about the interaction of the First Amendment and contract law. Pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, religious schools, churches, religious businesses, and a wealth of faith-based groups all enter into contractual agreements. Not surprisingly, these agreements often contain religious language, and sometimes they even hinge on provisions invoking expressly religious concepts. Religious documents come in a variety of forms, including marriage contracts, disposition of property documents, agreements on a child\u27s religious upbringing, commercial transactions, employment contracts, and arbitration agreements. In some states, these agreements have even been the subject of legislation. In sum, religious parties sometimes draft religious documents, and they do so in a variety of contexts. The infusion of potentially sacred obligations into the realm of secular contract law presents courts with a number of difficult questions. For example, although courts are charged to interpret and give effect to religious documents whenever possible, the judiciary is starkly constrained by the religion clauses of the First Amendment, especially the Establishment Clause. The conflicting commands to enforce contracts and yet to uphold the limitations of the Establishment Clause are not easily reconciled. What is a court to do when an agreement specifies that the law of Moses and Israel governs, states that disputes are to be referred to a Christian Conciliation Service for resolution, or requires a husband to pay a dowry arising from obligations set out in the Qur\u27an? How does a court interpret or enforce contractual terms that invoke religious matters? This Article takes direct aim at these questions by explaining the relevant Establishment Clause limitations, analyzing the governing case law from around the nation, and outlining a proposed model for judicial analysis of all religious documents. It also reviews a wide variety of guidance helpfully offered by other commentators in these areas. Part II sets the stage by highlighting some of the cultural and religious factors that often surround religious documents, taking as an example marriage contracts. Part III illuminates the fact that it will at times be impossible, from a constitutional standpoint, to enforce religious agreements under governing case law. Part IV then discusses state and federal court decisions that have addressed religious documents. Next, Part V draws from existing literature from other commentators on interpreting religious agreements and begins to frame an analytical model. Finally, Part VI proposes a model for courts to follow in adjudicating religious document cases

Improving the Assimilation of New Members in Small Adventist Churches in Central Pennsylvania

Problem The failure of many of our small Seventh-day Adventist congregations to fully welcome new members into their midst has been of pastoral concern for many years. This project is an attempt to build awareness among established church members of the need to assimilate and sacrifice for new members. Method The first part of the project involved research into the assimilation of new members in ten small Adventist congregations in central Pennsylvania. New members who had joined the church during a six-year interval were studied to see if they had maintained active membership status during that time. Interviews were also conducted with three pastors, four active SDA members, and four inactive members to explore their views about assimilating new members. A seminar was conducted in three churches to alert their membership to the needs of new members, and their own roles in assimilating them into their congregations. An attempt was made to ascertain the effectiveness of that approach in changing attitudes with respect to new members by comparing results from a pre-seminar questionnaire (given to the entire church about one month prior to the seminar) and a very similar questionnaire administered at the close of the seminar. Results The findings of the questionnaires regarding the effectiveness of the seminar in changing attitudes with respect to new members were inconclusive. The hope that church members would attend the seminar in large numbers was usually not realized. Therefore, the pool of those taking the follow-up questionnaire was more selective than the pool of those taking the pre-seminar questionnaire, making any conclusions reached by direct comparisons of the answers unreliable. However, subjective analysis of the behaviors of the churches involved and their assimilation percentages was revealing. Conclusions There is a definite comparison between the personal effort the church membership is willing to extend in support of new member assimilation and the likelihood that new members will become active in its fellowship. Churches with higher assimilation rates showed greater interest in the seminar than those with lower assimilation rates. An exception was noted in the smallest church surveyed. It had a large seminar attendance but a very poor record of assimilation. This suggests that factors other than the church\u27s willingness to personally welcome newcomers might be involved. Real change in attitude among the membership in small church settings is not likely to result from one or two seminars alone, but will require ongoing vision-casting by the leadership through sermons, lessons, and personal example

Modes of ministry : a comparison between Anglican and Roman Catholic priests' perceptions of the priesthood and approaches to their role in the contemporary South African context

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-145).Proceeding from the typology derived from an analysis of Newman's seminal sermon on The Christian Ministry, the scriptural basis of which accords in all essential respects with the catechisms of both the Roman Catholic and the Anglican Churches, the following aims were formulated for the present study: (1) to explore and compare the perceptions of representative samples of Anglican and Roman Catholic priests in respect of (a) the meaning of priesthood and (b) the role and responsibilities of the priest in the contemporary South African context; (2) to assess the extent to which the perceptions of the respective samples of contemporary Anglican and Roman Catholic priests in respect of the meaning of their ministry accord with the constructs derived from Newman's model of The Christian Ministry; (3) to assess the possibilities for Anglo-Catholic unity in the contemporary South African context at the level of practising priests' perceptions of their role and responsibilities in both the ecclesiastical and the socio-political spheres. A qualitative methodology was selected as most appropriate for probing and interpreting the participants' perceptions. Data was collected by means of a structured, open-ended and self-administered questionnaire, which was distributed to a representative sample (N 20) of Anglican (N = 10) and Catholic (N = 10) priests respectively. The data was analysed by means of tabulation and quantification of fixed-choice responses and a rigorous system of content analysis of the open-ended responses. The findings are presented and discussed in terms of the descriptive categories that emerged. In respect of the aims of this study, the findings indicate that (1) while there is significant conformity between Roman Catholic and Anglican priests in respect of their perceptions of the meaning of priesthood, there are significant differences in respect of their perception of their role in the South African context, with the perceived role and responsibilities of the Roman Catholic priests emerging as less defined by national context and hence less socio-politically oriented than indicated by the Anglican sample; (2) while neither sample's perception of either the meaning of priesthood or the definition of their role conformed entirely with the constructs comprising Newman's model, or with the doctrinal emphases of their own Church, the Roman Catholic perceptions were more uniformly in accordance with both than were those of the Anglicans; (3) given the differences in their perceptions of the significance of their context in informing their role priorities and responsibilities, and the emphasis of the Roman Catholic sample on the universal rather than the national identity of the Roman Catholic Church, the prospects would appear to be limited for more than a nominal ecumenism of concern and collaboration at local level in respect of social issues such as poverty and HIV I AIDS and a combined Christian voice in the public arena. While these findings are to be regarded as tentative given the essentially exploratory nature of the study, they point to key areas for future research

Avery Dulles\u27s Advocacy of Reformulation of Dogma and Doctrinal Development

The first chapter of this study examines the setting for Father Dulles\u27s energetic work in the years immediately following Vatican Council II. With respect to the Church’s dogmatic formulations, it was apparent to Father Dulles that the Council tacitly proclaimed the end of irreformability. The Church\u27s doctrinal statements must undergo reformulation in order to express adequately and communicate incisively the Christian faith to the world of the late twentieth century. Furthermore, his own epistemology, methodology, and theology did, in effect, shape his outlook regarding reformulation. These subjects are treated at length in chapter two, complemented by close attention to his revelation theology as a prime factor figuring prominently in the formation of his development theory. This is the content of chapter four which follows a discussion in chapter three of how church dogma fares following Vatican II when compared to typical dogmatic expressions of the former neo-Scholastic era, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The intricacies of this comparison demonstrate the urgency for reformulation, if the Church is to honor its commitment to reach the post-modern world with the Gospel. These investigations lead to a final chapter marking the lengths to which Father Dulles extends his thinking about dogmatic development as reconceptualization and reformulation

An assessment for religious contexts: An ecological assessment tool for church environments

The Assessment of Religious Contexts (ARC) is a research instrument that seeks to measure the environment of a local church. The development of the ARC and initial studies of its reliability and validity comprise the present thesis. At the outset, the relevance and importance of the study are detailed. Next, pertinent literature is reviewed in environmental or ecological psychology. Specifically reviewed are areas of ecological assessment, church environment assessment, and other environmental assessments. Chapter three reports the methodology used to develop the ARC. Chapter 4 provides results concerning an estimate of the reliability and initial validity study. Chapter 5 includes the discussion of the results and areas for further research