Stephen Hunt

Acting the part: ‘living history’ as a serious leisure pursuit

This paper explores the increasingly popular research area of ‘living history’ – the presentation of an historical period by live actors who portray and ‘live out’ the conditions of a particular time and place, largely through public events and other forms of staged reconstruction. While the topic might be analysed from various approaches, the paper endeavours to focus upon ‘living history’ largely as a ‘serious leisure’ pursuit, enquiring as to who participates and why. The paper is founded upon a survey of one re‐enactment society in the UK which depicts the Civil War in the USA. As one of the largest of such societies, the American Civil War Society (ACWS) not only provides a fine example of ‘living history’, but one largely outside of its immediate historical and cultural context. The paper argues that re‐enacted events, certainly in the case of a male‐dominated ‘living history’ society, are not primarily an educational exercise. Rather, they are meaningful for the individuals involved, sustaining and enhancing their life‐style interests and a ‘serious’ hobby through camaraderie, collective involvement, and a subjective understanding of authenticity.

“But we're men aren't we!”: “Living History” as a “site” of masculine identity construction’

Living history—the presentation of a historical period using live actors—remains an under-researched area despite the range of disciplines that might be brought to focus. While living history became popular in North America from the mid-twentieth century as a means of education, it now constitutes the basis of a fast-growing leisure-time pursuit— one that signifies a number of engendered trajectories in the sphere of leisure. This article will explore the significance of living history in terms of male identity. It will argue that as patriarchal structures are eroded and challenged, the construction, indeed, reconstruction of perceived traditional masculinities, may be negotiated and manufactured through the site of a serious leisure pursuit that attempts to draw boundaries with the feminine.

The Emerging Church and its discontents

The so‐called ‘Emerging Church’ constitutes a growing, if ill‐defined, Christian movement that has surfaced in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other nations of the Western world. The movement constitutes a theological and organisational critique of the conventional Christian Church, while offering a new mode of evangelism. This paper commences by briefly exploring the major attributes of the Emerging Church. It argues that although the movement can be understood as a means by which a distinct Christianity constituency has attempted to forge a juxtaposition with contemporary culture, the arrival of the movement has spurred widespread debate and produced a complex discourse indicative of the arrival of post‐modernity. The paper considers the controversy, and even acrimony, evident in the broad world of evangelicalism, in particular conservative evangelicalism, that the Emerging Church has generated.

The ‘health and wealth’ gospel in the UK: Variations on a theme

Abstract This paper considers the impact of the North American ‘Health and Wealth gospel’ on the UK church ‘scene’ within the context of globalisation. It argues that while some of the key aspects of globalisation are evident, that is, the exportation of a religious ‘package’ from its original cultural context to another, the process is by no means a straightforward one. Cultural and institutional factors set limits to the influence of a distinct set of beliefs and practices, and at the same time there are observable transformations within various Pentecostal/charismatic environments. The paper concludes that while the impact of the ‘Health and Wealth gospel’ should not be underestimated and may be discerned in its more hidden dimensions, its influence is fairly minimal.

Christian Lobbyist Groups and the Negotiation of Sexual Rights in the UK

ABSTRACT Although sexual minority rights have not necessarily generated polarised views within Christian churches and organisations, the subject has tended to forge an arena of contestation between liberal and conservative constituencies. Theological differences have frequently been manifested through the mobilisation of ‘cause’ groups lobbying the political realm and public opinion in order to advance their contrasting standpoints. Based on a survey of documentation and supplementary materials produced for public consumption, this article considers responses of the conflicting rights petitions of Christian cadres either endorsing or opposing minority sexual rights and the relevant legislative enactments in the UK. The article seeks to illuminate how these competing constituencies further their causes while at the same time devaluing the rights claims of their adversaries.

A Turn to the Rights: UK Conservative Christian Lobby Groups and the ‘Gay Debate’

The extension of non-heterosexual rights in largely liberal democratic contexts and confirmed in wider international conventions poses a challenge to Christian churches which historically condemned homosexuality and other sexual ‘variations’ on the basis of religious conviction. The stance taken by contemporary churches on these rights issues now diverge considerably. This article, however, considers the entrenched position of conservative Christian factions in the UK that have intensified their levels of political mobilisation at a time when they are drawn into the political arena through the implications of non-heterosexual rights in both the churches and the secular world. The article explores the way in which these cadres are forced to engage with the rhetoric of rights as an integral part of their oppositional stance, while attempting to negate the foundational basis of non-heterosexual rights. It will conclude with a discussion of how such developments connect with human rights theory.

Introduction Tongues, Toronto and the Millennium

In 1967 a popular New Zealand Christian magazine published a letter written by a concerned church minister, a certain Revd Boniface (Boniface, 1967). His complaint was that the emerging force of neo-Pentecostalism was divisive since it created major divisions within Baptist and Brethren churches, and disrupted the Anglican way of life. He also raised a profoundly pertinent question. Was this new movement ‘the most important development in Christianity in 1600 years or a tremendously dangerous psychological delusion’?

Ordinary Lives and Grand Schemes: An Anthropology of Everyday Religion

claim is that they have thereby managed to bypass the state in the countries where they operate and to ‘capture’ swaths of civil society through their dense networks of alternative institutions in the strikingly different political circumstances of Egypt, Israel, Italy, and the US. The authors also insist that the ultimate aims of these movements are different and that their methods of bypassing the state show wide variations across time and between countries. The methods currently range from establishing states-within-states in Egypt and Israel to offering a Christian alternative to the state in Italy and to serving the welfare needs of the poor in the US while awaiting the return of Christ. Thirdly, this book is impressive for the clarity of its writing. The accounts of the historical development of each of the four movements in focus are brisk and highly readable. This may owe something to the authors’ extensive reliance on journalistic sources, but it also benefits from the avoidance of jargon and the strategic use of capsule summaries of narratives and arguments. Indeed, the text is a model of how to bring theoretical propositions to bear productively on empirical material. It is a measure of this book’s success that it raises many interesting questions for further investigation. In particular, it would be helpful to ask why the conceptual distinction between cultural communitarianism and economic communitarianism is not relevant, as the authors recognize, to all religious movements labelled conservative, orthodox or fundamentalist. There are also questions to be asked about the response of political actors, state agencies, and the mass media to religious movements that are intent on bypassing the state and burrowing into the institutions of civil society. And the fact that the book was finished just as the Muslim Brotherhood had achieved electoral victory in 2012, but before the Egyptian army removed President Morsi and his government from power one year later only adds to the interest that researchers should take in the book’s possible relevance to the understanding of other movements in other countries. It is essential reading for all scholars with interests in the interplay between religion, politics, and social welfare.

University chaplaincy provisions: taking the religion out?

Albeit fragmented and largely uncoordinated, there is currently considerable debate regarding the nature and rationale of university chaplaincy provisions in England and Wales. Clearly chaplaincies have repositioned themselves from an exclusively Christian ethical and service-based provider to cater for the challenging demands of a multi-faith student body. Today, further changes can be observed suggesting chaplaincies are progressively departing from their narrow ‘religious’ base. There is now a discernible tentative step in some quarters towards encompassing all-embracing holistic visions of ‘well-being’. At the same time, chaplaincies are encouraged to respond to the wider contribution of universities towards the lauded virtues of the ‘Big Society’. This article overviews such developments, briefly tracing the evolution of competing philosophies, and considers some possible implications including the unintended consequence of the demise of chaplaincies themselves.

Approaching the Apocalypse: A Short History of Christian Millenarianism (review)

There are always good reasons for penning a book on the theme of Christian millenarianism, and there has been a glut of such books in recent years, some more journalistic than academic. Hence, any scholarly additions are to be welcomed. Undoubtedly, as the end of the second Christian millennium came to an end, the attraction for exploring the topic was perhaps irresistible from either a sociological or historical perspective (or both).The premillennial tension that gave rise to millenarian sects and movements was an intriguing subject for many (even if such sects and movements proved to be comparatively few when compared to the turn of the first Christian millennium). Eight years after the psychologically relevant date of the year 2000 came and went, the justification of the author of Approaching the Apocalypse, John M. Court, is: “Now that the fervor of excitement and the threat of fanaticism associated with the new Millennium has practically subsided, it is a good time to attempt an overview of millenarian expectation over the two millennia of Christian history” (p. xviii). I’m not convinced of his timing, but his book should be judged accordingly.