Jackson W Carroll

The poems in this collection ask--How can we become just people? What is human justice? Is there a justice that is equal and/or appropriate for all human beings? How can an individual in action, speech, and behavior be just? How does one think of oneself as just in interaction with others? These poems also address prevalent injustices to children and of society's frequent denial of its responsibility to them, the privileged and the underprivileged. Further, how do we wish to live in a society--isolated, completely independent, self-centered? Living in a society implies association with others. How do we wish to relate to others? The poems query: how will the governments under which we live initiate and execute just rule and governance for all citizens? The book concludes with a lyrical case study of apartheid, especially in Israel that claims to be a democracy. Some of the poems acknowledge that the US's democracy has failed in many ways and has an ongoing need of recovering the principles of justice and equality. Americans know well the meaning of ethnic cleansing in their own land. The poems here make no claim at successful resolutions to the issues raised. They do point to the ongoing need of repentance for wrongs done, and for steering a steady course to guarantee the rights of freedom and justice for all people.

This is the first book to offer a comparative analysis of the impact of the post-war ?Baby Boom? generation on Christianity around the world. Taking a cross-cultural approach, the contributors examine ten advanced countries, including England, France, Germany, Australia, and the United States, and explore the ways baby boomers have helped reshape and redefine ?establishment religions? ? that is, the dominant, primarily Christian institutions. Their conclusions are broad and far-reaching, shedding light on the fate of religion in other countries now modernizing and those countries moving through the modern to the postmodern. Sociologists, historians, and scholars of religion will profit from the insights put forth here on religion in a postmodern context.

Pastoral leadership is an occupation in flux. In this important and comprehensive study, Jackson Carroll considers the many factors - the changing roles of clergy and laypeople, the opening of ordination to women, and the increasing shortage of clergy, among others - that shape the work of twenty-first-century congregations and clergy. Building on Paul's image of Christians as "clay jars," Carroll provides a portrait of "God's potters" - pastors whose calling is to form their congregational jars so that they reveal rather than hide God's treasure. Carroll uses data from Pulpit & Pew's National Clergy Survey, likely the most representative survey of Protestant and Catholic clergy ever undertaken, as well as focus group interviews and responses from congregations, to look at who is doing the work of ministry today, what this work involves, and how clergy lead their congregations. "God's Potters" culminates with an account of pastoral excellence that leads into specific recommendations for building and sustaining excellence in ministry.

While others lament the declining attendance of mainline churches and blame it on an out-of-date tradition, Jackson Carroll offers a more hopeful perspective, arguing that they key to future vitality can be found in the same tradition. According to Carroll, the tension between tradition and change has always been part of the Protestant heritage, and he argues that now is a time when being faithful requires adaptation.

This is the first book to offer a comparative analysis of the impact of the post-war ?Baby Boom? generation on Christianity around the world. Taking a cross-cultural approach, the contributors examine ten advanced countries, including England, France, Germany, Australia, and the United States, and explore the ways baby boomers have helped reshape and redefine ?establishment religions? ? that is, the dominant, primarily Christian institutions. Their conclusions are broad and far-reaching, shedding light on the fate of religion in other countries now modernizing and those countries moving through the modern to the postmodern. Sociologists, historians, and scholars of religion will profit from the insights put forth here on religion in a postmodern context.

This book offers a close-up look at theological education in the USA today. The authors' goal is to understand the way in which institutional culture affects the outcome of the educational process. To that end, they undertake ethnographic studies of two seminaries -- one evangelical and one mainline Protestant. These studies, written in a lively journalistic style, make up the first part of the book and offer fascinating portraits of two very different intellectual, religious, and social worlds. The authors go on to analyse these disparate environments, and suggest how in each case corporate culture acts as an agent of educational change. They find two major consequences stemming from the culture of each school. First, each culture gives expression to a normative goal that aims at shaping the way students understand themselves and from issues of ministry practice. Second, each provides a "cultural tool kit" of knowledge, practices, and skills that students use to construct strategies of action for the various problems and issues that will confront them as pastors or in other forms of ministry. In the concluding chapters, the authors explore the implications of their findings for theories of institutional culture and professional socialization and for interpreting the state of religion in America. They identify some of the practical dilemmas that theological and other professional schools currently face, and reflect on how their findings might contribute to their solution. This accessible, thought-provoking study will not only illuminate the structure and process by which culture educates and forms, but also provide invaluable insights into important dynamics of American religious life.

This essential work focuses on reclaiming a healthy understanding of authority in the church by reviewing the meaning of clergy authority and examining how this authority has been used and abused. Jackson Carroll asks how a sense of clergy authority might be recovered--one that honors shared ministry among clergy and lay leaders while it appreciates the distinctive tasks of each clergyperson.