The Concept of "Parachurches"

These two seemingly opposite religious organizations, the conservative, evangelical Christian Broadcasting Network and the liberal, new age Association for Research and Enlightenment, in fact share a similar social positioning in that their core philosophies are religious or metaphysical in nature but their institutions are secular in design; they are part business, part charity, and part educational facility. As parachurches, these non-denominational religious organizations offer religious o...

 CBN, Science, and Politics

When viewed closely, however, CBN‘s and Robertson‘s openness to science seems less about a conservative Christian paradigmatic shift and more about CBN‘s relationship with the public. CBN‘s devotion to engagement with mainstream culture inevitably requires engagement with science because science is inextricably interwoven into the secular realm, which Robertson hopes to influence. CBN is a mix of fundamentalist, evangelical, charismatic, Catholic, and Protestant Christians brought together by...

 Religious Organizations Must have Connections to the Secu...

Science, with its naturalistic approach to understanding the empirical world, has become the dominant standard against which alternative systems of knowledge production must argue. Over the course of the twentieth century, some denominations have reconciled particular truths of Christianity and science. However, fundamentalist Protestant Christians in the U.S. continue to wrestle with contradictions between their literal interpretations of the Bible and alternative cosmologies produced throug...

 CBN and ARE as Persuasive Organizations

?People say ?[CBN] want[s] to turn America into a church,‘? Regent employee Ben Johnston protested. ?We don‘t. My God, we want separation of church and state? (Johnston interview, March 30, 2006). Woven into Johnston‘s protest, however, is a defensiveness based on public perception of CBN as threatening the neutrality of the secular. Far more than ARE, CBN relates to what Smith describes as the ?Protestant establishment? that was ?routed from social power? (2003:26). Robertson‘s visions of c...