What pastors experience in their congregations as they represent the peace position in the Church of the Brethren

Jeffrey O. Copp

Etd

What pastors experience in their congregations as they represent the peace position in the Church of the Brethren

Public Deposited

MLA citation style (9th ed.)

Jeffrey O. Copp. What Pastors Experience In Their Congregations As They Represent the Peace Position In the Church of the Brethren. rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/f667da2a-d811-41e3-b47a-f88551e2fe68.

APA citation style (7th ed.)

J. O. Copp. What pastors experience in their congregations as they represent the peace position in the Church of the Brethren. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/f667da2a-d811-41e3-b47a-f88551e2fe68

Chicago citation style (CMOS 17, author-date)

Jeffrey O. Copp. What Pastors Experience In Their Congregations As They Represent the Peace Position In the Church of the Brethren. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/f667da2a-d811-41e3-b47a-f88551e2fe68.

Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.

Creator

Jeffrey O. Copp

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Abstract

It is the thesis of this study that the peace position of the Church of the Brethren is in danger of becoming more a matter of proclamation than practice in the Church. It is the assumption of this study that this development is a problem for the Church of the Brethren, now and in the future, and that it does require attention.Among those caught in the middle of this development are pastors who must declare the position and interpret it. In their office as pastor they must deal directly with the implications of a position that one Brethren writer has characterized as “rhetorical” in nature (Bach 180). The author of the present study, a pastor, has struggled with those implications and his struggles prompted this project.The aim of this study was to gather information from Church of the Brethren pastors about their experiences as they represent the peace position in their congregations. It was felt that this would be a fruitful window through which to examine the state of the peace position in the Church of the Brethren today.A questionnaire was designed and administered to a random sampling of Brethren pastors active today to solicit that information. Analysis of the findings revealed that most Church of the Brethren congregations are not presently experiencing significant conflict over the issue, but a majority of pastors are uncomfortable with the current status quo in the Church in regard to it. Six concrete recommendations for changing peace demographics in the Church of the Brethren emerged from the data.

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