Harold O.J. Brown

Theologian Harold O.J. Brown (1933-2007) was the religion editor of Chronicles until his death this past July. This article was drawn from Chapter 13 (“Crisis and Resolution”) of his final book, The Sensate Culture, published in 1996. The Sensate Culture itself was drawn from Dr. Brown’s observations and elaborations on the work of Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (1889-1968), particularly his 1941 book The Crisis of Our Age.

Latest by Harold O.J. Brown in Chronicles

Results: 61 Articles found.
  • The Conversion of a Culture: Crisis and Resolution
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    December 2007

    The Conversion of a Culture: Crisis and Resolution

    Can an entire culture “be converted”—i.e., turn away from entrenched patterns of selfishness and self-indulgence and replace them with patterns of altruism?

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  • Protestantism, America, and Divine Law
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    June 2007

    Protestantism, America, and Divine Law

    Since the time of the Founding Fathers, Protestantism appeared to be the default religion in the United States.

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  • Cultural Revolutions
    September 2005

    Judge Roberts

    As the U.S. Senate prepares to consider President George W. Bush’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, John Roberts, there seems to be a certain ambiguity about Judge Roberts’ position on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion-on-demand the “law of the land.

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  • Powers, Principalities, Spiritual Forces
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    August 2005

    Powers, Principalities, Spiritual Forces

    In Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul writes, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (6:12).

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  • No Graven Images
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    March 2005

    No Graven Images

    In the fourth chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel, Satan tempts Jesus with the offer of “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.”

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  • Honor to Whom Honor
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    January 2005

    Honor to Whom Honor

    “Render to all what is due them,” writes Saint Paul, “Tax to whom tax is due, custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor” (Romans 13:7, NASB).

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  • Cultural Revolutions
    April 2004

    Civil Unions

    Civil unions, which offer same-sex couples the privileges that presently accrue to those who have been united in normal marriages, have been discussed by several legislators since the MassachusettsSupreme Judiciary Court ordered the state legislature to establish “homosexual marriage.”

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  • Vital Signs
    October 2003

    Remembering the Covenant

    During his term as president, Jimmy Carter, then a Southern Baptist, called for a White House Conference on Families in order to redefine family as any group of humans living together—so general a definition that college roommates or even a military platoon could be considered a family.

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  • Vital Signs
    November 2002

    God, Man, and Family

    The first chapter of the Bible forms the basis of the Christian understanding of the nature and dignity of man—and woman: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27).

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  • Two Trails of Blood
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    April 2002

    Two Trails of Blood

    The spread of Christianity was marked by a trail of blood, shed by myriad martyrs during the first three centuries of the Christian era. Another trail of blood followed: that of the Christian defenders of the Roman Empire, shed by Arabian Muslims in the course of their conquest of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain.

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  • New Skins, Old Wine
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    October 2001

    New Skins, Old Wine

    For almost 2,000 years, Christians have been confessing Jesus Christ as God and Savior in the assurance that they knew enough about Him to justify making this confession.

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  • <em>Sic et Non?</em>
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    September 2001

    Sic et Non?

    A number of years ago, when I was teaching a ninth-grade religion class (in Switzerland, where religion is taught in public schools), one of the boys said to me, "All religions teach the same thing."

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  • Come, Sweet Death
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    June 2001

    Come, Sweet Death

    In the spring of 1975, C. Everett Koop, M.D., addressed a conference of Christian laymen in New Orleans on the topic of abortion—more specifically, on the implications of Roe V. Wade.

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  • Cultural Revolutions
    June 2001

    Not Absolutely Evil

    Human beings cannot be absolutely evil, according to Christian theology, because they are made in the image of God; though fallen, they always retain an awareness of good and evil.

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  • Cultural Revolutions
    May 2001

    A Functioning Foreign Policy

    The United States always seem to need someone to demonize in order to have a functioning foreign policy. Now that Hitler, Stalin, and the "Evil Empire" are dead and gone, we have to make do with such lesser devils as Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin-Laden.

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  • Round Table Discussion
    January 2001

    Christianity and the Legitimacy of Government

    The late Paul J. Tillich (1886-1965)—not exactly a hero to conservative Christians, Protestant or Catholic—spoke of the rival impulses that cause agony in personal and community decisionmaking, which he defined as the clash between autonomy and heteronomy.

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  • Tradition, Old and New
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    December 2000

    Tradition, Old and New

    As a starting point, we must distinguish between tradition as container and tradition as content. This is a difference between the positions of the two great confessional bodies which appear equally devoted to preserving their traditions.

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  • Vital Signs
    October 2000

    Dare to Be a Daniela

    In early July, the United States Supreme Court, acting on a plea brought by two unidentified families, one Mormon and one Roman Catholic, ruled the practice of prayer at high-school football games unconstitutional.

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  • Shifting Ground
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    March 2000

    Shifting Ground

    Kenneth Miller has produced a beautifully written work. His book is intended to refute every objection to the more or less universally accepted doctrine of evolution, to discredit its opponents, and to assert the compatibility of strict evolutionary doctrine with religion.

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  • Our Heads Cut Off
    Reviews
    February 2000

    Our Heads Cut Off

    This remarkable French mathematician has written extensively on what he considers the fundamental spiritual problem of our day, the perversion of language, which he believes is related to the perversion of mathematics, a topic that he explored in an earlier book.

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Results: 61 Articles found.



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