This study compared the editorial positions of two magazines, The Christian Century and Christianity Today, on seven social and moral issues, then compared each magazine's positions with the opinions of their intended audiences. A directional content analysis was conducted that determined the editorial positions. On all four issues for which comparison was possible, the magazines demonstrated a marked difference in direction. These positions were compared with the published opinions of those social groups identified as representative of each magazine's intended audience. There was marked disagreement between each magazine and its intended audience on three of the five issues for which comparison was possible.

A missão cristã japonesa, iniciada com a chegada de Francisco Xavier ao arquipélago em 1549, inaugurou o chamado século cristão no Japão. Foi um período bastante conturbado na história japonesa: guerras civis quase ininterruptas vinham assolando o arquipélago há décadas e os generais que foram capazes de colocar fim ao contínuo estado de conflito militar e unificar o reino Oda Nobunaga e Toyotomi Hideyoshi não conseguiram fazer com que seus descendentes herdassem suas posições. Ao fim, o clã Tokugawa tomou o poder e inaugurou o regime militar que ficaria conhecido como Tokugawa Bakufu e duraria por mais de dois séculos e meio. Para que esse novo regime fosse possível, uma série de estruturas legitimadoras foram forjadas. Como resultado, o cristianismo foi interditado e os reinos ibéricos banidos e proibidos de retornar aos portos japoneses. As ordens missionárias europeias foram testemunhas de todo esse processo e buscaram até o fim negociar com esse poder em formação, na tentativa de manter a missão cristã ativa. Dentre elas, a Companhia de Jesus foi a que mais atuou no Japão; por mais de quatro décadas, teve assegurado o monopólio da missão japonesa. Em 1593, no entanto, os franciscanos espanhóis iniciaram sua atividade no arquipélago, a despeito da forte oposição jesuíta. O que se busca compreender neste trabalho, através dos escritos produzidos por estes missionários e de algumas obras dos japoneses acerca do cristianismo, é como jesuítas e franciscanos desenvolveram a missão cristã no contexto da unificação do Japão, e, por outro lado, a forma como os japoneses se apropriaram desse cristianismo, incluindo a reação que o mesmo causou nos círculos intelectuais dentro e fora do Bakufu. / archipelago, in 1549, inaugurated the so-called Christian Century in Japan. That was an eventful period in Japanese History: almost uninterrupted civil wars stroke the country for almost a century and the generals who were able to put an end to the continuous warfare and finally unify Japan Oda Nobunaga e Toyotomi Hideyoshi could not make their offspring successors to the positions they achieved. In the end, the Tokugawa house took the power and inaugurated the military regime that would become known as Tokugawa Bakufu and would last for the next two and a half centuries. In order to make this new regime possible, some new legitimizing structures were forged. As a result, Christianity was banned, and the Iberian kingdoms expelled and forbidden inside the archipelago. The European missionaries witnessed all this process and sought until the very end to negotiate with these powers, in an attempt to save the Christian mission. The Society of Jesus was the Catholic order that most worked in Japan. For more than four decades it held the monopoly over the Japanese mission. In 1593, however, the Spanish Franciscans began their activity in the archipelago, despite the Jesuit opposition. What this thesis aims to understand, through the writings of these missionaries and some works of the Japanese about Christianity, is how Jesuits and Franciscans developed the Christian mission in the context of the unification of Japan, the way the Japanese appropriated this Christianity and the reaction it caused in intellectual circles inside and outside the Bakufu.

<p>Scholars, journalists, and religious leaders in the twentieth century widely hailed The Christian Century as the most influential Protestant magazine in America. This dissertation investigates the meaning of such praise. In what ways, and upon whom, did the Century exercise influence? Answering this question directs attention not only to the Century's editorial content but also to the cultural role of magazines and the makeup of the Century's audience, an elite group of white American Protestants who had no collective name for the first half of the twentieth century but came to be called the Protestant mainline.</p><p>I focus on the editorial tenure of Charles Clayton Morrison, who bought an obscure Disciples of Christ periodical at a sheriff's sale in 1908 and transformed it, over the next 39 years, into the flagship magazine of liberal Protestantism. Attending to the Century's history as well as its rhetoric, I find that the magazine had a deep effect on its readers but a limited effect on American Protestantism as a whole. Most American Protestants never read the Century or accepted its theologically and politically liberal messages. The mainline, while certainly powerful, was never mainstream.</p><p>Studying the Century reveals how the mainline evolved in terms of membership levels, core emphases, and posture vis-à-vis other religious traditions. Likewise, the Century clarifies the role of the mainline as the dominant Protestant tradition in America. If dominance is understood to mean control of positions of power, a plausible case can be made for the dominance of both the mainline writ large and of the subset of this group who read The Christian Century. If dominance has anything to do with numerical preponderance, however, or with the ability to build consensus around key ideals, the supremacy of the mainline should be reexamined. </p><p>Lofty estimates of the Century's influence presuppose a transmission model of communication in which the primary role of a periodical is to convey information that alters readers' thinking. The Century did convey information to its readers, but the greatest service the magazine performed was to confirm readers' identity as central figures in the growth of what its editors deemed a vital, progressive, but by no means universally accepted form of Christianity. The Century spoke to its 35,000 readers more than it spoke for them, and those readers frequently felt like members of a beleaguered minority rather than a triumphal majority. </p><p>Throughout its upward climb, the Century's rhetoric ran ahead of its accomplishments. Without ever amassing a wide readership, it declared itself the rightful representative of American Protestantism. The Century's rhetoric of unified, progressive, and culturally dominant Protestantism proved compelling, but it obscured many complexities. Examining the Century's struggles to define itself and remain financially viable in its formative years brings to light the difficulties inherent in any attempt to lead America's fractious Protestants.</p> / Dissertation