Abstract
While social critics lament a culture bent on mobility, consumption, and hyper-individualism, there persist countercultural currents intent on commitment to geographic place, material simplicity, and authentic community. These subsectors of American life have repeatedly offered a countervailing response to the dominant, corporate- and consumption- oriented culture. This communitarian impulse is both persistent and emergent among American evangelical Christians: from the centuries-old Hutterite, Amish, and Mennonite communities; to the nearly centenarian Bruderhof communities and mid-twentieth century Anabaptist and Civil Rights-oriented communities; to the mere decade-old communities of the New Monasticism. No single endeavor captures this persistence and emergence as aptly as the Nurturing Communities Project. This paper explores the background, perspective and purposes of the Nurturing Communities Project with a view toward better understanding a sampling of these countervailing currents in American life.
Date
April 2014
Volume
8
Number
2
First Page
94
Last Page
106
Journal Title
American Communal Societies Quarterly
ISSN
1939-473X
