The Arrest and Freeing of the Protestant Bishops of Württeberg and Bavaria, September–October 1934

1969 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernst C. Helmreich

Ludwig Müller, former naval chaplain and confidant of Hitler, had managed in September 1933 to get himself elected bishop of the newly organized German Evangelical Church, which was intended to bring all the Evangelical churches under one head. His election had caused great controversy, and the conflict (Kirchenkampf) which soon developed led to the establishment of the Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche) in opposition to the church government headed by Bishop Müller. This disorder in the church delayed Müller's formal installation, but it finally took place with great pomp on September 23, 1934, in the Berlin Cathedral, despite the deliberate absence of many churchmen as well as important political officials. Müller could not have been a particularly happy man on that day, although he had long sought this formal ecclesiastical blessing. He was definitely in hot water, and many sought his removal from office.

Author(s):  
Jakub Michalak

Evangelical Church had an important role in the GDR as far as the activities of opposition at the beginning of 1970s and 1980s are concerned. Indeed, it was outside the institution of the Unity Party. Within the vicinity of the church, people were to create a feeling of solidarity between those aggrieved by the system and the first grassroots activists. During 1989 and 1990 Lutheran church became the starting point for mass demonstrations and a peaceful revolution. In addition, the invitation of the party and the opposition to committees’ meeting on Dec. 7, 1989 was published on behalf of the Association of Evangelical Churches.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Moser ◽  
Malan Nel

The evangelical church in North America is facing a crisis in its failure to retain young people. Research has shown that young people are dropping out of the church and they are not only leaving but also failing to return once they are older. This crisis did not appear in a vacuum; it is the result of the church’s movement towards a style of programming that has created a division between evangelism and discipleship. This style of programme not only seeks to reach those outside of the church at the expense of those youth in the church but also creates a dichotomy between who we are (our identity) and what we do (our mission). The church must seek to remove this dichotomy between identity and mission and utilise strategies that work with our identity rather than against it.Intradisciplinary and/or Interdisciplinary Implications: This article is an interaction between practical theology and pastoral practice in Christian ministry. The crisis of youth leaving evangelical churches in North America is because of the dichotomy between mission and identity. Once this dichotomy is erased, mission will be a natural outworking of identity in youth ministry.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Ilona Nord ◽  
Katharina Alt ◽  
Thomas Zeilinger

This article presents exemplary insights into the state of digitization and the corresponding efforts of selected Evangelical Churches in Germany (the federal ekd and three of its member churches) to address an array of challenges triggered by the digital transformation. Three short reports on broader studies demonstrate how the church is responding to these challenges as an actor within civil society, as well as an organization and a community of faith. This preliminary assessment suggests that the ekd is capable of both: taking part in the societal debate as well as designing and reinventing itself anew in the digital realm. Nevertheless, it will do well to figure out more context-sensitive solutions while stimulating both ethical and theological discussions.


Author(s):  
Keith Clements

Bonhoeffer’s ecumenism was central and decisive to both his theology and activity from his later student days to his imprisonment. It was founded upon his ecclesiology as basically set out in Sanctorum Communio. The church being ‘Christ existing as community’ was applied by him to the fellowship of Christians across national and confessional boundaries and especially in its calling to embody and proclaim peace in the wold. In the Church Struggle he vigorously promoted the claim of the Confessing Church as the authentic Evangelical Church of Germany and argued for the ecumenical movement, for the sake of its own integrity and renewal, to accept that claim. His recruitment into the German resistance owed much to his having so many ecumenical contacts in the allied and neutral countries, but it also enabled him to pursue still more deeply his ecumenical interests, including relations with the Roman Catholic Church.


2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond Henry ◽  
Max F. Swart

Discipleship has been, and continues to be, integral to the church’s strategy to simultaneously contribute towards the spiritual formation of its members and also fulfilling its mission. From the very outset of the church, Jesus demonstrated the centrality of discipleship through what he taught and practiced. However, as the United Kingdom moved into the post-Christendom era, the Evangelical Church has grappled with being effective in discipleship. Through a study in the Gospel of Matthew in the transformissional and holistic perspective, the article seeks to aid this vital part of the church’s strategy by suggesting a paradigm shift and reprioritisation of the discipleship emphasis.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article will suggest a paradigm shift to the traditional discipleship discourse of post-Christendom era evangelical churches in the United Kingdom. The research will review Scripture, practical theology and interdisciplinary fields such as the influence of Christianity on health and family to establish a more holistically focussed and transformissional discipleship perspective.


1971 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert T. Osborn

The confessing church forgot that Barth's interest in the integrity of the church was not an end in itself, but rather in the interest of the service of the church in and for the world.


Exchange ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-397
Author(s):  
Jan Joris Rietveld

AbstractThe Cariri region is the most isolated and poor part of the rural zone of the diocese of Campina Grande in the Paraiba state of Brazil. The Catholic Church has been present here for a relatively short time: 335 years. Moreover the region has an isolated context and this favors conservatism so that only fundamental changes have an impact. These facts make the Cariri an interesting region for a case study about how Catholicism develops. I distinguish five periods, which are described with religious key words and situated in the socio-cultural context. This classification is a schematization: different types of Catholicism often exist together. It is obvious that the dominant features of Catholicism change with time, but in the mainstream of the fifth period we see a small revolution. Now there are not only influences in the socio cultural context and factors in the Church itself that cause changes, but there are also influences of powerful newcomers, the evangelical churches. Their main impact is that many people have left the Catholic Church and are going to live their old faith in a new form. The Catholic Church is searching for adequate ways to respond to this phenomenon.


Author(s):  
Deanna Ferree Womack

With a focus on Arabic-speaking Protestants in Ottoman Syria (present day Lebanon and Syria) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this chapter explains how Syrian Evangelical Church members who shared the same Reformed theological tradition came to define themselves as either Congregationalists or Presbyterians. Contrary to the accounts of Presbyterian missionaries who operated the American Syria Mission after 1870, the church schism in Beirut and subsequent denominational divisions were not merely the result of internal Syrian Protestant squabbling, self-interested troublemaking, or a preference for congregationalism. Rather, the church controversies and anti-missionary critiques that emerged during this period were part of a wider Protestant dissenting tradition.


Author(s):  
Paul A. Bramadat

Whenever I describe the IVCF to non-Christian academic peers, they almost invariably express their astonishment at the fact that at virtually every IVCF event I attend, approximately 70% of the participants are women. Perhaps this level of involvement is not unusual in the world of contemporary Protestantism; after all, in many of the churches IVCF members attend every Sunday, women outnumber men. However, the proportion of women to men is not as high in evangelical churches as it is in the IVCF (Bibby 1987:102; Rawlyk 1996:143). As well, women’s roles are usually much more tightly controlled in many if not most evangelical churches than they are in the IVCF. In fact, IVCF participants who attend churches in the Fellowship Baptist, Christian Reformed, and Brethren traditions may never see a woman in the pulpit, or, if women are allowed to speak at the front of the church, they are not usually permitted to become senior pastors or interpret the Bible. At the IVCF functions I have attended, however, women are in no way restricted in their abilities to lead worship, deliver sermons, organize events, or perform any of the myriad tasks involved in maintaining the group. In fact, the chapter’s paid staff worker is a woman, and she tries to ensure that the position of president alternates between a male and a female student every other year. I began to wonder how to make sense of the high level of female participation at every McMaster IVCF event I attended, especially in light of the fact that the scholarly literature on evangelicalism in North America often depicts the tradition as inimical or opposed to the egalitarian or feminist values that are so prevalent at universities. During my research, I found that many, but not all, of the evangelical women I interviewed maintain nonegalitarian views on the role of women. In other words, the common academic depiction of the place of women in evangelicalism seems to be confirmed by my experience, even though I hope to nuance this portrayal somewhat.


1991 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
D. S. Lubbe ◽  
J. Lubbe

As a result of the presbyterial system of church government of the Reformed Church in South Africa (Gereformeerde Kerke in Suid-Afrika), very little information on the financial matters of the church is available. Hardly any research has been undertaken on the financial matters of congregations of the said church. The aim with this research was firstly to obtain the opinions of clergymen and cashiers within the ranks of the Reformed Church on certain aspects of the financial matters of their congregations and the church as a whole. Secondly certain data from which guidelines on the financial matters of congregations can be drawn, were collected and processed. From the research it became clear that there is a great need for financial guidelines in respect of financial planning and management in congregations and that church finances offers a vast field of study for future research.


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