Common Sense Regeneration: Alexander Campbell on Regeneration, Conversion, and the Work of the Holy Spirit

2016 ◽  
Vol 109 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-636
Author(s):  
Stephen Waers
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
John Locke ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Alexander Campbell ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy ◽  
Major Factors

Alexander Campbell (1788–1866), a controversialist and prolific writer, often addressed his theological opponents with an acid-tipped pen. Early in his career, few topics received as much attention as regeneration, conversion, and the role of the Holy Spirit. Campbell and his coreligionists on the frontier were hardly the only theologians who focused on these doctrines during the first half of the nineteenth century. Campbell's early polemics make it clear that he had substantially modified or rejected many of the major tenets of the Presbyterianism of his youth regarding these topics. His early writings find his literary resources arrayed against such doctrines as human inability and metaphysical regeneration that his Reformed opponents held. Campbell's biographer even tells us that Campbell's views of regeneration and conversion shifted. In this paper, I argue that one of the major factors driving Campbell's rejection of these widely held Reformed doctrines was his appropriation of the thought of John Locke and Scottish Common Sense Philosophy (SCSP). More specifically, I argue that Alexander Campbell's understanding of testimony, firmly rooted in the thought of Locke and SCSP, was the sine qua non of his conception of regeneration, conversion, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost Past or Present

Pneuma ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 458-476
Author(s):  
Kerrie Handasyde
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Churches Of Christ ◽  
Charismatic Movement ◽  
Spirit Baptism ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The 1960S

Abstract Charismatic elements were suppressed among colonial Australian Churches of Christ (Disciples) only to re-emerge a century later. Understandings of the work of the Holy Spirit were contested in Churches of Christ in Australia, Britain, and America, as the denomination struggled to account for the work of the Holy Spirit in contemporary times due to its foundational opposition to creeds, distrust of experientialism, and insistence on a rational common sense reading of the New Testament. This article examines Australian Churches of Christ responses to charismatic phenomena via several previously unexamined texts against the background of nineteenth-century revivalism, twentieth-century Pentecostalism, and the charismatic movement of the 1960s and ’70s. It finds that a church that once suppressed the story of an advocate of Holy Spirit baptism came to accommodate the language of renewal.

Moral Formation in Christ, the Beautiful Beloved

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Formation ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Loving Relationship ◽  
Falling In Love

Christ’s healing of humanity consists, crucially, in forming human beings for loving relationship with himself and others. In this respect, Christ also takes the role of the beautiful beloved. Believers become pilgrims by falling in love with the beautiful Christ by the initiative of the Holy Spirit, who cleanses their eyes to see him as beautiful and enkindles desire in their hearts. By desiring and loving the beautiful Christ, the believer is conformed to him and learns to walk his path. Desiring the beautiful Christ forms a believing community shaped aesthetically and morally for a particular way of life: pilgrimage to the heavenly homeland. Formation is both earthly and eschatological, for so too is the journey and the activity of the pilgrim.

The Welsh Evangelical Community and ‘Finney's Revival’

1978 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Carwardine
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
High Pressure ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Great Awakening ◽  
Second Great Awakening ◽  
New Divinity ◽  
Public Commitment ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Agent Of Change ◽  
Spiritual State

The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the emergence in American Calvinist churches of a new brand of religious revivalism. Energetic evangelicals successfully challenged the authority of a Calvinist theology which had seemed to emphasise the exclusiveness of the elect, and man's helplessness and inability to act in securing his own conversion. These evangelicals adopted a revivalism which, in contrast, reminded man of his responsibility and power, and which experimented with means to win converts that conservative evangelicals thought an affront to the operations of the Holy Spirit. The ‘new measures’, as they were called, included more direct preaching, often by revivalists who itinerated solely to stir churches and win converts, the ‘protracting’ of services over several days or weeks, and the ‘anxious seat’—the use of a special pew at the front of the congregation where those concerned for their spiritual state could go to be exhorted and prayed for, and where a public commitment might be expected. These measures—and the ‘New Divinity’ which gave them theological justification—became increasingly widespread during the 1820s and 1830s, the climax of the ‘Second Great Awakening’. In large part the impetus for change had come from the rapidly-growing Methodists, Arminian in theology and determined exponents of a high-pressure revivalism; but within the Calvinist churches the single most influential agent of change was the ‘high priest’ of revivalism, Charles Grandison Finney.

The Integration of Mission Theology and Practice: Zinzendorf and the Early Moravians

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Gallagher
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Cultural Humility ◽  
Spiritual Renewal ◽  
Mission Theology ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
The Holy Spirit

AbstractThis paper explores the key characteristics of Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf's mission theology that influenced the early Moravian missional practice. After discussing the early eighteenth century European historical context and the Spirit-renewal of the Herrnhut community, the paper considers Zinzendorf's theology on the death of Christ, the prominent role of the Holy Spirit, and harvesting the "first fruits." These theological distinctives contributed in determining the motivation and message of these pioneer Protestant missionaries. It then takes into account some of the subsequent methods such as working with the marginalized, practicing the love of Christ in cultural humility, and preaching the gospel in the vernacular. The main contributions of the early Moravians to mission were that they brought an understanding that spiritual renewal preceded mission renewal, the atoning death of Christ is central to mission theology, and a Protestant recognition that it had an obligation to do mission. On the other hand, the foremost negative aspects of Moravian mission were their obsession with the physical death of Christ and an ignorance of the broader social issues that at times resulted in a lack of contextualization, religious syncretism, indifference to social justice, and extreme subjectivism.

Thomas Aquinas and Contemplation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rik Van Nieuwenhove
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Marked Contrast ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Theology And Philosophy ◽  
Key Questions

Contemplation, according to Thomas Aquinas, is the central goal of our life; yet a scholarly study on this topic has not appeared for over seventy years. This book fills that obvious gap. From an interdisciplinary perspective this study considers the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the contemplative act; the nature of the active and contemplative lives in light of Aquinas’s Dominican calling; the role of faith, charity, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in contemplation; and contemplation and the beatific vision. Key questions addressed are: What is contemplation? What is truth? How can we know God? How do faith and reason relate to one another? How does Aquinas envisage the relations between theology and philosophy? What role does charity play in contemplation? Throughout this book the author argues that Aquinas espouses a profoundly intellective notion of contemplation in the strictly speculative sense, which culminates in a non-discursive moment of insight (intuitus simplex). In marked contrast to his contemporaries Aquinas therefore rejects a sapiential or affective brand of theology. He also employs a broader notion of contemplation, which can be enjoyed by all Christians, in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are of central importance. This book should appeal to all those who are interested in this key aspect of Aquinas’s thought. It provides a lucid account of central aspects of Aquinas’s metaphysics, epistemology, theology, and spirituality. It also offers new insights into the nature of the theological discipline as Aquinas sees it, and how theology relates to philosophy.

scholarly journals Hope as a Virtue in the Middle Ages

2020 ◽  
pp. 47-60
Author(s):  
Andrew Pinsent
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Theological Virtues ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
Contemporary Life ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
New Research ◽  
Radical Transformation

Abstract As a theological disposition revealed in Scripture, the recognition of hope as an important virtue coincided with the radical transformation in virtue ethics in the early Middle Ages. As the ideals of pagan antiquity gave way to the Christian aspirations for the Kingdom of Heaven, early work on hope was strongly influenced by writers with a monastic background, such as Pope St Gregory the Great. The rise of scholasticism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, gave an impetus to finding a coherent account of virtue ethics that would incorporate hope along with the other theological virtues and revealed attributes of perfection, such as the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. This chapter examines, in particular, the attempt of St Thomas Aquinas to develop such an account and the role of hope in this account, drawing from new research in experimental psychology. The chapter concludes by considering briefly the transposition of the medieval account of hope to aspects of contemporary life.

Chrysostom’s Homily on the Word Koimeterion and on the Cross: A Translation and Commentary

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
David M. Friel
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Full Text ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Good Friday ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Cross

Abstract Chrysostom’s homily De coemeterio et de cruce (CPG 4337) was delivered during a full eucharistic synaxis on Good Friday in a cemetery outside the gates of late-fourth-century Antioch. It demonstrates both rhetorical and theological prowess. Chrysostom consoles his hearers by likening death to sleep and reflecting on the cemetery as a “sleeping place” (koimeterion). The text is notable for its theology of physical space, its conception of liturgical anamnesis, and its presentation of the Christus Victor atonement motif. The homily also highlights the liturgical role of the Holy Spirit, especially by alluding to the eucharistic epiclesis, and it chastises the congregation for their poor behavior during the communion rite. This article presents the homily’s full text in Greek with English translation, followed by a commentary that probes its major themes and liturgical aspects.

Seventeenth-Century Catholic Reception Outside the de auxiliis Controversy

2021 ◽  
pp. 279-292
Author(s):  
Charles Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Holy See ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Love Of God ◽  
Commentarial Tradition

Seventeenth-century Thomists, with the exception of John of St Thomas, are today virtually unknown. Nevertheless, in their day they contributed to the Catholic reception of the thought of the Angelic Doctor not only by continuation of the commentarial tradition but also by engaging in the intramural Catholic debates in which the Holy See intervened. After introducing the reader to some of the more prominent Thomists of the century, this chapter outlines some Thomist responses to intramural Catholic debates concerning the formation of conscience in light of probable opinions, the nature of our desire for the beatific vision and its compatibility with love of God above self, and the role of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.

Spiritual Meaning and Experimental Piety in the Exegesis of Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Stievermann ◽  
Ryan P. Hoselton
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Critical Questions ◽  
Cotton Mather ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Religious Piety ◽  
Historical Issues

Jan Stievermann and Ryan P. Hoselton consider the role of experiential piety in the exegesis of Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards. Both were deeply engaged in the new critical questions of their day, and both were also committed to nurturing religious piety—though they differed somewhat in how they handled these concerns. Although Mather was profoundly interested in the philological and historical issues in the Bible, he prioritized devotional and contemplative engagement with Scripture. Edwards, Stievermann and Hoselton argue, drew on the experimental language and philosophy of the Enlightenment to construct a case for the supernatural authority of the Bible against increasingly naturalistic arguments. Edwards held that one gains spiritual understanding as the Holy Spirit harmonizes the believer’s internal senses with the Word; this reconstruction affected Edwards’ approach to the emotive element in Scripture, the dynamism of typology, and the nature of the regenerate interpreter of the Bible.

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