The Ministry—A Renewed Quest

1967 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-311
Author(s):  
William Nicholls
Keyword(s):  
World Conference ◽  
Fourth World ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Theological Study ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
Work Done ◽  
The Church

The Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order, meeting at Montreal in July 1963, recommended the renewal of the study of the Ministry, within a new programme of theological study to be initiated by the Faith and Order Commission. As was noted at Montreal, the Ministry had not been the subject of Faith and Order study for twenty-five years. There were good reasons for this. While the Ministry continued to be the thorniest of the practical problems facing union negotiators, it was widely agreed that theologically it had failed and would continue to fail to yield to a head-on treatment. Only in the light of the doctrine of the Church, considered in its christological and eschatological dimensions, would the Ministry appear in a form that could draw Christians together in church union. So, without altogether losing sight of the hope that something helpful could be said about the Ministry, Faith and Order turned, first to the doctrine of the Church, and then, in the period after Lund, to a study of Christ and the Church. Now the time has come to return to the Ministry, in the light of the work done at these deeper levels of Christian doctrine.

The Atonement and the Oneness of the Church

1954 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. F. Torrance
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Third World ◽  
Actual State ◽  
World Conference ◽  
The One ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

In August 1952 the Third World Conference on Faith and Order meeting at Lund, formulated its Ecumenical objective in terms like this: Our major differences clearly concern the doctrine of the Church, but let us penetrate behind the divisions of the Church on earth to our common faith in the one Lord. Let us start from the central fact that Jesus Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, and by His Spirit made it His own Body. From the oneness of Christ we will try to understand the unity of the Church in Him and from the unity of Christ and His Body we will seek a means of realising that unity in the actual state of our divisions on earth. What is envisaged here is a thorough-going Christological criticism of our differences in order to open up the way for reformation and reunion of the Church in obedience to the one Lord.

The Doctrine of the Ministry in Reformed Theology

1943 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. McNeill
Keyword(s):  
Reformed Theology ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church

In Reformed theology the doctrine of the ministry is an essential part of the doctrine of the church. The ministry is never a matter of indifference to theology. Its character, authority, forms and functions are prescribed and described in doctrinal statements of the churches, and the subject has been doctrinally and historically expounded by many theologians. While these writers differ in detail in their teaching on the ministry, they agree in main outline and together present a body of doctrine that is both consistent and explicit.

Holiness and Order: British Methodism's Search for the Holy Catholic Church

Ecclesiology ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-96
Author(s):  
David Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
John Wesley ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church

AbstractThis article investigates British Methodism's doctrine of the Church in relation to its own ecclesial self-understanding. Methodists approach the doctrine of the Church by reflecting on their 'experience' and 'practice', rather than systematically. The article sketches the cultural and ecclesial context of Methodist ecclesiology before investigating the key sources of British Methodist doctrinal teaching on the Church: the theological legacy of John Wesley; the influence of the non-Wesleyan Methodist traditions as represented by Primitive Methodism; twentieth-century ecumenical developments; and British Methodist Faith and Order statements on the subject. The phenomenon of 'emerging expressions of Church' makes the question of the nature and location of the Church pertinent at the present time for all Christian traditions.

THE PROTESTATION PROTESTED, 1641 AND 1642

2002 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID CRESSY
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Religious Involvement ◽  
The Political ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church

Parliament's Protestation of May 1641 pledged subscribers to defend the protestant doctrine of the Church of England against all popery and popish innovations, while upholding the honour of the king, the privileges of parliament, and the liberties of the subject. The following twelve months saw contentious debate about the ambiguity of these phrases and the conflicting obligations they entailed. Leaders of the political nation subscribed the Protestation voluntarily in the summer of 1641, emulated in some places by ordinary parishioners. In the more polarized political circumstances of early 1642, parliament ordered the Protestation to be taken nationwide by all men aged eighteen and above. Women, too, occasionally subscribed. This article traces the tendering and reception of the Protestation on both occasions, and examines some of its local consequences. The circulation of the Protestation significantly widened the arena for political and religious involvement in the opening stages of the English revolution.

Baptism in the Church

1949 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-403
Author(s):  
T. W. Manson
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Code Of Conduct ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
The Past ◽  
Corporate Worship ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
Theological Study ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church

The new and sustained interest in the doctrine of the Church, which is one of the outstanding characteristics of theological study in our day, has lately taken a turn which seems to hold the promise of fresh and fruitful developments. There has been any amount of discussion in the past about the Church's faith as worked out in controversy and expressed in creeds and confessions; about the Church's organisation and the functions and status of her ministers; about the Church's code of conduct or ethical ideals. In these discussions it has not always been remembered that the Church is a worshipping community. True, there was a branch of study called liturgiology; but few students were attracted to it. To most people it seemed to be at best a harmless kind of antiquarianism remote from the main business of theology and the real life of the Church. Its exponents tended to be looked upon—often, it must be confessed, not without justification—as diligent pickers-up of unconsidered trifles. All that is changing. It is realised that the corporate worship of the Christian community in all its aspects is an essential and distinctive part of its life; and that it is one of the main tasks of Christian theology to know and interpret Christian worship.

New directions in adult baptism: Baptism in a secular culture

Theology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 121 (6) ◽  
pp. 430-436
Author(s):  
W. John Carswell
Keyword(s):  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Christian Initiation ◽  
Secular Culture ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Work Done ◽  
The Church

In this article I argue that the rise of secular culture demands a new approach to baptism, especially the baptism of adult converts for whom the claims of Christianity may be entirely unfamiliar and who will in consequence need extensive preparation to make the sacrament sensible and the Christian life meaningful. Towards that end, I review work done on the subject in the Church of Scotland and commend the Roman Catholic Rites of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) as a model for the development of a full catechumenate.

The System of Views on the Orthodox Church of the Participants in “Religious-Philosophical Meetings” (1901–1903)

2019 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 146-164
Author(s):  
Vasiliy A. Shchipkov
Keyword(s):  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Secular Institution ◽  
The World ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
Main Flaw ◽  
The Way

The purpose of the article is to identify and analyze ecclesiology, the doctrine of the Church, offered by the participants of Religious and philosophical meetings (1901–1903) from the “party” of the intelligentsia (Ternavtsev, Merezhkovsky, Rozanov, Philosofov, Minsky, Romanov), as well as to show its secular and political nature. This ecclesiology contained the following provisions: change in Christian dogma was declared possible; the Church was differentiated as “historical” and “mystical”; the main flaw of the “historical” Church being that it preached only the heavenly and ignored the worldly ideals; the worldly principles were declared autonomous and equal to the divine principles; the intelligentsia proposed the way of Christianizing the world and returning the Church to its “fullness”, in which not the world approached the Church, but the Church approached the world and became a worldly, secular institution; the secularization of the Church in this context meant the introduction of Protestant and pagan elements into the Christian doctrine.

The Relevance of the Old Testament for the Doctrine of the Church

1952 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23
Author(s):  
Robert Smith
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Church Of Christ ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
Suffering Servant

In recent discussions the doctrine of the Church has been approached from an unusual angle, by way of certain conceptions found in the Old Testament, such as the Covenant, the Remnant, and the Suffering Servant. In this article I propose to examine the validity and significance of this approach.Is it legitimate to use the Old Testament in this way as a source of Christian doctrine? If so we must be quite clear what we are doing and why we are doing it. The importance of these ideas in the history of Israel is generally agreed. Their influence on the New Testament is obvious. But can we make them into normative and formative principles in the life of the Church for all time? In so doing we are not merely borrowing certain moral and religious ideas from the legacy of Israel and adding them to the store of Christian truth. That is a common practice which needs no special justification, because it does not affect the basis of Christian doctrine. Any theological jackdaw can collect whatever suits him from the prophetic writings and use it in building a Christian nest. But we are going to the Old Testament for the foundation plan of the Christian Church. We are applying the promises and attributes which belong by historic right to the sons of Abraham to the mission and destiny of the Church of Christ. There is a big assumption here which is too often taken for granted.

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