Communion as propaganda: Reinhard Hütter and the missionary witness of the ‘ChurchasPublic’

2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Flett
Keyword(s):  
Way Of Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Public Character ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

AbstractThe Protestant church, for Reinhard Hütter, relinquished its ecclesial public character when it turned from ‘binding doctrine’ as the means for establishing and maintaining its concrete ‘time-space’. Christendom disguised this basic theological flaw, but with its collapse the public basis of the Protestant church fell away. This reduced the church's witness and destroyed its communal structure. His positive proposal re-establishes the church as a public by reference to the communion nature of God, and to church practices as mediate forms of the Spirit's acting. Hütter's account shadows an argument made fifty years before by Johannes C. Hoekendijk, observing an intensified focus on word and sacrament and the promotion of a culture as a solution to the problem of the church's witness. Yet, for Hoekendijk, this logic exemplifies the problem. The institutions of the church come to bear the full evangelistic load. Mission replicates the basic structures of a particular way of life as a necessary precursor to the gospel. The act of witness becomes propaganda because of an insufficient doctrine of the church. This insufficiency is a failing in the doctrine of the Trinity: God's own life is defined without sufficient attention to his act of reconciliation and redemption as itself material to understanding the nature of hisin selife.

scholarly journals Perichoretic interaction within the Trinity as a paradigm for fostering unity in the Public Affairs Committee (PAC) in Malawi

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Fortein
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
National Unity ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Church And Society ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

The revival of the patristic doctrine of perichōrēsis in relation to the Trinitarian framework has received overwhelming support in modern theological discourse. From Anagorous to John of Damascus, and from reformation to the 21st century theological scholarship, the doctrine of perichōrēsis has been viewed by many as a palatable approach and a suitable paradigm in addressing various challenges affecting the church and society globally, because it is out of this patristic doctrine that the entire doctrine of the Trinity is sustained. If it was not for perichōrēsis neither nature, personal, or salvific doctrine of Trinity would have no value. If not for perichōrēsis, Arianism, encompassing all aspects of modalism with various assorted gods within Christianity, would be a global phenomenon. This article presents perichōrēsis as the paradigm in advancing a national unity agenda within the Church and State in conjunction with a case study of the Public Affairs Committee in Malawi, which is a representation of the voice of the faith community in addressing the national unity agenda and other governance issues. The main argument in the paper is that adoption and emulation of the immanent Trinitarian perichoretic life experienced within the Trinitarian community of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit is the best way forward in bringing meaningful unity in society today. This is because perichōrēsis, which flows within the Trinitarian framework, is the model and an example of what humans and society must emulate to enhance unity and togetherness.

The Vocabulary of the Septuagint and the Church Fathers

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Gilles Dorival
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Ex Nihilo ◽  
Hapax Legomenon ◽  
Creation Of Matter ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

The role of the Septuagint in the building of the Christian identity during the first Christian centuries is more important than it is generally said. The word ‘testament’ or ‘covenant’, for example, comes from the Septuagint, via the New Testament. The Greek and Latin liturgies are filled with references to the Septuagint. The same is true in the case of the Christian spirituality: for instance, the concept of the Christian life as a migration comes from the Septuagint. The Christian hermeneutics is indebted to the Greek Bible: even if knowledge of the allegorical method comes from the Greek philosophers (and Philo), support could be found for it in the verses of the Greek Bible. Finally, the theological vocabulary of the Christians was founded upon the Greek Bible. For instance, in the case of the doctrine of the Trinity, the word ‘person’ comes from the Septuagint. Furthermore, some passages of the Greek translation gave rise to theological interpretations which are not possible on the grounds of the Hebrew text. In Gen 1:2, the Septuagint reads ‘the earth was invisible and unorganized’ and this came to be quoted both in support of the creation of matter ex nihilo. In Exod 17:16, where the Hebrew has a difficult hapax legomenon, the Greek speaks about the ‘hidden hand’ with which the Lord makes war against Amalek; this ‘hidden hand’ played a role in the Christian doctrine of the Logos, which is hidden in the Old Testament.

The Doctrine of Appropriation as an Interpretative Framework for Karl Barth's Pneumatology of the Church Dogmatics

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-290
Author(s):  
Adam McIntosh
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Trinitarian Theology ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Interpretative Framework

Although Karl Barth is widely recognised as the initiator of the renewal of trinitarian theology in the twentieth century, his theology of the Church Dogmatics has been strongly criticised for its inadequate account of the work of the Holy Spirit. This author argues that the putative weakness of Barth's pneumatology should be reconsidered in light of his doctrine of appropriation. Barth employs the doctrine of appropriation as a hermeneutical procedure, within his doctrine of the Trinity, for bringing to speech the persons of the Trinity in their inseparable distinctiveness. It is argued that the doctrine of appropriation provides a sound interpretative framework for his pneumatology of the Church Dogmatics.

Richard Whately

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geertjan Zuijdwegt
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Academic Support ◽  
Orthodox Christianity ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Richard Whately ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Intellectual Independence

Richard Whately (1787-1863) is an intriguing figure in John Henry Newman’s development. Through his mentoring and academic support, he taught the gifted young Newman to think for himself. But intellectual independence came at a price. After a close relationship in the mid-1820s, Newman began to steer a course of his own. In the tumultuous early 1830s, their friendship foundered, as they clashed over key theological issues: the authority of the church, the doctrine of the Trinity, the nature of revelation, and the reasonableness of religious belief. Newman had come to think that Whately's theology endangered orthodox Christianity. This conviction shaped his later opposition to other Oriel Noetics, who thought like Whately. Despite their conflicts, Newman drew on Whately's work in logic and rhetoric to formulate his own theory of the relation between faith and reason.

scholarly journals Adam Pastor, Antitrinitarian Antipædobaptist

1917 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 73-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Henry Newman
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Infant Baptism ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
Traditional Doctrine

The intellectual, social, and religious upheaval of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of which the Renaissance and the Protestant Revolution were phases, along with the decidedly skeptical tendency of the Scotist philosophy which undermined the arguments by which the great mysteries of the Christian faith had commonly been supported while accepting unconditionally the dogmas of the Church—together with the influence of Neoplatonizing mysticism which aimed and claimed to raise its subjects into such direct and complete union and communion with the Infinite as to make any kind of objective authority superfluous:—all these influences conspired to lead many of the most conscientious and profoundly religious thinkers of the sixteenth century to reject simultaneously the baptism of infants and the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. Infant baptism they regarded as being without scriptural warrant, subversive of an ordinance of Christ, and inconsistent with regenerate church membership. Likewise the doctrine of the tripersonality of God, as set forth in the so-called Nicene and Athanasian creeds, involving the co-eternity, co-equality and consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and the personality of the Holy Spirit, they subjected to searching and fundamental criticism.

‘Another Puzzle is . . . the Holy Spirit’:De Trinitateas Augustine's Pneumatology

2012 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Najeeb Awad
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Written Discourse ◽  
De Trinitate ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

AbstractIn their study of Augustine'sDe Trinitate, scholars read the fifteen books which comprise this text as a monolithically written discourse on the doctrine of the Trinity. This article is an attempt to examine if it is possible to argue on tenable bases that pneumatology, rather than any other doctrine, is the subject of Augustine's text by showing that the interpretation of the identity and consubstantiality of the Spirit occupies inDe Trinitatea more foundational and central place than just being part of Augustine's discussion on the doctrine of the Trinity. It ultimately suggests that freeing Augustine's text from diachronic prejudices means also wondering if he really wanted to write an additional version of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity which he already followed, or whether he wanted to contribute something new about a relatively neglected doctrine in the faith of the church.

scholarly journals The Scope of the Power of Governance in the Canonical Legal Order (Canon 130 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law)

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3 ENGLISH ONLINE VERSION) ◽  
pp. 173-183
Author(s):  
Ginter Dzierżon
Keyword(s):  
Public Good ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Code Of Canon Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
External Domain ◽  
Public Character ◽  
The Church ◽  
Rule Out

In the presented study, the author carried out a detailed analysis of canon 130 CIC/83, demonstrating that the amendment of the canon dispelled some interpretative concerns that commentators had with regard to canon 196 CIC/17. The author believes it would be preposterous to reduce the forum of power of governance solely to the external domain. This is because the nature of the Church is not manifested only in this dimension. After all, the Church has both visible and invisible nature. Most acts of governance are placed externally because they serve the public good. Yet some of them are actions carried out in the internal forum, and it cannot be limited to the sphere of conscience because it has a wider scope. It is obvious that, as a rule, decisions taken for the internal forum due to their secrecy and lack of public character have consequences only in that forum. By introducing a clause which goes “except insofar as the law establishes it in determined cases,” the legislator does not rule out a different solution whereby internal forum acts also take effect in the external forum. The assumption of such an eventuality is intended to prevent conflicts between these areas.

The Career of John Abernethy (1680–1740) Father of Nonsubscription in Ireland and Defender of Religious Liberty

1985 ◽  
Vol 78 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 399-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Barlow
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Presbyterian Church ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The University ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

The British theological world was stirred at the beginning of the eighteenth century by what the learned and staunchly orthodox Presbyterian historian James Seaton Reid has called “latitudinarian notions on the inferiority of dogmatic belief and the nature of religious liberty.” In the 1690s John Locke had published his Reasonableness of Christianity and Letters on Toleration, followed by John Toland's Christianity Not Mysterious. In 1710 “Honest Will” Whitson, Sir Isaac Newton's successor as Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, was expelled from the University for embracing Arian views. His departure was accompanied by rumors—long since substantiated—about his great predecessor's heterodox theology. Traditional theologians were shocked next by the appearance of Dr. Samuel Clark's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity which resulted in the author's arraignment before Convocation of the Church of England in 1714. The very same year John Simson, Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow, was first tried before the General Assembly of the Scottish Presbyterian Church for teaching Arian and Pelagian errors. In 1729, after three more trials, Simson was suspended from his professorship for denying the numerical oneness of the Trinity. Fierce doctrinal contentions also began to occupy English Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists, erupting during the famous Salters’ Hall meeting early in 1719.

scholarly journals Syncritism in Pentecost-Charismatic Movement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredy Simanjuntak ◽  
Alexander Djuang Papay
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Charismatic Movement ◽  
The Public ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The history of the church notes that to this day the Protestant Church is a family whose history is most often divided. Nevertheless the development is quite significant in the present. The process of developing the church resulted in various streams in the church such as Lutheran, Calvinist, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Evangelical, Adventist, until Jehovah's Witnesses, in the course of the Pentecostal & Charismatic flow so fertile in today's growth. The flow of Pentecostalism and Charismaticism, in its origin and method, has a unique and phenomenal history in Indonesia. The uniqueness of Indonesia's spiritual context is illustrated by rapid growth. The Pentecostal and Charismatic movements felt their influence in various churches around us. Phenomena such as the ability to speak in tongues, healing, and prophecy and aspects of emotional experience that are so prominent in this movement make the public wonder, is it true that all of this is the work of the Holy Spirit? The purpose of this paper is to provide an observation of facts, spiritual life background, the meaning of faith, and understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit adopted by followers of the Pentecost-Charismatic Movement in the context of the challenges of contextualization and syncretism in the relationship between Pentecostal-Charismatic and Christian spirituality in Indonesia. In light of the significant regional diversity in Indonesian religious thought and experience, the scope of this research is limited to the idea of contextualization also limited to its use in the missiological context.

scholarly journals Trinitology towards Challenges of Pluralistic Theology of Religion Systematical, Moral and Theological Reflection

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2(16)) ◽  
pp. 167-181
Author(s):  
Ignacy Bokwa
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Practical Importance ◽  
Far East ◽  
Theological Reflection ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The World ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

Nowadays pluralistic theology of religion is rightly regarded as one of the greatest threats to Christianity. It specifically concerns Christology. A threat to the Christian belief in the Trinity, which is created by pluralistic theology of religion, is seen more rarely. Many scholars consider pluralistic theology of religion as a further step of the modern fight against Christianity and the Church. The increasing spread of religions of the Far East plays a significant role. Pluralistic theology of religion refers to the basic ideas of Buddhism, trying to create a universal religion of the world. Pluralist theology of religion treats every religion of the world with affection- with the exception of Christianity. It is Christianity that is supposed to be tolerant and to adapt to other religions by means of losing its own identity. Pluralistic theology of religion relativizes the Person of Jesus Christ, undermining the uniqueness of the incarnation of God. Jesus of Nazareth was only a prominent man standing near Reality itself (God). Since Jesus Christ was not an ontological Son of God, the doctrine of the Trinity is being undermined. Representatives of pluralistic theology of religion reject the idea of a personal God, at the same time hitting in all monotheistic religions. From their point of view, God is for the human mind unattainable reality which no revelation is able to bring. Various religions are only stages of searching for the final Reality itself. Father, Son and Spirit are nothing more than a projection of human yearnings and religious pursuits. Faced with such claims, Christian theology cannot remain silent. One should be reminded of development of faith in the Triune God in the life of the Church. This is a theoretical- scientific dimension of the problem. It also has its practical and existential meaning. Although Immanuel Kant claimed that the doctrine of the Trinity has no practical importance, contemporary theological reflection presents a new aspect of this problem. Communio- theology comprehends the mystery of the Trinity as an event of constant communication in which Father gives Himself to the Son and so they create the Holy Spirit. The mystery of diversity reconciled in the unity stands at the beginning of every reality. The mystery of the Holy Trinity has its significance not only inside (life of the Church) but also outside (life of the secular, political and economic community). Nowadays the latter has a special meaning in particular. It is a theological and moral surface of the reflection, showing that one should not be afraid of multiplicity and diversity but treat them as an opportunity. In the era of new conflicts and divisions that are increasing and the renewal of the old traumas, it turns out that appeals of the representatives of pluralist theology of religion are fake and are supposed to challenge the principles of Christianity, whereas Christian theology offers modern societies interesting proposals acceptable not only for those who believe.

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