Gregory Baum's Theory of Social Change

Horizons ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-72
Author(s):  
Don Schweitzer

AbstractTheologies dedicated to radical social change require an understanding of how social change is possible. Gregory Baum has developed such a theory based on Max Weber's notion of charismatic leadership. This article analyzes Baum's understanding of the nature and dynamics of social change, the role of symbols therein, and shows how Baum corrects certain weaknesses in Weber's thought. Baum's theory could be strengthened by drawing upon Christian symbols of eschatological hope and the doctrine of the Trinity. This would help the church relate its faith to social movements and countervailing trends in terms of its own symbol system.

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Gilles Dorival

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.


Author(s):  
Valentyn Syniy

It is emphasized that the involvement of missionary theology in the discussion of ways to develop spiritual education allowed post-soviet Protestantism to successfully overcome differences in the vision of the formal construction of education, and then move on to discussions about its content. There was a gradual overcoming of modern individualism, the growing role of communities, the replacement of monologue models of mission with dialogical ones. The idea of the seminary as a community that is not self-sufficient, but serves the church as a community, has gained general recognition. The church also came to be understood as serving an eschatological ideal community similar to the Trinity community. The formation of community and dialogical models of missionary and educational activity allows Ukrainian Protestantism to effectively adapt to the realities of the beginning of the 21st century and to be proactive in today's society.


Perichoresis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Stephen R. Holmes

Abstract This article considers the post-Reformation debates over the extent of the Atonement. It traces the origins of these debates from the articles of the Arminian Remonstrance of 1610 through the declarations of the supporters of the Synod of Dort in 1618-19. The debate is then considered in relation to an English Baptist context, and specifically the exegetical dispute over the meaning of the word ‘all’ in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 and Romans 3:23-4. Three options are examined and the various difficulties in arbitrating between these various interpretations. Recognising these difficulties, the article goes on to explore the relationship between scriptural exegesis and theology with reference to the formulation of the ecumenical doctrine of the Trinity in the fourth century. It argues that while theology should always attempt to be consistent with the exegetical data on occasion it proves inconclusive, as in the case of the debate over the extent of the atonement. In such cases the role of theology becomes one of mediation as it seeks a way of reading the texts of Scripture that allows them to be heard without contradicting each other. Again, this is illustrated from the fourth century and the Christology of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa. Returning to the question of atonement with this understanding of the task of theology the article seeks to propose a way to reconcile the biblical texts which speak of the atonement as both universal and limited.


Author(s):  
Sverre Bagge

This chapter examines four themes that raise the question of the connection between cultural development and social change in the Scandinavian kingdoms: religious versus secular literature, the social importance of Christianity, the writing of history, and the formation of a courtly culture from the mid-thirteenth century onwards. In particular, it considers the extent to which cultural and literary expressions of these social changes were actively used to promote the interests of the monarchy, the Church, and the aristocracy. The chapter first discusses the role of the Church as the main institution of learning in Scandinavia and in the rest of Europe before assessing the extent to which Christianity penetrated Scandinavian society at levels below the clerical elite. It then turns to a charismatic figure, St. Birgitta of Vadstena in Sweden, and historical writing as a literary genre in medieval Scandinavia. Finally, it provides an overview of courtly culture in Scandinavia.


2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-290
Author(s):  
Adam McIntosh

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.


Author(s):  
Cornelius J.P. Niemandt

Missional ecclesiology emerged as one of the significant trends in mission studies and ecumenical discussion in the last couple of years. What were these trends in missional ecclesiology? What kind of missional theology formed and fuelled the renewed interest in missional ecclesiology? What impact flowed from the important ecumenical events in 2010 (Edinburgh 2010 World Mission Conference, World Communion of Reformed Churches and Lausanne III)? This article explained the term ‘missional church’ and explored missional theology as participating in the life of the Trinity and thus mission as ‘joining in with the Spirit’. It explained the relationship between ecclesiology and missiology. The trends in missional ecclesiology were tracked by focusing on an incarnational approach to the church; relationality in the community of believers; the role of the kingdom of God; discernment as the first act in mission; imago Dei and creativity; the ecclesia and local community and finally mission and ethics.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
Tom Juravich

This paper traces the history of the song “Bread and Roses” to examine labor culture and the role of song in the labor movement. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, “Bread and Roses” was included in several of the first generation song books produced by unions that reflected an expansive and inclusive labor culture closely connected with the Left. With the ascendance of business unionism and the blacklisting of the Left after the war, labor culture took a heavy blow, and labor songbooks became skeletons of the full-bodied versions they had once been. Unions began to see singing not as part of the process of social change but as a vehicle to bring people together, and songs such as “Bread and Roses” and other more class-based songs were jettisoned in favor of a few labor standards and American sing-along songs. “Bread and Roses” was born anew to embody a central concept in the women’s movement and rode the wave of new music, art, and film that were part of new social movements and new constituencies that challenged business unionism and reshaped union culture in the 1980s.


Author(s):  
Geertjan Zuijdwegt

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.


1917 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 73-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Henry Newman

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.


2012 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Najeeb Awad

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.


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