Ecumenism or Distinctiveness? Seventh-Day Adventist Attitudes to the World Missionary Conference of 1910

1996 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 477-487
Author(s):  
Keith A. Francis

For the Seventh-day Adventist Church, whose doctrines are rooted in eschatological and apocalyptic theology, ecumenism is problematic. While the Church sees itself as one heir of the historic tradition of Christianity and so welcomes recognition as part of the mainstream, it also claims to be the organization through which God proclaims a special message to the modern age. Put simply, sometimes Seventh-day Adventists are happy to be part of the universal Church and at other times they claim to be members of the only true Church. Obviously, the latter, exclusivist attitude is in contradiction to the ethos of the ecumenical movement.

2021 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 418-430
Author(s):  
Jonathan Tobias

In For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church, there is a clear preference for the “democratic genius of the modern age.” This preference for democracy is due, in part, to the long experience of the Orthodox Church with other governmental forms, especially autocratic and authoritarian states.


2008 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 388-401
Author(s):  
Keith A. Francis

In 1993, commenting on the changing proportion of Christians in the major regions of the world, John V. Taylor (1914–2001), a past General Secretary of the Church Missionary Society (1963–74) and later Anglican bishop of Winchester (1975–85), wrote: The most striking fact to emerge … is the speed with which the number of Christian adherents in Latin America, Africa, and Asia has overtaken that of Europe, North America, and the former USSR. For the first time since the seventh century, when there were large Nestorian and Syrian churches in parts of Asia, the majority of Christians in the world are not of European origin Moreover, this swing to the ‘South’ has, it would seem, only just got going, since the birth rate in those regions is at present so much higher than in the developed ‘North’, and lapses from religion are almost negligible compared with Europe. By the middle of the next century, therefore, Christianity as a world religion will patently have its centre of gravity in the Equatorial and Southern latitudes, and every major denomination, except possibly the Orthodox Church, will be bound to regard those areas as its heartlands, and embody that fact in its administration.


Exchange ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Houtepen

AbstractFrom 9-23 February 2006 the World Council of Churches held its 9th Assembly in Porto Alegre, Brasil with the theme God, in your grace, transform the world. It gathered in an atmosphere of crisis in the ecumenical movement, caused by global political and religious developments, post-modern thinking on the value of plurality and difference and by the slow reception of ecumenical agreements. The Assembly, though, became a sign of hope beyond the ecumenical crisis. Its reflections and proposals on Globalisation and economic injustice, on Christian identity and religious plurality and on Church Unity and the Mission of the Church demonstrate a matured ecumenical and ecclesiological awareness, strengthened by a new method of decision-making by consensus. The document Called to be the one Church might be seen as the constitutional basis for a reconfiguration of the ecumenical movement and as a refinement of the Toronto Declaration of 1950. It formulates a matrix of catholicity and of a legitimate diversity of church forms within an essential convergence about its structures of continuity and mission.


Author(s):  
Tony Salurante

Christian Worldview is an approach that sees Christianity as a whole and interrelated one another. Worldview which how a person looks at the world where it to be a center of human worldview affects all human culture, behavior, and belief. Worldview is fundamentals but is not easy to understand. This research describes a relationship that has implications for the way the church takes mission. The changing world of modernity caused the Christian worldview becomes an anti-thesis of the secular worldview and other religions. This problem becomes a conflict of various ideas and believes that influences and conquers one another. One side of the church is between influences, on the other hand the church is called to reveal His truth. These problematics has arisen been since the Middle Ages when the philosopher who pioneered the teachings of humanism, reinaisance and enlightenment. The objective of this research is to introduce Christian philosophical concepts as a way how the church sees the various views of life of others. So that the church can distinguish wisely and know the values that influence other worldviews. Through this research will stimulate the church to realizes his calling as a church more effectively. By utilizing a philosophical-systematic approach, it produces answers to the questions of this study. A Christian worldview approach encourages the church to state the truth in every aspect of life and provides an important perspective for the church in the modern age to become an instrument of God's mission.  ABSTRAKWawasan Dunia Kristen merupakan sebuah pendekatan yang melihat kekristenan sebagai suatu kesatuan utuh yang saling terkait. Wawasan dunia merupakan cara pandangan seseorang melihat dunia dimana pusat dari wawasan dunia itulah yang mempengaruhi seluruh budaya manusia. Hal fundamental ini tidak mudah dipahami namun ia mengendalikan cara hidup manusia. Penelitian ini menjelaskan relasi yang memiliki implikasi kepada cara gereja bermisi. Di tengah dunia modern yang semakin berubah membuktikan bagaimana wawasan dunia Kristen menjadi anti tesis dari wawasan dunia sekular dan agama lain. Masalah ini menjadi sebuah konflik dari berbagai ide dan kepercayaan yang saling mempengaruhi. Satu sisi gereja berada di antara pengaruh-pengaruh, di sisi lain gereja terpanggil untuk menyatakan kebenaran-Nya. Masalah besar ini muncul sejak abad pertengahan dimana para filusuf yang mempelopori ajaran-ajaran humanism, reinaisance dan pencerahan. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah memperkenalkan konsep filosofis Kristen sebagai cara pandangan gereja menilai berbagai pandangan hidup orang lain. Sehingga gereja dapat membedakan dan mengetahui nilai-nilai yang mempengaruhi wawasan dunia lain. Dengan cara memanfaatkan pendekatan filosof-sistematis maka menghasilkan jawaban dari pertanyaan dari penelitian ini. Pendekatan dengan Wawasan Dunia Kristen mendorong gereja untuk menyatakan kebenaran di setiap aspek kehidupan dan memberikan perspektif yang penting bagi gereja di abad modern sekarang untuk menjadi alat misi Tuhan.


Author(s):  
Geoffrey Wainwright

Generically, ‘faith and order’ designates the contents of doctrinal belief and the patterns of social and governmental structure that mark the historically varied communities that claim the name and status of ‘church’. Concern with these closely connected areas has been central to the worldwide ecumenical movement since the early twentieth century. The chapter focuses on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, which has the overall aim of calling the churches to the goal of visible unity in order that the world may believe. It considers the activities and organization of the Commission, and various fruits of its work across a range of issues, including the apostolic faith, anthropological and moral issues, tradition, and ecclesiology. It particularly highlights the consensus document on ‘Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry’ (1982), and the process culminating in the report: ‘The Church: Towards a Common Vision’ (2013).


Author(s):  
Brian Stanley

This chapter examines the ecumenical movement. The twentieth century has sometimes been denominated by historians of Christianity as “the ecumenical century.” Narratives of the ecumenical movement typically begin with the World Missionary Conference, held in Edinburgh in June of 1910, which assembled some 1,215 Protestant delegates from various parts of the globe to devise a more effective common strategy for the evangelization of the world. Viewed with the benefit of hindsight, the Edinburgh conference has been widely identified as the birthplace of the formal ecumenical movement. Without it, there would be no World Council of Churches. Yet serious attempts to bridge divisions between Protestant Christians were already under way in India and China before 1910. Furthermore, the World Missionary Conference was precisely that—a gathering of mission executives and missionaries convened to consider questions of missionary policy. Delegates represented missionary agencies rather than churches, and discussion of questions of doctrine and church order was forbidden, in deference to the Church of England, whose endorsement would not have been given if the conference had been expected to discuss matters of faith and order with Nonconformists. The chapter then looks at the failure and success of the ecumenical movement.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jurjen A. Zeilstra

God’s diplomat, the pope of the ecumenical movement, but also an acerbic theologian and a difficult person: this is how journalists characterised Willem Adolf Visser ’t Hooft (1900-1985). He was one of the best-known Dutch theologians outside the Netherlands and he left his mark on the world church. Even at an early age, he made profound efforts in support of international ecumenical youth and student organisations (Dutch Student Christian Movement, YMCA and World Student Christian Federation). He led the World Council of Churches during its formative stages (from 1938), and after its formal establishment in 1948 became its first general secretary, serving until 1966. To Visser ’t Hooft, the unity of the church was both an article of faith and a pragmatic organisation of church influence in a disunited world.


Author(s):  
Michael Root

Ethics has rarely in the past been a cause of church-dividing dispute, but recently it has developed into a source of contention. The early ecumenical movement sought to give an agreed moral witness. Conferences at Stockholm (1925), Oxford (1937), and Geneva (1967) developed a tradition of ecumenical moral reflection within the World Council of Churches. Profound changes came to this tradition as emphasis shifted after 1967 towards a ‘contextual liberation ecumenism’, focusing on solidarity with liberation movements of the oppressed. More recently, ethics has been taken up in ecumenical dialogues. Dialogues have discussed specific moral issues (e.g. divorce, war, homosexuality) as well as more general questions of the relation of ethics to the unity of the church. While some dialogues have reported a fundamental agreement of ethical outlook, some recent dialogues have found significant differences, extending from questions related to sexuality to broader issues of the sources of ethical teaching.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (03) ◽  
pp. 20628-20638
Author(s):  
Anik Yuesti ◽  
I Made Dwi Adnyana

One of the things that are often highlighted in the world of spirituality is a matter of sexual scandal. But lately, the focus of the spiritual world is financial transparency and accountability. Financial scandals began to arise in the Church, as was the case in the Protestant Christian Church of Bukti Doa Nusa Dua Congregation in Bali. The scandal involved clergy and even some church leaders. This study aims to describe how the conflict occurred because of financial scandals in the Church. The method used in this study is the Ontic dialectic. Based on this research, the conflict in the Bukit Doa Church is a conflict caused by an internal financial scandal. The scandal resulted in fairly widespread conflict in the various lines of the organization. It led to the issuance of the Dismissal Decrees of the church pastor and also one of the members of Financial Supervisory Council. This conflict has also resulted in the leadership of the church had violated human rights. Source of conflict is not resolved in a fair, but more concerned with political interests and groups. Thus, the source of the problem is still attached to its original place.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 149-163
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Kirch

Both Pope Francis and Robert Schreiter recognize that the world has been profoundly affected by conflict, globalization, and the breakdown of relationships on multiple levels. They also assert that the Church must address these situations. The ecclesiologies of both Schreiter and Francis offer effective tools for this work. This article will examine several key, shared concepts within their ecclesiologies. Specifically, their understandings of the missionary nature of the Church and their robust understanding of catholicity prove to be key concepts in the Church's response to a world marred by sin.


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