Improvisation and Ecclesial Ethics

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Wells
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
The Church

This chapter shows why and how Christian ethics is helpfully linked to improvisation in the theater. It describes universal (ethics for anyone), subversive (ethics for the excluded), and ecclesial (ethics for the church) as three strands of Christian ethics. It goes on to identify theatrical improvisation as a way of resolving tensions in ecclesial ethics—tensions largely concerned with synthesizing the virtue tradition stemming from Aristotle with the Christological pacifism of the New Testament, as identified by J. H. Yoder and others. Key terms in theatrical improvisation, notably status, overaccepting, and reincorporation, are introduced; and the proposal is illustrated with reference to the place of the church in contemporary Western Europe, particularly in relation to secularization and the perceived threat of Islam.

Bible Illustration and Gregorian Reform

1965 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 154-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. H. Brieger
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Large Size ◽  
Equal Importance ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
New Type ◽  
Gregorian Reform ◽  
The Church

This paper wishes to draw attention to a phenomenon which is of equal importance to the historian of art as to the ecclesiastical historian. In correlating facts which are largely known, it tries to explain the emergence of a new type of illustrated bible at the end of the eleventh century, chiefly in France and in Italy. These giant bibles, usually in more than one volume, were obviously not made for an individual reader who studied the bible in private. Their large size, as well as the richness and content of their decoration, indicate that they were conceived as visual symbols of the authority, the history, and the structure of the Church as an institution, as revealed in the Old and the New Testament. The origin of this new type of illustrated bible is closely connected with the Reform of the eleventh century, and it appears first in the diocese of Rheims, though its example was followed rapidly throughout western Europe.

scholarly journals Christen Gemeinde, Bürgergemeinden, Migranten, Aktiengesellschaften, Finanzmärkte …

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-79
Author(s):  
David Field
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
African Migrants ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Theological Politics ◽  
The Church

The thesis of this article is that the arrival and non-arrival of African migrants fractures the pseudo innocence of Western Europe exposing its colonial entanglements hence challenging the church to develop a decolonial theological politics. The article develops such a politics by re-examining and reconfiguring elements of Barth’s theological politics. It draws on his understanding of the “lordless powers” and of God taking the side of the poor and rereads them in the light of a counter imperial reading of the New Testament. This forms the basis for a reconfiguring of themes from his Christian Community and Civil Community.

scholarly journals Reconciliation priorities for the Church: Some German remarks

2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-381
Author(s):  
Friedrich Wilhelm Graf
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Church History ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Religious View ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church

Reconciliation has been a topic of major importance in both the German and South-African theological and political contexts. Political events involving the Christian Churches in these countries have prompted a renewed consideration of what is understood by the concept. This article examines some aspects of reconciliation in the contexts of Christian ethics and argues that, from a theological and historical perspective, the nature and practice of what was called reconciliatio is thoroughly religious, although what exactly is involved has been perceived differently over the course of Church history. Reference is also made to the New Testament understanding of the concept and in an attempt to actualise the biblical kerugma, several propositions regarding the significance of a religious view of reconciliation in an eschatological context are provided as a conclusion.

Eating with penitence: An essay on the local church eating responsibly

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-463
Author(s):  
David W. Priddy
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Local Church ◽  
Industrial Agriculture ◽  
Specific Program ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Local Congregations ◽  
Ecological Concern ◽  
The Church

In this essay, I pose the question, “How might local congregations participate in food reform and agricultural renewal?” Given the problems of industrial agriculture and the wider ecological concern, this question is pressing. Instead of advocating a specific program, I focus on how the Church might address this question while keeping its commitment to being a repentant Church. First, I discuss the significance of attention and particularly the habit of attending to the Word and Sacrament. This posture, I argue, maintains the Church’s integrity, preventing it from merely branding itself or relying on its own resources. Second, I briefly explore the association of eating with the mission of the Church in the New Testament, highlighting the repeated theme of judgment and call to humility in the context of eating. Third, I draw out the importance of continual remorse over sin. This attitude is essential to the Church’s vocation and rightly appears in many historic liturgies. I argue that this posture should extend to the question of eating responsibly. Penitence demonstrates the Church’s relationship to the wider world and testifies to the source of the Church’s own life, the Holy Spirit, who does the work of renewal.

scholarly journals Indicators of the church in John’s metaphor of the vine

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann Fourie
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Gospel Of John ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Unity In Diversity ◽  
The Church

This article aims to answer the question of what belongs to the essence of the church, as God intended it to be, by identifying certain indicators of the essence of the church through a study of one of the central metaphors of the New Testament: the vine in the Gospel of John. Through structural analyses, commentary and metaphorical analyses, several indicators of unity as part of the essence of the church emerge in this metaphor. These indicators are the primacy (or authority) of Christ, trinitarian balance, equality, interdependence, inclusivity, growth and unity (in diversity).Hierdie artikel poog om die volgende vraag te beantwoord: Wat behoort tot die essensie van kerkwees soos God dit bedoel het? Dit word gedoen deur sekere aanwysers van die essensie van kerkwees te identifiseer vanuit ’n studie van een van die essensiële metafore vir kerkwees in die Nuwe Testament, naamlik die Wynstok in die Evangelie van Johannes. Deur middel van struktuuranalise, kommentaar en metaforiese analise kom verskeie eenheidsaanwysers as deel van die essensie van kerkwees in hierdie metafoor na vore. Hierdie aanwysers is die hoër gesag (of outoriteit) van Christus, die balans van die Drie-eenheid, gelykheid, interafhanklikheid, inklusiwiteit, groei en eenheid (in diversiteit).

Charismata: Gifts, Enablements, or Ministries?

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Benny Aker
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Spiritual Gifts ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
Church Culture ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

AbstractIn the midst of a growing awareness of spiritual gifts in contemporary church culture and in the academy, much confusion exists. The use of the term 'charismata' promotes this confusion and is not an appropriate label for the biblical evidence of such activity. The problem lies in a deficient linguistic and exegetical handling of this term—a problem identified by James Barr long ago and brought to the fore by Kenneth Berding. Proper exegesis overcomes this prevalent exegetical and linguistic fallacy and suggests another term, diakonia. However, a more foundational conception of both the church and ministry is lacking. By analyzing Pauline anthropol ogy in Romans, an enduring and foundational model for gifts and ministries emerges. This model is the Pauline conception of the church as God's tem ple. People who are delivered from sin's power through identifying with Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection and who have the Spirit are free to give themselves both as sacrifice and temple servants in spiritual ministries. One other caution is raised and discussed. One must avoid the charge in practice and theology of Spirit-monism. Basic structures of the New Testament always place Jesus as the One through whom the Spirit comes. Conse quently, all Spirit activity must in some way be christological and sote riological in nature. Some contemporary applications are derived from this biblical theology of Church and ministry.

Ecclesia as Gathering Only? Evaluating the use of Scripture in Proposals of the “Knox-Robinson Ecclesiology”

2020 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-69
Author(s):  
C. Ryan Fields
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Testament ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church

Broughton Knox and Donald Robinson, Sydney Anglicans serving and writing in the second half of the twentieth century, offered various theological proposals regarding the nature of the church that stressed the priority of the local over the translocal. The interdependence and resonance of their proposals led to an association of their work under the summary banner of the “Knox-Robinson Ecclesiology.” Their dovetailed contribution offers in many ways a compelling understanding of the nature of the ecclesia spoken of in Scripture. In this paper I introduce, summarize, and evaluate the Knox-Robinson ecclesiology with a particular eye to Knox's and Robinson's use of Scripture in authorizing their theological proposals. I argue that while they provide an important corrective to the inflation of the earthly translocal dimension of the church, they are not ultimately persuasive in their claim that the New Testament knows only the church as an earthly/heavenly gathering.

scholarly journals Jewish fish (ΙΧΘΥΣ) in post-supersessionist water: Messianic Judaism within a post-supersessionistic paradigm

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Willitts
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
New Testament ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Messianic Judaism ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

This article defines, explains and argues for the necessity of a post-supersessionistic hermeneutical posture towards the New Testament. The post-supersessionistic reading of the New Testament takes the Jewish nature of the apostolic documents seriously, and has as its goal the correction of the sin of supersessionism. While supersessionism theologically is repudiated in most corners of the contemporary church through official church documents, the practise of reading the New Testament continues to exhibit supersessionistic tendencies and outcomes. The consequence of this predominant reading of the New Testament is the continued exclusion of Jewish ethnic identity in the church. In light of the growing recognition of multiculturalism and contextualisation on the one hand, and the recent presence of a movement within the body of Messiah of Jewish believers in Jesus on the other, the church’s established approach to reading Scripture that leads to the elimination of ethnic identity must be repudiated alongside its post-supersessionist doctrinal statements. This article defines terms, explains consequences and argues for a renewed perspective on the New Testament as an ethnic document; such a perspective will promote the church’s cultivation of real embodied ethnic particularity rather than either a pseudo-interculturalism or the eraser full ethnicity.

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