CONFORMITY, NONCONFORMITY, AND CRITICAL SOLIDARITY: The Church-State Issue and the Use of the Bible

2000 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 240-261
Author(s):  
Johannes Nissen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Nationalism And Identity ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Bible Reading ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe focus of this article is on the church-state issue, particularly in relation to the use of the Bible. The article has three parts. The first introductory part identifies four contemporary challenges: the attitude of Christians toward asylum-seekers and refugees, the question of civil disobedience, the role of the church in nation-building and the problem of nationalism and identity. Then follows some notes on the question of definition and methodology. The way we define the "state" influences our selection of relevant biblical texts. Any use of the Bible must face the risk of "proof texting." The second part offers some historical comments on selected texts. This includes the traditional "state" texts as well as other texts that reveal a critical perspective on the power issue. The third part points at a number of hermeneutical problems: (1) diversity and unity in the New Testament; (2) various levels of authority; (3) selective Bible reading and the method of correlation; (4) three different ways of perceiving the church-state issue: assimilation, alienation and critical solidarity. Both formation and malformation can be the result of the encounter of the churches with the public world. The article concludes with some reflections on the search for a just society in the biblical tradition.

Rediscovering the Formative Power of Scripture Reading for the Church

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-42
Author(s):  
Mark A. Maddix
Keyword(s):  
Christian Faith ◽  
Modern Approach ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Bible Reading ◽  
The Church

Central to Christianity is the belief is that the Bible is inspired and authoritative for Christian faith and practice. Even though Christians affirm the authority of the Bible, there is a decline in Bible reading and Scripture usage in worship and discipleship. More recent biblical scholarship, built on a pre-modern approach to interpretation, moves to a reader-centered approach to biblical reading. The focus of this article is to explore a reader-centered approach to Bible reading that gives focus to the role of Scripture as means of formation. This rediscovery of the formative power of Scripture has implications for how the Bible is appropriated in worship and discipleship for the church.

scholarly journals The use and origin of the (Old and) New Testament as Christianity’s canon

2012 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andries G. Van Aarde
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church

This article explained the valuation of Christian believers with regard to the Christian Bible a ‘Holy Scripture’. In the article the notion ‘Scriptural authority’ was connected with an understanding of both the origin and use of the Christian canon. The article described the origin of the Bible in light of the supposition that the Bible functions as (1) book of theology, as well as (2) book of believers and as (3) book of the church. The article consisted of references to the role of the Old Testament and the New Testament canonical collections and the role of ecclesial synodal decisions. It also obtained a graphical overview of the history and dates of the New Testament writings as a canonical list. The article concluded with a reflection on the relevance for the use and authority of the Bible, seen from the perspective of the use and origin of the Bible as Christianity’s canon.

scholarly journals The Metamorphosis of Written Devotion in the Age of Vatican II (c. 1948–c. 1998) in Hungary—Guestbooks in Hungarian Marian Shrines

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 235
Author(s):  
Krisztina Frauhammer
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Combined Effect ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
The Public ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Personal Prayer ◽  
The Church

This article presents the Hungarian manifestations of a written devotional practice that emerged in the second half of the 20th century worldwide: the rite of writing prayers in guestbooks or visitors’ books and spontaneously leaving prayer slips in shrines. Guestbooks or visitors’ books, a practice well known in museums and exhibitions, have appeared in Hungarian shrines for pilgrims to record requests, prayers, and declarations of gratitude. This is an unusual use of guestbooks, as, unlike regular guestbook entries, they contain personal prayers, which are surprisingly honest and self-reflective. Another curiosity of the books and slips is that anybody can see and read them, because they are on display in the shrines, mostly close to the statue of Virgin Mary. They allow the researcher to observe a special communication situation, the written representation of an informal, non-formalised, personal prayer. Of course, this is not unknown in the practice of prayer; what is new here is that it takes place in the public realm of a shrine, in written form. This paper seeks answers to the question of what genre antecedents, what patterns of behaviour, and which religious practices have led to the development of this recent practice of devotion in the examined period in Hungarian Catholic shrines. In connection with this issue, this paper would like to draw attention to the combined effect of the following three factors: the continuity of traditions, the emergence of innovative elements and the role of the church as an institution. Their parallel interactions help us to understand the guestbooks of the shrines.

Personal Bible Reading and the Faith Formation of Teenagers in a Digital Age

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Judith Hildebrandt ◽  
Jack Barentsen ◽  
Jos de Kock
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Faith Formation ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Back Seat ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Bible Reading ◽  
People Today

Abstract History shows that the use of the Bible by Christians has changed over the centuries. With the digitization and the ubiquitous accessibility of the Internet, the handling of texts and reading itself has changed. Research has also shown that young people’s faith adapts to the characteristics of the ‘age of authenticity’, which changes the role of normative institutions and texts in general. With regard to these developments this article deals with the question: How relevant is personal Bible reading for the faith formation of highly religious Protestant German teenagers? Answers to this question are provided from previous empirical surveys and from two qualitative studies among highly religious teenagers in Germany. The findings indicate, that other spiritual practices for young people today are more important as a source of faith than reading the Bible. The teenagers interviewed tend to seek an individual affective experience when reading the Bible, so that the importance of cognitive grasp of the content takes a back seat to personal experience.

scholarly journals THE (IR)RELEVANCE OF BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP? A CHALLENGE, AND AN OPPORTUNITY

Scriptura ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin D. Giffone
Keyword(s):  
North Atlantic ◽  
Qualitative Difference ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The North ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Biblical Education ◽  
Bible Reading

Has biblical scholarship become irrelevant to modern secular societies? Are the threats to the viability of biblical scholarship of the same nature as the threats to other areas of the humanities (history, philosophy, literature), or is there a qualitative difference? What about the role of technology in biblical research and biblical education? What is the future of the institutions of biblical scholarship such as universities, seminaries, journals, and academic presses? What is the role of biblical scholars in secular and post-secular societies, as contrasted with scholars in/from emerging communities? This essay argues that the problem of “validation” lies at the heart of biblical scholarship’s irrelevancy within the broader secularity of modern world and that this problem is even more evident in the scholarly discourse coming from regions like Eastern Europe and South Africa. However, the loss of authority of biblical scholarship more generally represents an opportunity for these communities. Rather than becoming enamoured of validation from the North Atlantic world, Bible-reading communities must cultivate their own forms of validation based in their unique histories with the Bible, and the affinities between their own histories/cultures and the cultures that produced the Old and New Testament texts.

scholarly journals Social and Political Consequences of the Pandemic for the Russian Orthodox Church

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-558
Author(s):  
Roman N. Lunkin
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cyber Space ◽  
The Church

In the article analyzed the social and political consequences of pandemic of coronavirus for the Russian Orthodox Church in the context of the reaction of different European churches on the quarantine rules and critics towards the church inside Russia. The author used the structural-functional and institutional approaches for the evaluation of the activity of the Russian Orthodox Church, was analyzed the sources of mass-media and the public claims of the clergy. In the article was made a conclusion that Orthodox Church expressed itself during the struggle with coronavirus as national civic institute where could be represented various even polar views. Also the parish activity leads to the formation of the democratic society affiliated with the Church and the role of that phenomenon have to be explored in a future. The coronacrisis makes open the inner potential of the civic activity and different forms of the social service in Russian Church. In the same time pandemic provoked the development of the volunteer activity in the around-church environment and also in the non-church circles among the young people and the generation of 40th age where the idea of the social responsibility for themselves and people around and the significance of the civil rights was one of the popular ideas till 2019. The conditions of the self-isolation also forced the clergy to struggle for their parishioners and once again renovate the role of the church in the society and in the cyber space.

The Church of the Reigning Lord

1948 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-73
Author(s):  
R. Stuart Louden
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Pauline Epistles ◽  
History Of ◽  
Four Square ◽  
The Church

We can trace a revival of theology in the Reformed Churches in the last quarter of a century. The new theological interest merits being called a revival of theology, for there has been a fresh and more thorough attention given to certain realities, either ignored or treated with scant notice for a considerable time previously.First among such realities now receiving more of the attention which their relevance and authority deserve, is the Bible, the record of the Word of God. There is an invigorating and convincing quality about theology which is Biblical throughout, being based on the witness of the Scriptures as a whole. The valuable results of careful Biblical scholarship had had an adverse effect on theology in so far as theologians had completely separated the Old Testament from the New in their treatment of Biblical doctrine, or in expanding Christian doctrine, had spoken of the theological teaching of the Synoptic Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, the Johannine writings, and so on, as if there were no such thing as one common New Testament witness. It is being seen anew that the Holy Scriptures contain a complete history of God's saving action. The presence of the complete Bible open at the heart of the Church, recalls each succeeding Christian generation to that one history of God's saving action, to which the Church is the living witness. The New Testament is one, for its Lord is one, and Christian theology must stand four-square on the foundation of its whole teaching.

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 Role of Women

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Bramadat
Keyword(s):  
Senior Pastors ◽  
Christian Reformed ◽  
Level Of Involvement ◽  
Evangelical Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Evangelical Women ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Church

Whenever I describe the IVCF to non-Christian academic peers, they almost invariably express their astonishment at the fact that at virtually every IVCF event I attend, approximately 70% of the participants are women. Perhaps this level of involvement is not unusual in the world of contemporary Protestantism; after all, in many of the churches IVCF members attend every Sunday, women outnumber men. However, the proportion of women to men is not as high in evangelical churches as it is in the IVCF (Bibby 1987:102; Rawlyk 1996:143). As well, women’s roles are usually much more tightly controlled in many if not most evangelical churches than they are in the IVCF. In fact, IVCF participants who attend churches in the Fellowship Baptist, Christian Reformed, and Brethren traditions may never see a woman in the pulpit, or, if women are allowed to speak at the front of the church, they are not usually permitted to become senior pastors or interpret the Bible. At the IVCF functions I have attended, however, women are in no way restricted in their abilities to lead worship, deliver sermons, organize events, or perform any of the myriad tasks involved in maintaining the group. In fact, the chapter’s paid staff worker is a woman, and she tries to ensure that the position of president alternates between a male and a female student every other year. I began to wonder how to make sense of the high level of female participation at every McMaster IVCF event I attended, especially in light of the fact that the scholarly literature on evangelicalism in North America often depicts the tradition as inimical or opposed to the egalitarian or feminist values that are so prevalent at universities. During my research, I found that many, but not all, of the evangelical women I interviewed maintain nonegalitarian views on the role of women. In other words, the common academic depiction of the place of women in evangelicalism seems to be confirmed by my experience, even though I hope to nuance this portrayal somewhat.

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