Review of Frank D. Macchia's Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clark H. Pinnock

AbstractFrank Macchia's Baptized in the Spirit is a significant volume in Christian theology written by a leading American Pentecostal theologian. The book sheds light on topic after topic, employing Spirit baptism as the guiding principle. Macchia argues that, more than empowerment, Spirit baptism justifies and sanctifies, renews and empowers the people of God and will go on doing so until creation is turned into the dwelling place of God. He develops a doctrine of the church as a Spirit-baptized and gifted fellowship, a sign of grace in the midst of the gracelessness that is in the world. The book represents an important maturation of Pentecostal thinking that engages a world-wide conversation.

2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (106) ◽  
pp. 349
Author(s):  
José Raimundo de Melo

A multiplicidade e variedade dos serviços ministeriais que se fazem presentes na celebração litúrgica do povo de Deus é elemento chave na compreensão da comunidade cristã, pois os ministérios, em definitivo, exprimem e definem a própria realidade da Igreja. A inteira assembléia é ministerial porque a Igreja mesma é toda ministerial. E esta ministerialidade se expressa na liturgia através da diversidade de funções e ofícios que cada um é chamado a desempenhar. Ao contrário do que quase sempre sucede no mundo, porém, a hierarquia de funções na Igreja não denota prestígio e nem pode conduzir à acepção de pessoas. Ancorada na mais pura linha evangélica, deve ela indicar compromisso cristão e serviço fraterno em total doação a Deus e aos irmãos. Para uma reflexão sobre esta importante realidade eclesial, que a partir sobretudo do Concílio Vaticano II a Igreja tem aprofundado e se esforçado em viver, empreenderemos a seguir, ancorados em alguns textos litúrgicos, um estudo a respeito dos ministérios presentes no momento celebrativo da comunidade cristã. Publicamos aqui a primeira parte do artigo.ABSTRACT: The multiplicity and variety of ministerial services which are present in a liturgical celebration of the People of God is a key element in the understanding of the Christian community, since ministries, of themselves, express and define the very reality of the Church. The entire assembly is ministerial because the Church itself is all ministerial. And this ministeriality expresses itself in the liturgy through the diversity of functions and offices which each one is called on to fulfill. Contrary to what almost always happens in the world, however, the hierarchy of functions in the Church does not denote prestige, nor can it lead to the classification of persons. Anchored in the purest evangelical tradition, it should indicate Christian commitment and fraternal service in total self-giving to God and to others. For a reflection on this important ecclesial reality, which, especially from the Second Vatican Council, the Church has struggled to live out, we undertake a study – anchored in some liturgical texts – of the ministries present in the celebrative moment of the Christian community. We publish here the first part of the article. 


2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 871-880
Author(s):  
W. Clark Gilpin

The argument of Mark deWolfe Howe's The Garden and the Wilderness turned on the contrast Howe drew between two uses of a single phrase: “wall of separation.” Thomas Jefferson used the phrase in 1802, in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state.” More than a century and a half earlier, in 1644, the colonial advocate of religious freedom Roger Williams had employed the same phrase in a letter to his theological opponent, the Reverend John Cotton of Boston. According to Williams's reading of the Bible, the people of God—Jews and Christians—were “separate from the world,” and, “when they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the candlestick, and made His garden a wilderness, as at this day. And that therefore if He will ever please to restore His garden and paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world; and that all that shall be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of the world, and added unto his church or garden.”


Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 570
Author(s):  
Tracey Lamont

Pope Francis is urging ministry leaders to become a more synodal church, one where the people of God journey together as a faith community to create a more just and compassionate world. This calls for ministry leaders to embrace a paradigm shift, to not just rename their programs or develop new ones, but to develop a new worldview from which to understand and engage the New Evangelization as envisioned by Pope Francis. However, the 2018 Synod on Young People revealed that the current parish and diocesan programming with young adults are inadequate in: (1) curbing the increasing tide of religious disaffiliation in young adults and (2) addressing the real and felt needs of contemporary Catholic young adults. This article argues for a new ecclesiological imagination that enables ministry leaders to go out into the world to fully engage young adults in the life of the Church.


Author(s):  
Theodor Dieter

Ratzinger’s ecclesiology is a Eucharistic ecclesiology: the church is the people of God existing from the sacramental Body of Christ and thus becoming the ecclesial Body of Christ. Therefore the church is communio: the communion at the table with Christ and among the believers, and also a communion of local churches (communio ecclesiarum) that is the basis for the collegiality of the bishops. The spiritual and institutional dimensions of the Body of Christ are mutually interwoven. In every particular church the universal church is present; its representation and the point of reference in doctrinal matters for all is the pope. The church serves the presence of the Word of God in the world in such a way that the Word as it is witnessed to in Holy Scripture is communicated to all by authorized witnesses. Witness (content) and witnesses are inseparable, as succession and tradition are mutually interrelated as form and content.


Author(s):  
Enggar Objantoro

Today, the world is influenced by many views, such as secularism and atheism, which affect many people, so they are far from God.  Because of them, moral and ethical standards are not based on the belief of God, but just on the humanity standard.  For Christianity, the views cause many of God's believers to leave the Scripture's truths.  To solve the problem, Christians must learn from the Christian theologian who has a significant contribution to Christian theology.  One of the Christian theologians is Augustine.  Augustine was one of Christian’s famous theologians, in which his theology/thoughts are influenced Christian theology today.  This research uses a library research method to explore Augustine's ideas.  The books that expose about Augustine's views are used to find Augustine's theology.  The result of the research is that Augustine's theology is necessary and relevant to Christian's theology today to confront the world's views so that the people of God do not live far from God.


Author(s):  
Ramón Luzárraga

Anglophone Caribbean theology is a theology of the people, developing autonomously from the theology of the people developed by Argentine theologians. Their idea that a people’s concrete, day-to-day practice of their religious faith carries the authentic culture of a country, is an authentic source of Christian wisdom, yields true insights of God’s presence and activity in the world. This faith of the people, contextualized but not suppressed within the life of the Church overall and tapped into by its theologians, serve to evangelize a country and its people by calling a country and its people to a conversion to who they ought to be, a people of God who incarnate the Christian faith according to their unique genius, and share the fruits of the wisdom drawn from the lived experience of Christian faith by participating in the Church’s evangelizing mission. This idea finds affinity with the mission of the Caribbean theological project: cultural liberation from colonialism and neocolonialism which brings about a sense of inferiority and dependency by the people of the Caribbean toward global social and political powers. Instead, Caribbean theology seeks to build a unique Caribbean identity which fulfills the full humanity of the people of that region.


Author(s):  
Loveday Alexander

This chapter adopts a narrative approach to the ecclesiology of the Synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, seeking to understand the shape of the gospel narrative and its impact on its audience(s). The deep structure of synoptic ecclesiology is built around two intertwined ecclesiological models: a ‘people of God’ ecclesiology and a ‘discipleship’ ecclesiology. John’s call to repentance and baptism, and the promise of the Spirit, marks the inauguration of the eschatological gathering-in of the people of God. The process continues in Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom in words of authority and deeds of power. The call of the disciples marks the inauguration of a messianic community, called to follow Jesus, to confess him as Messiah, and to follow him on the way of the cross. This is a radical call to a lifestyle based on an attitude of eschatological expectancy; to table-fellowship built around the remembered presence of Jesus; and to a commissioning and empowering for a future mission to the world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Natalya S. Gurianova

The article studies the religiosity of Russian population in the 17th century in order to find out the type of this state of public mind. Special attention is drawn to the acuteness of eschatological expectations in society, which intensified during periods of crises. After the Time of Troubles (Smuta), the Church, trying to bring society out of the spiritual crisis, had been exploiting the “end of the world” topic through publishing relevant texts. This trend was especially noticeable during the time of Patriarch Joseph. The decision of the Moscow Printing House (Pechatnyi Dvor) to extend the amount of eschatological publications was determined not only by the direction of church policy, but also by the request in society, the desire of the population to get a more complete picture of the Christian teaching about the ultimate destinies of the world and man, since the spiritual crisis had presupposed an increase of apocalyptic moods. This desire indicates that the population was characterized by the religiosity of the medieval type. The article scrutinizes in particular the 2nd half of the 17th century, which modern researchers rightly designate as the early Modern era. In a society with such a keen perception of the time, the church reform, initiated in the middle of the century by Patriarch Nikon, was naturally not supported by a part of the population. In the interpretation of the defenders of the Old Belief, the actions of the reformers turned into clear signs of the advent of the kingdom of Antichrist, as it was prophesied in Christian teaching. It was not some peculiarity of the worldview of the opponents of church reform, their behavior adjusted the religiosity of the epoch. To justify these thoughts the position of Patriarch Nikon could be mentioned. Nikon found himself in a situation of disapproval and, arguing to be wrongfully convicted and misunderstood, he also used the eschatological doctrine. Based on the analysis of such facts, the article concludes that the 2nd half of the 17th century was characterized by religiosity of the medieval type.


2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-602
Author(s):  
Orlando O. Espín

After a historical and cultural grounding of Prosper of Aquitaine's lex orandi, lex credendi and of Anselm of Canterbury's notion that theology is fides quarens intellectum, this article examines the importance of constructing an Episcopal Latinoa theology that is clearly validated by the academy but whose most important validation comes from the people who are the church. Teología de conjunto (or teología en conjunto ) demands and expects theologians’ grounding location to be within lo cotidiano of our people. To theologize latinamente, therefore, is a movement, a contextual perspective, and a methodological approach to theologizing within Christian theology, distinguished by a cultural, critical, contextual, justice-seeking, and noninnocent interpretation of Scripture, tradition and doctrine, society and church, and history. It is intent on acknowledging and honoring Latinoa cultures, histories, and stories as legitimate and necessary sources of Christian theology.


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