1998 Belief, openness and religious commitment

Theology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 123 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-277
Author(s):  
Maurice Wiles
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Religious Commitment ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Moral Basis ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
Spiritual Tradition ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Mystery Of God ◽  
The Church

Canon Professor Maurice Wiles (1923–2005) wrote this article in retirement. At the outset of his career he was an Evangelical (as his review of Barth, also reproduced in this centenary issue, indicates), but by the 1970s he had moved to, and continued in, a distinctly more liberal direction. A gradual realization of the ‘complexity of the issues involved’ in theology (and, not least, within the Bible) spurred this move, as this article suggests. His aim finally is to search for ‘an intellectual and moral basis for sharing conscientiously and wholeheartedly in the rich spiritual tradition of Christian worship, belief and practice, without blinding oneself to its faults’. As a young man Wiles was recruited to work on code breaking at Bletchley Park during the war. In maturity he held the Regius Chair of Divinity at Oxford from 1970 until 1991. He also chaired the Church of England doctrine commission that produced the liberal report Christian Believing (1976) and contributed to the controversial book The Myth of God Incarnate the following year. Among his own books were The Making of Christian Doctrine (1967), The Remaking of Christian Doctrine (1974), Faith and the Mystery of God (1982) and, using his patristic skills, his late study of Arianism, Archetypal Heresy (1996). Editor.

The Evangelical Discovery of History

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 330-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Bebbington
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Churches Of Christ ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Evangelical Protestantism ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Church

‘From some modern perspectives’, wrote James Belich, a leading historian of New Zealand, in 1996, ‘the evangelicals are hard to like. They dressed like crows; seemed joyless, humourless and sometimes hypocritical; [and] they embalmed the evidence poor historians need to read in tedious preaching’. Similar views have often been expressed in the historiography of Evangelical Protestantism, the subject of this essay. It will cover such disapproving appraisals of the Evangelical past, but because a high proportion of the writing about the movement was by insiders it will have more to say about studies by Evangelicals of their own history. Evangelicals are taken to be those who have placed particular stress on the value of the Bible, the doctrine of the cross, an experience of conversion and a responsibility for activism. They were to be found in the Church of England and its sister provinces of the Anglican communion, forming an Evangelical party that rivalled the high church and broad church tendencies, and also in the denominations that stemmed from Nonconformity in England and Wales, as well as in the Protestant churches of Scotland. Evangelicals were strong, often overwhelmingly so, within Methodism and Congregationalism and among the Baptists and the Presbyterians. Some bodies that arose later on, including the (so-called Plymouth) Brethren, the Churches of Christ and the Pentecostals (the last two primarily American in origin), joined the Evangelical coalition.

scholarly journals Igreja e Eucaristia, festa e sacrifício

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (261) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Pedro Carlos Cipolini
Keyword(s):  
Close Relation ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Free World ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Paschal Mystery ◽  
God's People ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church ◽  
Fair Balance

O artigo reflete sobre a íntima relação que vigora entre a Igreja e a Eucaristia: a Eucaristia une o povo fiel, faz o povo de Deus participar na vitória de Cristo, bem como o introduz na dimensão do Reino de Deus. Explora também o rico simbolismo do pão e do vinho, de origem bíblica, e aprofunda o sentido destas duas dimensões do mistério pascal celebrado na Eucaristia: refeição/convívio e sacrifício/entrega. Recorda a necessidade de um justo equilíbrio entre as dimensões de festa e sacrifício do mistério eucarístico. Mostra, por fim, que a participação na Eucaristia torna os fiéis missionários da Boa-Nova do Reino de fraternidade e paz, anunciadores de um mundo novo e liberto, criado pela “fração do pão”, e da vitória do “Ressuscitado”, penhor de nossa ressurreição, a festa que não tem fim.Abstract: The article deals with the close relation that prevails between the Church and the Eucharist: the Eucharist brings together the faithful, encourages God’s people to participate in Christ’s victory and introduces them into the dimension of God’s Kingdom. It also explores the rich symbolism of the bread and wine, originated in the Bible, and strengthens the meaning of these two dimensions of the paschal mystery celebrated in the Eucharist: meals/convivial spirit and sacrifice/surrender. It reminds us of the need for a fair balance between the dimensions of festivity and sacrifice in the Eucharistic mystery. Finally its shows that participation in the Eucharist turns the faithful into missionaries of the Good Tidings of the Kingdom i. e. the fraternity and peace that herald a new, free world, created by the “fraction of the bread” and the victory of “the one who resurrected”, the pledge of our resurrection, the endless feast.

scholarly journals Lessons from the Early Church for Today’s Evangelical Christianity

Kairos ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-90
Author(s):  
Ervin Budiselić
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Evangelical Christianity ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Rule Of Faith ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Presuming that within Evangelical Christianity there is a crisis of biblical interpretation, this article seeks to address the issue, especially since Evangelicals view the existence of the church as closely connected to the proclamation of the Truth. Starting with a position that Evangelical hermeneutics is not born in a vacuum, but is the result of a historical process, the first part of the article introduces the problem of sola and solo scriptura, pointing out some problematic issues that need to be addressed. In the second part, the article discusses patristic hermeneutics, especially: a) the relationship between Scripture and tradition embodied in regula fidei and; b) theological presuppositions which gave birth to allegorical and literal interpretations of Scripture in Alexandria and Antioch. In the last part of the article, based on lessons from the patristic era, certain revisions of the Evangelical practice of the interpretation of Scripture are suggested. Particularly, Evangelicals may continue to hold the Bible as the single infallible source for Christian doctrine, continue to develop the historical-grammatical method particularly in respect to the issue of the analogy of faith in exegetical process, but also must recognize that the Bible cannot in toto play the role of the rule of faith or the analogy of faith. Something else must also come into play, and that “something” would definitely be the recovery of the patristic period “as a kind of doctrinal canon.”

Hobbes’s Erastianism and Interpretation

2021 ◽  
pp. 233-252
Author(s):  
A.P. Martinich
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter is a response to Jeffrey Collins, who maintains that Hobbes was Erastian and promoted Independency and irreligious views. The author agrees that Hobbes was an Erastian; the Act of Supremacy made Erastianism law. Hobbes’s support for Independency was hedged at best. Some of his other views are original and non-standard but not intended to be irreligious. The author shows that Collins sometimes omits crucial evidence or draws the wrong inference from the evidence. Hobbes worshipped according to the rite of the Church of England, and his justification for the unity of religion and government was in line with the ideal of ancient Israel taught in the Old Testament. Hobbes argued that Christianity is not politically destabilizing and tried to reconcile Christian doctrine with modern science. The author’s reply to Collins is guided by the idea that interpretation is a form of inference to the best explanation.

The Mountain and the Flower: The Power and Potential of Nature in the World of Victorian Evangelicalism

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 307-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Smith
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Oxford Movement ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
High Church ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition

In the middle decades of the nineteenth century a new wind could be felt rustling in the branches of the Church of England. The transforming effect of the Oxford Movement on the High Church tradition is the most prominent example of this phenomenon but also well established in the literature are the transformations in contemporary Anglican Evangelicalism. David Bebbington in particular has stressed the impact of Romanticism as a cultural mood within the movement, tracing its effects in a heightened supernaturalism, a preoccupation with the Second Advent and with holiness which converged at Keswick, and also an emphasis on the discernment of spiritual significance in nature. But how did this emphasis play out in the lives of Evangelicals in the second half of the century and how might it have served their mission to society? This paper seeks to address the evangelical understanding of both the power and potential of nature through the example of one prominent Anglican clergyman, William Pennefather, and one little-known evangelical initiative, the Bible Flower Mission.

The crisis of obedience: God's word and Henry's reformation

1996 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 863-894 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Rex
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Royal Authority ◽  
Good Works ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Lutheran Theology ◽  
God's Word ◽  
Significant Achievement ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACTThe new political theology of obedience to the prince which was enthusiastically adopted by the Church of England in the 1530s was essentially founded upon Luther's new interpretation of the fourth commandment. It was mediated to an English audience by Tyndale, but his ideas were not officially adopted as early as some recent research has suggested. The founding of royal authority on the Decalogue, and thus on the ‘word of God’, was a particularly attractive feature of this doctrine, which became almost the defining feature of Henrician religion. Rival tendencies within the Church of England sought to exploit it in the pursuit of their particular agendas. Reformers strove to preserve its connections with the broader framework of Lutheran theology, with the emphasis on faith alone and the ‘word of God’, while conservatives strove to relocate it within an essentially monastic tradition of obedience, with an emphasis on good works, ceremonies, and charity. The most significant achievement was that of the Reformers, who established and played upon an equivocation between the royal supremacy and the ‘word of God’ in order to persuade the king to sanction the publication of the Bible in English as a formidable prop for his new-found dignity.

A Crisis in the Church of England

1914 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederic Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Special Function ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Episcopal Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Church

The construction and working of ecclesiastical machinery has always been allowed to be the special function of High Churchmen of every description. For there are High Churchmen not only in the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in America, but in every church. The division of churchmen into High, Low, and Broad is founded on the different attitudes of the human mind—legal, emotional, intellectual. All Christians reverence the Church, the Bible, and the conscience. But in presence of a problem one man will ask what is the teaching of the Church? Another will turn to consider what the Bible has to say about it. A third will endeavor to trace it to its basis in the necessities of thought and life. Religion is, for the High Churchman, devotion to an institution; for the Low Churchman, to a person; for the Broad Churchman, to abstract truth. Such sturdy guardians of the different important ways by which the soul approaches God are fortunately found in every church. And so the man who stands pre-eminently for the special tenets of the fathers, whether Calvin, Wesley, Swedenborg, or Channing, is as truly a High Churchman as he whose fathers are Ante- or Post-Nicene. And if the faith is regarded as having been delivered to the saints once and for all, the construction of machinery for its preservation will be not only the duty but the delight of the loyal ecclesiast.

The Shaking of the Seven Hills

1979 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 439-455
Author(s):  
P. D. L. Avis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Anglican Theology ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

The doctrine of justification, for Luther the articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesiae, was for the authors of the report Doctrine in the Church of England (1938) not worth mentioning. Here, however, the members of the Archbishops' Commission on Christian Doctrine were not representative of the Anglican tradition as a whole which has not been remiss in attending to the matter of justification. The doctrine presents a challenge to the Anglican attempt to find a via media and there are pronounced oscillations of emphasis in the Anglican tradition on this question, represented by Bishop Bull and J. H. Newman on the right and Hooker and F. D. Maurice on the left. Newman's Lectures on Justification provoked further efforts to find a synthesis and led, by the end of the nineteenth century, to a restatement of the doctrine of justification within Anglican theology, which though in certain respects catholic in form, was definitely evangelical in spirit.

‘Sexuality in the Church: Toward a sociology of the Bible’

2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 8-15
Author(s):  
John Brewer
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sex And Sexuality ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Church ◽  
Social Behaviours

Sexuality is an obsession of the Christian Church. It is one of the social behaviours that it has tried most to control amongst its flock and yet the Christian Church has failed to prevent the encroachment of modern attitudes towards sex and sexuality into the Church as an institution. The furore over the proposed appointment of an openly gay bishop in the Church of England is but the latest expression of this tension. However, this paper argues that this debate needs to be placed in a much broader context, namely, the hermeneutical problem of the authority of the Bible, which is itself only one part of a wider sociology of the Bible. The current debate on sexuality in the Church highlights the need for sociology to begin to apply its way of thinking to the Bible.

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