The Heresy of Relevance: Bonhoeffer's Warning to Preachers

Pro Ecclesia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 106385122110475
Author(s):  
Robert J. Dean
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Confessing Church ◽  
The Church

Amid a crisis in biblical interpretation brought to a head by the Church Struggle in Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer delivered an address in August 1935 to a group of Confessing Church pastors entitled “Contemporizing New Testament Texts.” Bonhoeffer sounded a clarion call for the retrieval of a thoroughly theological hermeneutic that would liberate preachers for the bold proclamation of the Gospel within a culturally compromised church. This paper will present a reading of Bonhoeffer's daring address that seeks to both situate it within its unique historical context and attend to the ways that it calls into question many of the cherished hermeneutical and homiletical assumptions that dominate contemporary preaching for the sake of a more faithful proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

scholarly journals Teologia kapłaństwa i urzędu kapłańskiego w I wieku chrześcijaństwa

2010 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Dariusz Kasprzak
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Good News ◽  
New Covenant ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church

Neither the Apostles nor any Christian minister is admitted to use the priest’s title in the text of the New Testament. Nevertheless, in the New Testament we can perceive the development of the doctrine of the priest ministry in the early Church. Albert Vanhoye maintains that the lack of the term “priest” in the New Testament suggests the way of understanding of the Christian ministry, different from this in the Old Testament. It can’t be considered as a continuation of Jewish priesthood, which was concentrated mainly on ritual action and ceremonies. In the first century the Church developed the Christology of priesthood (Hbr) and ecclesiology of priesthood (1 P). Early Christians focused first on the redemptive event of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and Jesus as the mediator of a new covenant. Only then the religious communities adopted the priest’s title for their ministry.In the early years of the Church, all the ministries were regarded as a charismatic service among the Christian communities. In their services the early Christians followed Jesus Christ sent by God to serve. The Holy Spirit sent by God in the name of Jesus bestowed the spiritual gifts upon the Church (1 Kor 12–13). Consequently the disciples of Jesus and their successors could continue his mission. The Twelve Apostles’ ministry was the very first and most important Christian ministry. It was closely connected to the service of Jesus Christ himself. The Apostles were sent by the authority of Jesus Christ to continue his mission upon earth and they preached the Good News of the risen Christ. The Apostolicity was the fundamental base for every Church ministry established in different Christian communities. Successive ministries were established in order to transmit the teaching of Jesus Christ and to lead the community. For the early Christians the priesthood was not an individual privilege. It had rather the community character.

“Born of the Virgin Mary”: Toward a Sprachregelung on a Delicate Point of Doctrine

2001 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-143
Author(s):  
Frans Josef van Beeck
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Infancy Narratives ◽  
The Church

This essay offers an interpretation of the traditional catholic teaching that “Jesus Christ, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, was born of the Virgin Mary”. The author reviews recent exegesis and theology, then revisits the tradition of the church, then discusses the contrast between the physiological “facts” involved in human conception as they were understood in the classical periods — and thus at the place and time of the composition of the infancy narratives — and the accepted modern, scientific account of the same “facts”. He argues that neither the New Testament nor the Church teaches that Jesus' virginal conception is a cosmological miracle: rather this is a conclusion of the data of the faith, not an article of faith in and of itself. This should guide our speech in ministry.

The Finality of Christ and Humanity

1966 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-408
Author(s):  
John W. Fraser
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Ultimate Truth ◽  
Universal History ◽  
Final Destination ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
World Council ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Church

What is meant by the finality of Jesus Christ for men? This is raised by consideration of a Study Pamphlet, ‘The Finality of Jesus Christ in the Age of Universal History’, issued by the Division of Studies, World Council of Churches. On page I of this Study Pamphlet we are told that ‘Jesus is at the end of the human journey’, and also that ‘He has revealed the ultimate truth to men, has shown in full, final and sufficient measure to them the nature of God and the truth concerning life’. The emphasis is on what we would normally call ‘the final coming’, and on what is shown of God in Jesus. ‘Because He has already appeared we know our final destination’, i.e. we know whom to expect to meet. The stress will then lie on what the Church, who knows Him, does until the end, serving men for Him. The New Testament emphasis does not lie on what we do, but on what He did. The New Testament emphasis does not lie on the end, but on an act of redemption and reconciliation effected by God in Jesus Christ, a thing done once and for all. ‘Through Him God was pleased to reconcile all things to himself, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross’ (Col. 1.20). Because He has done this Christ reigns over all and the end is assured. ‘Nothing can separate us from His love‘ (Rom. 8.39).

Intellectual Humility and the Community of the Sacraments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Macaskill
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

This chapter considers the role that the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist play in fostering a proper attitude of intellectual humility within Christian community. The sacraments dramatically enact the union with Christ that we have argued in previous chapters to define Christian intellectual humility, embodying the truth that our intellectual identities are not autonomous, but are dependent upon the constitutive identity of Jesus Christ and are located within the community of the church. Both baptism and Eucharist are understood within the New Testament to communicate the eschatological identity of the church, and therefore the distinctive character of our relationship to the reality of evil. The chapter will pay particular attention to the way that Paul directs his readers to think differently in response to the significance of the sacraments. It will also consider the close connection of the command to ‘love one another’ to the sacraments.

scholarly journals Christian Scripture and American Scripture: An Instructive Analogy?

2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory A. Kalscheur
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Political Community ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
American Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Biblical Interpretation ◽  
The Church ◽  
The U.S

As a Jesuit priest whose ministry includes the teaching of constitutional law, I regularly struggle with the task of interpreting two foundational normative texts: the Bible and the U.S. Constitution. The Bible plays a central normative role in the life of the Church, while the Constitution provides a normative framework for American law and politics. These texts ground the ongoing lives of both the Church and the American political community. Both of these textually constituted communities face the challenge of appropriating for contemporary experience a normative text produced in a significantly different historical context. But can American constitutional lawyers learn anything from the ways in which the Bible has been interpreted within the life of the Church?Jaroslav Pelikan, eminent historian of the Church's doctrinal tradition and Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale, believes that those engaged in the enterprise of constitutional interpretation can indeed learn something from the history of biblical interpretation. Drawing on a life-long “study of the twenty centuries of interpreting Christian Scriptures,” Pelikan offers his new book,Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution, in the hope that it “may be of some help and illumination … to those who stand in the tradition of the two centuries of interpreting American Scripture.” (37)

Scripture and Tradition

1953 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-135
Author(s):  
Oscar Cullmann
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The problem of the relationship between Scripture and Tradition is in the first place a problem of the theological relationship between the apostolic period and the period of the Church. All the other questions depend on the solution that we give to this problem. The alternatives—co-ordination or subordination of Tradition to Scripture—derive from the question of knowing how we must understand the fact that the period of the Church is the continuation and unfolding of the apostolic period. For we must note right away that this fact is capable of divergent interpretations. That is why agreement on the mere fact that the Church continues the work of Christ on earth does not necessarily imply agreement on the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. Thus in my thesis developed in Christ and Time as well as in my studies on the sacraments in the New Testament I came considerably nearer to the ‘Catholic’ point of view. In fact I would affirm very strongly that through the Church the history of salvation is continued on earth. I believe that we find this idea throughout the New Testament, and I should even consider it the key for the understanding of the Johannine Gospel. I would maintain, moreover, that the sacraments, Baptism and Eucharist, take the place in the Church of the miracles performed by Jesus Christ in the period of the Incarnation. And yet I am going to show in the following pages that I subordinate Tradition to Scripture.

scholarly journals Materia i forma sakramentu Eucharystii

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 35-51
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Janczewski
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
The Body ◽  
Holy See ◽  
Last Supper ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Church

Jesus Christ constituted the sacrament of Eucharist during last supper. This article shows what it is the matter and the form of this sacrament. It quotes the bibical texts from the New Testament and the writings of the Fathers of the Church. It analyses the law of Holy See: the Popes, the Councils, and the Vatican Congregations. At the beginning the article shows the matter which is necessary to consecration of the bread, and to consecration of the wine. This bread and this wine will becoming later the Blood and the Body of Jesus Christ. The next part of this article is about the form conforming to Eucharist. The last part of this elaboration shows, what influence have the different defects of the matter and the form, relating on validity of consecration of Eucharist.

scholarly journals Pneumatologi för Jesu efterföljelse: Om treenigheten och kyrkan i Stanley Grenz teologi

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Spjuth
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Trinitarian Theology ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

In today’s ecclesiology, the notion of the Spirit and the church has been heavily influenced by a recent and broad retrieval of Trinitarian theology. In this article, I discuss this in relationship to baptist and evangelical traditions as it is represented by Stanley Grenz. His “theology for the community of God” demonstrates the fruitfulness of the Trinitarian retrieval for such traditions. However, the main argument in the article is that it also implies certain risks. According to the Baptist tradition, the central message of the New Testament is the invitation to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. As Kathryn Tanner and Karen Kilby have argued elsewhere, when the biblical challenge to be like Jesus Christ is turned into a more general exhortation to become an image of the Trinity, it often results in abstract ethics and an ecclesiology that focuses mainly on general exhortations to love and to live in community. In contrast, this article claims that the biblical notion of discipleship has greater possibilities to allow for a more substantial and more holistic account of the Church, one that reunites ecclesiology, ethics and the Spirit’s transformative work within liturgy, charismatic service and mission.

The New Testament Doctrine of Election

1958 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 406-422
Author(s):  
A. A. Solomon
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Look Back ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Meaning And Purpose ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Doctrine Of Election ◽  
Love Of God ◽  
The Church

‘Election is the love of God enacted and inserted into history in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, so that in the strictest sense Jesus Christ is the election of God. ’1 In these words of Professor T. F. Torrance, as I hope to show in this essay, lies the heart of the New Testament conception of election. It is ‘in Christ’ that the primitive Church under-stands the meaning and purpose of Election rather than in the Old Testament ‘teaching’ regarding election; although, of course, she does look back to the Old Testament as ground for claiming the existence of an election as such. That is to say, the Church does not invent the idea of the Election, but rather takes up that idea and finds in her own existence and nature the meaning and purpose of election. It is the New Testament that illumines the shadowy Old Testament figure of Election with the light of the glory of Christ. Because of this, we must expect not only to see Election more clearly, as it were, in the New than in the Old Testament, but also we must expect to find in it new truth and new implications.At precisely what point in the biblical witness did the act of election begin? Who are the elect or chosen in the sight of the biblical writers? Writers tend to vary among themselves as to the answer to these questions.

Jesus Christ and the New Testament

2021 ◽  
pp. 102-138
Author(s):  
Donald Senior
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Early Christianity ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
First Century ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Unique Character ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Unique Identity

A unifying motif of the New Testament and one that renders it sacred in the eyes of Christian faith is its assertion of the unique identity of Jesus Christ. While much of modern biblical scholarship has attempted to reconstruct the actual historical circumstances of Jesus in his first-century Jewish context, the New Testament writings themselves find their sacred character in their affirmation of the unique character of the Jesus of faith as both human and divine. This is affirmed in a variety of ways in the Four Gospels as they consider in diverse ways the ultimate origin of Jesus, the “theophanies” that occur during Jesus’s ministry, various titles assigned to him, and the nature of his death and resurrection. While biblical scholarship legitimately explores the historical context of Jesus’s life and teaching, Christians strive to see the intrinsic connection between the historical circumstances of Jesus’s life and the faith affirmations of early Christianity about his unique identity.

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