On Making Them All One: Unity, Transcendence and the Anglican Church

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-37
Author(s):  
Anthony D. Baker

ABSTRACTThe question of unity looms large in current vocabulary of the Anglican Communion. This article suggests, first of all, that the term is a rich theological one that ought to come under rigorous theological scrutiny and, secondly, that such scrutiny could in fact alter the way Anglicans understand themselves as an ecclesial body. While the works of Rowan Williams and Ephraim Radner have issued important and necessary calls for a return to ecclesiology, both, it is here suggested, do not illuminate fully the implications of the New Testament call to ‘be one’. Making substantial reference to Hooker's theology of the church, which is properly seen as an extension of his Christology, it is here suggested that unity is both a gift that transcends the church in its descent in the Spirit, and a craft that takes shape as the church struggles to make and remake itself in the image of Christ, whose prayer that his followers would all be one as ‘you and I’ is one that has consistently supplied the framework for the tradition of Christian ecclesiology.

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-159
Author(s):  
Gary M. Burge

Kenneth E. Bailey (1930–2016) was an internationally acclaimed New Testament scholar who grew up in Egypt and devoted his life to the church of the Middle East. He also was an ambassador of Arab culture to the West, explaining through his many books on the New Testament how the context of the Middle East shapes the world of the New Testament. He wed cultural anthropology to biblical exegesis and shaped the way scholars view the Gospels today.


1970 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 283-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olaf Steen

The sarcophagus in the church of S. Ambrogio in Milan is dated to about 390. The lid of the sarcophagus shows scenes and symbols connected to the New Testament. On the front and rear sides, we find Christ represented among the Apostles. Figures from the Old Testament are shown on the two short sides. In this way, the narrative scenes are well arranged, and the arrangement differs from other early Christian sarcophagi in which scenes from the Old and New Testament are places together without any apparent connection between the scenes. Rows of city-gates run around all four sides, forming the background for the reliefs. The city-gates invite the beholder to read the images not as isolated scenes, but as parts of a connected whole. In this paper, I will argue that the iconography of the sarcophagus can be interpreted as a complete programme. The programme emphasizes the teaching of Christ and the Apostles’ teaching-mission given by Christ. Taking into consideration the monument’s funerary context, the programme of the sarcophagus focuses on the Word or the teaching of Christ as the way to salvation.


Author(s):  
Grant Macaskill

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.


1950 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. F. Torrance

It is often claimed that the problem of communicating the Gospel is the major practical problem facing the Church to-day, as it may also be the major theological problem. This concern is a very healthy sign, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that we are apt to be so concerned with devising new methods of evangelism as to forget the one factor of supreme importance: the burden of the Gospel itself, that is, to forget that the Gospel is not simply the message of divine love, but the actual way in which God communicates Himself to us in history. No technique that forgets that the Gospel has already been made supremely relevant to sinful humanity in the Incarnation and death of Jesus Christ will ever avail for the communication of the Gospel. This is therefore an attempt to probe into what the New Testament has to say to us about this, and into the way in which, as a matter of fact, the New Testament actually communicates the Gospel to us.


2002 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Moyise

Ever since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars have drawn parallels between the way the New Testament authors used the Scriptures and the use of Scripture found in the Qumran writings. This method has raised difficult questions, because some of the exegetical methods, such as allegory, word-splitting and the use of variant texts, are generally regarded as erroneous today. However, other scholars have contended that this comparative approach does not do justice to New Testament exegesis and have argued that the New Testament authors developed a distinctive messianic, ecclesiocentric or trinitarian form of exegesis. This view sheds new light on the old question of whether the Church can use the New Testament in the same way that the New Testament authors use the Old Testament.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rasmalem Raya Sembiring

Is the sufficiency of the death of Christ sufficient to provide the salvation for all people? If the answer is afirmative, but why not all people be saved? Those who hold Arminiant view, or Amyradism view, or hypothetical univesalism view, or Calvinism view, all agree that those who believe in Christ is saved. The New Testament passages cited in favor of general atonement greatly out numer those passages cited in favor of particular atonement. So, for whom did Christ die? Was it merely to make the salvation of all men possile; to remove the obstacles which stood in the way of the offer of pard acceptance to sinners? or was it specially to render certain the salvation of his own people, i.e. of those given to Him by the Father? By understanding the the atonement of Christ in the Scripture, who Christ is, the atonement of Christ in the church history, God’s decree on election and considering scripture passages, is the best to conclude that : for whom did Christ die is effectively to save those who believes in Christ


2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alphonso Groenewald

The one who is to come: �Messianic texts� in the Old Testament and other Jewish writingsAccording to the New-Testament authors, the life of Jesus, as Christ, should be seen in light of the Old-Testament texts. It seems that all the messianic texts in the Old Testament had been fulfilled in Jesus. The Messiah, who had been expected for a long time, was born in Bethlehem. This interpretation by the New-Testament authors has caused the church and Christians throughout the centuries to read the Old Testament as a prophecy, which is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. This interpretation has caused impatience with Jews, who did not accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. This article addresses the question: How did ancient Israel understand the concept �messiah�? It seems that the term is much more complex than a single meaning would allow the reader to believe. This article thus focuses on the theological functioning of the term within the Hebrew Bible as well as in other Jewish writings.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-32
Author(s):  
Marlon Butarbutar ◽  
Sri Wahyuni Kusradi

Gereja hadir dalam dunia ini sebenarnya adalah untuk memuji dan memuliakan Tuhan. Oleh sebab itu, maka gereja mempunyai tugas untuk menjadikan semua bangsa sebagai murid Tuhan Yesus (Mat. 28: 18-20). Dimana yang dipakai Tuhan sebagai alat dalam melakukan dan melaksanakan akan kehendak-Nya adalah melalui gereja. Baik gereja sebagai tubuh Kristus yang di dalam Perjanjian Baru adalah umat, orang-orang yang dipanggil oleh Tuhan untuk keluar dari kegelapan dan masuk dalam terang-Nya untuk menjadi saksi Kristus maupun gereja dalam bentuk fisik, maksudnya adalah gereja sebagai gedung atau tempat yang dipakai orang-orang percaya untuk bersekutu dalam memuji dan memuliakan Tuhan. Melihat hal tersebut maka, titik utama gereja ada dan hadir adalah hanya untuk kemuliaan Tuhan. Salah satu ketentuan kewajiban jemaat yang ada dalam gereja adalah ”setiap jemaat, harus membayar persembahan bulanan setiap bulan kepada gereja”. Apabila tidak dilunasi, konsekuensinya adalah apabila ada kejadian dalam jemaat tersebut, seperti: baptisan, pemberkatan nikah. Itu semuanya tidak akan terlaksana, sebelum kewajiban tersebut terlunasi. Jadi, ketentuan ini bukan hanya mengikat jemaat untuk datang bersekutu atau beribadah dan membuat jemaat terikat pada gereja tersebut dan tidak mudah untuk pindah gereja, melainkan dalam tindakannya sudah ada sikap memaksa jemaat untuk membayar kewajiban kepada gereja. Berdasarkan hal di atas terlihat jelas bahwa jemaat memberi kepada gereja bukan dengan ketulusan dan sukacita. Tetapi memberi dengan keterpaksaan dan adanya sanksi atau konsekuensi bagi jemaat yang tidak memberikan persembahan bulanan terhadap gereja. Ini sangat mendorong penulis untuk meneliti sehingga menjadi suatu pertimbangan bagi gereja yang memberi kewajiban jemaat membayar iuran kepada gereja.     The church present in this world is actually to praise and glorify God. Therefore, the church has a duty to make all nations disciples of the Lord Jesus (Matt. 28: 18-20). Where God uses as a tool in doing and carrying out His will is through the church. Both the church as the body of Christ in the New Testament are people, people who are called by God to come out of the darkness and enter into His light to be witnesses of Christ and the church in physical form, meaning the church as a building or place used by people believers to fellowship in praising and glorifying God. Seeing this, the main point of the church being and present is only for the glory of God. One of the provisions of the congregation's obligations in the church is "every church, must pay monthly offerings every month to the church". If not paid, the consequence is if there is an incident in the church, such as: baptism, marriage blessing. That all will not be realized, before the obligation is paid. So, this provision does not only bind the congregation to come to fellowship or worship and make the congregation bound to the church and it is not easy to move the church, but in its action there is already an attitude of forcing the congregation to pay obligations to the church. Based on the above it is clear that the congregation gave to the church not with sincerity and joy. But giving with force and the existence of sanctions or consequences for congregations who do not provide monthly offerings to the church. This strongly encourages the writer to examine so that it becomes a consideration for the church which gives the congregation an obligation to pay contributions to the church.


Ecclesiology ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Lane

AbstractCalvin began by affirming the Catholicity of the Church, but such positive affirmations become rarer as he grew older. By contrast, he more and more frequently rejects the claims of the Roman Church to Catholicity. The change is provoked by the barrage of claims to Catholicity that Calvin faced from his opponents, together with the claim that the Reformers had abandoned it. This made Calvin less enthusiastic about using the word for himself, thus pointing the way towards the eventual development where Catholic came to mean Roman Catholic. Calvin accepted the Catholic canon of the New Testament, though without ever explaining the basis for this. He appealed to the early Catholic tradition (most especially Augustine) for support, though he was not uncritical of it. The Church had declined from the truth during the Middle Ages and the true Church remained but had lost outward form.


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