Discerning the body: Recentering Christian community in the vocational formation of university undergraduates

2020 ◽  
pp. 205699712097505
Author(s):  
John H Boyles ◽  
Amanda Jo Pittman
Keyword(s):  
Focus Groups ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
The Body ◽  
Mentoring Relationships ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
University Undergraduates ◽  
Relational Orientation

We report and analyze undergraduate students’ perceptions of vocation and propose constructive responses that prepare students for purposeful Christian lives. Discussion in focus groups elicited accounts of vocation as oriented toward positive relational impact but shaped by a latent individualism and an underdeveloped sense of the vocational implications of Christian community. We propose expanding on this relational orientation by helping students to “discern the body” in three ways: reflecting on their own embeddedness in the body of Christ, participating in the body through mentoring relationships, and grounding their future vocational journeys as part of a body shaped by Christological hope.

scholarly journals Koinonia in die stad: Verhoudinge in die groter stadsgemeentes van die Gereformeerde kerke

1993 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. J. Hendiiks ◽  
C. B. Ludik
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Theory Of Practice ◽  
Relational Networks ◽  
Urban Congregations ◽  
Traditional Pattern ◽  
City Relations ◽  
The Church

Koinonia in the city: Relations in the larger urban congregations of the Reformed churches Koinonia is of vital importance for the church. It is not only a Biblical injunction, but also, sociologically speaking, a prerequisite for the preservation of faith in the Christian community. Therefore it is imperative that the church’s ministry encourages koinonia. This is especially true for the church in an urban context, where relational networks have been severely impaired. The traditional pattern of ministry of churches in the Reformed tradition, the shepherd-flock model, does not succeed in stimulating koinonia under these circumstances. Therefore, the choice is rather made for the body of Christ-model, with complementary koinonia-gwupings as theory of practice.

Members of His Body

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Stockton
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
The Winter's Tale ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Winter's Tale ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Plural Marriage

Through readings of Shakespeare and Paul, Members of His Body protests the Christian defense of marital monogamy. If the Paul who authors 1 Corinthians would prefer that unmarried believers remain single, the pseudonymous Paul of the epistle to the Ephesians argues that marriage affords the couple membership in the body of Christ. For neither Paul is plural marriage the antithesis of Christian marriage. For the Paul of Ephesians, plural marriage is rather the telos of Christian community. Building on scholarship regarding early modern sexualities, as well as on political-theological conversations about Pauline universalism, Members of His Body argues that marriage functions in The Comedy of Errors, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and The Winter’s Tale as a contested vehicle of Christian embodiment. Shakespeare’s plays query the extent to which man and wife become “one flesh” through marriage, and the extent to which they share that fleshly identity with other Christians. These plays explore the racial, religious, and gender criteria for marital membership in the body of Christ. Finally, they suggest that marital jealousy and paranoia about adultery result in part from a Christian theology of shared embodiment. In the wake of recent arguments that expanding marriage rights to gay people will open the door to the cultural acceptance and legalization of plural marriage, Shakespeare’s plays remind us that much Christian theology already looks forward to this end.

Encountering the Gospel through Confirmation

2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-25
Author(s):  
Terri Martinson Elton ◽  
Richard Osmer
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
God's Mission ◽  
Bear Witness ◽  
The Church

Confirmation is a ministry aimed at strengthening young people's understanding of faith, deepening their experience in Christian community, and equipping them to discern their calling to join in God's mission in the world. As the church engages in confirmation, young people encounter the gospel anew and congregations bear witness to the redemptive love of God and the covenant of grace into which all Christians are baptized. Learning from and with each other, within and across denominations, enhances confirmation as a discipleship ministry for young people. But it does more than that. As the body of Christ comes together to help young people encounter the gospel anew, lives are changed and become open to the Holy Spirit. Embracing our call to share the gospel and cultivate faith within young people not only serves the church today, it invests in the future.

scholarly journals Communio und Eucharistie. Ekklesiologische Parallelen bei Dumitru Stăniloae und Joseph Ratzinger

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-101
Author(s):  
Constantin Prihoancă
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Critical Engagement ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Communion Ecclesiology ◽  
Catholic Churches ◽  
The Church

Abstract This article is a critical engagement with D. Stăniloae’s and J. Ratzinger’s ecclesiological thought as shaped by the description of church as the body of Christ and the Trinitarian roots of this ecclesiology. Starting from practical problems of prayer and living a Christian life, the authors argue that God’s relationship to the Christian community has primacy over God’s relationship to individual believers. When one conceives of the Christian community as being the body of Christ, one can uphold the elevated Christian ideal of Eucharist Communio without making it unattainable. The authors show that the being of the church is given to the Christian community not as a possession or property, but as a task to be fulfilled through the power of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. One can discover that in becoming the church, the Christian community is elevated to the Trinitarian life in communion. Communion ecclesiology has the potential to bridge the divide between the Orthodox and Catholic churches.

Liturgical undoing: Christ, communion, and commodified bodies

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-361
Author(s):  
Khalia J. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Holy Communion ◽  
Chattel Slavery ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Way

During the years of chattel slavery in the USA, Black bodies were commodified. This article pays particular attention to the commodification of female Black bodies and the way in which the participation of the Christian community in Holy Communion undoes the capitalistic, free market enterprise of commodification by setting bodies and communities of faith free from the abuse and bondage as we begin to live into the fullness of the body of Christ. At the table of Communion, we are undone and through the gracious gift of Christ’s body we are reclaimed as the creation of the divine—a creation that God looks upon and calls good.

Richard Hooker: The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity Revisited

2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (39) ◽  
pp. 382-391
Author(s):  
Rowan Williams
Keyword(s):  
Interest Groups ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Intelligence ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Law ◽  
Basic Position ◽  
The Church

Richard Hooker's book, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, is much more than a museum piece or a dissertation on how to run churches. It is a classic of doctrinal reflection, and is topically relevant. His main opponents at the time belonged to the militant Puritan wing of the English Church, and in answering them Hooker provides a still-rich line of thought. Theologically speaking, the most basic sense of law, for Hooker, is God's acceptance of the logic of a limited creation. A crucial concept is ‘compatible variety’, and this should be kept in mind when reading Hooker on the laws of nature, the laws of society, and the law that regulates the Church. Also of importance is the distinction between the unchangeable basics, in Church or state, and those laws that contribute to the maintenance of this or that particular society or Christian community. For Hooker, the mistake of his Puritan opponents was to think that the Bible is an exhaustive source of laws of both kinds. The Bible is neither a complete nor an incomplete law book. Law, as the form of compatible variety, is also the form in which God's ‘abundance’ is to be perceived and experienced. Outside the abiding truths about the sort of life God's life is and the dignity given to creatures, human intelligence and ingenuity and prudence have a wide remit. According to Hooker, the most basic rebellion is to refuse the limits that make compatible variety possible. Law assumes, then, that we do not ‘begin socially as a set of unrelated atoms, whether individuals, classes, races or interest groups. Our basic position is one of potential agents in a negotiation through which we discover our welfare, and discover something we do not know at the start. Key theological notions are creation and the Body of Christ.

scholarly journals Righteousness of God

Kairos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-193
Author(s):  
Dalia Matijević
Keyword(s):  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Continuous Process ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Practical Consequence ◽  
Community Of Faith

The purpose of this article is to provide insight to what extent our conceptualization of the dikaiosyne theou shapes our way of understanding ourselves as Christians being the Body of Christ and living holy lives. Strongly influenced by the epistle to the Romans, we perceive holiness as being in right relation to God and righteousness being a practical consequence of this relationship. Holiness as the inner nature of God brings fruits of His righteousness, which is God’s saving activity. However, in the light of Christ and his sacrificial death and resurrection, relational, and eschatological perspectives of the dikaiosyne theou concept become crucial. This concept stands at the heart of Paul’s gospel and anticipates several layers of meaning, primarily God’s redeeming and saving activity, but also covenantal faithfulness and restorative justice brought by God and made available for all. Wider perspective is provided through the faithfulness of Jesus and his obedience to the Father in fulfilling salvific purposes. For us, it means a transformational and relational way of living in an eschatological perspective. Christian ethics are deeply grounded in the concept of dikaiosyne theou, and Christian conduct represents its practical and necessary expression. People living in genuine Christian community are marked by the righteousness of God expressed as agape and progressively transformed by the presence and involvement of his Holy Spirit. Such people involve themselves in a continuous process of discovering new opportunities to affirm God’s righteousness. Thus, the Christian community of faith needs to be inclusive in its nature.

scholarly journals A Forgotten Spiritual Practice: Puritan Conference and Implications for the Church Today

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-49
Author(s):  
Rebecca F. Carhart
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Spiritual Practice ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Church

In Christian books today readers can find dozens of spiritual practices. One resource of the Protestant tradition, however, that has largely been forgotten is the Puritan practice of conference. This article describes how for the English Puritans conference exemplified the importance of communal spiritual life, then considers applications for the contemporary church. Conference refers to intentional conversation among believers about spiritual matters. Conference particularly expresses the value of Christian community and the need for the body of Christ to function together on the journey of faith. Understanding this practice not only illuminates the past but also offers valuable insights for the church today.

Double Affirmation: Medievalism as Christian Apologetic in the Arthurian Poetry of Charles Williams

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-96
Author(s):  
Sørina Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
European History ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Female Figure ◽  
Century Poetry ◽  
Charles Williams ◽  
Embodied Theology

In his unfinished cycle of Arthurian poems, Charles Williams developed a totalizing mythology in which he fictionalized the Medieval. First, he employed chronological conflation, juxtaposing events and cultural references from a millennium of European history and aligning each with his doctrinal system. Second, following the Biblical metaphor of the body of Christ, Blake’s symbolism, and Rosicrucian sacramentalism, he embodied theology in the Medieval landscape via a superimposed female figure. Finally, Williams worked to show the validity of two Scholastic approaches to spirituality: the kataphatic and apophatic paths. His attempts to balance via negativa and via positiva led Williams to practical misapplication—but also to creation of a landmark work of twentieth century poetry. . . . the two great vocations, the Rejection of all images before the unimaged, the Affirmation of all images before the all-imaged, the Rejection affirming, the Affirmation rejecting. . . —from ‘The Departure of Dindrane’ —O Blessed, pardon affirmation!— —O Blessed, pardon negation!— —from ‘The Prayers of the Pope’

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