scholarly journals Missio Dei – the contemporary missionary paradigm and its reception in the Eastern Orthodox missionary theology

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-91
Author(s):  
Cristian Sonea

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyse the reception of the missio Dei paradigm in the Eastern Orthodox theology of mission. We will start with a short presentation of the genesis of the concept, and we will continue with its reception in the Protestant and Roman Catholic theology, as well as in the Eastern Orthodox thinking. The paper attempts to demonstrate that the contemporary way to understand the missionary theology and practice is in accordance with the Orthodox traditional missionary theology. At the same time, the article emphasizes the fact that the reception of missio Dei is connected with the view that different ecclesiastical bodies have about church itself. The conclusion includes some practical remarks about ways of applying the concept in the contemporary ecumenical missiology and in the field of spiritual missiology.

1980 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-222
Author(s):  
Brian Hebblethwaite

For the larger part of their history, the Christian Churches have taught the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity as central and essential to their faith. Their creeds, councils, and confessions, whatever their differences and whatever range of different interpretations they have permitted, have agreed in affirming that the central figure of the Gospels is to be understood, not only as the revealer of God, but as himself the content of that revelation, God the Son made man for our salvation, and that the doctrine of God implied by that revelation is to be expressed in trinitarian terms. These are still, to a very large extent, the characteristic and peculiar beliefs of Christianity, in its Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant forms. Nevertheless, since the Enlightenment and the rise of modern critical approaches both to scripture and to tradition, the propriety of these doctrines has been questioned. This questioning has been overwhelmingly a Protestant phenomenon, though there have been and are some indications of similar questioning in Roman Catholic theology at the turn of the century and today. Disregarding external critics of Christianity, we can point within the Christian Churches themselves, to rationalist versions of the faith, in which the eternal truths of reason (metaphysical or moral) have been held to constitute the essence of Christianity, deistic versions, which have sought to eliminate the notions of special revelation and divine action in the world, idealist versions, in which the concept of Incarnation has been held to symbolise some universal identity of God and man, liberal Protestant versions, which have singled out either the God-consciousness of Jesus or his teaching as the crucial element in Christianity, and modernist versions, in which the life of the Church itself has been embraced as experientially self-authenticating, irrespective of its origins.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147737082098882
Author(s):  
Carter Rees ◽  
L Thomas Winfree

Intra-national conflicts with racial or ethnic elements can complicate post-war reconciliation. From 1992 to 1995, much of the former Yugoslavia, a nation largely drawn from three distinct ethnic groups, was embroiled in such a conflict. After the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord, it was feared that schools would become a surrogate battlefield for school-aged children within the newly created nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Group threat theory and the imbalance of power thesis provide differing views on such conflicts. Group threat theory posits that as a population – in this case a school – approaches maximum ethnic diversity, the residents – in this case the students – will feel increasingly threatened, resulting in higher cross-group victimizations. The imbalance of power thesis suggests that a group’s decision to victimize another group depends on the relative lack of ethnic diversity: The extent to which one ethnic group dominates a school, the likelihood of victimization of any smaller groups increases. We explore which of these two theories best explains victimization levels within a sample of 2003 school-aged BiH adolescents born in areas dominated by Muslim Bosnians, Eastern Orthodox Serbians, or Roman Catholic Croatians. We find that there is an ethnic component to victimizations: students born in Serbia face higher levels of victimization than do their Bosnian-born counterparts under conditions that fit better with group threat theory than the imbalance of power thesis. We speculate about the significance of these findings for national ethnic harmony in BiH.


Author(s):  
Volodymyr Abaschnik

Abstract In the article, a little-studied question of the critical interpretation of the theological position of the representative of German protestant tradition Otto Pfleiderer (1839–1908) in the eastern orthodox theology, especially in the work of Kharkiv Professor Timofej Butkevič (1854–1925), is presented. At first, the main periods of a clerical and creative career of Butkevič, including his studying at the Kharkiv Clerical Seminary (1869–1875) and the Moscow Clerical Academy (1875–1879), are considered. Then the features of the theological publications and the teaching of Butkevič at Kharkiv University are pointed out. His important works were two monographs: The evil, its essence and origin (1897) and Religion, its essence and origin (1902–1904) in two books. The positions of well-known German theologians such as Karl August von Hase (1800–1890), David Friedrich Strauß (1808–1874), Karl Theodor Keim (1825–1878), Karl Philipp Bernhard Weiss (1827–1918), and others were here analyzed. But Butkevič’s critical interpretation of the theological viewpoint of Otto Pfleiderer in his two volumes work Die Religion, ihr Wesen und ihre Geschichte (1869) and in his Geschichte der Religionsphilosophie von Spinoza bis auf die Gegenwart (1883) occupies a central place in this analysis. In turn, Butkevič’s important achievement was the popularization of the ideas of Otto Pfleiderer in Russia and Ukraine, in particular, because of his translation of extracts from Pfleiderer’s works.


2012 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-441
Author(s):  
Miroljub Jevtic

The majority of the Christian world today is affected by weakening adherence to principles of religious practice. The reverse is the case in the countries of predominantly Orthodox tradition. After the collapse of communism, all types of human freedom were revived, including the religious one. The consequence is the revival of the Orthodox Christianity. It is reflected in the influence of the Orthodox Church on the society. Today, the most respected institutions in Russia and Serbia are the Russian and Serbian Orthodox Church, respectively. Considering the decline of the Western Christianity, the revival of the Orthodox Church has raised hopes that the Western Christianity can be revived, too. Important Christian denominations, therefore, show great interest in including the Orthodox Church in the general Christian project. It is particularly evident in the Roman Catholic Church foreign policy. The Roman Catholic Church is attempting to restore relations with Orthodox churches. In this sense, the most important churches are the Russian and the Serbian Church. But, establishing relations with these two is for Vatican both a great challenge and a project of great significance.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Geoffrey

The reformers, Luther and others protested against the Roman Catholic theology that allegedly created a wedge between sacred and secular vocations and glorified the sacred at the cost of demeaning and devaluing the secular. However with the dawn of modernity, many individualistic ideas of work, vocation and calling have risen in the culture that goes against Protestant/Puritan thought in many ways yet the Protestant theology is in many ways blamed for the rise in individualism. Therefore this article weighs in with some Christian reflection from a puritan theology perspective over some contemporary ideas held by the culture concerning work, vocation and calling from a protestant perspective in an attempt to reclaim truly puritan thinking on these matters of work, vocation and calling


Author(s):  
Samir Simaika ◽  
Nevine Henein

This chapter discusses Marcus Simaika's involvement in the dispute between the Copts and Ethiopians regarding what is known as Deir al-Sultan or the Imperial Monastery in Jerusalem. Ethiopia has long been acquainted with monotheism, and the Ethiopian Church is the largest of all the Oriental Orthodox churches. The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria has a longstanding relationship with the Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tawahedo Church. Tawahedo means 'unified,' referring to the single unified nature of Christ, as opposed to the belief in the two natures of Christ held by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and many others had refused to accept the two-natures doctrine decreed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, and these churches are sometimes referred to as monophysite. Simaika maintained that Deir al-Sultan belonged to the Coptic community from time immemorial.


Author(s):  
Ruth Coates

Chapter 1 explores the meaning of deification in the Eastern Orthodox tradition as a metaphor for salvation, comparing this with the metaphor of redemption with which the ‘Western’ denominations are more familiar. Departing from the notion of the structural significance of deification for Orthodox theology, it sets out its importance for Greek patristic anthropology, Christology, and eschatology. Following Norman Russell (2004), it distinguishes between a ‘realistic’ approach to deification through participation, notably in the sacramental life of the church, and an ‘ethical’ approach, through imitation of Christ’s virtues. The two approaches are combined in contemplative monasticism, where mystical union comes to be understood as participation in the grace or energies of God. In conclusion, the chapter identifies aspects of Greek patristic deification that prove most important to Russian religious philosophers in the inter-revolutionary period.


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