scholarly journals Endzeitstimmung Der Umgang der evangelischen Kirche A.B. mit der Aussiedlung der Siebenbürger Sachsen

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 103-120
Author(s):  
Alois-Richard Kommer
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Church Leadership ◽  
Evangelical Church ◽  
The Public ◽  
Lutheran Church ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
The Church

Abstract The present paper deals with the attitude of the Evangelical Church of Augustan Confession in Romania (the Lutheran Church of the German-speaking Transylvanian Saxons) regarding the massive emigration of the Saxons after the events of December 1989 in Romania. The investigation is based on official documents of the Central Consistory of the Evangelical Church, from the central church archives in Sibiu/Hermannstadt at the Friedrich Teutsch cultural centre, as well as several editions of the publications Landeskirchliche Information (numbers 1 to 6 of the 1st year) and Kirchliche Blätter (numbers 1 to 12 of the 18th year). The analysis in the present study covers the year 1990 and shows the Evangelical Church as an institution that tries to face the challenges caused by the massive wave of emigrated Saxons. The topics the church leadership dealt with can also be found in the public discourse in the periodicals of the church. They were visibly trying to adapt to the new challenges; the responsible were constantly looking for solutions in order to be able to maintain the structures of the church.

The Romanian orthodox church after 1989: social identity, national memory, and the theory of secularization

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-71
Author(s):  
Iuliana Conovici
Keyword(s):  
Mass Communication ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
The Public ◽  
Official Discourse ◽  
National Memory ◽  
Romanian Orthodox Church ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Romanian Orthodox ◽  
The Church

The Romanian Orthodox Church engaged, after the fall of communism, in the reconstruction of its public identity and its position in society. The public discourse of its official representatives – the Holy Synod and individual hierarchs, especially the Patriarch Teoctist – expresses and „translates” this process to the faithful and the general public. Its perception by this public, particularly when mediated by means of mass communication, is usually partial and frequently altered.</p> <p>By focusing on the official discourse of the Romanian Orthodox Church representatives, as expressed in the ecclesiastical press and (re)transmitted in the common mass media, this paper will explore the justification/explanation by ecclesiastical officials of this process, following the lines of two main - intertwined - lines: the legitimization of the resurgence in the public sphere of the Church as an institution of spiritual and social assistance and its presence as the privileged keeper and guardian of national values.</p> <p>It will be further argued that, while explicitly refuting and condemning any signs of secularization in the Romanian society, the Romanian Orthodox Church, through its official discourse, is actually contributing to the deepening of this very process within both society and the Church itself.</p> <p>Our main sources for the public discourse of the Romanian Orthodox Church will be the ecclesiastical press and collections of speeches, sermons, articles of Orthodox hierarchs and documents of the Holy Synod. For the theoretical framing of the paper, the main references will be works of Thomas Luckmann, Danièle Hérvieu-Léger, Grace Davie, René Rémond, etc.

scholarly journals Prophetic witness: An appropriate mode of public discourse in the democratic South Africa?

2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Etienne De Villiers
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Second Step ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Prophetic Witness ◽  
The Church

The question asked in the heading was answered in this article in four steps. In the first step, an attempt was made to find an accurate account of biblical prophecy by means of a critical discussion of certain influential interpretations of it. In the second step, the extent to which biblical prophecy could serve as a model for contemporary Christians was discussed and an acceptable Christian model of prophetic witness was formulated by drawing on the views of different authors. In the third step, the impact of democracy on the prophetic witness of the church was discussed. The Dutch theologian, Gerrit de Kruijf’s view that the public prophetic witness of the church is not appropriate in democratic societies was criticised and the legitimacy of certain forms of prophetic witness in such societies defended. In the final step, a number of examples of the prophetic witness that is needed in the present democratic South Africa were provided.

scholarly journals Prekäre (Kultur-)Kämpfe?

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (160) ◽  
pp. 361-376
Author(s):  
Magdalena Freudenschuß
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Media ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Societal Changes

Precarity became an issue in public discourse in German speaking media throughout 2006. In this article the author takes a closer look on the symbolic negotiations on precariousness/precarity and its references to neo-conservative reasoning undertaken in the public media discourse. Who is designated as the precarious subject -- and to what extent do discursive designations legitimate social inequalities? Public discourse is to be understood as an ambivalent and multifaceted field of negotiations on society and social justice. As such, it is a field where interpretations of societal changes try to gain a hegemonic position and where they are at the same time challenged, disrupted and irritated. Thus, the article points out some hegemonic and counter-hegemonic moments within the public discourse on precarity.

scholarly journals Kościół ewangelicki przyczółkiem opozycji wschodnioniemeickiej

2018 ◽  
pp. 101-114
Author(s):  
Jakub Michalak
Keyword(s):  
Evangelical Church ◽  
Lutheran Church ◽  
Evangelical Churches ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Church

Evangelical Church had an important role in the GDR as far as the activities of opposition at the beginning of 1970s and 1980s are concerned. Indeed, it was outside the institution of the Unity Party. Within the vicinity of the church, people were to create a feeling of solidarity between those aggrieved by the system and the first grassroots activists. During 1989 and 1990 Lutheran church became the starting point for mass demonstrations and a peaceful revolution. In addition, the invitation of the party and the opposition to committees’ meeting on Dec. 7, 1989 was published on behalf of the Association of Evangelical Churches.

City Outreach

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica M. Barron ◽  
Rhys H. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Church Leadership ◽  
Public High School ◽  
Church Members ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Status ◽  
Congregation Members ◽  
Before School ◽  
The City ◽  
The Church

Although Downtown Church is still a fairly new congregation, it has developed two significant outreach ministries. The church sponsors a team in a community basketball league— made up of congregation members and some external “ringers” who are terrific players but not regular church members. And it sponsors a “before-school” support program at a public high school in a low-income, crime-ridden neighborhood in the city. Both of these programs are similar to efforts made by many congregations, but they also reveal how the church leadership struggles to handle issues of race and inequality beyond its own walls. Here, “racial utility” becomes apparent, as the pastoral leadership often uses black members to help it establish credibility, either with others in the city basketball league or with the public school system. At the same time, many of the church members involved with the programs recognize that even as they are being used for their race, they are in turn using the status of the white leadership to gain entrance into situations they might not have been able to achieve on their own.

scholarly journals Disinformation and the Structural Transformations of the Public Arena: Addressing the Actual Challenges to Democracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 205630512198892
Author(s):  
Andreas Jungherr ◽  
Ralph Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Structural Transformations ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Arena ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
Digital Channels

Current debate is dominated by fears of the threats of digital technology for democracy. One typical example is the perceived threats of malicious actors promoting disinformation through digital channels to sow confusion and exacerbate political divisions. The prominence of the threat of digital disinformation in the public imagination, however, is not supported by empirical findings which instead indicate that disinformation is a limited problem with limited reach among the public. Its prominence in public discourse is instead best understood as a “moral panic.” In this article, we argue that we should shift attention from these evocative but empirically marginal phenomena of deviance connected with digital media toward the structural transformations that give rise to these fears, namely those that have impacted information flows and attention allocation in the public arena. This account centers on structural transformations of the public arena and associated new challenges, especially in relation to gatekeepers, old and new. How the public arena serves actually existing democracy will not be addressed by focusing on disinformation, but rather by addressing structural transformations and the new challenges that arise from these.

scholarly journals Prophetic witness and public discourse in European societies – a German perspective

2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinrich Bedford-Strohm
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
The Public ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Pluralistic Societies ◽  
Prophetic Witness ◽  
The Church

The role of prophetic witness of the churches in the public discourse of modern civil societies is analysed on the basis of three public memorandums of the German Protestant churches on economic questions and their impact on the public. Among the ten systematic conclusions which are drawn from this case study is the importance of the specific context for the role of prophetic statements. The article tries to show how prophetic witness is a necessary element of a public theology, which is not based on fundamental criticism, but develops both critical and constructive perspectives for politics and society. If such public theology is liberation theology for a democratic society it is the task of the church to get involved in the public debate in a ‘bilingual’ way, that is, on the basis of its biblical-theological sources but at the same time with the ability to engage in the secular language of pluralistic societies.

Pastoral Office and the General Priesthood in the Great Awakening

1989 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 303-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
W.R. Ward
Keyword(s):  
Bible Study ◽  
Church History ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Priesthood Of All Believers ◽  
Evangelical Church ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Church

Whatever Luther may have said about the priesthood of all believers, it took more than a century and a half for the idea to receive full-scale treatment, and Spener, who achieved this during his time as Senior of Frankfurt (1660-86), approached the goal indirectly through editing Arndt’s sermons (1675). To catch the public eye he republished the introduction separately later in the year under the title Pia Desideria, or heartfelt desires for an improvement of the true evangelical church pleasing to God, with some Christian proposals to that end. With a dedication to all the overseers and pastors of the evangelical church it was now a deliberately programmatic writing. In this tract Spener castigated every class of society for their responsibility for the lamentable state of the Church, making suggestions for improved clerical training and preaching, which might have been made at any period of Church history. The real sting came in an explicit appeal to Luther on how best to realize the priesthood of all behevers. To spread the word of God more richly among the people there should be private gatherings under clerical leadership for the exchange of views and Bible study; more radically, there should be private gatherings for the exercise of the obligations of the general spritual priesthood. The faithful should teach, warn, convert, edify each other. These gatherings should be cells for the renewal of the Church. They would also enable Spener, the expert catechist, to drive home his conviction that Christianity was a way of life, learnt by doing.

The First Missionaries of The Church Missionary Society in Sierra Leone, 1804–1816: A Biographical Approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 199-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina H.B. Keefer
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Important Data ◽  
Evangelical Church ◽  
Sociocultural Perspectives ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Biographical Approach ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Church Missionary Society ◽  
The Church

Abstract:Many early records in West Africa arise from missionary accounts. While they may contain rich ethnographic data, this detail should be approached only after analysis and consideration of the authors of the sources in question. In early Sierra Leone, important data was recorded on behalf of the English evangelical Church Missionary Society, but the missionaries reporting on the ground comprised an insufficiently studied group of German-speaking Pietist Lutherans originating from central and northern Europe. This article analyzes the authors of this information in order to approach their accounts with a better appreciation of existing bias and to better engage with how diverse sociocultural perspectives affect the historical record.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document