scholarly journals The Ambiguous Beginnings of the Modern Mission Movements in the Reformed Church of Transylvania Between 1895 and 1918

Perichoresis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-15
Author(s):  
Levente Horváth
Keyword(s):  
Social Needs ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Christian Endeavor ◽  
Mission Movement ◽  
Official Recognition

Abstract This study looks at the ways how the Reformed Church encountered the new modern mission movement in Transylvania with the arrival of Dr. Béla Kenessey and Dr. István Kecskeméthy to the newly established Reformed Theological Seminary at Cluj in 1895. By the time being, some theologians expressed grave concerns about the dangers of theological liberalism to the Confessions. The paper argues that these young professors, touched by the mission movement and revival also sought to encompass those who had an evangelistic fervor to reach unbelievers and to serve those people in their personal and social needs. As a result, Christian Covenant was established in 1896, with official recognition in 1903 as the Christian Endeavor. It is hoped to unfold the major shifts regarding the attitudes to mission in the Reformed Church of Hungary and throw lights on ambiguous beginnings of mission movements.

scholarly journals Ministerial formation policies of the Northern Theological Seminary of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa:

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 191-216
Author(s):  
ST Kgatla
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Ethnic Churches ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Dutch Reformed Church

This article investigates the theoretical and practical effectiveness of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa’s (URCSA) ministerial formation of the Northern Synod. The URCSA is part of the Reformed Movement (Calvinism) that was established by the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) of South Africa that mainly came from the Netherlands to establish itself in South Africa and later established ethnic churches called daughter churches into existence in terms of a racially designed formula. After many years of the Dutch Reformed Church missionary dominance, the URCSA constituted its first synod in 1994 after the demise of apartheid. It was only after this synod that the URCSA through its ministerial formation tried to shake off the legacy of colonial paternalism and repositioned itself to serve its members; however, it fell victim to new ideological trappings. This article is based on a study that traces some basic Reformed practices and how the URCSA Theological Seminary of the Northern Synod dealt or failed to deal with them in its quest for the ideal theological ministerial formation.

The Mercersburg Theology Historically Considered

1912 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 117-149
Author(s):  
George Warren Richards
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
German Philosophy ◽  
Franklin County ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Mercersburg Theology ◽  
Marshall College ◽  
The Town

The Mercersburg Theology derived its name from the town of Mercersburg in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Here was the seat of Marshall College from 1835 to 1853, and of The Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church in the United States from 1837 to 1871. While Mercersburg gave the institutions “a local habitation and a name,” they owed their distinctive doctrines to the genius of the German and the Swiss Reformed people in America and to the influence of the contemporary German philosophy and theology.

The emergence of schism in seventeenth-century Scotland

1972 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 277-294
Author(s):  
Gordon Donaldson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Common ◽  
Official Recognition

It is perhaps debatable whether the Reformation itself had involved schism, or at any rate whether those who took part in it thought that it did. It is true that in 1555, on the insistence of John Knox when he was in Scotland on a visit from Geneva, some of the reforming party were prevailed on to give up attending ‘that idol’, the mass, and that before he left Scotland Knox administered the Lord’s Supper after the reformed model. It is true, too, that from this time or shortly thereafter Protestants began to gather together for worship, hardly in secret – for the government’s policy was not repressive – but at least without official recognition. These ‘privy kirks’, which existed before there was ‘the face of a public kirk’ and had their preachers, elders and deacons, were parallel to the congregations which English exiles were organising on the continent in the same years, and parallel, too, to the much more secret congregations which then existed in London. In the ‘First Bond’ of December 1557 a few notables renounced ‘the congregation of Satan’ and pledged themselves to work for the erection of a reformed Church, but, as they followed this with a supplication that the ‘common prayers’ should be read every Sunday in all parishes, it is evident that the aim was to reform the whole Church, not to separate from it.

“Rather French than Subject to the Prince of Orange.” The Conflicting Loyalties of the Utrecht Catholics during the French Occupation (1672-73)

2007 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertrand Forclaz
Keyword(s):  
Interesting Case ◽  
City Council ◽  
Political Affiliation ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
Louis Xiv ◽  
The Public ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The City ◽  
Official Recognition

AbstractThe French occupation of Utrecht (1672-73) provides us with an interesting case through which to study different regimes of religious coexistence and their effects on interconfessional relationships. I argue in this article, on the basis of diaries, letters, pamphlets, consistorial records and edicts of the city council, that the French occupier, in granting the Catholics freedom of worship, contributed to a hardening of interconfessional relationships, by provoking conflicts about rituals and the use of churches. The occupation brought a new pattern of coexistence: whereas in the United Provinces, the Reformed Church enjoyed a monopoly over religious expression in the public sphere and other faiths were tolerated by connivance, during the occupation both the Catholic and the Reformed faiths had official recognition and were practiced publicly. Another reason to study the occupation is that it allows us to learn more about the political affiliation of Catholics: did they support the French? Did they consider that Louis XIV would restore them to political and religious supremacy, as prophecies seem to suggest? The answers to these questions vary. Whereas the Catholic clerics generally supported the French king, lay people seem to have been disappointed, as the French did not treat them differently from the Reformed inhabitants: for example, everyone had to pay the same taxes. All in all the occupation reveals the crystallization of confessional identities and the difficulty of coexistence when different faiths had the same rights.

scholarly journals The Dutch Reformed Church and the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria

2009 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippus R. Du Toit
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
The Other ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
University Of Pretoria ◽  
Role Players ◽  
The University ◽  
Dutch Reformed Church

The focus of this article is on the fundamental and practical reasons that led to the establishment of theological training by the Dutch Reformed Church in the northern part of South Africa. The Faculty of Theology (Division B) was eventually established in 1938 at the University of Pretoria - nearly 80 years since the opening of the Theological Seminary in Stellenbosch. Attention is given both to the major role players in Church and Faculty as well as to the developments that inf uenced both Church and Faculty: the Dutch Reformed Church of Transvaal eventually dissolved into four synods; the Faculty of Theology on the other hand united the two Divisions to become one multi-denominational faculty in 2000. Cognisance is taken of the major tensions between faculty and Church during the course of time. Special attention is given to certain accusations regarding theological heresy during the last decade.�

Divided between Heart and Mind: the Critical Period for Protestant Thought in America

1987 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. G. Hart
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
Church History ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
The World ◽  
Heart And Mind

In 1854, Philip Schaff, professor of church history at Mercersburg Theological Seminary and minister of the German Reformed Church, reported to his denomination on the state of Christianity in America. Although the American Church had many shortcomings, according to Schaff the United States was ‘by far the most religious and Christian country in the world’. Many Protestant leaders, however, took a dimmer view of Christianity's prospects. In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, a nagging sense prevailed that traditional theology was no longer capable of integrating religion and culture, or piety and intelligence. Bela Bates Edwards, a conservative New England divine, complained of the prevalent opinion ‘that an intellectual clergyman is deficient in piety and that an eminently pious minister is deficient in intellect’. Edwards was not merely lamenting the unpopularity of Calvinism. A Unitarian writer also noted a burgeoning ‘clerical skepticism’. Intelligent and well-trained men who wished to defend and preach the Gospel, he wrote, ‘find themselves struggling within the fetters of a creed by which they have pledged themselves’. An 1853 Memorial to the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church summed up the doubts of Protestant clergymen when it asked whether the Church's traditional theology and ministry were ‘competent to the work of preaching and dispensing the Gospel to all sorts and conditions of men, and so adequate to do the work of the Lord in this land and in this age’.

scholarly journals Die oor-en-weer beroep van predikante tussen die Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk en die Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk van Afrika: 1862–1917

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Flip Du Toit
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Theological Seminary ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk ◽  
Special Meeting ◽  
Dutch Reformed Church ◽  
Theological Training

The ongoing appointment of ministers between the Dutch Reformed Church and the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa: 1862–1917. This article highlights the situation prior to the establishment of the theological training of the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NDRCA). The training of ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) started in 1859 with the establishment of the Theological Seminary at Stellenbosch. Since 1862 three churches operated in the then Transvaal (South African Republic). Many ministers of the DRC were called to serve in the NDRCA. The most notable were the Rev D.P. Ackerman and the Rev H.S. Bosman. They were called before the origin of the united church (of the NDRCA and the DRC) that existed between 1885 and 1892. After the split in 1892, they (as well as many others) continued as ministers in the DRC. The first lecturer of the NDRCA was called in 1917 − also a minister that was previously from the DRC. The calling of his successor sparked a major row. The NDRCA congregation of Pretoria called another minister from the DRC – the Rev H.D. van Broekhuizen. This eventually led to a special meeting of the General Assembly of the NDRCA in 1917 where his calling was eventually approved.

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