scholarly journals Believing in the Church: Why Ecumenism Needs the Invisibility of the Church

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 104
Author(s):  
Bradford Littlejohn
Keyword(s):  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Common Theme ◽  
Ecumenical Dialogue ◽  
Divine Grace ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Invisible ◽  
Church Communities

Amidst the plethora of approaches to ecumenical dialogue and church reunion over the last century, a common theme has been the depreciation of the classic Protestant distinction between the “visible” and “invisible” church. Often seen as privileging an abstract predestinarianism over the concrete lives and structures of church communities and underwriting a complacency about division that deprives Christians of any motive to ecumenical endeavor, the concept of the “invisible” church has been widely marginalized in favor of a renewed focus on the “visible” church as the true church. However, I argue that this stress on visible unity creates a pressure toward institutional forms of unity that ultimately privilege Roman Catholic ecclesiologies at the expense of Protestant ones, and thus fails of its ecumenical promise. Renewed attention to Reformational understandings of the relationship between divine grace and human action and the centrality and uniqueness of Christ as the foundation of the church, I argue, dispels some misunderstandings of the church’s “invisibility” and demonstrates the indispensability of the concept. I argue that this Reformational framework, which refuses to accept the empirical divisions of the Church as definitive and summons us to an ecumenism that belongs to the church’s sanctification, provides the best theological ground for ecumenical endeavor.

Grace and Freedom

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Muller
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Divine Grace ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
The Will ◽  
Libertarian Freedom ◽  
The Church

Grace and Freedom addresses the issue of divine grace in relation to the freedom of the will in Reformed or “Calvinist” theology in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century with a focus on the work of the English Reformed theologian William Perkins, and his role as an apologist of the Church of England, defending its theology against Roman Catholic polemic, and specifically against the charge that Reformed theology denies human free choice. Perkins and his contemporaries affirmed that salvation occurs by grace alone and that God is the ultimate cause of all things, but they also insisted on the freedom of the human will and specifically the freedom of choice in a way that does not conform to modern notions of libertarian freedom or compatibilism. In developing this position, Perkins drew on the thought of various Reformers such as Peter Martyr Vermigli and Zacharias Ursinus, on the nuanced positions of medieval scholastics, and on several contemporary Roman Catholic representatives of the so-called second scholasticism. His work was a major contribution to early modern Reformed thought both in England and on the continent. His influence in England extended both to the Reformed heritage of the Church of England and to English Puritanism. On the Continent, his work contributed to the main lines of Reformed orthodoxy and to the piety of the Dutch Second Reformation.

Dryden’s Post-Revolutionary Theology of Providence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John West
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

For Dryden, enthusiasm often signalled transcendence from the earthly and glimpsing the divine. The chapter examines the fate of this idea by tracing his late thinking about the relationship between providence and human action. The Hind and the Panther (1687) presents providence as mysteriously distant from humanity and inspiration as mediated through the Church. After the 1688 Revolution, such a view stood in contradistinction to the rhetoric of special providential intervention commonly used by Williamites. Dryden sometimes condemns this rhetoric as enthusiasm. His recurrent preoccupation in the 1690s is not militant Jacobitism, however, but learning to live in exile and suffering. The chapter argues that mystical Catholicism linked with Jansenism provides an intellectual context for this turn in Dryden’s thought. It reads this mysticism in Dryden’s late translations of Juvenal, Persius, Virgil, and Ovid which reflect on how contemplative reflection of God’s mysterious providence could help navigate a corrupt world.

Church as Charismatic Fellowship: Ecclesiological Reflections from The pentecostal-Roman Catholic Dialogue

2001 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veli-Matti Karkkainen
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Free Flow ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Pentecostal ecclesiology, a lived charismatic experience rather than discursive theology, naturally leans toward the charismatic structure of the church and free flow of the Spirit. In dialogue with the Roman Catholic church, Pentecostal ecclesiologv has been challenged to develop a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between the Spirit, institution, and Koinonia. As charismatic fellowship, the church is a communion of participating, empowered believers.

Interchurch Families

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Reardon
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Positive Attitude ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
International Network ◽  
Christian Unity ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

In interchurch families, both partners are practising members of their respective churches but wish also to participate in their spouse’s church as far as possible. Can such families really be ecumenical instruments, when they are so different from the organs of dialogue generally established by the churches? Interchurch couples themselves, united in an international network of groups and associations, believe that they can contribute to the growing unity between their churches. The Roman Catholic Church in particular has developed a more positive attitude towards the ecumenical potential of such families since Vatican II. Interchurch families contribute to Christian unity by their very existence as ‘domestic churches’, embodying and signifying the growing unity of the Church. The chapter concludes by suggesting how, with greater pastoral understanding and a deeper appreciation of the relationship between marital spirituality and spiritual ecumenism, they can become more effective ecumenical instruments by their characteristic ‘double belonging’.

The view from the devil’s mountain: Clarendon, Cressy and Hobbes, and the past, present and future of the Church of England

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Seaward
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
State Relations ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The lives, and political thought, of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, and Thomas Hobbes, were closely interwoven. In many ways opposed, their views on the relationship between Church and State have often been seen as less far apart, with Clarendon sharing Hobbes’s Erastianism and concerns about clerical assertiveness in the 1660s. But Clarendon’s writings on Church-State relations during the 1670s provide little evidence of concern about clerical involvement in politics, and demonstrate his vigorous adherence to a fairly conventional view among early seventeenth-century churchmen about the proper boundaries to royal interference in the Church; his worries about attempts to push further the implications of the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs are evident in his writings against Hobbes, as are his even greater anxieties, exacerbated by the conversion of his daughter, the Duchess of York, about the dangers of Roman Catholic encroachment.

The Caroline Divines and the Church of Rome: A Contribution to Current Ecumenical Dialogue – A Review Article

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Christopher Hill
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Moral Theology ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Ecumenical Dialogue ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
Founder Member ◽  
The Church

Readers of the Journal will recall the Ecclesiastical Law Society's long tradition of serious ecumenical engagement, embodied in the biennial Lyndwood Lecture with the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and recall that a number of members of the Society are regularly engaged with the Colloquium of Anglican and Roman Catholic Canon Lawyers. Moreover, ecumenical agreement and disagreement have canonical consequences, as, for example, in the debate about Anglican orders. In moral theology, particularly Roman Catholic moral theology, the relation between moral teaching, the confessional and canon law is obvious to any practitioner. My own interest in the Ecclesiastical Law Society was a direct consequence of my involvement in Anglican–Roman Catholic dialogue as successively co-secretary, member and consultant of the various embodiments of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) from 1974 onwards. An ecumenical conversation with Canon Graham Routledge, a founder member, led me to seek membership of the Society in its early days.

Church

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam DeVille
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Geographical Scope ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

The chapter traces developments in ecclesiology through the twentieth century, as the ecumenical movement unfolded, and raises questions about the relationship between the church and the communion of the Persons of the Trinity, and about the nature of the Church as eucharistic and sacramental. Further more practical questions about authority, primacy, and synodality (or conciliarity) are also examined in light of the work of multilateral ecumenical dialogues (especially within the World Council of Churches), and bilateral dialogues, particularly the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and the international Roman Catholic–Orthodox theological dialogue. Considerable progress has been made on all these questions, but new issues have recently arisen, and these are briefly treated, including questions of imperfect communion, of the ordination of women and of those in same-sex relationships, and questions of geographical scope relative to jurisdiction and canonical territory.

scholarly journals CHURCH AND NATIONAL IDENTITY: CROSSING TRAJECTORIES (ON THE EXAMPLE OF IRELAND)

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-338
Author(s):  
D.B. Vershinina
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
Catholic Religion ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The paper attempts to identify the features of the relationship of the Catholic religion and the church as an institution with the process of forming and modernizing the Irish national identity. The historical aspects of the interaction of the church and the national movement are compared with modern data on the place of the Roman Catholic Church in the structure of the Irish national identity, the position of the church in relation to moral issues is revealed, and the conclusion is made on the factors and specifics of the secularization process in Ireland in the second half of the 20 and early 21 centuries. The author uses legislative sources, press materials, texts of speeches of state and public figures.

Shifts in Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant Ecclesiology from 1965 to 2006

Ecclesiology ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Fahey
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Ecumenical Dialogue ◽  
World Council ◽  
Select Bibliography ◽  
Communion Ecclesiology ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Church

AbstractDrawing upon his thirty years experience of teaching ecclesiology, the author tries to identify some developments and paradigm shifts he recognizes as having influenced theological reflection on the Church in Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant contexts. He contrasts the present-day situation of Catholics to the isolationist doldrums that characterized the post-Modernist and pre-Vatican II eras. The impact of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches was already notable when Catholics belatedly began to participate in ecumenical dialogue. Various advances in ecclesiology can be identified, especially the use of 'communion' ecclesiology. Negatively, the achievements of ecumenical exchanges are little known by the faithful and rarely cited by church leaders. Canonical regulations especially affecting eucharistic hospitality do not take into consideration the doctrinal consensuses that have emerged. A select bibliography is appended.

scholarly journals Apostolicity – The question of Continuity and Authority

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Alexander Heindel
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
Ecumenical Dialogue ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Article Analysis ◽  
The Church ◽  
Common Vision ◽  
Ecumenical Theology

This article was presented as a research paper for the Ecumenical Theology Course at the Ecumenical Institute Bossey in Switzerland. Apostolicity and the relation to the apostles and the early Christians is a big discussed topic in several ecumenical dialogues. First the article analysis the method and context of five different ecumenical dialogue documents. It goes from multilateral Faith and Order documents like “Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry” and “The Church Towards a Common Vision” over the “Porvoo Common Statement” to two Lutheran/Roman-Catholic documents. Then it identifies some characteristic dimensions of apostolicity and brings the results from the dialogues together. A reading of apostolicity as narrative of continuity and authority in relation to god and Jesus Christ occurs through the chapters. Especially in the question of ministry apostolicity plays an important and differentiated role. The article focusses in the end on the episcopal ministry and develops the differentiation of horizontal and vertical apostolic continuity. Apostolicity is described as a gift of god and becomes obviously through gods action in the ordination act. Finally, the article summarises all results, ideas and new approaches.

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