scholarly journals Het ons kerkwees in strukture gestol?

1986 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Spoelstra

Does the church freeze in structures? Indications worldwide reveal that no clear and distinct concept of the church prevails today. It is maintained that a dynamic concept of the church and ministerial view on ecclesiastical institutions gave way during the Enlightenment to the concept of the church as a fixed formal institution or a legally defined structure. Even the Reformation wanted to reform papacy and not to establish church structures in opposition to Rome. The structural and denominational view of the church triggered off recurrent church schisms and on the other hand gave birth to an overwhelming urge to unify and form worldwide ecumenical structures, whereby local diversities are even called sin. The question is raised: By retaining the dynamic concept of the church as humans, people of God, wouldn't a new perspective be opened on the problem of diversities?

1995 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-579
Author(s):  
Margo Todd

Historians of early-seventeenth-century English religion are deeply divided over whether the church of the 1630s was characterized by more general theological and liturgical agreement and tolerant ecumenism, or by escalating conflict over theology and ceremonies, driven in part by virulent anti-popery and culminating in the violence of the 1640s. Those who see conflict acknowledge that such categories as Puritan and Anglican are unwarranted for what was really a spectrum of opinion, with the moderate range heavily occupied. Still, they find antecedents of the Civil War in longstanding quarrels over theology and ceremony. For those who find the Caroline church a consensual body, on the other hand, the causes of that war “remain elusive.” Having discarded as simplistic the plot line of the received version, which proceeds inexorably from Elizabethan dissent to “Puritan Revolution,” they now substitute short-term contingency and the sudden flourishing of a lunatic fringe. In the process of trying to sort out the complexity of contemporary theological opinion, they have lost the thread of the story they were trying to tell.


1991 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barrett L. Beer

In Tudor Prelates and Politics, Lacey Baldwin Smith wrote sympathetically of the dilemma faced by the conservative bishops who saw control over the Church of England slip from their grasp after the accession of Edward VI in 1547, but he gave less attention to the reforming bishops who worked to advance the Protestant cause. At the beginning of the new reign the episcopal bench, according to Smith's calculations, included twelve conservatives, seven reformers, and seven whose religious orientation could not be determined (see Table 1). The ranks of the conservatives were thinned as a consequence of the deprivation of Stephen Gardiner of Winchester, Edmund Bonner of London, Nicholas Heath of Worcester, George Day of Chichester, and Cuthbert Tunstall of Durham. On the other hand, eight new bishops were appointed between 1547 and 1553. These new men together with the Henrician reformers, of whom Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, was most important, had responsibility for leading the church during the period which saw the most extensive changes of the Reformation era. This essay examines the careers of the newly-appointed reforming bishops and attempts to assess their achievements and failures as they worked to create a reformed church in England.The first of the eight new bishops appointed during the reign of Edward VI was Nicholas Ridley, who was named Bishop of Rochester in 1547 and translated to London in 1550. In 1548 Robert Ferrar became Bishop of St. David's in Wales. No new episcopal appointments occurred in 1549, but during the following year John Ponet succeeded Ridley at Rochester while John Hooper took the see of Gloucester.


Horizons ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd A. Salzman ◽  
Michael G. Lawler

ABSTRACTArchbishop Bernardin recommended that, in the relationship between magisterium and theologians, two extremes are to be avoided. On the one hand, there should be no imperialism on the part of the magisterium, co-opting theologians merely as mouthpieces for magisterial teachings. On the part of theologians, on the other hand, there should be no secession from the magisterium that would give theologians absolute autonomy and freedom from accountability. This essay analyzes the diverse charisms of magisterium and theologians and argues that they are complementary and that both parties should relate in the dialogue of charity recommended for ecumenical discussions in Pope John Paul II's Ut Unum Sint. This dialogue of charity, the essay further argues, should not be restricted to only magisterium and theologians but should embrace also, for upbuilding the Church, the entire People of God journeying together to the Holy Mystery.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-355
Author(s):  
Colin Buchanan

I am grateful to the Society for the opportunity to mark the centenary of the Enabling Act and the beginning of the Church Assembly with some reflection on an often ignored but highly valuable feature of that inauguration: the Single Transferable Vote or STV. I tried on one respected registrar recently an illustration of what the task must be like for those who do not welcome it. Was it, I suggested, like a blind person doing a jigsaw where the pieces were all shaped differently from each other – in other words, where the blind person could ensure that it was put together accurately, but on the other hand never saw the picture? The response was that that picture reflected accurately how it had in fact felt to that registrar. That might suggest that this lecture should be explaining and commending STV as general good practice, but in the event the process and virtues of STV have here to be largely taken for granted. I offer here one short commendation of STV.


Archaeologia ◽  
1866 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-224
Author(s):  
Alexander Nesbitt

It will doubtless be generally admitted that the ecclesiastical buildings of the earlier centuries of the Christian era merit careful study, as well from the investigator into the history and antiquities of the Christian Church, as from the architectural antiquary. The style and ornamentation of the church and the baptistery must necessarily reflect something of the tone of feeling towards religious matters which prevailed at the time of their erection, whilst the form of the structure, and even more those fittings and arrangements by which it was adapted to ritual purposes, must obviously have been planned and modified in accordance with the views of the age as regarded liturgical and ritual observances, ecclesiastical discipline, and even articles of faith. To the architectural antiquary, on the other hand, these buildings are interesting as enabling him to study the decline of Roman art, and as links in the great chain of architectural progress.


1943 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-34
Author(s):  
Kenneth Scott Latourette

A strange contrast exists in the status of the Christian Church in the past seventy years. On the one hand the Church has clearly lost some of the ground which once appeared to be safely within its possession. On the other hand it has become more widely spread geographically and, when all mankind is taken into consideration, more influential in shaping human affairs than ever before in its history. In a paper as brief as this must of necessity be, space can be had only for the sketching of the broad outlines of this paradox and for suggesting a reason for it. If details were to be given, a large volume would be required. Perhaps, however, we can hope to do enough to point out one of the most provocative and important set of movements in recent history.


1906 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 149-169
Author(s):  
B.D. John Willcock

The idea that at the Restoration the Government of Charles II. wantonly attacked a Church that otherwise would have remained at peace and in the enjoyment of hardly-won liberties is not in accordance with facts. The Church was divided into two warring factions—that of the Remonstrants or Protesters and that of the Resolutioners. The former were the extreme Covenant party and had as their symbol the Remonstrance of the Western army after the Battle of Dunbar, in which they refused to fight any longer in the cause of Charles II. The Resolutioners were the more moderate party, which accepted him as a Covenanted King, and they derived their name from their support of certain Resolutions passed in the Parliament and General Assembly for the admission of Royalists to office under certain conditions. The Protesters—who numbered perhaps about a third of the Presbyterian clergy—claimed, probably not without reason, to be more religious than their opponents. They were very eager to purge the Church of all those whose opinions they regarded as unsatisfactory, and to fill up vacant charges with those who uttered their shibboleths. In their opposition to the King they naturally drew somewhat closely into sympathy with the party of Cromwell, though, with the fatal skill in splitting hairs which has afflicted so many of their nation, they were able to differentiate their political principles from what they called ‘English errors.’ The Resolutioners, on the other hand, adhered steadily to the cause of Charles II., and came under the disfavour of the Government of the Commonwealth for their sympathy with the insurrection under Glencairn and Middleton which had been so troublesome to the English authorities.


2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rowan Williams

ABSTRACTFor Hooker's opponents, sacraments could only be human actions designed to further the homogeneity of that community of uniform spiritual achievement which is the holy congregation. Hooker, on the other hand, affirms the possibility of uneven, confused faith, even the confused ecclesial loyalties of the ‘church papist’, as something acceptable within the reformed congregation. This is entirely of a piece with the defence of a liturgy that is more than verbal instruction. Hooker traces these two issues to a Christology which is centred upon divine gift and ontological transformation, and a consequent sacramental theology which affirms the hiddenness but effectiveness of divine presence and work in the forms of our ritual action.


POETICA ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 228-265
Author(s):  
Rafael Simian

Abstract Guigo II is commonly known and praised among specialists of Western mysticism for his Scala claustralium, a work that presents a spiritual program for cloistered monks. His Meditations, on the other hand, have usually been relegated to the margin of attention. The First Meditation, in particular, is generally regarded as a minor piece. The paper argues, however, that a new approach can make better sense of the First Meditation, while also enabling us to recognize its specific function and value. Seen from this new perspective, Guigo’s purpose with the text is to train and exercise his readers’ minds according to the spiritual program laid out in the Scala. The paper shows that the First Meditation realizes that goal, surprisingly, by having the same essential features that Umberto Eco found in the ‘open works’ of the Western avant-garde.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-222
Author(s):  
Mathias G. Parding

Abstract It is known that Kierkegaard’s relation to politics was problematic and marked by a somewhat reactionary stance. The nature of this problematic relation, however, will be shown to lie in the tension between his double skepticism of the order of establishment [det Bestående] on the one hand, and the political associations of his age on the other. In this tension he is immersed, trembling between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand Kierkegaard is hesitant to support the progressive political movements of the time due to his skepticism about the principle of association in the socio-psychological climate of leveling and envy. On the other hand, his dubious support of the order of the establishment, in particular the Church and Bishop Mynster, becomes increasingly problematic. The importance of 1848 is crucial in this regard since this year marks the decisive turn in Kierkegaard’s authorship. Using the letters to Kolderup-Rosenvinge in the wake of the cataclysmic events of 1848 as my point of departure, I wish to elucidate the pathway towards what Kierkegaard himself understands as his Socratic mission.


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