scholarly journals Where sexuality and spirituality meet: An assessment of Christian teaching on sexuality and marriage in relation to the reality of 21st century moral norms

2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilize E. Tukker

Christians and the church tend to shy away from talking about sex, premarital sex and sex outside of marriage. God and sex are rarely mentioned in the same sentence, and yet people still have a deep need for spirituality, to experience God in their lives and to seek guidance on sexual matters. It becomes a dilemma when the question is posed: where do sexuality and spirituality meet? One way to answer this question is to attempt to find a link between spirituality and sexuality. In this way, spirituality could gain relevance, and expressing one’s sexuality could find a moral foundation. People are both spiritual and sexual creatures – with the need to express their spirituality and sexuality in a moral, but unashamedly natural way. This article attempts to find alternative solutions for our complex society – on the subject of marriage and sexuality. The intention is not to dismiss the institution of marriage, but rather to renegotiate the terms and structure of marriage in the 21st century.

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-153
Author(s):  
Michael L. Sweeney

In three, and perhaps four, of Paul’s letters he speaks of the collection he is trying to raise to send financial assistance back to the impoverished church in Jerusalem. Biblical scholars have speculated for years regarding Paul’s motivation and purpose behind this collection. While many have been suggested, this article will focus on the collection as an expression of church solidarity between different regions. It will not only summarize significant recent research on the subject, but move beyond the historical and exegetical questions to inquire about the missiological significance of the collection for today’s church. What does this ancient fund-raising effort say about how the church in the 21st century should think about missions and church solidarity?


Author(s):  
Alina Honcharenko ◽  

The article is devoted to the analysis of a fragment of Kyiv Rus’ linguistic picture of the world and to the reconstruction of human ethic orientations of the Early Middle Age. The aim of this scientific research is to highlight the semantic scope and functions of language units in the Kyiv-Pechersk Patericon are to describe the moral and ethic portrait of a monk. The proposed theme of a study allows updating the analysis aimed at the reconstruction of the Old Ruthenians ethical ideals. The Kyiv-Pechersk Patericon is the first original collection of lives of the Old East Slavic saints of the 13th century. It does not only fully describe the images of the first Rus’ ascetics, but thanks to its unique structure it is the only one among the East Slavic written papers, which gives a valuable possibility to unite different materials into a holistic picture of the moral life in ancient Kyiv. The linguistic means of depicting the moral and ethical characteristics of the inhabitants of the monastery became the subject of the study. It is concluded that in the selection of the characteristics of the monks in the text under consideration there is a tendency to idealize, focus on the literary etiquette norms and highlight the concept of the honor of the clergy. A special attention is paid to such qualities as the allegiance to Christian teaching, humbleness, restraint, mercy, expressed through about 40 positively connotated substantive and adjective lexemes (some negative characteristics are isolated and, therefore, are not involved in the analysis). The selected names don’t perform any terminological functions (they are not components of the titles of the highest ranks of the clergy or namings of the faces of holiness) but rather represent moral and ethical characteristics. In the use of most part of laudatory epithets-definitions there is a tendency to associate them with a specific person, which in the process of further canonization will be the basis for the inclusion of each of them in the certain category of sainthood. According to the origin and character of their use, these lexemes pertain to the church-bookish element. The consistency in refusing to borrow Greek or Latin words to denote the holiness idea indicates a high level of language and cultural-religion consciousness and can be regarded as the main feature of the Slavic choice in denoting this idea. The proposed article considers one of the fragments of the lexical originality of the Kyiv-Pechersk Patericon, which opens us prospects for further studies of this ancient text at different language levels.


2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Kommers

Wereldwijd is aandacht gegeven aan de 250ste geboortedag van William Carey. Tot op de dag van vandaag wordt hij herinnerd als een zendingsman die met zijn visie voor de zending van blijvende betekenis is. Zijn leven is het onderwerp geweest van meer dan vijftig biografieën en deelstudies, maar het blijft moeilijk hem onder één noemer te vatten. Hij wordt genoemd de stichter en de vader van de moderne zending (Smith 1885:437), maar óók een groot staatsman, een onderlegde botanist, en een echte vriend van Bengalen en India (Davis 1963:73). Carey was in alle opzichten een pionier, die zich hierin onderscheidde van anderen uit zijn tijd dat zijn zendingswerk diep geworteld was in een verscheidenheid van seculiere wetenschappen. Zijn werk geeft een ‘turning point’ (Neill 1982:261) aan voor het zendingswerk in de 19e eeuw. De geloofscrisis binnen de kerken van het Westen heeft geleid tot een verlies van overtuiging dat het geloof in Christus Jezus zó essentieel is, dat zonder geloof in Hem mensen verloren gaan. We vragen ons af, ’Hoe komt het dat Carey tot op heden in de wereld van de missiologie blijft meetellen?’ Wij doen onszelf te kort wanneer we niet luisteren naar zijn stem, mede omdat ‘in the whole history of the church no nobler man has ever given himself so fully to the service of the Redeemer’ (Neill et al. 1971:83). Hij had een visie op zending, maar ook een concreet plan om tot uitvoering van zijn visie te komen. Carey is met zijn zendingsprincipes voor de 21ste eeuw een modern zendingsstrateeg.Worldwide attention has been given to William Carey’s 250th birthday in 2011. He is remembered today as a man of distinguished importance for his work in India and his vision for missions. Though his life has been the subject of more than fifty biographies and case studies, it is difficult to view him under one common denominator. He has been called the ‘founder and father of modern missions’ (Smith 1885:437) and ‘a great statesman, a skilled botanist and a real friend of Bengal and the rest of India’ (Davis 1963:73). In all aspects he was a pioneer. Distinguishing him from others, we see that his mission work is deeply rooted in a variety of secular disciplines. His work indicates a turning point (Neill 1982:261) in 19th-century mission work. The religious crisis in the Western churches has led to a loss of conviction that belief in Christ Jesus is vital, and that without faith in Him people are lost. We ask the question, ’Why does Carey still feature in the world of missions today?’ We wrong ourselves when we do not listen to his voice, because it has been said that ‘in the whole history of the church no nobler man has ever given himself so fully to the service of the Redeemer’ (Neill et al. 1971:83). He had a vision1 for missions, but also a concrete plan for the realisation of this vision. For the 21st century Carey with his mission principles is a modern mission strategist. 


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-105
Author(s):  
Jacek Wojda

Big activity passed Popes, with the least Francis Bergoglio, is a question about receptiontheir lives and action, especially in times of modern medium broadcasting. Sometimes presentedcontent could be treated as sensation, and their receptiveness deprived of profound historical andtheological meaning. This article depends of beginnings of the Church, when it started to organizeitself, with well known historically-theological arguments. Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ andgot special place among Apostles. His role matures in young Church community, which is escapingfrom Jewish religion.Peter tramps the way from Jerusalem thru Antioch to Rome, confirming his appointing to thefirst among Apostles and to being Rock in the Church. Nascent Rome Church keeps this specialPeter’s succession. Clement, bishop of Rome, shows his prerogatives as a successor of Peter. Later,bishop of Cartagena, Cyprian, confirms special role both Peter and each bishop of Rome amongother bishops. He also was finding appropriate role for each of them. Church institution, basedon Peter and Apostles persists and shows truth of the beginnings and faithfulness to them innowadays papacy.Methodological elements Presented in the introduction let for the lecture of Gospel and patristictexts without positivistic prejudices presented in old literature of the subject.


Author(s):  
Valentyn Syniy

It is emphasized that the involvement of missionary theology in the discussion of ways to develop spiritual education allowed post-soviet Protestantism to successfully overcome differences in the vision of the formal construction of education, and then move on to discussions about its content. There was a gradual overcoming of modern individualism, the growing role of communities, the replacement of monologue models of mission with dialogical ones. The idea of the seminary as a community that is not self-sufficient, but serves the church as a community, has gained general recognition. The church also came to be understood as serving an eschatological ideal community similar to the Trinity community. The formation of community and dialogical models of missionary and educational activity allows Ukrainian Protestantism to effectively adapt to the realities of the beginning of the 21st century and to be proactive in today's society.


2019 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-31
Author(s):  
Fabio Massaccesi

Abstract This contribution intends to draw attention to one of the most significant monuments of medieval Ravenna: the church of Santa Maria in Porto Fuori, which was destroyed during the Second World War. Until now, scholars have focused on the pictorial cycle known through photographs and attributed to the painter Pietro da Rimini. However, the architecture of the building has not been the subject of systematic studies. For the first time, this essay reconstructs the fourteenth-century architectural structure of the church, the apse of which was rebuilt by 1314. The data that led to the virtual restitution of the choir and the related rood screen are the basis for new reflections on the accesses to the apse area, on the pilgrimage flows, and on the view of the frescoes.


1990 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-18
Author(s):  
Priscilla Baumann
Keyword(s):  

Clustered around the episcopal center of Clermont, in that least accessible French province of Auvergne, a series of romanesque churches built between the end of the eleventh and first half of the twelfth centuries harbor sculptured capitals which repeatedly treat the themes of avarice and usury. Although the virtues and vices provided a popular and graphic subject for sculptors throughout France during this period, only in Auvergne do we discover such a specific emphasis on the sins of avarice and usury. In some cases the subject is treated to the exclusion of all others, and every example has been placed in a predominant and highly visible location within the church.


1838 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 1-60

Henry Thomas Colebrooke, the subject of this memoir, was born in London, on the 15th. June, 1765, and was the youngest of seven children. His father, Sir George Colebrooke, Baronet, was for many years chairman of the East India Company.As a boy, he was of a quiet retired disposition, seldom mixing in any of the usual amusements of childhood, and was distinguished at an early age among his brothers and sisters for his extreme fondness for reading. In allusion to this, he used to say to them, that by his habits and tastes he was best fitted for the profession of a clergyman, and expressed a strong desire to his father that he might be placed in the church.


1929 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. McN. Rushforth

Émile Mâle says that medieval Christian art in its last period had lost touch with the great tradition of symbolism which had been so important in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and still largely dominated the art of the fourteenth. But there was one great symbolical idea which survived, and that was the harmony of the Old and New Testaments; and so we find among the most popular subjects of fifteenth-century Church art the concordance of the Apostles and Prophets in the Creed, and the series of parallels between the life of Jesus and episodes of Old Testament history, which were summed up and digested in the Biblia Pauperum and the Speculum Humanae Salvationis. The reason for the popularity of these subjects was, no doubt, their didactic value, and though Mâle does not develop this side of the subject, we may say that one, though not the only, characteristic of the religious art of the fifteenth century was that, instead of being symbolical, it became didactic. We find in this period a whole series of subjects which reduced the articles of Christian faith and practice to pictorial form, and seem to have been intended to illustrate the medieval catechism by which the teaching of the Church was imparted.


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 219-231
Author(s):  
Clara M. Austin Iwuoha ◽  

The demons of racism, bigotry, and prejudice found in society at large are also found in the Christian Church. Despite the very nature of Christianity that calls on Christians to be a counter voice in the world against evil, many have capitulated to various strains of racism. Some Christian denominations have begun to explore racism in the Church and have developed responses to addressing the issues in both the Church and the world. This article examines the historical context of race and religion in the Christian Church, and addresses the current efforts of some Christian denominations to become proactive in the struggle against racism. Jesus, in His Word, calls believers to pursue peace and oneness. The paper holds that racial harmony and racial unity are possible, but there are many false, old and d beliefs that will have to be crushed under the hammer of God's Word in order to get to a place of real peace.


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