scholarly journals Guidelines for the application of the Theophostic Prayer Ministry

2008 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Steyn
Keyword(s):  
Basic Principle ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
Prayer Ministry ◽  
In Christ

The basic principle of the Theophostic Prayer Ministry (TPM) is to attempt to resolve clients’ present conflict by finding healing for past wounds in prayer. The TPM model has a unique advantage over non-Christian models in that it pursues the healing of past wounds by means of binding the suffering back to God. “Koinonia” (the fellowship of believers), “communio” (a deeper sense of the involvement of God), “coram Deo” (the ever-presence of God), as well as “pneumatonomic synergy” (being in balance with the holy plan of God), are restored, launching a new life. The TPM relies on three types of memory: visual, emotional and physical memory. Freeing a person from his/her helpless state is to guide that person towards divine revelation. The outcome unfolds as a sincere and holy recovery in Christ.

Revelation, Tradition, and Culture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human History ◽  
Present Experience ◽  
Lower Case ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
In Christ

Tradition as process and as object needs to be understood in the light of divine revelation and the inspired Scripture. Primarily interpersonal or relational and secondarily propositional or cognitive, revelation involves a past fullness in Christ, a present experience, and a future, definitive consummation. As process, tradition is pre-given and always part of us, collective, richly polymorphous, sacramentally communicated through words and actions, often in tension with present experience, open to change or reform, and ending only with the close of human history. At the heart of innumerable traditions (plural and in lower case) is the Tradition (singular and in upper case), the risen Christ made present through the Holy Spirit, not an object we possess but a reality by which we are possessed. While they frequently overlap, ‘culture’ differs from tradition by not being so clearly an ‘action word’.

The Personal Imperative of Revelation: Emil Brunner, Dogmatics and Theological Existence

2012 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 421-434
Author(s):  
Cynthia Bennett Brown
Keyword(s):  
Primary Source ◽  
Special Consideration ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Full Disclosure ◽  
The Bible ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theological Task

AbstractBased on the theology of Emil Brunner, this article seeks to demonstrate the relevance, even the imperative nature, of personal encounter both for the work of dogmatics and for theological existence. In particular it assesses what impact the personalness of God's self-revelation should have, not just on one's doctrinal conclusions, but also on one's self as a theologian. A range of Brunner's writings forms the backdrop for this focused study of a paradigm which shapes his theology and methodology: personal encounter. I start by introducing the broader context of Brunner's presuppositions about the theological task, including his regard for divine self-communication. With this in mind, attention will be paid to the relationship between revelation and scripture, and in particular to the Christocentric, personal and enduring character of God's unveiling. Brunner's regard for the apostolic witness as the authoritative testimony to God's full disclosure in Christ is high and determines the position that he affords the Bible throughout his work. A summary of Brunner's treatment of the divine-human encounter will follow, with a view to understanding him on this subject in his own terms. His small publication by the same name, The Divine-Human Encounter, serves as the focus of this examination. The term ‘personal correspondence’ requires special consideration for the central position it enjoys in Brunner's conception of divine revelation and its relationship to dogmatics. Further expressions related to this theme will come to light in the process of answering two questions regarding the connection between personal encounter in scripture and the work of theology. First, how true is our doctrine when its expression becomes distanced from the language of divine-human encounter which characterises revelation? Second, what is the relationship between scripture as theology's primary source and the ongoing revelation of God to the believer in personal encounter? The suggestion that theology cannot be restricted to intellectual pursuit will not be universally applauded, but the proposal that God's self-unveiling obliges a change in existence and not just an adjustment in knowledge is one that Brunner deems unavoidable. In this light I conclude by suggesting that the personal encounter of revelation issues an imperative for both individual and communal existence which must be considered by all who undertake the theological task.

Prayer and Practical Theology

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-303
Author(s):  
Andre van Oudtshoorn
Keyword(s):  
Practical Theology ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
The World ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Existential Dimension ◽  
The Church

Abstract The command to pray invites believers to critically engage with their broken reality with a view of transforming it in the light of the new reality in which they participate in Christ. Practical theology, operating in the context of the bi-polar and tense relationship between theory and praxis, should be expanded to accommodate prayer as the inner mode of its operations to embrace the existential dimension of the faith praxis, instead of simply limiting itself to a socio-scientific empirically based descriptive paradigm. This implies that practical theology has to be embedded within the church as the domain of faith. Prayer, understood within the context of practical theology, offers a critique of theological theories that do not adequately address the implications for God, the world and believers inherent in the new anthropological status that the invitation to pray confers on those who pray. Prayer also critiques the existing praxis in three ways: it is, firstly, a transformational act in itself; it, secondly, acknowledges its own inadequacy to accomplish the needed transformation and is thus able to critique its own methodologies and practices; and, thirdly, it continues to hope for the transformation of the existing praxis based on the promise of the presence of God in and through the Spirit of Christ in the church. In looking beyond the existing praxis to God, believers are called to continually work and pray for signs of the coming Kingdom to be realised within their world.

scholarly journals Identiteit en seksualiteit in die Nuwe Testament

2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-154
Author(s):  
GJ Steyn
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Broad Overview

This contribution wants to provide a broad overview of sexuality in the New Testament. It provides broad thematic stripes, picturing the early Christians as sexual beings with a new identity in Christ. Sexuality is a given in the New Testament, but due to their new identity, Christians’ sexuality displays particular features: it expresses its freedom responsibly; is driven by divine love; surrenders sacrificially to the other as Christ did; treats its partner as an equal and not as an object of self satisfaction; distinguishes itself from different cultural practices with an identity of its own; acknowledges the fact that it is part of an incomplete world; respects the identity of the other and despises all kinds of sexual malpractices; believes in forgiveness; and finds its climax ultimately and always in the presence of God. 

Conclusion: Barth’s Dreams

2019 ◽  
pp. 257-264
Author(s):  
S. Mark Heim
Keyword(s):  
Free Choice ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Comparative Theology ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Conversation Partner

This concluding chapter to the collection of experiments with Karl Barth and comparative theology explores the two great moments in Barth’s relationship to religions: critique of all religion as idolatry and affirmation that God is free to act in and through religions without restraint. Heim leads with reflection on how his own theological work has been shaped both by interreligious engagement and Barth’s confessional theology. He points out the particular usefulness of Barth’s critique of religion in a time when much recent scholarship has highlighted the problems with the history and use of that term. In addition, Barth is a valuable conversation partner for other religions because of his fierce commitment to the particularity of divine revelation. Late in life, Barth affirmed that God may employ a variety of “parables of the kingdom of heaven,” which opens the possibility that other religious traditions may work in this way. Heim concludes with the suggestion that the “first act of Barth’s insistence on God’s free choice and promise to be present to us in Christ (coupled with recognition that the Christian religion deserves no presumption of that presence) could be balanced by a second act that affirmed God’s freedom to be present and active without restriction.”

John Baillie and Donald Baillie

2019 ◽  
pp. 119-131
Author(s):  
George M. Newlands
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
Reformed Tradition ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
Private Prayer

John and Donald Baillie were theologians and churchmen in the Scottish Reformed tradition, active and widely influential in Britain and America in the first half of the twentieth century. Together with American colleagues Reinhold Niebuhr and Pitney Van Dusen they developed what they regarded as a liberal orthodox theology, mediating between Barthian theology and more distinctively liberal traditions. Characteristic works included John Baillie’s Gifford Lectures, The Sense of the Presence of God, Donald Baillie’s God Was in Christ, and perhaps most significantly John Baillie’s A Diary of Private Prayer, which sold millions of copies and is still in print. Both were much involved with ecumenical issues and in the World Council of Churches.

An Unresolved Tension in the Christology of D. M. Baillie

1964 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-308
Author(s):  
J. L. M. Haire
Keyword(s):  
Divine Nature ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
The Subject ◽  
In Christ

D. M. Baillie's God was in Christ is now published as a paperback, and this is a pointer to the widespread nature of its appeal. No modern book in English on Christology has been more readable or given a greater sense of honesty of thought or ecumenicity of spirit. It has appeared to many to throw new light on the wonder of the Incarnation, and on the human and Divine in the life of our Lord. Its Christology, however, has also been already the subject of criticism in this journal where Professor J. H. Hick, of Princeton, in March 1958 suggested that Baillie's solution is really a form of adoptionism, the Man Christ Jesus being the Man in whom the most perfect presence of God to Man and the most perfect response of Man to God is manifested. I agree with Professor Hick that much of what Donald Baillie says does appear to point to a form of adoptionism, but I would maintain that there is another strain in Baillie's writings which is not simply a form of predestinarian compulsion as Hick suggests, but is an attempt to say what the traditional orthodoxy said when it spoke about a Divine nature in Christ. The aim of this article is to show that this real tension is to be found in Baillie's writing, and that for this reason his solution of the paradox of grace does not turn out to be nearly so complete a solution as he thinks.

scholarly journals Faith in Christ Today. Invitation to Systematic Theology. Volume 1 (Life in the Presence of God) & Volume II (Involved in God’s Project)

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirkie Smit
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
In Christ

Faith in Christ Today. Invitation to Systematic Theology. by Nürnberger, Klaus 2016, Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications ISBN: 978-1514463086; 978-1514463130

Love, Knowledge, and Mystical Union in Western Christianity: Twelfth to Sixteenth Centuries

1987 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernard McGinn
Keyword(s):  
Divine Presence ◽  
Mystical Union ◽  
Proper Sense ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
The Subject ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Union With God ◽  
Immediate Experience ◽  
Vision Of God ◽  
Christian Perfection

All ideals of Christian perfection, and mysticism is certainly one of these, are forms of response to the presence of God, a presence that is not open, evident, or easily accessible, but that is always in some way mysterious or hidden. When that hidden presence becomes the subject of some form of immediate experience, we can perhaps begin to speak of mysticism in the proper sense of the term. The responses of the subject to immediate divine presence have been discussed theologically in a variety of ways and according to a number of different models. Among them we might list direct contemplation or vision of God, rapture or ecstasy, deification, living in Christ, the birth of the Word in the soul, radical obedience to the directly present will of God, and especially union with God. All of these responses, which have rarely been mutually exclusive, can be called mystical in the sense that they are answers to the immediately experienced divine presence. Therefore, the mysticism of union is just one of the species of a wider and more diverse genus or group.

Divine Revelation in Natural Phenomena

2021 ◽  
pp. 215-228
Author(s):  
Menard Musendekwa ◽  
Simbarashe Munamati
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
1 Kings

In 1 Kings 19:11-13, God revealed himself through a “gentle whisper” rather than his earlier manifestation through “powerful wind,” the “earthquake,” and “the fire.” A shift to the “gentle whisper” needs re-investigation. The problem is the inconsistences in divine revelation in natural phenomena. This chapter is responding to the question on why the natural phenomena which used to depict the presence of God to Moses depicted his absence to Elijah. Secondly, this chapter examines the revelation of Yahweh in a silent wind. A phenomenological approach can guide a better appreciation of God's attributive revelation even in current situations.

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