Sacraments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Braine
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Latin Word ◽  
Religious Significance ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Church ◽  
Modern Term

The Christian theory of ‘sacraments’ underlies ideas of a general ‘sacramentality’ in the universe whereby ordinary things have religious significance by their own nature or by virtue of some hidden power within them. The pre-Christian Latin word sacramentum meant a non-returnable gift marking the taking on of some binding obligation; more informally it meant an oath, and later a secret or mystery. Latin theology turned it to Christian use, initially in rough translation of the Greek mysterion, applied to the Church, to the Scriptures and to Old as well as New Testament rites. The word then became the predominant medieval and modern term specifically designating those rites in permanent use in the Church which human authority was conceived not to be free to abolish, add to or change in their essentials. Each such rite presupposes that the creaturely things used have some aptitude which allows or invites the particular ritual use concerned, that is, which presupposes some more general sacramental potential in natural things. The conceptual tools developed in Catholic theology – ‘effective sign’, ‘matter and form’, ‘sacrifice’, ‘authority’, ‘power’ and ‘institution’ – sharpen enquiry into the phenomenology of rituals within many different religious traditions.

The Church and the Biblical Promised Land

2019 ◽  
pp. 64-104
Author(s):  
Gavin D'Costa
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Precise Nature ◽  
Promised Land ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Church

Chapter 3 examines post-supersessionist Old Testament hermeneutics regarding the status of the promise of the land to the Jewish people. Drawing on the Pontifical Biblical Commission, it is shown that even though there are divergent New Testament views about the land, these do not cancel or negate the promise of the land to the Jewish people. The precise nature of this promise is established. While Catholic theology has only just begun to address the New Testament trajectories regarding a different evaluation of the land for Catholics, it is clear that the promise to the Jewish people is still intact.

Buying with You, Selling with You, Praying with You

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefania Tutino
Keyword(s):  
Market Economy ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Social Views ◽  
Cultural Reality ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter presents a second case study showing another concrete example of the issues to which probabilism was applied. Like the previous chapter, this chapter puts the theoretical and theological discussions on probabilism into the concrete social, economic, and cultural reality of the post-Reformation Catholic Church. This chapter explores the relationship between Catholic theology and money lending by examining the key role that probabilism played in helping theologians to maintain the traditional Catholic ban on usury while at the same time engaging with the burgeoning money-market economy and with other religious traditions with different doctrinal and social views on money, such as Judaism.

Revelation, Tradition, and Inspiration

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins, SJ
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
The Self ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Self Disclosure ◽  
Present Experience ◽  
Living Tradition ◽  
The Church

This chapter spells out the complex interrelationship between the divine self-revelation, the tradition that transmits the prophetic and apostolic experience of that revelation, and the writing of the inspired Scriptures. Primarily, revelation involves the self-disclosure of the previously and mysteriously unknown God. Secondarily, it brings the communication of hitherto unknown truths about God. Revelation is a past, foundational reality (completed with the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit), a present experience, and a future hope. Responding with faith to divine revelation, the Old Testament (prophetic) and then New Testament (apostolic) witnesses initiated the living tradition from which came the inspired Scriptures. Tradition continues to transmit, interpret, and apply the Scriptures in the life of the Church.

Eating with penitence: An essay on the local church eating responsibly

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-463
Author(s):  
David W. Priddy
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Local Church ◽  
Industrial Agriculture ◽  
Specific Program ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Local Congregations ◽  
Ecological Concern ◽  
The Church

In this essay, I pose the question, “How might local congregations participate in food reform and agricultural renewal?” Given the problems of industrial agriculture and the wider ecological concern, this question is pressing. Instead of advocating a specific program, I focus on how the Church might address this question while keeping its commitment to being a repentant Church. First, I discuss the significance of attention and particularly the habit of attending to the Word and Sacrament. This posture, I argue, maintains the Church’s integrity, preventing it from merely branding itself or relying on its own resources. Second, I briefly explore the association of eating with the mission of the Church in the New Testament, highlighting the repeated theme of judgment and call to humility in the context of eating. Third, I draw out the importance of continual remorse over sin. This attitude is essential to the Church’s vocation and rightly appears in many historic liturgies. I argue that this posture should extend to the question of eating responsibly. Penitence demonstrates the Church’s relationship to the wider world and testifies to the source of the Church’s own life, the Holy Spirit, who does the work of renewal.

scholarly journals Indicators of the church in John’s metaphor of the vine

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann Fourie
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Gospel Of John ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Unity In Diversity ◽  
The Church

This article aims to answer the question of what belongs to the essence of the church, as God intended it to be, by identifying certain indicators of the essence of the church through a study of one of the central metaphors of the New Testament: the vine in the Gospel of John. Through structural analyses, commentary and metaphorical analyses, several indicators of unity as part of the essence of the church emerge in this metaphor. These indicators are the primacy (or authority) of Christ, trinitarian balance, equality, interdependence, inclusivity, growth and unity (in diversity).Hierdie artikel poog om die volgende vraag te beantwoord: Wat behoort tot die essensie van kerkwees soos God dit bedoel het? Dit word gedoen deur sekere aanwysers van die essensie van kerkwees te identifiseer vanuit ’n studie van een van die essensiële metafore vir kerkwees in die Nuwe Testament, naamlik die Wynstok in die Evangelie van Johannes. Deur middel van struktuuranalise, kommentaar en metaforiese analise kom verskeie eenheidsaanwysers as deel van die essensie van kerkwees in hierdie metafoor na vore. Hierdie aanwysers is die hoër gesag (of outoriteit) van Christus, die balans van die Drie-eenheid, gelykheid, interafhanklikheid, inklusiwiteit, groei en eenheid (in diversiteit).

Mystery of the Moorish Science Temple: Southern Blacks and American Alternative Spirituality in 1920s Chicago

2002 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Nance
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Black Scholar ◽  
Legitimate Business ◽  
Alternative Spirituality ◽  
The Many ◽  
Moorish Science ◽  
Southern Migrants ◽  
The Church ◽  
Moorish Science Temple

In 1926, the well-known black scholar Ira De Augustine Reid complained that storefront churches were “a general nuisance. Neither their appearance nor their character warrants the respect of the Community.” Mortified, he described the founders of these informal assemblies: “He conducts his Services on such days as he feels disposed mentally and indisposed financially. To this gentleman of the cloth… the church is a legitimate business.” More to the point, he described his perception of the many southern migrants who aspired to found their own churches and religions, recounting how one “young swain” had announced to the leadership of a large traditional black congregation that he had had a dream. “In this dream a still small voice told him to ‘G. P. C.’ and when he heard it he knew that he was instructed to ‘Go Preach Christ.’ After further questioning by the Council, the chairman told him that he had misinterpreted his dream, for it certainly meant ‘Go plant corn’” For many educated African Americans, the idea of southern migrants presuming to enjoy their own religious traditions on their own terms in the urban North was ludicrous.

Charismata: Gifts, Enablements, or Ministries?

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Benny Aker
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Spiritual Gifts ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
Church Culture ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

AbstractIn the midst of a growing awareness of spiritual gifts in contemporary church culture and in the academy, much confusion exists. The use of the term 'charismata' promotes this confusion and is not an appropriate label for the biblical evidence of such activity. The problem lies in a deficient linguistic and exegetical handling of this term—a problem identified by James Barr long ago and brought to the fore by Kenneth Berding. Proper exegesis overcomes this prevalent exegetical and linguistic fallacy and suggests another term, diakonia. However, a more foundational conception of both the church and ministry is lacking. By analyzing Pauline anthropol ogy in Romans, an enduring and foundational model for gifts and ministries emerges. This model is the Pauline conception of the church as God's tem ple. People who are delivered from sin's power through identifying with Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection and who have the Spirit are free to give themselves both as sacrifice and temple servants in spiritual ministries. One other caution is raised and discussed. One must avoid the charge in practice and theology of Spirit-monism. Basic structures of the New Testament always place Jesus as the One through whom the Spirit comes. Conse quently, all Spirit activity must in some way be christological and sote riological in nature. Some contemporary applications are derived from this biblical theology of Church and ministry.

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