‘Sexuality in the Church: Toward a sociology of the Bible’

2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 8-15
Author(s):  
John Brewer
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sex And Sexuality ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Church ◽  
Social Behaviours

Sexuality is an obsession of the Christian Church. It is one of the social behaviours that it has tried most to control amongst its flock and yet the Christian Church has failed to prevent the encroachment of modern attitudes towards sex and sexuality into the Church as an institution. The furore over the proposed appointment of an openly gay bishop in the Church of England is but the latest expression of this tension. However, this paper argues that this debate needs to be placed in a much broader context, namely, the hermeneutical problem of the authority of the Bible, which is itself only one part of a wider sociology of the Bible. The current debate on sexuality in the Church highlights the need for sociology to begin to apply its way of thinking to the Bible.

scholarly journals Homoseksualiteit: Die kerk, die tradisie en die Bybel – homofobie en sarkofobie en die evangelie

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dialectical Perspective ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition

Homosexuality: Church, tradition, and the Bible – homophobia, sarcophobia, and the gospelThe article demonstrates a trend in the current debate on the church’s attitude towards homosexuality, namely that exegetical results supersede authentic faith experiences of gays. It shows that this trend causes an untenable tension between the dialectical notions sola fidei and sola Scriptura. Such an unacceptable tension contributes to the social psychological phenomena of homophobia and sarcophobia. The article investigates this empirical approach (theoretical reason) to homo-sexuality from the dialectical perspective of a theological approach (practical reason). The latter includes an investigation of the epistemological processes behind exegetes’ diverse use of Scripture. The article aims to show that homophobia in society and church, and the sarcophobia of homosexuals can be challenged and healed if the church holds on to the dialectic between sola fidei and sola Scriptura and the dialectic between pastoral concerns and the engagement with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Grace and Nation: Coleridge's On the Constitution of Church and State

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-208
Author(s):  
Alan Gregory
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Classic Work ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
National Life ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACTUnderstanding Coleridge's classic work On the Constitution of Church and State requires paying close attention to the system of distinctions and relations he sets up between the state, the ‘national church’, and the ‘Christian church’. The intelligibility of these relations depends finally on Coleridge's Trinitarianism, his doctrine of ‘divine ideas’, and the subtle analogy he draws between the Church of England as both an ‘established’ church of the nation and as a Christian church and the distinction and union of divinity and humanity in Christ. Church and State opens up, in these ‘saving’ distinctions and connections, important considerations for the integrity and role of the Christian church within a religiously plural national life.

The City, the Countryside and the Social Gospel in Late Victorian Nonconformity

1979 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 415-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. W. Bebbington
Keyword(s):  
Church Attendance ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The People ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City ◽  
The Church

The late nineteenth-century city posed problems for English nonconformists. The country was rapidly being urbanised. By 1881 over one third of the people lived in cities with a population of more than one hundred thousand. The most urbanised areas gave rise to the greatest worry of all the churches: large numbers there were failing to attend services. The religious census of 1851 had already shown that the largest towns were the places where there were the fewest worshippers, although nonconformists gained some crumbs of comfort from the knowledge that nonconformist attendances were greater than those of the church of England. Unofficial surveys in the 1880S revealed no improvement. Instead, although few were immediately conscious of it, in that decade the membership of all the main evangelical nonconformist denominations began to fall relative to population. And it was always the same social group that was most conspicuously unreached: the lower working classes, the bottom of the social pyramid. In poor neighbourhoods church attendance was lowest. In Bethnal Green at the turn of the twentieth century, for instance, only 6.8% of the adult population attended chapel, and only 13.3% went to any place of worship. Consequently nonconformists, like Anglicans, were troubled by the weakness of their appeal.

scholarly journals RUWATAN ORANG JAWA KRISTEN: TINJAUAN ETIS TERHADAP PELAKSANAAN RUWATAN OLEH ORANG JAWA KRISTEN

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-93
Author(s):  
Yusak Setianto ◽  
Ferry Mahulette
Keyword(s):  
Field Observation ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Free People ◽  
The Church

Abstract Ruwatan is a form of ceremony in Javanese society that aims to free people from bad luck and the disasters that will befall on them. Some Javanese Christians who still perform the Ruwatan ceremony. The Ruwatan ceremony itself was rejected by the church and priests, especially the Javanese Christian Church/ Gereja Kristen Jawa (GKJ). This article itself aims to understand the Ruwatan model by Javanese Christians and to review it in a christian ethics related to the implementation of Ruwatan by Javanese Christian. The method used is a qualitative method with a field observation approach. The speakers were Javanese Christians who participated in Ruwatan, cultural practitioner, and priests of GKJ. We found the fact that there are two models of Ruwatan done by Javanese Christians. We give the terms with Javanese Christians A and B. Javanese Christians A do Ruwatan as in general, namely the style of Yogyakarta and Surakarta. While the Javanese Christian B performs Ruwatan that has been contextualized in the form of bidston/ pandonga worship. The Church and GKJ Priests themselves support the Ruwatan model carried out by Javanese Christian B which presents Jesus as the Human Guardian. In conclusion after being reviewed in christian Ethics, the Ruwatan carried out by Javanese Christian A cannot be justified in terms of both the motive and the action. Contrary, the Javanese Christianity B can be accepted and implemented because it is not in conflict with the Bible.   Keywords: ruwatan; javanese christians; bidston/ pakempalan pandonga; javanese christian church; christian ethics   Abstrak Ruwatan merupakan suatu bentuk upacara di masyarakat Jawa yang bertujuan untuk membebaskan manusia dari nasib buruk maupun malapetaka yang akan menimpa dirinya. Tidak sedikit orang Jawa Kristen yang masih melakukan upacara Ruwatan. Upacara Ruwatan sendiri ditolak pelaksanaannya oleh gereja dan pendeta, khususnya Gereja Kristen Jawa (GKJ).  Artikel ini sendiri bertujuan untuk memahami model Ruwatan yang dilakukan orang Jawa Kristen serta meninjauan nya secara etika Kristen terkait pelaksaan Ruwatan oleh orang Jawa Kristen. Metode yang digunakan ialah metode kualitatif dengan pendekatan observasi lapangan. Narasumbernya merupakan Orang Jawa Kristen peserta Ruwatan, budayawan, serta pendeta GKJ. Peneliti menemukan fakta bahwa terdapat dua model Ruwatan yang dilakukan oleh orang Jawa Kristen. peneliti memberi istilah dengan Orang Jawa Kristen A dan B. Orang Jawa Kristen A melakukan Ruwatan seperti pada umumnya yaitu bergaya Yogyakarta dan Surakarta. Sedangkan orang Jawa Kristen B melakukan Ruwatan yang telah dikontekstualisasikan dalam bentuk ibadah bidston/ pakempalan pandonga. Gereja dan Pendeta GKJ sendiri mendukung model Ruwatan yang dilakukan oleh orang Jawa Kristen B yang mana menghadirkan Yesus sebagai Juru Ruwat Manusia. Kesimpulannya setelah ditinjau secara etika Kristen, maka Ruwatan yang dilakukan oleh orang Jawa Kristen A tidak dapat dibenarkan baik secara motif dan tindakan pelaksanaannya. Sebaliknya, Ruwatan orang Jawa Kristen B dapat diterima dan dilaksanakan karena tidak bertentangan dengan Alkitab.   Kata Kunci: ruwatan; orang jawa kristen; bidston/ pakempalan pandonga; gereja kristen jawa; etika kristen

The Evangelical Discovery of History

2013 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 330-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Bebbington
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Churches Of Christ ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Evangelical Protestantism ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Church

‘From some modern perspectives’, wrote James Belich, a leading historian of New Zealand, in 1996, ‘the evangelicals are hard to like. They dressed like crows; seemed joyless, humourless and sometimes hypocritical; [and] they embalmed the evidence poor historians need to read in tedious preaching’. Similar views have often been expressed in the historiography of Evangelical Protestantism, the subject of this essay. It will cover such disapproving appraisals of the Evangelical past, but because a high proportion of the writing about the movement was by insiders it will have more to say about studies by Evangelicals of their own history. Evangelicals are taken to be those who have placed particular stress on the value of the Bible, the doctrine of the cross, an experience of conversion and a responsibility for activism. They were to be found in the Church of England and its sister provinces of the Anglican communion, forming an Evangelical party that rivalled the high church and broad church tendencies, and also in the denominations that stemmed from Nonconformity in England and Wales, as well as in the Protestant churches of Scotland. Evangelicals were strong, often overwhelmingly so, within Methodism and Congregationalism and among the Baptists and the Presbyterians. Some bodies that arose later on, including the (so-called Plymouth) Brethren, the Churches of Christ and the Pentecostals (the last two primarily American in origin), joined the Evangelical coalition.

scholarly journals Skrifgebruik en samelewing die Apostoliese Geloofsending van Suid-Afrika

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
W. J. Wessels
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Local Church ◽  
Intellectual Development ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Social ◽  
Spontaneous Interaction ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Church

This article is an attempt to describe the use of the Bible in the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFM). From the early stages of the church's humble beginnings, the use of Scripture changed in accordance with the social and intellectual development of its members. In the early stages there seemed to have been a more spontaneous interaction with the Bible which later made way for a more argumentative approach. Factors like the development of a centralised church system and the need to be accepted in the local church society in the country had a definite influence on the use of Scripture. Although strong emphasis was placed on the experiental aspect of faith, some of the leading members felt the need for theological training. Those who felt this need studied mostly at Reformed faculties which undeniably influenced their new of Scripture. From a spontaneous application of the Bible in the everyday life of the believer, a more formal attitude has developed towards the Bible and its application. From the research it is clear that there is a noticeable correlation between the use of Scripture in the AFM and the society in which the church finds itself

The Glorious Coup

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ozan O. Varol
Keyword(s):  
Church Of England ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Glorious Revolution ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Military Elite ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Glorious Revolution ◽  
The Church ◽  
Constitutional Monarchy

This chapter discusses a 1688 conspiracy cultivated by military officers that culminated in a coup d’état against England’s King James II, popularly known as the Glorious Revolution. The soldiers who deserted James II joined the invading Dutch forces of William of Orange to topple the king. The coup was largely the product of a Protestant crisis of conscience among those of England’s military elite who remained faithful to the Church of England in the face of an absolutist Catholic King James II. The coup brought enduring changes to the social, religious, and political fabric of England, as its empire transitioned from absolute to constitutional monarchy.

Texts Don't have Ideologies

1995 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Fowl
Keyword(s):  
Social Practices ◽  
Ideological Criticism ◽  
Competing Interests ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Accepted Practice ◽  
A Site

AbstractOver the past fifteen years "ideological criticism" of the Bible has grown to become an accepted practice within the academy. It has provided a site where feminists, Marxists, liberation theologians and other interested parties have been able to engage in discussion aimed largely at displaying the wide variety of competing interests operating in both the production and interpretation of the Bible. Unfortunately, it is common among ideological critics of the Bible to speak of biblical texts as having ideologies. The thrust of this article is to claim that this way of thinking confuses a wide range of issues concerning the relationships between texts and the social practices which both generated those texts and are sustained by interpretations of particular texts. This position is defended by an examination of the various ways in which the Abraham story was read from Genesis through Philo, Paul, and Justin Martyr.

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