scholarly journals “Hopeful Gradualness” and Ecclesial Mission

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Briola

On October 13, 2014, the remarkable midterm Relatio post Disceptationem of the 2014 Synod on the Family invoked the legge di gradualità on four occasions. This “law of gradualness” would later be dropped from the final Relatio Synodi, though inarguably its vestiges remained. Simultaneously the locus of disappointment, apprehension, and excitement, the term’s precise meaning remained and continues to remain unclear. Taking the principle to be what Ladislas Orsy would term a “seminal locution” and thus in need of further explication, this paper will examine the law of gradualness through a diachronic lens. It will trace the term’s evolution from its initial emergence around Humanae vitae during the late 1960s and early 1970s, to its reserved acceptance into ecclesiastical parlance in the 1980 Synod on the Family and Familiaris Consortio, to its unique use this past October at the 2014 Synod. It is the contention of this paper that the 2014 Synod marked a new expansion of the term, away from its previously primary, if not exclusive, contentious identification with Humanae vitae. Though maintaining many of its previous connotations, seen in light of Francis’s papacy, the law of gradualness has become fundamentally a foundation and spirituality for the church’s mission to the world. Reflecting God’s own pedagogy revealed most clearly in Jesus Christ, the law of gradualness requires an ecclesial lens of hope. It is a hope that a merciful and authentic encounter with people where they actually are can prompt genuine conversion and growth. The church, as sacrament, is dauntingly tasked to imitate this divine logic that balances the acceptance of the Incarnation with the demands of the Cross. Ultimately then, applying gradualness to the church’s own pilgrim life, this is an eschatological hope that likewise stimulates ongoing ecclesial conversion and so enables authentic growth, accompaniment, dialogue, and mission.

2019 ◽  
pp. 93-110
Author(s):  
Sergiusz Anoszko

Serving on a mission is almost an indispensable part of the image of the adherents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons, quasi-Christian new religious movement. The next text attempts to analyse and take a closer look at the theme of calling and preparing for the ministry of being a missionary as an attribute of this Church that was founded by Joseph Smith. Starting from an upbringing in the family and social expectations of the Church’s members through education in the Missionary Training Center, we can follow the vocation path and the creative process of the future Mormon missionary who preach the Gospel in various corners of the world. Missionary ministry is important in the life of each Mormon believer, even those who didn’t serve as a missionary, because it leaves a lasting imprint and affects the minds of the members of this new religious group for the rest of their lives.


2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
David F. Ford

ABSTRACTThis keynote paper was delivered at the Society for the Study of Anglicanism which gathered at the AAR Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in November 2005. On the basis of many years of observation and participation in the life of the Anglican Communion, I attempt to offer in this article a ‘Wisdom for Anglican Life’ — a wisdom which takes seriously the unity and koinonia of the Church as rooted in the cross of Jesus Christ and the love of God. Such wisdom is rooted in the faithful worship of the Church but also engages seriously with the struggles of the world. It counsels gentleness, kindness, forgiveness and above all patience in matters of dispute, and embraces the thoughtful but rigorous communal study of Scripture. This article ultimately suggests that a pressing task facing the Communion today is to learn afresh how to be Anglican Christians in the twenty-first century.


Horizons ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Robert Faricy

AbstractThis article studies the spiritual theology of the cross in the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In Teilhard's books and articles the accent falls on the cross as a symbol of progress. The cross stands for Jesus' positive act of saving the world through his death; it represents, too, Christian life as a sharing in the cross of Jesus through the labor and pain of human progress. In his spiritual notes, however, Teilhard takes a different perspective. His own meditations on the cross center not on the cross as a positive symbol of personal and collective progress through struggle, but rather on death as the ultimate fragmentation, and as an apparent dead end that is the final passage to Jesus Christ.


Traditio ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 179-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Watt

The work of the medieval canonists has always formed a significant chapter in the histories of medieval political thought. The law of the Church and its attendant juristic science forms the proper source material for the examination of the system of ideas which lay behind the functioning of papal government. Ecclesiastical jurisprudence was the practical branch of sapientia Christiana. It was concerned with a constitution and the exercise of power within its terms; with an organization and the methods by which it was to be run. It had of necessity to be articulate about the nature of the papacy, the constitutional and organizational linchpin. In consequence the canonists were the acknowledged theorists of papal primacy. To them rather than to the theologians belonged that segment of ecclesiology which treated of the nature of the Church as a visible corporate society under a single ruler. In that period of nearly a century which lay between the accession of Alexander III and the death of Innocent IV, canonists were required to register the increasingly numerous and more diverse applications of papal rulership to the problems of Christian society. The concept of papal monarchy came to be reexamined in academic literature because of the accelerating tempo of papal action. Under the stimulus of an active papacy, the canonists were led to examine many of the assumptions on which the popes based their actions and claims. The world of affairs conditioned the evolution of a political-theory, which in turn helped to shape the course of events.


1994 ◽  
Vol 37 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 3-17
Author(s):  
Jan Dyduch

The Catholic Church observes the year 1994 as International Year of the Family in accordance to the announcement made by the United Nations. For this reason it is proper to talk over the obligations and the rights which a family exercises in a secular society and in the Curch. These rights and obligations are contained and treated in the following postconciliar documents of the Church: 1. The Encyclical Humanae Vitae, 1968; 2. The Adhortation Familiaris Consortio, 1981; 3. The Codex of Canon Law, 1983; 4. The Charter of the Family Right, 1983; 5. The Adhortation Christifideles Laici, 1988. Propagating of the family rights and obligations is necessary in view of the situation of the contemporary family, encountered by a multiple crisis. Calling in question of the sense of the family, the mentality adverse to life, and divorces are the most severe indications of that crisis. The basic right and obligation of a family is its service to the life itself, expressed in the procreating and upbringing of children. Doing this, a family needs protection and support from a civil authority which ought to maintain the appropriate policy favourable for the family and its development. A Christian family, sacramentally incorporated into the organism of the Universal Church, constitutes a „Home Church” and participates in Christ’s triple mission: prophetic-evangelizing, priestly-santifying and royal-apostolic. The family is a subject of the Church’s constant pastoral care.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-175
Author(s):  
Warseto Freddy Sihombing

AbstractNo one can be justified before God for doing good deeds. No matter how good a man is, if he does not believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, he will not be saved from the wrath of God to come. There is no human being who is right before God, and no sinful man can save himself in any way. The only way out is in the way that God has given to the problem of all sinners, by sending Jesus Christ to the world to die for sinners. "And for this he came, so that every man believed in him, who was sent by God" (John 6:29). The Bible teaches that salvation is only obtained because of faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the object of that faith. This salvation is known as the statement "Justified by faith. Paul explained this teaching in each of his writings. This teaching of justification by faith has been repeatedly denied by some people who disagree with Paul's opinion. The history of the church from the early centuries to the present has proven the variety of understandings that have emerged from this teaching, but one important thing is that sinful humans are justified by their faith in Jesus Christ before God.Keywords: Paul;history; justified by faith.AbstrakTidak ada seorang pun yang dapat dibenarkan di hadapan Allah karena telah melakukan perbuatan baik. Sebaik apa pun manusia, jika dia tidak percaya kepada Yesus Kristus, Anak Allah maka ia tidak akan selamat dari murka Allah yang akan datang. Tidak ada seorang pun manusia yang benar di hadapan Allah, dan tidak ada seorang manusia berdosa yang dapat menyelematkan dirinya sendiri dengan cara apa pun. Satu-satunya jalan keluar adalah dengan cara yang Allah telah berikan untuk masalah semua orang berdosa, yaitu dengan mengutus Yesus Kristus ke dunia untuk mati bagi orang berdosa. “Dan untuk itulah Dia datang, yaitu supaya setiap orang percaya kepada Dia, yang telah diutus oleh Allah” (Yohanes 6:29). Alkitab mengajarkan bahwa keselamatan hanya diperoleh karena iman kepada Yesus Kristus. Yesus Kristus adalah obyek iman tersebut. Keselamatan ini dikenal dengan pernyataan “Dibenarkan karena iman. Paulus menjelaskan ajaran ini dalam setiap tulisannya. Ajaran pembenaran oleh iman ini telah berulang kali disangkal oleh beberap orang yang tidak setuju dengan pendapat Paulus. Sejarah gereja mulai dari abad permulaan sampai pada masa sekarang ini telah membuktikan beragamnya pemahaman yang muncul terhadap ajaran ini, namun satu hal yang terpenting adalah bahwa manusia berdosa dibenarkan oleh iman mereka kepada Yesus Kristus di hadapan Allah.Kata Kunci: Paulus; sejarah; iman; dibenarkan oleh iman.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip A. Cunningham

One of the major theological questions confronting the post-Nostra Aetate Church is how to relate the Christian conviction in the universal saving significance of Jesus Christ with the affirmation of the permanence of Israel’s covenanting with God. The meanings of covenant, salvation, and the Christ-event are all topics that must be considered. This paper proposes that covenant, understood in a theological and relational sense as a human sharing in God’s life, provides a useful Christological and soteriological perspective. Jesus, faithful son of Israel and Son of God, is presented as covenantally unifying in himself the sharing-in-life between God and Israel and also the essential relationality of God. The Triune God’s covenanting with Israel and the Church is seen as drawing humanity into an ever-deepening relationship with God through the Logos and in the Spirit, with both Israel and the Church having distinct duties in this relational process before God and the world.


2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-111
Author(s):  
Michael Goheen

AbstractIn this article, Michael W. Goheen summarizes and evaluates a debate between ecumenical pioneer Lesslie Newbigin and former WCC general secretary Konrad Raiser. Raiser exemplifies a trinitarian approach to ecumenism and mission that recognizes the universal presence of the Holy Spirit among all peoples and religions, and so would cease to have a Christocentric focus. For Newbigin, while a trinitarian approach to ecumenism and mission is of paramount importance, an abandonment of the centrality and universality of Jesus Christ is something that cannot be abandoned. In the end, says Goheen, the differences between Raiser and Newbigin are differences revolving around the meaning of Jesus Christ and his atoning work on the cross.


1972 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-250
Author(s):  
Thomas F. Torrance

Everything about us today tells us that we live in a world which will be increasingly dominated by empirical and theoretic science. This is the world in which the Church lives and proclaims its message about Jesus Christ. It is not an alien world, for it is in this world of space and time that God has planted us. He made the universe and endowed man with gifts to investigate and understand it. Just as he made life to produce itself, so he has made the universe with man as an essential constituent in it, that it may bring forth and articulate knowledge of itself. Regarded in this light the pursuit of science is one of the ways in which man exercises the dominion in the earth which he was given at his creation. That is how, for example, Francis Bacon understood the work of human science, as man's obedience to God. Science is a religious duty, while man as scientist can be spoken of as the priest of creation, whose task it is to interpret the books of nature, to understand the universe in its wonderful structures and harmonies, and to bring it all into orderly articulation, so that it fulfils its proper end as the vast theatre of glory in which the creator is worshipped and praised. Nature itself is dumb, but it is man's part to bring it to word, to be its mouth through which the whole universe gives voice to the glory and majesty of the living God.


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