scholarly journals Regin Prenter in memoriam

1991 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
Jens Holger Schjørring

Obituary of Regin PrenterRegin Prenter’s name is chiefly connected with his textbook of dogmatics, which is the most important Danish textbook in that field, and which has been translated into several languages. Beyond that, Prenter’s name is associated with his achievement as a Luther scholar.It is, however, worth maintaining that also Grundtvig’s ’View of the Church’ occupied a prominent position in Prenter’s interpretation of Christianity. Grundtvig’s importance for Prenter did not clash with the fact that in his maturing years as a scholar in the 1930s he was internationally and ecumenically oriented. On the contrary, the inspiration that Prenter received from Karl Barth in Bonn and from Anglican theology (particularly from Michael Ramsey) in Lincoln in 1935 was closely linked to his understanding of Grundtvig.Over a period of 10 years from 1935, Prenter was a clergyman until he became a professor at the newly founded Faculty of Theology of Aarhus University. He abandoned his chair in 1972 when he returned to a clerical office which he held until his retirement.Prenter became increasingly antagonistic towards the leading circles in the Danish national church. In particular, the law about ordination of women roused his indignation; on the whole, his opposition to this law and his own High-Church standpoint in ecclesiastical politics caused him to confront the way of thinking which is traditionally regarded as the church policy inspired by Grundtvig.To Prenter it was entirely unacceptable that the majority in the national church, who claimed to continue the Grundtvig heritage of latitude and spiritual freedom, neglected at the same time what was inextricably associated with Grundtvig as an .old-church. theologian.Prenter’s understanding of the theology of the church service and his understanding of the sacraments may be seen in the light of this conflict, and it should be considered on this background whether Prenter’s theology does not present significant questions for us today.Thus, Prenter’s theology does not deserve to be looked upon as marginal, but should be included in a re-consideration of Danish ecclesiastical and theological tradition as a provocative, but fruitful viewpoint.J.H. Schjørring

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 314-327
Author(s):  
Norman Boakes

Considering the importance of their role in the life of the Church of England and the Church in Wales, there is not much written about the role of archdeacons. In her recent article in the January 2019 issue of this Journal, Jane Steen focused on the legal aspect of the role of archdeacons, and reflected on how they play a key role in shaping the Church and its ministry, delighting in its beauty and rejoicing in its well-being. In this article, the recently retired training, development and support officer for archdeacons reflects on the nature of the role and, in the light of that, on the way in which it might best be carried out. Believing that process is at least as important as outcome, and that good processes lead to better outcomes, he argues that coaching provides a useful model to enable archdeacons to exercise their ministries most effectively and promote both the mission and the well-being of the Church. It is also, he argues, a better reflection of Anglican theology.


Author(s):  
Paul T. Nimmo

This chapter explores the epistemology of theology that is described and deployed in the theology of Karl Barth. Drawing primarily on the second volume of the Church Dogmatics, the chapter first considers Barth’s understanding of the epistemology of theology with reference to the roles of Word and Spirit, the primary and secondary objectivity of God, and the place of analogy. It then turns to examine the impact of Barth’s position upon the way in which the discipline of theology engages in dialogue with other disciplines, observing Barth’s practice in respect of the conversations he conducts with general ethics and general anthropology. The chapter concludes by suggesting ways in which the work of Barth may have ongoing importance in respect of contemporary work in the epistemology of theology.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-29
Author(s):  
Imam Syafi`i

Among the forums to solve the problem are collectively known as 'bahtsul masa'il'. the legal decision is collective, derived from the consensus of the participants. His method of searching references (maraji ') to find answers regarding the existing problems, known as Madzhab Qauli, madzhab which is understood as the opinion or fatwa of a Mujtahid or Mufti in deciding fiqhiyyah law. However, not infrequently stagnation (maukuf) in the termination of the law. Because there are no references or books that explain the problem. As a result, if enforced (laws with existing references) result in unfair decisions and other issues for the community.From this manifestation of schools began to be considered important to be developed. That is a way to answer the problems faced by following the way of thinking and the rule of law which has been drawn up by the madzhab priest as described above. This last method is actually an attempt to decide the law by directly returning al-Qur'an, al-Hadits and so on by using tools qawa'id ushuliyyah and qawa'id fiqhiyyah. Everyone can not run this method individually. because the legal instrument of the legal system must be completely mastered. Therefore this Manhaji Method can be developed by means of ijtihad Jama'i that is the hard effort of some experts in their respective fields maximally in exploring the law of syar'i which is dhanni by using the method of istimbat. The decision is based on the agreement of the ulama or by acclamation, which is to take the most votes from the results of the deliberations. Keyword: Madzhab Qouli, Madhab Manhaji, Bahtsul Masa`il


Author(s):  
Natalia Solntseva ◽  

The article is devoted to the analysis of G. Ivanov’s judgments about K. Leontiev. The sharpness of Ivanov’s statements is explained by the similarity of Leontiev’s views with the ideology of a new generation of emigrants, including members of the fairly mass party of “mladorosses” (young Russians). From the point of view of Ivanov, Leontiev’s political convictions in many ways contain a danger for the formation of the worldview of contemporaries. Leontiev’s idea that liberal-egalitarian progress would lead to the collapse of the Empire was combined with his belief in the possibility of protective socialism in Russia and a socialist monarch, blessed by the Church. The “mladorosses” were social monarchists who believed that with the older generation of Bolsheviks leaving the political arena, Bolshevism would come to an end; they saw the Soviets without the Bolsheviks as a promising form of self-government. In the political activization of the younger generation of emigrants, their way of thinking, Ivanov was not satisfied with the opposition to the ideals of the old emigration. He considered the ideas of the “new Russian people” contradictory and illusory, and expressed his beliefs in a number of articles. The deceptive hope of emigrants for the Soviets without the Bolsheviks is the motif of the famous poem “The way is Free under Thermopylae...” Ivanov created a complex, contradictory portrait of Leontiev; he is partly close to the opinion of N. Berdyaev, S. Bulgakov, V. Rozanov in his assessments of Leontiev’s human qualities and judgments.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 593
Author(s):  
Geoff Thompson

This article offers a close reading of two sections of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics, i.e., §70.1 “The True Witness” and §70.2 “The Falsehood of Man” against the background of the post-truth environment. A brief discussion of the post-truth phenomenon highlights how some strands of the resistance to it trade on a binary of objective and subjective approaches to truth and epistemology, insisting on the triumph of the former over the latter as the way of overcoming the problems of knowledge and truth in a post-truth culture. The reading of the two selected texts from the Dogmatics indicate that Barth’s discussion of truth and falsehood cuts across that binary. Whilst much of what Barth says in these texts is said in earlier parts of the Dogmatics, it is sharpened in this context by Barth’s discussion of the “pious lie,” the distortion of the truth within the Christian community, as the fundamental form of falsehood. Alertness to this sin challenges the church to adopt a posture of self-criticism to its own knowledge of the truth. This can be its own form of witness in the post-truth age.


Author(s):  
Kari Tarkiainen

Kuningas ja lääniülemad avaldasid Rootsis 16. saj alates korraldusi, mida levitati kas rahvakoosolekutel või kirikukantslist ette lugedes. See tava kodifitseeriti 1686. a kirikuseadusega. Korralduste ettelugemine muutus jumalateenistuse osaks ja nende kuulamine oli kõigile kohustuslik. Kuna riigi idaosas Soomes ei osatud rootsi keelt, hakati korraldusi soome keelde tõlkima, mistõttu Rootsi võimuperioodi lõpuks moodustasid sellised tekstid umbes neljandiku kõikidest korraldustest. Selle süsteemi tugisammasteks muutusid Kantseleikolleegiumi juures tegutsenud soomendajad ja kuninglik trükikoda, kellel oli korralduste publitseerimise privileeg. Tekstidest olid kõige tähtsamad 3–4 korda aastas esitatud palvepäevaplakatid, mis sisaldasid aktuaalseid uudiseid kõnealuse kirikupüha jaoks Piibli tekstide valguses. Korraldusi trükiti 17. saj enamasti Turus, kuid 18. saj peamiselt Stockholmis.Korralduste tekstidel on varasemal ajal arvatud olevat suhteliselt vähene tähendus soome kirjakeele arengule, mis hakkas 19. saj kulgema purismi suunas, loobudes tollases kultuurkeeles tavalistest rootsipärasustest. Uuemad vana soome kirjakeele uurimused näitavad siiski, et kuulmise järgi omandatud ning tõlkijate loodud uudissõnu ja neologisme oli rahvakeelde kandunud üsnagi suurel määral ja sedakaudu siirdusid nad ka tänapäeva soome keelde. Nõudlus soomekeelsete tekstide järele riigi idaosas ei näita 16.–18. saj mitte soomlaste rahvustunnet, vaid selle aluseks oli hoopis vajadus tagada kõikide inimeste võrdsus seaduse ees. Korraldustel oligi suur ühiskondlik tähtsus laiade rahvakihtide õigustaju arenemise ja seadustetundmise lisandumise seisukohast.Abstract. Kari Tarkiainen: The state speaks to the people: Ordinances issued in Finnish during the era of Swedish rule. In Sweden, the king and governors issued ordinances since the 16th century that were disseminated by reading them out at public meetings or from the church pulpit. This custom was codified by the ecclesiastical law of 1686. The reading out of ordinances became a part of the church service and it was compulsory for everyone to listen to them. Since people in Finland, which was the eastern part of the nation, did not understand Swedish, the ordinances started being translated into Finnish, for which reason such texts accounted for about one fourth of all ordinances by the end of the period of Swedish rule. The persons working for the Chancellery Council who translated the texts into Finnish and the royal printing house, which possessed the privilege for printing the ordinances, became the mainstays of this system. The most important of the texts were the placards presented 3–4 times a year proclaiming days of prayer, which included topical news for the church holiday in the light of biblical texts. Ordinances were printed mostly in Turku during the 17th century, but mostly in Stockholm in the 18th century.In earlier times it was thought that the texts of these ordinances had relatively little meaning for the development of written Finnish, which started proceeding in the 19th century in the direction of purism, rejecting common Swedish idioms from the civilised language of that time. More recent studies of old written Finnish nevertheless indicate that new words and neologisms adopted by ear and created by translators had carried over into popular language to quite a great extent and were transferred from there into contemporary Finnish as well. The demand for texts in Finnish in the eastern part of the nation is not indicative of the national feeling of Finns in the 16th–18th centuries. Instead, the basis for this was the need to ensure the equality of all people before the law. The ordinances were indeed very important socially in developing perception of the law among the broad strata of the population and in adding knowledge of the laws.Keywords: Swedish legislation; translation; old written Finnish; neologisms; placards declaring days of prayer; the course of a church service; disciplining of the people


Author(s):  
Wessel Bentley

The article describes briefly Karl Barth’s views on church, its role in politics and how it relates to culture. This is done by identifying the way in which the church participates in the social realm through its relationship with the State. The historic religious question asks whether there is a natural mutual-determining relationship between church and State. The church may ask whether faith and politics should mix, while a secular state may question the authority which the church claims to speak from. To a large extent culture determ-ines the bias in this relationship. History has shown that church-State dynamics is not an either/or relationship, whereby either the authority of the church or the authority of the State should function as the ruling norm. Karl Barth describes the dynamics of this relationship very well, within the context of culture, in the way his faith engages with the political status quo. Once the relationship is better understood, Barth’s definition of the church will prove to be more effective in its evangelical voice, speaking to those who guide its citizens through political power. “Fürchtet Gott, ehret den König!” (1 Pt 2:17)


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 84-124
Author(s):  
Bartosz Kapuściak

In 1959, following the introduction of the law on universal military service, seminarians were conscripted into the Polish „People’s” Army as part of compulsory service, initially dispersing them into numerous units. This was a form of repression which, according to the communist authorities, was supposed to curb the „unruly” behavior of individual church hierarchs. In the following years, there were changes in the way clerical students were dispersed in the army – they started to be grouped into three subunits, which allowed for better communist indoctrination led by the Main Political Directorate of the Polish Army, but above all for the counterintelligence „protection” of the seminarians organized by the Internal Military Service (IMS). Initially, military counterintelligence did not do well with recruiting seminarians as agents. With time, as the cooperation with Department IV of the Ministry of Interior (civil anti-church department) was developing, the IMS authorities managed to improve their operational work in the battalions where future clergymen served. Despite the partial resignation of clerical students from their studies and recruitment amongst them by IMS, thanks to the efforts of the Catholic Church a large number of young seminarians were saved, and their conscription into the army only strengthened the Church by verifying future priests through their military service at the very beginning. Eventually, year 1980 put an end to the conscription of seminarians into the Armed Forces of the People’s Republic of Poland. One of the numerous actions of the communist authorities against the Catholic Church proved to be ineffective.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-198
Author(s):  
Hoffie Hofmeyr

The Afrikaans reformed Churches in South Africa and their worshipWorship as a major window on church life remains one of the most visible and obvious areas to discover and identify changes, movements and transformation quickly. Worship also reflects clearly on the way we experience the church. John van de Laar puts it aptly when he stated that “the way we worship, defines the way we live”. The question being addressed in this article is whether there have been some clear changes in the style of worshipping in these South African reformed churches and if so, why. In a brief overview the focus is on, inter alia, the most important areas of the worship of the church, that is, liturgy and the church service, preaching, church music and hymns, sacraments, small groups, and contemplative services. Many challenges remain; the important reality also remains that changes ought to be according to the basic principles of Scripture and the confessional tradition, always with a realisation of our contextuality in Africa and the needs of the 21st century.


2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-160
Author(s):  
Frank Cranmer ◽  
Tom Heffer

The canon law of the Church of England begins from the assumption that scripture contains ‘all things necessary to salvation’ but the law makes little attempt to lay down rules for the way in which scripture should be interpreted. The authors attribute this reticence to the fact that, historically, adherents of the Church of England have been inclined to disagree about the nature both of ecclesiastical and of scriptural authority; and one of the functions of the Church's canon law has therefore been to hold together a wide spectrum of theological opinions. This comprehensiveness, however, causes strains within the wider Anglican Communion and may lead to difficulties of mutual comprehension in ecumenical conversations.


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