Death or Resurrection? Christian Church Leader Responses to External Change

Christian churches in many Western countries have been confronted with a general decline in church membership and participation due to significant, society-wide shifts. This study seeks to better understand how church leaders at the local level work through the challenges posed by these external developments. Using a combination of semi-structured interviews and panel sessions conducted in The Netherlands, our analysis reveals a wide variety of change responses by local church leaders, even within church traditions. Based on these differences, we develop a process model of how and why local church leaders will differently engage with external change, thus opening up the debate around the contingencies and activities that may support local churches and their leaders in reversing local church decline. Our research also highlights the importance of local level processes and dynamics in understanding how Christian churches interact with their external contexts.

LOCAL AND AUTOCEPHALOUS CHURCHES: CANONICAL JUSTIFICATION AND TRADITION

The article considers the basic principles and mechanisms of functioning of the church-administrative system of government of the Ecumenical Church. It is established that two opposing ecclesiological traditions (Greek and Slavic) were gradually formed, which testify to the lack of Unity and Conciliarism. The formation of two approaches to understanding the structure of the system of universal Orthodoxy was the reason for only a partial presence at the Great All-Orthodox Council in 2016. The article argues that in the Orthodox tradition there is no generally accepted interpretation of the interdependence of the principle of locality and the autocephalous status of churches. It is proved that the autocephalous church is always local, but the modern ecclesiological interpretation of locality does not automatically lead to the acquisition of autocephalous status. It is proved that the apostles and their closest disciples did not know and did not foresee any other principle of the existence of the Ecumenical Church than autocephaly. It is emphasized that such a mechanism of church government was based on the territorial principle. It is pointed out that such a division underlies the concept of locality in the Ecumenical Church. It is established that the study of the problem of autocephaly today is a key task of world Orthodoxy. Since the founding of Christianity, autocephaly has been a basic principle of apostolic preaching, which took into account the national and ethnic characteristics of the population of the Roman Empire. Autocephaly is one of the oldest institutions of the Church, which is a defining feature of Orthodoxy today. For two thousand years, this phenomenon remained unchanged, but there were different, even radically opposite approaches to understanding it. Because the theory of autocephaly emerges with Christianity, it is not an imposed or borrowed institution, but the very essence of Orthodoxy, the way it exists. It is claimed that the Ecumenical Church, being united in essence, is divided into independent Local Churches on an administrative and national basis. On a universal scale, the Orthodox Church testifies to the unity of the churches through the Eucharist. Every Local Church is already self-sufficient, for it has the fullness of the grace of the Holy Spirit, but through the Eucharist and the Councils the unity of the Universal Scale is expressed. Key words: cathedral, church, autocephaly, ecclesiology, canon law, patriarch, parish, metropolitan.

ACO Women in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century: Transitions and Persisting Patterns

After the independence of Syria and Lebanon Protestant missionary work in the Middle East changed dramatically. The women missionaries who worked in the service of the ACO had to come to terms with new realities such as the social and political turmoil of decolonisation, missiological shifts, and partnership agreements with the local churches. Drawing on written memoirs and oral history sources, this article explores their female agency and leadership in a changing context. It also analyses the perception of these missionaries by local agents.

Living Religion

The chapter explores the everyday contributions of ordinary Christians to the running of Graham’s crusades. In forming prayer groups and organizing bus rides, ordinary Christians blurred the boundaries between private religiosity and public mass evangelism, as well as between the religious and the secular. They filled the organizational structures implemented by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association with life and by doing so turned the crusades into a powerful force of renewal for local churches and everyday religious life in London, Berlin, and New York. Women played a crucial role in this everyday running of the crusade machine. Religious practices such as prayer and pilgrimages traveled with Billy Graham and crossed the national boundaries between the different organizing committees. Organized prayer turned into a dynamic form of transnational communication that tied different crusade audiences together and became the cornerstone of Graham’s international ministry.

A pápai Kúria tagjai és a magyar javadalmak a 14. században: Petrus Begonis életpályája

The papal government was characterized by centralisation in the 14th century in which the tax system and the papal beneficial policy were two main factors. The Avignon popes strived to extend their influence on every stratum of the ecclesiastical hierarchy by rewarding the members of the Curia’s developing administrative system with benefices in the local churches. The changes in the functioning of the papal curia offered a great opportunity for a growing number of qualified clerics to build successful careers in the papal service. The process briefly described above had an impact on the contemporary ecclesiastical structure of the Hungarian Kingdom, as more and more clerics tried to obtain benefices with papal protection, especially in the second half of the 14th century. Soon not only papal officers, but cardinals and the members of their entourage held Hungarian ecclesiastical titles as well. The main aim of the present paper is to analyse the lifepath of a curialist, Petrus Begonis. First procurator of cardinal Guillaume de la Jugie, later papal chaplain, Petrus Begonis was granted various church offices – also in the Hungarian Kingdom – and charged with diverse diplomatic tasks in different parts of Europe (Hungary, Holy Roman Empire, Italy). His ecclesiastical career – spanning from the reign of Clement VI to that of Urban VI – gives an insight in the functioning of the papal curia in Avignon and helps us comprehend the administrational changes in the 14th century.

Digital Discipleship: A Study of How Churches in New York Used Technology for Adult Discipleship During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 Pandemic brought unexpected and unparalleled challenges to bear on the adult discipleship ministries of local churches. These challenges were felt sharply early on in New York, the location of the most severe outbreak in the East Coast during the first half of 2020. This paper explores how Evangelical churches in the New York regions of Metro NYC and Eastern New York adapted to these challenges and turned to technology to continue serving their churches. Through the use of qualitative surveys, 21 churches in New York shared how they shifted to continue to minister to their congregation. The research demonstrated that over 95% of churches surveyed engaged in digital discipleship, with half finding it to be effective for their congregation.

Church Members Reflection on the Involvement of Lay or Ordained Leaders in Active Politics: A study of MCK Kaaga Circuit

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to explore the reflection of church members on the involvement of lay or ordained leaders in active politics specifically in MCK Kaaga Circuit Methodology: This study employed descriptive research design. The target population was 11 Kaaga circuit local churches. The study used simple random sampling method to obtain 30% of the 11 local churches to obtain 3 local Methodist churches in Kaaga circuit. The study used purposive sampling method to get a sample of 12 respondents who included 6 church leaders and 6 members. These 12 respondents were purposely selected based on their past experience as political aspirants in various political position in the just concluded 2013 national elections. The study used unstructured interview guides to collect the data. Results: The study results have proved that it is not wrong for spiritual leaders to join politics since they cultivate and incorporate the virtue of honesty, Holy spirit led administration of resources, democracy and bring Godly light in their political platforms. However, one cannot serve two masters (politics and church leadership) since one may bring division in church. In addition, politics is seen a breeding ground for engagement in corruption, unfulfilled promises hence making politicians liars, deviation from God’s purpose of spreading the gospel and accumulation of huge masses of wealth so as to terminate opponents. Nevertheless, politics are not all that bad when their contribution to the community is considered. Politics have been seen to expand of leadership skills of the politicians, growth in developmental agendas and social interactions skills. This reasons therefore makes the church to greatly support the few leaders who have shown interest in politics since they would represent the church members in politics more than what was being done outside the church. In addition, the church also prays for them before venturing into political journey and the church members are requested to vote for them. Unique contribution to theory, policy and practice: The study recommends that church members get empowered with information on the relevance of politics and how they interrelate with religion. The spiritual leaders should be trained on good governance skills before they engage into politics so that they can practice them effectively when they get positioned. The church management should work hand in hand with the government on delivering various projects of the society. This would make it easy and realistic to church members to believe that a spiritual leader has societal interests when they contest any political positions. The church should engage external institutions such as universities that offer leadership and theological courses to its members on how to translate church language to a language the community can understand for effectiveness.

Access to land in sub-Saharan Africa: the church as an unnoticed accomplice

Access to land is still ideal for the majority of sub-Saharan Africans. The colonisers of Africa created the problem of access to land that indigenous Africans are still at pains with. The post-colonial African elite is still perpetuating this problem. The church benefited from the creation of this problem and sit at the table of privileged owners of vast pieces of land. This article is written from the perspective of someone who lives and serves in a sub-Saharan community of poverty. He is been observing local churches with vast pieces of land, limiting access to members only. In the meantime, the population around the church is confined in small spaces of land as family units. This article uses a biblical interpretive framework of Jerimiah 29:7 to stress about the role of the church as a peace agent that creates a shalom community around it. Such as community will be a hybrid between a Eurocentric view on land which value ownership with a title deed, and an Afrocentric view which values access of land to all without the need for individual ownership.

Finding Balance and Harmony

As Christianity arrived on the shores of Singapore closely following British colonization, Western missionaries introduced their interpretation of the Holy Communion into a foreign land and space that was experiencing its first brushes with Western modernity. Contemporaneously, the movement of modernity continues to make an impact upon an important element of life closely intertwined with religious folk practices and culture of locals: food. In the face of modernizing foodscapes and primordial religious backgrounds, converts from Chinese religious traditions to Christianity find themselves navigating the dissonance of Western Holy Communion theologies with the Chinese philosophies of food. How might churches in Singapore begin to respond to the tensions arising when these two philosophical systems meet, and when Christians and churches seem to appropriate “syncretistic” theologies into their liturgical behavior? This article undertakes an interdisciplinary effort by employing social science to explore the modernizing of food in Singapore, as well as engaging Chinese philosophies of food and the body to explain tensions among converts from Chinese religious traditions, and the resistance of local churches towards Chinese understandings of food rituals in the partaking of the Holy Communion. It will also briefly propose that interdisciplinary studies, including liturgical studies, will be essential in developing a more robust theology of the Holy Communion among churches, thereby enhancing its witness within and without.