Will You Not Revive Us Again? (Psalm 85:6): An Evaluation of Revival In The Context Of Evangelical-Pentecostal Movements.

The study attempted an explanation of what revival of religion is and how revival erupts amongst the Evangelical–Pentecostal movements whiles not leaving behind the challenges associated with the breaking forth of revivals. This qualitative study was guided by the interpretive paradigm and the sampling strategy was homogeneous sampling. The findings are that revivals conjointly originate from the Holy Spirit, through a prepared person. Both the prepared person and the Holy Spirit are requirements for revival to come to pass. Throughout history, revival has occurred with its resultant challenges such as theological incoherence, abuse of gifts, loss of ecclesial identity and distinctiveness. It is being recommended that, revivals should be managed to promote the Christian faith in the long-run. The study has contributed to the literature on revivals by answering the academic argument of whether a revival is a surprising work of God or otherwise. Keywords: revival, revivalism, evangelical-pentecostal movements

The Secularization of the Church

The aim of this paper is to explore a few factors that contribute to the tendency towards secularization in the evangelical churches in Central and Eastern Europe. It further suggests theological remedies to address the causes of secularization. The thesis of this paper is that there are three causes for the tendency towards secularization. First is the secularization of theological education, second is the crisis of ecclesial identity, and third is the secularization of leadership. The first proposal of this paper is that the remedy for the secularization of theological education is redefining theology as communion, theological education as transformation, and theological formation as discipleship. Second, the remedy for the crisis of ecclesial identity that leads to negative identity markers is the replacement of the external conformation model of Christian life (which leads to social isolation, subculturality, and spiritual abuse) with the internal transformation model, which leads to a healthy spirituality and a meaningful theology of mission. Third and finally, the remedy for the secularization of leadership is the rediscovery of the kenotic model of Christian life and ministry.

Giacomo Lercaro in Bologna

Facing the emergency of building new churches, while Bologna was living a demographic boom in the fifties, Giacomo Lercaro chose to create an integrate system of progress. The ritual form of faith is spatially determined according to the physical peculiarity of the place in which the salvation is celebrated by Familia Dei. This form invokes an aesthetic-symbolic quality, in order to enable the delivery of human and social poverty in coherence with the Mystery. These experiences accompany the hard research of an appropriate place for the form of faith and an adequate faith for the form of the place. Given the absolute symbolic relevance of the ecclesiastical building and the performative capacity of the ritual, every research and intervention depend to personal and pastoral requirement rooted into extra-liturgical area. In fact, fiddling with the ritual means not only tampering the celebratory quality, but reconfiguring the ecclesial identity itself.

A discipleship movement shaped for mission: forming a new ecclesial identity for British Methodism?

The article tracks the development of a new ecclesial strapline for the British Methodist Church in the period between 2007 and 2014 and assesses the initial impact of the identity on education and ecumenism. It argues that the theme and practice of holiness has been underplayed and underdeveloped in the discourse to find a fresh expression of Methodism’s calling but that there are surprisingly creative elements latent in the expression, especially in a new era of ecumenical relations.

Passionate Coolness

This chapter explores and analyzes the ecclesial identity of a local parish church in a rural context. Deploying the concept of implicit theology, a subgenre of ethnographic theology, it argues that the character of the church is composed through core and cherished values that are seldom explicitly articulated. What emerges from the study is that the character of rural Anglicanism in the Church of England can be understood as primarily but not exclusively temperate, mild, aesthetic, and rational. Moreover, there may be a link between the grammar and timbre of worship and the kind of God individuals and congregations subsequently believe they experience. The study also notes a broader sociological significance of selecting to study a rural church. That said, it pointedly avoids reductionism, but does recognize the formation of an alloy in need of attention in the emergent social and theological construction of reality.