German Protestants in the Moslavina and Bilogora Regions - Part II

The article researches the migrations of German Protestants in the area of Moslavina and Bilogora after the issuing of the Protestant Patent and religious liberalization in the second half of the 19th century. First, we research the regional background of the settlers (colonists), and we go on to follow the development of their church communities and parishes. After this, we describe the specific settlements with an absolute or relative German Protestant majority, as well as the historical circumstances of their church organization. Finally, we use sources, literature, and oral history (i.e., interviews) as we research the processes of migration and evacuation of German settlers and Protestants from those parts, as well as the destinies of their pastors and preachers during and after WWII. Due to the scope of the research, the article was divided into two parts. In part 1, the emphasis was on migrations, the settlers’ confessional background, and the founding of the first two large parishes in the region. In part 2, we will describe other parishes and their branches, their development, and stages of abandonment, as well as the description of their final spiritual workers’ activities.

Ocean Pilgrimage and Ocean Plastics

This short chapter focuses on some of the innovations and attendant new modes of engaging in the pilgrimage system. Coastal multimodal pilgrimages offer alternative and innovative forms of pilgrimage in the Norwegian pilgrimage system. This form of pilgrimage was recently reconstructed in a mode that combines historical coastal sites with contemporary multimodal transport. A recent form of activist pilgrimage features ecumenical church communities expressing pilgrimage concern for climate action in the run-up to the Paris Agreement negotiations and thereafter. Subsequently, artists in the Diocese of Borg began building support to create and build a new interreligious site for climate pilgrims, the Cathedral of Hope in Fredrikstad, constructed as a movable, floating barge that draws people from various backgrounds to foster respect for the ocean in the fight against ocean plastics.

Direct Health Education by Christian Doctors: Sharing Experiences during Community Service in Local Church Communities in Jakarta, Indonesia

Health education is important because of the need to promote health among members of the community, to maintain the health status and, if possible, to prevent people to get sick. Specific communities such as church members have unique characteristics that can facilitate health education so that it can be more easily accepted and implemented. The existence of Christian scholars among those specific communities can help the church to promote daily healthy living activities and maintain health standards, especially in the era of the Covid pandemic. This article aims to share our experience of doing multi-form community service in a specific community, a local church located in Tanjung Priok, Jakarta, Indonesia.

Miigwech and blood memory: gratitude as a multi-lineage spiritual practice

In the last few years, scientists have discovered what indigenous communities have known for countless generations: that the emotional and physical lives of our ancestors will fundamentally affect our emotional and physical lives as well. Despite the increasingly evident effect that both trauma and/or gratitude can have on an individual (and by extension their offspring), there has been precious little research done on the effects of gratitude on future generations. This paper will seek to study the effect of gratitude as a deep spiritual practice that changes—not only those who practice it—but also the generations that follow. It will do so through the lenses of generational, psychological, and theological studies using the gratitude worldview and practices of the Ojibwa Native Americans as our entry point into the study of blood memory. It will also offer suggestions for church communities looking to reclaim gratitude as a spiritual practice in modern times drawing from the Church’s institutional “blood memory.”

German Protestants in the Moslavina and Bilogora Regions

The article researches the migrations of German Protestants in the area of Moslavina and Bilogora after the issuing of the Protestant Patent and religious liberalization in the second half of the 19th century. First, we research the regional background of the settlers (colonists), and we go on to follow the development of their church communities and parishes. After this, we describe the specific settlements with an absolute or relative German Protestant majority, as well as the historical circumstances of their church organization. Finally, we use sources, literature, and oral history (i.e., interviews) as we research the processes of migration and evacuation of German settlers and Protestants from those parts, as well as the destinies of their pastors and preachers during and after WWII. Due to the scope of the research, the article was divided into two parts. In part 1, the emphasis is on migrations, the settlers’ confessional background, and the founding of the first two large parishes in the region, and after that, we describe other parishes and their branches, their development, and stages of abandonment, as well as the description of their final spiritual workers’ activities.

The First Evangelization of Indigenous Peoples of New France: The Radical Way to Martyrdom of Jesuit Missionaries

The French Jesuits played a significant role in the first evangelization of the indigenous peoples of North America in the early 17th century. They focused on the evangelization of the Huron and Iroquois tribes which remained in constant conflict with each other. In their work they cut themselves off from the commercial interests of colonial countries, especially of France. After a dozen or so years, they were already able to convey evangelical values in tribal languages, being firmly immersed in the local culture. Thus, they were precursors of the inculturation of the Gospel. The missionaries were characterized by deep Christological spirituality, founded on contemplation of the cross, and, therefore, able to endure boldly the hardships of evangelization. As the result of the vile strategies of colonial powers stirring up tribal disputes, they faced numerous misfortunes, and, ultimately, many of them suffered martyrdom. Consequently, their missionary effort became a path to personal holiness and an irreplaceable contribution to the strengthening of the newly established Church communities on the American soil.

Free to Follow the Feeling

Chapter 3 argues for the materiality of emotional practice, even when emotion is conceived of as immaterial or “immediate” experience. Emotions are especially important mediators of experience for Protestants because they can be conceived of as immaterial. Drawing on ethnographic studies of mainline and Charismatic church communities, this chapter shows that styles of enthusiastic practice (Enlightened, Romantic) make a difference as to what emotions are taken seriously. Emotions count as evidence in different ways for each: “depth” indicates for mainstream, liberal Protestants a real emotion, one that is in the immaterial part of the self, whereas for the Charismatics, “intensity” provides evidence, i.e. the material force of bodily movements and sensations counts as real. Their “belief” is framed as “knowledge”: they are certain. Rather appalled at this claim, the liberal Protestants engage in an emotional practice of doubt, which they view as essential to maintaining personal autonomy, even as they subscribe to conviction. Doubt is, however, also a material practice, dependent on a specific way of doing enthusiasm.

Eclesiological Communitarism of Miroslav Volf

The article analyzes the features of the doctrine of the church of the outstandingProtestant theologian of the early XXI century Miroslav Volf. Volf's understanding of the church as a reality that preceded the emergence of the individual as a Christian means a radical break with liberal Protestant ideas of the church community as created by the voluntary decision of individuals. But Volf does not share the collectivist idea of ​​the church as an organism in which the individual is completely subjugated to the whole. It is established that Volf creates a communitarian model of the church, in which the church community is understood as the unity of diversity. Unity itself has the character of interpersonal relations. Individuals with different charisms in the community interact with each other like the fellowship of the Three in God. Communitarianism in Volf's ecclesiology as a "middle way" between liberal individualism and total collectivism has all the hallmarks of postliberal theological theory. It is proved that Volf's communitarianism became a creative development of Christian personalism of the XX century with its emphasis on the existential freedom of the individual and the importance of interpersonal relations. Volf succeeded in building ecclesiological communitarianism not so much because of his many specific speculations about the organization of church communities, but because of his vision of personalism. Namely, as we noted above, Volf combines the idea of ​​personality as dependent on its relations with other personalities (here he develops Ratzinger's theory) with the vision of personality as an apophatic secret that is higher than all its properties and charisma (here he creatively interprets the theory Zizioulas). Accordingly, a personality that exists in absolute openness to the influences of other personalities on the one hand, and is absolutely unique on the other, makes possible the existence of a communitarian church community. Volf emphasizes that the catholicity (completeness and completeness) of the individual Christian personality is as necessary as the catholicity of the whole church community. The characterization of the individual as a conciliar presupposes not only the traditional ideal of the integrity of all faculties and the charisma of the individual in his intention to communicate with God, but also the vision of the legitimacy of the inner diversity of the individual. The possible complexity of the identity of the individual is almost infinite, and the willingness to accept it in the community - the main feature of Volf's communitarianism. Similarly, every ecclesial community must be ready to accept as Christian all other ecclesial communities, whatever the peculiarities of their identity. It is clear that such an understanding of catholicity is possible only in Protestantism. As Volf rightly points out, Catholicism presupposes that the ecclesial community must be the local embodiment of the common ecclesial identity of the whole structure, and Orthodoxy emphasizes that a separate community is necessarily identical in identity to the common identity of the church through the Eucharist. Volf's communitarianism allows us to describe church communities and their associations as network structures in which all individuals are active actors whose abilities and charisms are important for the constitution of communities.