“To Leaven the Lump”: A Critical History of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship in New Zealand

<p>This thesis is an interpretation of the history and character of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship in New Zealand (NZAPF). It focuses on accounting for the limited growth and influence of the Fellowship upon New Zealand’s largest Christian denomination, and on the continuing marginality of the pacifist position. Throughout its history, the organisation has sought to convince others within the Anglican Church that an absolutist, politically engaged and non-anarchistic pacifism is the truest Christian response to the problem of modern warfare. This has been attempted primarily through efforts at education aimed at both clergy and laity. The thesis argues that the NZAPF has been characterised by a commitment to absolute doctrinaire pacifism, despite ongoing tensions between this position and more pragmatic considerations. Overall, the NZAPF attracted only a small group of members throughout its history, and it exerted a limited demonstrable influence on the Anglican Church. This thesis analyses the reasons for this, focusing especially on those factors which arose from the nature of the NZAPF itself, the character of its pacifism, and the relationship between the NZAPF and its primary target audience, the Anglican Church in New Zealand. The research is based on literature and correspondence from the NZAPF as well as personal communication with extant members, where this was feasible. It additionally draws on a range of relevant secondary literature on Christian pacifism, and the history of the Anglican Church and the peace movement in New Zealand.</p>

“To Leaven the Lump”: A Critical History of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship in New Zealand

<p>This thesis is an interpretation of the history and character of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship in New Zealand (NZAPF). It focuses on accounting for the limited growth and influence of the Fellowship upon New Zealand’s largest Christian denomination, and on the continuing marginality of the pacifist position. Throughout its history, the organisation has sought to convince others within the Anglican Church that an absolutist, politically engaged and non-anarchistic pacifism is the truest Christian response to the problem of modern warfare. This has been attempted primarily through efforts at education aimed at both clergy and laity. The thesis argues that the NZAPF has been characterised by a commitment to absolute doctrinaire pacifism, despite ongoing tensions between this position and more pragmatic considerations. Overall, the NZAPF attracted only a small group of members throughout its history, and it exerted a limited demonstrable influence on the Anglican Church. This thesis analyses the reasons for this, focusing especially on those factors which arose from the nature of the NZAPF itself, the character of its pacifism, and the relationship between the NZAPF and its primary target audience, the Anglican Church in New Zealand. The research is based on literature and correspondence from the NZAPF as well as personal communication with extant members, where this was feasible. It additionally draws on a range of relevant secondary literature on Christian pacifism, and the history of the Anglican Church and the peace movement in New Zealand.</p>

A Look at the Seventh-day Adventist Church:

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a worldwide Christian denomination with a rich heritage. Thus, the Adventist Church considers itself to be set apart from the world with a unique mission; members also follow distinctive lifestyle practices. But are Seventh-day Adventists really a unique denomination or are they just a different flavor of mainstream Protestantism? Using data from the FACT 2020 survey and comparing the Adventist sample (N = 313) with the entire interfaith sample (N = 15,278), researchers compared different aspects of church life, including vitality and church growth, local church leadership, engagement in spiritual practices, and engagement in relational spiritual activities. While the data from the FACT 2020 survey present unique strengths of Adventist congregations, weaknesses were also revealed, as compared with the interfaith sample.

Secularization, Confessional Ideology, and Society

Social life is the keystone of the existence of a human and a people and, by extension, of an entire civilization. In this essay I will try to present the way in which religious affiliation has influenced the historical evolution of society and interpersonal relationships. Therefore, after analyzing the relationship between the Christian denomination and the capitalist economy in the context of the secularization process facing the peoples of Europe, I will present the consequences of the desacralization of the world for the spiritual health of modern humans and the consequent sociological implications which tend to create faults in the contemporary world. Communion is replaced by separation, solidarity by individualism, and the inner emotional balance of human beings is jeopardized by the spiritual chaos that seems to condemn the whole society to loneliness and disintegration.

Theoderic the Great and Ostrogothic Italy

The Ostrogothic king Theoderic is the only non-Roman ruler of Late Antiquity to have acquired the epithet the Great, albeit only in modern times. Born around 453 in Pannonia (Hungary) as the son of a Gothic king named Thiudimir, he grew up in Constantinople, where he was held as a hostage for ten years. He returned to Pannonia in 471, in 474 succeeding his father, who had meanwhile led the “Pannonian Goths” into Macedonia. For several years Theoderic fought a Gothic king and rival claimant to imperial favor likewise named Theoderic whose power base was in Thrace (hence “Thracian Goths”). Only after the latter’s death in 481 did he succeed in uniting the two groups under his leadership. Although he was subsequently appointed magister militum and held the consulship in 484, relations with the emperor Zeno soon became hostile. In 488, Theoderic and Zeno made an agreement that Theoderic should take his people to Italy and eliminate Odovacer. After a devastating war, he slew Odovacer by his own hand in March 493, in breach of an oath sworn shortly before to share rule in Italy. Having secured sole rule in Italy, Theoderic turned his mobile and militarized followers into a standing army by allotting them ownership rights to landed estates (rather than shares in land tax, as some have argued). He defined his position as ruler over two peoples, Goths and Romans, to which he assigned complementary but separate roles (“integration by separation”). While Goths were warriors by definition, the civilian population was labeled Roman. Theoderic won over the senatorial elites by preserving their privileges, wealth, and social power and by giving them a share in his rule. He left the administrative structures of the Late Roman state largely unaltered and filled all positions of a civilian nature with people from the senatorial milieu. Although he belonged to a Christian denomination considered heretical by Catholics (“Arian”) he treated Catholic bishops with respect; they in turn asked him to act as an arbitrator when in 498 Symmachus and Laurentius were simultaneously elected to be bishop of Rome. From 508 to 511 he extended his rule over Provence and the Iberian peninsula. Relations with the senatorial elites and the Roman church became strained at the end of Theoderic’s life. He died in Ravenna on 30 August 526 without having nominated an heir to the throne. His kingdom fell within a generation after his death, but his memory lived on in Italy and in all Germanic-speaking lands where legend transformed him into Dietrich of Berne.

Considerations about the Theological Meaning of Migration in the Book of Acts

Through the migration movements at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the significance of global migration has become a mainstream topic in discourses of almost every Christian denomination. How migration and related phenomena are approached by Christian churches and mission movements, is influenced by their theological interpretations of these issues. Beyond sociological and mission-strategical considerations, it is, therefore, necessary to reflect on a theological perspective on migration and diaspora-life. The article argues that a function of Stephen's speech in Acts 7 is to provide the followers of Christ with a new hermeneutics for their experiences of displacement and life in culturally diverse societies. It elaborates the theological consequences for the self-understanding of the early Christian community as a transcultural community and its emerging ecclesiology in the Book of Acts. Some concluding practical considerations sketch out how the theological meaning of migration which is laid out in Acts relates to missiological issues in multicultural contexts.ZusammenfassungAufgrund der Migrationsbewegungen zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts wird die Bedeutung der globalen Migration heute in so gut wie allen christlichen Denominationen diskutiert. Wie christliche Kirchen und Missionsbewegungen mit Migration und damit verwandten Phänomenen umgehen, hängt auch von ihrer theologischen Perspektive auf diese Themen ab. Darum ist es notwendig, über soziologische und missionsstrategische Überlegungen hinaus auch theologische Deutungen von Migration und Diaspora-Existenz zu reflektieren. Dieser Artikel vertritt die These, dass eine Funktion der Stephanusrede in Apostelgeschichte 7 darin besteht, den Nachfolgern Jesu Christi eine neue hermeneutische Perspektive für Erfahrungen von Vertreibung und einem Leben in kulturell pluralen Kontexten zu vermitteln. Es werden die theologischen Konsequenzen für das Selbstverständnis der ersten christlichen Gemeinden als transkulturelle Gemeinschaften sowie für ihre heranwachsende Ekklesiologie in der Apostelgeschichte herausgearbeitet. Einige abschließende Bemerkungen skizzieren, wie die in der Apostelgeschichte angelegte theologische Bedeutung von Migration auf aktuelle missiologische Fragestellungen in multikulturellen Kontexten bezogen werden kann.RésuméAvec les mouvements migratoires du début du XXIe siècle, le sens à donner à ce phénomène de migration globale est devenu un thème dominant dans les débats d’à peu près toutes les dénominations. La manière dont les Églises et les missions chrétiennes abordent la migration et tout ce qui l’accompagne dépend de leur interprétation théologique de ces réalités. Au-delà des considérations touchant à la sociologie et à la stratégie missionnaire, il est donc nécessaire de réfléchir à une perspective théologique de la migration et de l’exil. L’article soutient qu’une fonction du discours d’Étienne en Actes 7 est de fournir aux disciples de Christ une nouvelle façon de lire leur expérience de déplacement et de vie dans des sociétés aux cultures diverses. Il développe les conséquences théologiques: la façon dont la communauté chrétienne primitive s’est vue en tant que communauté transculturelle et dont s’est dégagée son ecclésiologie dans le livre des Actes. Pour conclure, il propose quelques conclusions pratiques esquissant le lien existant entre l’interprétation théologique de la migration telle que décrite en Actes et les questions de la mission dans des contextes multiculturels.

ASSESSMENT OF THE «CULTURE OF THE VOTER» BY THE OFFICIAL SEAL OF PRUSSIA OF THE XIX CENTURY

В Пруссии XIX века не использовался термин "электоральная культура", но акцентировалось внимание на "культурности избирателя". Официальная пресса отмечала, что культурный избиратель консервативен, сдержан, любит свою страну, принадлежит к христианской конфессии и участвует в выборах. Исследование выполнено при финансовой поддержке РФФИ в рамках научного проекта № 20-011-00436. In the Prussia of the XIX century, the term "electoral culture" was not used, but attention was focused on the "culture of the voter". The official press noted that the cultural voter is conservative, reserved, loves his country, belongs to the Christian denomination and participates in elections. Acknowledgments: The reported study was funded by RFBR, project number 20-011-00436 “Electoral legal culture of citizens of Germany (1871-1933).

Postmodernism, identity and mission continuity in the Church of Christ in Zimbabwe

The Church of Christ in Zimbabwe (COCZ) is a Christian denomination with its own internal substance and purpose in life. However, postmodernist changes have affected the Church’s operation with religious, ethical and spiritual implications. The COCZ engaged in conference centre construction (at Somabhula, Gweru South, Zimbabwe), constitution making (adopted 2014) and further ministerial formation through university education. The study was conducted among the Lukuluba people of Somabhula using qualitative research methods. Activities among the Lukuluba people need to be done in critical review of the church’s ideological duty, discovery of the Lukuluba people’s religious consciousness and development of a contextual pedagogy that appeals to the people’s religious spirituality. The study found the need to review the modes of Lukuluba cultic practices of the Shona Mwari religion for purposes of attaining mission continuity within the community and being mindful of the need to continue in the founding identity of the COCZ.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Identity and mission continuity of the Church of Christ in contemporary Zimbabwean society relates to human creation, baptismal dignity and vocation as systematic theology has ecclesiological, soteriological, incarnational, existential, ecological, biblical, inculturational and missiological implications.

The Pilgrimage Landscape in Contemporary Estonia: New Routes, Narratives, and Re-Christianization

This article is the first attempt at mapping the pilgrimage landscape in contemporary Estonia, reputedly one of the most secularized countries in Europe. Based on fieldwork on three case studies — the Estonian Society of the Friends of the Camino de Santiago, the Pirita-Vastseliina pilgrim trail, and the “Mobile Congregation” — we have identified three distinctive features that shape the Estonian pilgrimage scene. The processes of Caminoization and heritagization characterize pilgrimage on a European scale, while the phenomenon that we call “bridging” has a more local flavor. Bridging refers to using pilgrimage to create connections between the Church (of any Christian denomination) and “secular” people. Historically a Christian practice, pilgrimage has transformed into something much more ambiguous. Thus, people often perceive pilgrimage as religion-related but still inherently secular. As the relationships between institutionalized religion and the vernacular world of beliefs and practices are multivalent, there is evidence of an ongoing “re-Christianization” of pilgrimage.

Why Denominations Can Climb Hills: RLDS Conversions in Highland Tribal India and Midwestern America, 1964–2000

Based on oral history interviews and archival sources, this essay analyzes the religious affiliation between Sora villagers in the highlands of eastern India with Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) members in the American Midwest. The relationship between these distinct groups transposed a pattern of interactions between highlands and lowlands in upland Asia to a new globalized space in the late twentieth century. Conceiving of “conversion” as a broad analytic trope to discuss various individual, group, and organizational transformations, this essay argues that “converts” in the Sora highlands and American plains instrumentalized their relationships with the other for their own ends. In the Americans, the Sora found a new patron for long-standing client-patron relationships between highlands people and valley people. In the Sora, the Americans found an “indigenous other” who could be used to justify reforms within their local church body along more cosmopolitan lines. As an upshot of these interactions, Sora and Americans effectively reterritorialized older patterns of “hills” and “valleys” that had been deterritorialized by state-sponsored modernization. Thus, the hills and valleys of upland Asia found a surprising afterlife within the space of a global Christian denomination.