Journal articles on the topic 'Christian leadership Clergy Laity'

Scholarship on Christians in the Middle East has paid little attention to the role the Christian laity has played in defining and maintaining Christian identity and community boundaries. The so-called Orthodox issue (al-qaḍya al-urthudhuksiyya in Arabic) enhances our understanding of this role. It is an ongoing conflict within the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem between the church leadership of Greek extraction and the Arab – usually lower-ranking – clergy and laity. This article uses a case-study approach to a series of protests in Jordan in 2014 against a decision by the Patriarchate to relocate a local reform-minded cleric. Using ethnographic, historical and philological methods, I argue that through their engagement in this struggle, Greek Orthodox Jordanians assert their identity as Christians, as Arabs and as loyal Jordanians. This offers a perspective into the complex interplay between church—community relations, the issue of pastoral care, and this community's identity.

Abstract The Progressive years, from the 1890s to 1919, were the last period of American history during which the “national faith” was publicly proclaimed in the political arena. By the 1930s, politicians excused themselves from appearing on platforms with the ministers and the symbols of Christian faith. Protestant clergymen owed their lease on the attentions of the politicians and the voting public of those years to the intellectuals' patience with the liberal preachers ' reinterpretation of the agenda of progress in terms of the imminent, poslmillenial “Kingdom of God.” Meanwhile, the spectacular advance of premillenialism in the ranks of the laity embarrassed the clergy by exposing the gulf between the liberal-philosophic commitments of the learned leadership and the continued investments of the laity in a supernaturalist understanding of the Christian faith. The vehemence of the Social Gospelers ' denunciation of premillenialism is the best clue to their determination not to accept the reality that would henceforth govern the life of the churches: that Christian faith and doctrine no longer belonged in the general culture.

The purpose of this study was to examine resources available against clergy compensation in ACK Embu Diocese. Descriptive study was carried out in four archdeaconries and inferential statistics were obtained using SPSS. The archdeaconries that were studied were Nginda, Kagaari, Kianjokoma and Karungu. The district has a population of 278,196, with total Christian population of ACK numbering to 25,000. The research design used in this study was descriptive. Kerringer (1969) state, descriptive studies are not only restricted to the facts finding but may often results in formulation of important principles of knowledge and solution to significant problems. The study employed questionnaire as the method of data collection. The researcher targeted a population of 300 people (clergy and laity). From the target population, a sample of 70 clergy and 120 laity people was purposively selected from the four archdeaconries. After data collection, the researcher put together all raw data and analyzed it by tabling it under respective groups of respondent (clergy, laity and administration). At the end of analyses the researcher presented the results in form of tables, pie charts and bar charts to help the readers understand the analyses in a better way. Validity and reliability were tested using pretesting methods. Validity is the accuracy and meaningfulness of the inferences which are based on the research resource. The study findings indicate that the resources available for clergy remuneration are land, investments (businesses such as rental income, book shops and schools) and also quota payments.

We examined premarital counseling services offered by Christian and Muslim lay counselors in Ghana. Participants including clergy, Islamic clerics, and laity practicing in four urban centers were interviewed. Thematic analysis showed that common issues covered include medical screening, beliefs and values, expectations, partner knowledge, roles and duties, sex, parenthood, financial management, communication, and conflicts. The findings offer important insight into religious premarital counseling in Ghana and contribute to the global literature on premarital counseling.

The Oxford Movement has been portrayed in its classic historiography as both clericalist and, in so far as all nineteenth-century Anglican clergy were male, a movement of masculine leadership and initiatives. This is not to deny that the movement was largely priest-led and therefore male in its leadership but ‘largely’ does not mean ‘exclusively’. By looking at the introduction of the Oxford Movement into Scotland, a neglected aspect of its dissemination can be restored, that is, the importance of the laity and of women in the spread of Tractarianism. In Scotland the initial impetus given to Oxford Movement ideals and projects lay not with the clergy but with the aristocratic laity. It also was not the preserve of men, for among its first great supporters in Scotland was a woman, Cecil Chetwynd, widow of John William Robert Kerr, seventh Marquess of Lothian. She would become one of the leading Scottish Tractarians during the 1840s until her conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1851 as a consequence of the Gorham judgement.

This study sought to investigate strategies used to mobilize resources for clergy remuneration in ACK Embu Diocese. The study was carried in Nginda, Kagaari, Kianjokoma and Karungu districts, inferential statistics were obtained using SPSS. The district has a population of 278,196, with a total Christian population of ACK numbering to 25,000. The research used descriptive research design. Kerringer (1969) state, descriptive studies are not only restricted to the facts finding Kerringer (1969) state, descriptive studies are not only restricted to the facts finding but may frequently result in the formulation of critical principles of knowledge and solution but may often result in the formulation of important principles of knowledge and solution to significant problems. The study employed a questionnaire as the method of data collection. The researcher targeted a population of 300 people (clergy and laity). From the target population, a sample of 70 clergies and 120 laity people was purposively selected from the four archdeaconries. After data collection, the researcher put together all raw data and analyzed it by tabling it under respective groups of the respondent (clergy, laity and administration). At the end of analyses, the researcher presented the results in the form of tables, pie charts and bar charts from helping the readers understand the analyses in a better way. Validity and reliability were tested using pretesting methods. Validity is the accuracy and meaningfulness of the inferences, which are based on the research resource. Quota payments was the current major strategy used to mobilize resources for clergy payment. Respondents identified various strategies for mobilizing resources as decentralizing quota payments to the parish, (60% of quota to go to the diocese and 40% to pay the clergy) and by exploiting other resources available.

AbstractRoman notions of social and legal distinction helped to shape the approach of certain pre-Nicene Fathers to the ordering of the church. The social distinction between ordo and plebs and the legal one between honestior and humilior helped these Fathers to differentiate the particular rights and responsibilities of clergy and laity, while the concept of patronage and that of the paterfamilias helped them to define the particular role and authority of the bishop. We see this first articulated in Clement and Hermas of Rome, developed further in Tertullian of Carthage, and then find particular expression in Cyprian of Carthage.

This article surveys the main trends in the relations of Jerusalem's historic churches with Israel and the Palestinians since the 1967 occupation and especially since Oslo. It examines the shift from cooperation with the Israeli state in the early period to a closer identification with the Palestinian nationalist position under the impact of Israeli actions and other factors, including pressures from the laity and an increasingly "Palestinianized" higher clergy, and details the growing cooperation among the churches themselves. The article ends with an examination of the various options for a future church role, especially in the light of the churches' proposal for a "special statute" for Jerusalem, and concludes that a holy places administrative regime under Palestinian sovereignty would be more likely to protect long-term Christian interests.

The article is an attempt to look at Jesus’ prayer as a common spiritual heritage of all Christians, including the Polish and the Ukrainian, and at the same time a synthesis of the current thoughts on this prayer tradition, which is one of the oldest forms of Christian contemplative prayer. It originates from the Holy Scriptures and meditations of the Word of God, it was practiced and developed by the Desert Fathers, Fathers of the Church, monks, clergy and laity, above all in the Churches of the Christian East. Today, the most widespread is in the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Church, but for many years has been experiencing a kind of revival in the Catholic Church. The article presents the teaching of the Church, its saints and contemporary spiritual masters on this subject.

The present essay briefly examines evidence for the development of the mendicant orders, focusing on their relationship to important members of the middle and upper classes in the communes as one of the chief ways in which they gained popularity and public support. These orders came into existence between the late twelfth century and the latter half of the thirteenth. Their increased involvement with the laity was both a direct product of their concern with the needs of the contemporary church and a source of conflict between them and the existing monastic and diocesan clergy. The experience of the Humiliati in various dioceses in northern Italy illustrates an important point, namely the growing divisions within the church and the tendency to label various groups as heretical. The condemnation of the Humiliati and other groups by Pope Lucius III in Verona in 1183 is a sign of the increasing sensitivity to the danger of heresy among the laity within the leadership of the church.

This article will discuss domestic devotions by framing them in terms of devotions carried out in the home, defined by its opposition to ecclesiastical, consecrated space. It will examine how women, considered the laity par excellence through their inability to ever attain sacerdotal authority, were advised spiritually by mendicant friars on how to lead a Christian life according to their status as wives, widows or virgins. It will look at the devotional literature that was widespread in mercantile homes and the devotional images designed to move the soul. This discussion will attempt to show the tensions between ecclesiastical and domestic spaces; between the clergy and the laity, and between the corporeal and spiritual worlds of late medieval devotion. It will argue that, despite clerical unease with the female and domestic space, the importance accorded to female piety by the mendicant orders at the close of the Middle Ages was such that women were entrusted with key educational roles in the family, even leading to the astonishing affirmation of them as ‘preachers’ within the borders of their households.

AbstractAs part of their mission to preach faith and morals, the medieval Dominicans often served as allies of parochial clergy and the episcopate. Scholars such as M. Michèle Mulchahey have shown that on the Continent, the Order of Preachers often helped to educate parish priests. We have evidence that thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Dominicans were allowing parochial clergy to attend their schools in England as well. Much of this evidence is codicological. Two English codices of William Peraldus's sermons provide evidence of a provenance relating to a parish church: London Gray's Inn 20, a collection of his sermons on the Gospels, was owned by a parish priest, and Cambridge Peterhouse 211, a manuscript of his sermons on the Epistles, contains an act issued by the rector of a parish church. Another manuscript of Peraldus's sermons contains synodal statutes. As the Order of Preachers was outside of the diocesan chain of command, these statutes point to the use of these sermons by those who were subject to the episcopate. Since the Dominicans were normally forbidden from sharing their model sermon literature with secular clergy, these codices suggest a program on the part of the English province of the Order of Preachers to make sure that diocesan clergy could attend Dominican schools in order to gain the skills necessary to preach the basic doctrines and morals of the Christian faith to England's laity.

A volta do clericalismo tornou o laicato uma realidade relevante nos dias atuais, obrigando a teologia revisitar o itinerário dos cristãos na Igreja, tanto do ponto de vista pastoral como teológico. Este estudo faz uma abordagem da questão em dois momentos. Começa caracterizando a situação atual do laicato, sua presença e atuação no âmbito da Igreja e do mundo, assim como os avanços e retrocessos em relação à renovação conciliar e à tradição eclesial latino-americana, segundo a Conferência de Aparecida e o magistério do Papa Francisco. Na sequência, tendo presente sua situação atual, aborda a missão no laicato, ad intra e ad extra – na Igreja e no mundo –, que tem no tria munera ecclesiae, conferido a todo cristão pelo Batismo, a constituição e o serviço de um Povo todo ele profético, sacerdotal e régio.Abstract: The return of clericalism made the laity a relevant reality today, forcing theology to revisit the itinerary of Christians in the Church, both pastoral and theological. This study addresses the issue in two moments. It begins by characterizing the present situation of the laity, their presence and performance in the Church and the world, as well as the advances and setbacks in relation to the conciliar renewal and the Latin American ecclesial tradition, according to the Conference of Aparecida and the teaching of Pope Francisco. Following on from his present situation, he addresses the mission in the laity, ad intra and ad extra – in the Church and in the world – which has in the tria munera ecclesiae, conferred upon every Christian by Baptism, the constitution and service of a People all of them prophetic, priestly and royal.Keywords: Laity; Clergy; Church; World; God’s kingdom

AbstractMartin Luther described each person as at once sinner and saint, priest and lord. We can do nothing good; we can do nothing but good.We are utterly free; we are everywhere bound. The more a person thinks himself a saint, the more sinful in fact he becomes. The more a person thinks herself a sinner, the more saintly she in fact becomes. The more a person acts like a lord, the more he is called to be a servant. The more a person acts as a servant, the more in fact she has become a lord. This is the paradoxical nature of human life, and this is the essence of human dignity. Luther used this dialectic theology to level the traditional divisions between pope and prince, clergy and laity, aristocrat and commoner in his sixteenth-century world. And he helped to shape ongoing Protestant teachings about the need to balance authority and liberty, hierarchy and equality, rights and duties in all spheres of life, not least the church and the state.

After the great Reformation principles of ‘faith alone’ and ‘Scripture alone’, probably the most revolutionary doctrine commonly associated with Martin Luther is that of the priesthood of all believers. It is well known that, as it appears in his address ‘to the Christian nobility of the German nation’ of 1520, he intended this doctrine to bring down the walls of the new Jericho by striking at the heart of the distinction between clergy and laity on which the medieval Church was based. What is less well known is the reaction to this doctrine of Luther’s contemporaries, and in particular his critics. I propose to look at how they regarded the reformer’s conception of the universal priesthood, and what they thought its implications were, in the hope of shedding more light on its contemporary significance.

Over the last half century, a number of sociologists on both sides of the Atlantic have tried to define the contemporary role of the ministry. Among the ideas which emerged from their work, three are relevant for our purpose here. The first was that a number of roles which well-intentioned if not always well-qualified clergy had tried to play in the past had been lost or were being lost to rival professions, few of whose members were in holy orders: doctors and psychiatrists, marriage guidance counsellors and social caseworkers, solicitors and schoolteachers. Sociologists detected a sense of what was called ‘role uncertainty’ among the English clergy, and a feeling that in future they should be trained in new skills such as counselling. Allied to this disquiet was another concern, that the administrative and organizational side of the minister’s work was threatening to swamp the more important traditional roles of priest, pastor, and preacher. A third suggestion was that in an increasingly secular society the status of the ministry was declining. For centuries, it was argued, the clergy had enjoyed a unique place in society because of their sacerdotal functions and special skills, but this was now changing: the value of the Christian ministry in the eyes of the laity was falling behind that of more ‘useful’ professions such as medicine and the law.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, there was a growing concern within the Church of Sweden that the church was, to a too large extent, managed by the clergy alone. In an attempt to give the laity a more active and influential role in the Church of Sweden, the Brethren of the Church was established in 1918. Since it was only possible for men to become members, the organization simultaneously addressed a different issue: the view that women had become a much too salient group in church life. This process was described by the Brethren and similar groups as a “feminization” of the church, a phrasing which later came to be used by historians and theologians to explain changes in Western Christianity in the nineteenth century. In other words, the Brethren considered questions of gender vital to their endeavor to create a church in which the laity held a more prominent position. This article analyzes how the perceived feminization and its assumed connection to secularization caused enhanced attempts to uphold and strengthen gender differentiation in the Church of Sweden in the early twentieth century. By analyzing an all-male lay organization, the importance of homosociality in the construction of Christian masculinities will also be discussed.

Despite Church teachings on climate change and most Catholics accepting the science and being concerned, a large minority of Catholic laity and clergy deny it. This multi-sited, qualitative study, which includes supporting quantitative data, focuses on how skepticism is articulated by Catholic climate change skeptics, and transmitted and transmuted through Catholic networks. While Catholic climate change skeptics echo other skeptics, they also bring Catholic perspectives, often mingled with conservative religious and political views. Some express concern common among other Christian skeptics that believing in climate change leads to neopaganism and promotes anti-human sentiments. The focus is on Catholic climate change skeptics and their ideas, not Catholicism per se, and various cultural, social, and psychological factors, including their understanding of Catholicism, that impact their climate change skepticism. This contributes to the growing scholarship on climate change skepticism.

Nazism in Pius XI's Encyclical Mit brennender Sorge The article presents Nazism in Pius XI’s encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. The genesis and context of this papal document, which was written in the German language and directed to the German nation, are presented, as well as reactions from the German state it evoked. This encyclical constitutes a synthesis of numerous statements by the Church in its struggle against the anti-Christian ideology and practice. In it we find references to the breaches in the concordatbetween Germany and the Holy See, and falsifications of Church teachings and language undermining the moral order, hope and love, as well as natural law. It is addressed to young people, the clergy and the laity. In it we find attempts to uncover the Nazi bestiality in the time when Hitler was admired and praised by many contemporary politicians. It does express hope that the German nation will return to the true faith and mission prepared for it by God

Of the numerous criticisms and expressions of grievance directed at the Church in Germany on the eve of the Reformation, the most devastating was the charge of inadequate pastoral care. Reformers of all complexions bewailed the poor state of the parish clergy and the inadequate manner in which they provided for the spiritual needs of their flocks. At the very least, the parish clergy were ill-educated and ill-prepared for their pastoral tasks; at the very worst, they exploited those to whom they should have ministered, charging for their services, treating layfolk as merely a means of increasing their incomes, and, above all, resorting to the tyranny of the spiritual ban to uphold their position. The popular propaganda of the early Reformation fully exploited such deficiencies, exposing the decay in root and branch of a system of pastoral care depicted as no more than an empty shell, a facade of a genuine Christian cure of souls. The attack on the traditional Church was highly successful, successful enough to provoke an ecclesiastical revolution, and almost a socio-political revolution as well. It was, indeed, so successful that generations of historians of the Reformation have seen the condition of the pre-Reformation Church largely through the eyes of its critics and opponents. This negative image was matched by an idealized view of what succeeded it: where the old Church had failed the Christian laity, indeed, so much that they had virtually fallen into the hands of the Devil, the new Church offered solutions, a new way forward, a new standard of pastoral care and concern that created a new ideal, the Lutheran pastor, who cared for his flock as a kindly father, a shepherd who would willingly give up his life for his sheep.

[our goal] is nothing less that the coordination of the living forces of Mexican Catholic youth for the purpose of restoring Christian social order in Mexico …(A.C.J.M.’s “General Statutes”)The Mexican Catholic Youth Association emerged during the Mexican Revolution dedicated to the goal of creating lay activists with a Catholic vision for society. The history of this Jesuit organization provides insights into Church-State relations from the military phase of the Mexican Revolution to its consolidation in the 1920s and 1930s. The Church-State conflict is a basic issue in Mexico's political struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with the Church mobilizing forces wherever it could during these years dominated by anticlericalism. During the 1920s, the Mexican Catholic Youth Association (A.C.J.M.) was in the forefront of the Church's efforts to respond to the government's anticlerical policies. The A.C.J.M.’s subsequent estrangement from the top Church leadership also serves to highlight the complex relationship that existed between the Mexican bishops and the Catholic laity and the ideological divisions that existed within Mexico's Catholic community as a whole.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rapid increase in the use of digital technology by Christian communities worldwide. This paper offers a cross-continental analysis of how churches in Asia (Hong Kong and Singapore) and Europe (the United Kingdom and Sweden) understand and choose to implement (or resist) online services or Mass. Undoubtedly, there are practical reasons behind differences which can be observed, such as the technological readiness found amongst church leadership and laity, and past experiences of public health crises, such as the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. However, accompanying these developments are debates around the theological implications of digitising church ministries, and the general concern that the digital church is somehow not ‘church’ or, even, not ‘Christian’. Different contextual perspectives help us to understand that the digital church offers a new dimension of the church embodied and, therefore, one that has the potential to live out the missio Dei within and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Clergy can have a negative impact on churches and other individuals when they knowingly or unknowingly attempt to save face, that is, try to protect their standing or reputation. The desire to gain face and the fear of losing face and feeling ashamed will likely permeate clergy’s decision-making processes without even being noticed. This study explores the essence of face and face management and the relationship between face management and two characteristics of servant-leadership—awareness and healing—in both Chinese and American churches through the methodology of hermeneutic phenomenology. Prior to this study, to my knowledge, no hermeneutic phenomenological research of face management has been conducted in a church setting. Through a review of the literature, four areas are explored: face and shame, face management, servant-leadership, and face, shame, and face management within the church. This study obtained approval from the Institutional Review Board and informed consent from the participants. Three Chinese and three American Christian ministers were chosen to complete a question sheet and participate in two semi-structured interview sessions. A first cycle of open coding and second cycle of pattern coding were used during data analysis. Face experiences are discussed in light of eight major themes: body, triggers, becoming, face concepts, strategies, emotions, servant-leadership, and the church. Findings from the study help build a servant-leadership and face management model, which can offer an anchored approach for clergy and pastoral counselors to address face and shame and to develop therapeutic interventions.

This article analyses archdiocesan and diocesan synod legislation in the four bishoprics of the Teutonic Ordensstaat in Prussia (Culm, Pomesania, Ermland and Samland) to reveal evangelisation processes in Prussia. Given the sparse nature of the sources available for studying local church history, synod legislation provides useful evidence of pastoral practice in the area. The author surveys methodological problems arising from this situation. On the basis of Rigan archdiocesan statutes and diocesan legislation from the fifteenth century for the most part the author examines the evangelisation process and the problems facing the Church in Prussia. The author examines obligations to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days. He deals with the teaching of basic prayers (the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed) in Latin and the vernacular. Rules for making confession and the advice of penitentials by the parish clergy are studied. The author asks how far the requirements of synod legislation were transmitted to the laity. Bishops recommended statutes be published in the chancel of churches but it is hard to know how illiterate Prussian laymen could use them. The author asks what negative aspects of Prussian religious and social life were not eradicated during almost two centuries of Catholic instruction; how effective were the efforts of German bishops and priests at proselytising the Prussian laity? The statutes examined here suggest that even in the fifteenth century Prussians lacked proper understanding of the sacraments of baptism, marriage or the Mass. Even though ‘pagan’ practices survived in Prussia we must not underestimate the achievements of the local Church. There must be serious reconsideration of outdated scholarly claims that in the Late Middle Ages Prussia was Christian only in name and that evangelisation among the Prussian masses was out of the question.

Clergy and laity as worship planners help the congregation to recognize the church as the gathered and scattered people of God who are called into a right relationship with God and all God's good creation through their intentionality in planning and implementing services of worship that emphasize the dialogical relationship of worship. The collaborative work in receiving and responding to God's gift of worship is central to the life of the congregation. Corporate worship can be informative, formative, and transformative. Paying careful attention to the framework of the corporate worship service's structure enables worshipers to learn what it means to connect the mechanics of the liturgy and the patterns of celebrations of worship with the deeper meaning of Christian worship. Shaping worship so that form and function work together from beginning to end helps the congregation to understand what it is doing during a time of gathering and a time of sending. When attention is given to the time of gathering and the time of sending forth in our corporate worship, worshipers are more aware that God invites them to gather as a community to worship and God sends them forth into the world to continue their worship with their lives. This connection with daily life is essential to what it means to be church.

Abstract‘Biblical theology’ has long influenced modern theological method, especially Protestant, as both boon and bane. Its role has been seen as either pivotal or problematic in the attempt to construe the Christian Bible as scripture with unified teaching for the contemporary church. The attempt to unfold biblical teaching as having organic unity, related to an internal structure of theological concepts, is frequently perceived as a failure, a has-been that leaves us only with fragmentation – between parts of the Bible, between academy and church, church and world, clergy and laity, and between various theological disciplines. Today a new movement is afoot, often labelled ‘theological interpretation of scripture’. Some of its adherents define this practice as distinct from, even opposed to, biblical theology. Others treat the two practices as virtually coterminous, while perhaps contesting what ‘biblical theology’ is typically taken to be in favour of new theological hermeneutics. Much of the difficulty in defining the relationship, then, stems from lingering debates about what biblical theology can or should be. The rest of the difficulty is perhaps rooted in the dilemma of any interdisciplinary efforts: how to breach unhelpful sections of disciplinary boundaries without redefining territory so nebulously that no one knows where they are.

The article examines the epistolary legacy (numbering more than three hundred letters) of Alcuin of York, perhaps the most prominent figure of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance, a famous associate of Charlemagne. Comparison of Alcuin’s letters with samples of late antique epistolography makes it possible to trace the degree of continuity of cultural and social practices of pagan Antiquity and the Christian Middle Ages. In addition, reference to Alcuin’s correspondence makes it possible to look into the inner world of a Christian intellectual, to get acquainted with the issues and problems that occupy the minds of his contemporaries, to build a scheme of Alcuin’s network communication and to understand how far his spiritual influence extended in Europe and with which social layers he communicated. Setting the goal of identifying the characteristic features of the Christian intellectual community at the turn of the VIII—IX centuries on the basis of the analysis of Alcuin’s epistolary heritage, the author of the article defines the social and geographical boundaries of the circulation of Alcuin’s letters, identifies the succession of his letters from the ancient epistolary tradition, identifies and analyzes the main problems raised in Alcuin’s letters. To achieve this goal, the article uses a historical and anthropological approach with elements of semiotic analysis. The succession of Alcuin’s correspondence from the traditions of late antique epistolography is reflected, first of all, in the form of letters, the way they were written, and the use of stable rhetorical techniques. At the same time, attention is drawn to the change in the social portrait of the address and, due to this, the expansion of the circle of addressees, which now includes not only representatives of the highest secular and church elite, but also nsufficiently educated and ignoble people, for whom Alcuin acted as a spiritual father and mentor. The analysis of the letters shows that Alcuin’s awareness of his responsibility for the fate of the addressees determines the subject matter of the letters, many of which are devoted to explaining the responsibilities of certain members of the Christian community, defining the area of responsibility of the laity and clergy, constructing of the image of an ideal clergyman or a righteous layman.

The COVID-19 pandemic threatening both to humans’ lives and society gave a start to a row of extreme political measures taken in the EU countries as well as all over the world. But how reasonable are all those protective policies adopted in large numbers by national governments and international institutions? That is the point at issue for today’s scientists, politicians and religious leaders. The measures taken were primarily based on numerous prohibitions including the ban on public worship. It became even more of a nuisance in April 2020 when it came to celebrating Easter, the most important Christian festival. The public worship ban got a mixed reception from European church leaders, clergy and laity. During the first stage of the pandemic both the church and the churchgoers took it for granted and showed no signs of dissatisfaction. Moreover, religious organizations became deeply involved into social and charitable activities. But after the first consequences of the pandemic were thought over the situation took a new turn. Now the church representatives declare the right to religious freedom being violated and criticize national governments for overall discrimination towards the believers. These events are the reason to improve European legislation where it goes to respecting the right to freedom of religion and belief together with maintaining security as the basis for sustainable economic, political and cultural development in Europe.

The study is carried out in line with general problems of the history of state- church relations in the conditions of the Soviet totalitarian system. For a long time modern historiography did not pay proper attention to anti-religious politics in the USSR in 1939–1941, both at general and regional levels. Most scholars avoided themes related to repressive policy regarding worshipers in the years following the Great Terror, and some even noted the liberalization of the course of the Soviet leadership in the field of religion and church on the eve of the German-Soviet war, which began in June 1941. The purpose of the study is to highlight political repressions against the clergy and believers of various Christian denominations in Dnipropetrovsk region in 1939–1942. Research methods: problem-chronological, historical-genetic, historical-comparative, analysis, synthesis. The main results of the work. The process of preparation and further implementation of repressions of the clergy and active believers of various religious groups of Dnipropetrovsk region in 1939–1942 is highlighted. Dozens of convicted worshipers and “sectarians” are identified by name. Nature of accusations and peculiarities of imposed sentences are determined. The course of collective cases fabricated by the NKVD bodies against the Orthodox clergy is shown. Repressive measures of the authorities in the initial period of the German-Soviet war are analyzed. The continuity of the state anti-religious course and the use of terror until 1942 is proved. The originality of the work is in the use and analysis of numerous previously unknown archival documents which helped to disclose the formulated scientific problem. Practical value: despite the regional limitations of the study, the materials of the article are useful not only to local historians, but also to church historians for further development of the problems in the outlined chronological framework. Type of article: analytical.

The Protestant Reformation was a movement based on Scripture and its leaders believed that it was important for all clergy and laity to know and understand the word of God. In 1522 Luther published his translation of the New Testament into German and, although it was not the first translation available, it made an enormous impact, selling in large numbers despite being a relatively expensive book for ordinary readers. In recent years the impression of laypeople readily accepting the Reformation as a result of individual reading of the Bible and evangelical preaching has been challenged, but there is evidence that gradually ordinary people did become aware of Protestant beliefs and the biblical basis for those teachings. Familiarity with the Bible has been shown to have been spread in a variety of ways, including attendance at regular worship, the production of children’s Bibles and the publication of extracts from Scripture, including the Psalms and Gospels. Another medium was the mastersingers, guilds of artisans found in several south German cities, who wrote and performed their own verses (Meisterlieder) that followed strict musical and poetic rules. This paper will consider how they used their literary traditions to popularize evangelical teaching and to spread knowledge and awareness of the Bible in ways that were readily comprehensible to ordinary people. The focus is on the work of the Nuremberg shoemaker and poet Hans Sachs, who achieved national fame, both for his works of the early 1520s in support of religious reform and for his creativity as a playwright and mastersinger. It will show too how changing perceptions of the role of the individual in Christian society in the Reformation period were embedded within the messages found in Sachs’s poems.

Between 1640 and 1642 the Church of England collapsed, its leaders reviled and discredited, its structures paralysed, its practices if not yet proscribed, at least inhibited. In the years that followed, yet worse was to befall it. And yet in every year of its persecution after 1646, new shoots sprang up out of the fallen timber: bereft of episcopal leadership, lacking any power of coercion, its observances illegal, anglicanism thrived. As memories of the 1630s faded and were overlaid by the tyrannies of the 1640s … the deeper rhythms of the Kalendar and the ingrained perfections of Cranmer’s liturgies bound a growing majority together.Professor John Morrill, quoted above, has rightly identified a set of historiographical contradictions about the Stuart Church in a series of important articles. Historians have until recently paid little attention to the positive and popular elements of conformity to the national Church of England in the period before the civil war. The lack of interest in conformity has led to a seventeenth-century version of the old Whig view of the late medieval Church: the Church of England is presented as a complacent, corrupt, and clericalist institution, ‘ripe’ – as the English Church in the early sixteenth century was ‘ripe’ – to be purified by reformers. However, if this was the case, how does one account for the durable commitment to the Prayer Book demonstrated during the 1640s and 1650s and the widespread – but not universal – support for the ‘return’ of the Church of England in 1660?This paper contributes to the larger exploration of the theme of ‘the Church and the book’ by addressing in particular the continued use by clergy and laity alike of one ‘book’ – the Book of Common Prayer – after its banning by Parliament during the years of civil war and the Commonwealth.

Introduction: the article notes that in the spread of Orthodoxy among the indigenous population of North-West Siberia, Christian rituals played a special role, among which confession and communion are distinguished. The study of the influence of these sacraments on newly baptized allows to better understand the methods of Christianization of the region, peculiarities of relations of the Orthodox clergy and the «foreign» congregation, the nature of interaction of representatives of two different cultures: arrived and autochthonous. Objective: to identify the regional specifics of organization and conduction of the sacraments of confession and communion in the «foreign» parishes of North-West Siberia during the synodic period, forms and results of influence of Orthodox rituals on the indigenous population. Research materials: a sample of confession and clerical records of the parishes of Beryozovsky and Surgutsky Districts, correspondence, reports of abbots, deans about the participation of indigenous people in the sacraments of confession and communion. Results and novelty of the research: the study showed that the timely fulfillment of Orthodox rituals by the «foreigners» required considerable efforts from the parish clergy and was a constant concern of the diocesan leadership. The majority of the newly baptized were generally loyal to confession and communion, which were also one of the instruments of control over the religious life of the indigenous population. Along with other elements of Christianity, confession and communion contributed to the penetration of certain elements of Russian everyday culture into its environment and the formation of religious syncretism. In the scientific literature, no research has been conducted on their impact on the newly baptized people of the Tobolsk North.

One of the things that are often highlighted in the world of spirituality is a matter of sexual scandal. But lately, the focus of the spiritual world is financial transparency and accountability. Financial scandals began to arise in the Church, as was the case in the Protestant Christian Church of Bukti Doa Nusa Dua Congregation in Bali. The scandal involved clergy and even some church leaders. This study aims to describe how the conflict occurred because of financial scandals in the Church. The method used in this study is the Ontic dialectic. Based on this research, the conflict in the Bukit Doa Church is a conflict caused by an internal financial scandal. The scandal resulted in fairly widespread conflict in the various lines of the organization. It led to the issuance of the Dismissal Decrees of the church pastor and also one of the members of Financial Supervisory Council. This conflict has also resulted in the leadership of the church had violated human rights. Source of conflict is not resolved in a fair, but more concerned with political interests and groups. Thus, the source of the problem is still attached to its original place.

The article on the basis of documentary materials for the first time presents the main steps in the history of the Mari translations of the gospel in the Vyatka province in the light of the activities of the Russian Bible society. The translations were started in December 1820 on the initiative of the leadership of the Vyatka diocese and were carried out by the parish clergy in two counties: in Yaransk the gospel of Matthew was translated, whereas in Urzhumsky the gospel of Mark. The Yaranskiy translation was made in 1821 by S. Bobrovsky, who was a priest in the village Pizhemskоya; the Urzhumskiy translation was completed in 1822, and performed in parts by multiple translators, including the priests K. Ushnurski from the village Toral and A. Popov from the village Yuledur. Both translations were sent for consideration to the metropolitan Committee of the Bible society in early July 1823. The article provides brief biographical information of the translators. In addition, an idea is given of the attempts undertaken in the Vyatka diocese to use translations of Christian texts into the Mari language made outside of the region. In particular, in 1820-1821, a translation of the Liturgy of John Chrysostom was tested in parishes with the Mari population, and in 1824, a suitability test began for the Vyatka Mari people of translations of the Gospel made in Kazan.

That ministry is to be given back to the laity is a laudable proposition. However, the level of development in many township and village communities is still such that a strong leadership and management facilitation role is demanded of the pastor. In such contexts, the pastor is also the only one who is always available for church tasks. The point of departure of this article was that the pastor is primarily a facilitator who assumes the tasks of a leader, a manager and a servant. The Trinitarian office of Christ is taken as model. Christian leadership, as discussed from a systems perspective, is seen as enabling rather than hegemonic. The pastor fulfils the seven leadership functions in order to equip the saints for their Christian service. Church management is redefined as a process which takes place in meaningful collaboration with others, over against the objectification found in conventional definitions which focus on ‘getting things done through people’. This article discussed servant leadership and service provision as the central purpose of Christian leadership.

The Church of Christ in Zimbabwe (COCZ) has adopted Western philosophies of Euro-American cultures originating from the Victorian age during the Restoration Movement (RM) of the American Second Great Awakening (SGA). This exclusive, divisive and oppressive culture denied women, the poor, and the young, the opportunity to lead. The RM emphasised going back to the founding charism of the New Testament Church, with Christian unity and ecumenism as central elements. Its doctrines became rigid, denying female leadership, constitutions, central headquarters, and further ministerial formation as worldly. This study raises these aspects as indispensable to the contextualising, inculturating and incarnating framework of the gospel in an African context. This reflection takes account of the four-self-leadership formula, as inspired by Magwidi’s PhD study (2015–2021), as well as other sources like the minutes of church board meetings and contextual writings by COCZ’s local clergy. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews that were collated with written sources and heuristically interpreted by the African Cultural Hermeneutics Approach (ACHA) (Kanyoro 2002; 2001). A synthesis of missionary ideology with African narratives of the Christian faith (using ACHA) interpreted the data to understand the “how” of contextual, cultural and religious transformation in the COCZ. The study recommends new, inclusive and transformative modes of leadership empowerment for an authentic African Church.

Martinho Lutero a partir da sua ênfase na justiça passiva tocou emdiversos temas caros à igreja de seu tempo. Um desses temas é o sacerdócio.Seu posicionamento ficou conhecido como a defesa do Sacerdócio Geral detodos os crentes. Foi um parecer um tanto quanto conflituoso em seu tempohaja vista a comum separação entre o clero e o laicato (povo). Essa separação,bem como a compreensão do sacerdócio, é oriunda de uma progressivacompreensão acerca das funções eclesiais e sua relação com a comunidadecristã. No entanto, Lutero, enquanto biblista, questiona esta posição progressivaresgatando aspectos que julga terem sido esquecidos pela sua igreja e quevieram somar à esta em prejuízo. Defende que todas as pessoas cristãs sãosacerdotes por estarem inseridas por meio do batismo no ministério de JesusCristo. Isso se desdobra no fato de que cada pessoa cristã é responsável echamada a servir neste e por este sacerdócio na igreja e, concomitante, porsua vocação, no mundo.Palavras-chave: Sacerdócio. Martinho Lutero. Vocação.Abstract: From his emphasis on passive righteousness, Martin Luther has approachedseveral valued themes to the church of his time. One of these themesis the priesthood. His positioning became known as the defense of the Priesthoodof all Believers. It was a conflicting view for his time due to the commonseparation between the clergy and the laity (people). This separation, as well asthe understanding of the priesthood, stems from a progressive understanding ofecclesial functions and its relationship with the Christian community. However,Luther, as a professor of Bible, questions this progressive position by rescuingaspects that he believes were forgotten by his church and ended up bringing lossto it. He argues that every Christian is a minister due to the fact that this personis inserted through baptism into the ministry of Jesus Christ. This emphasizesthe fact that every Christian is responsible and called to serve in the ministryand, ultimately, for his vocation in the world.Keywords: Priesthood. Martin Luther. Vocation.

Recent research by the Call42 group has shown that South African Christians experience that they are not adequately prepared or equipped for Christian living and discipleship in the world of work – here called the marketplace. This article has argued for the importance of a rediscovery of a theology of work that can empower and equip the church and individual Christians for ministry in the marketplace. The article traces why such a theological deficiency exists in the South African church by considering areas such as an inadequate theology of work and mission, a dualism between faith and work, and an unbalanced emphasis on the role of clergy and a lesser focus on the role of the laity in themissio Dei. Having considered these challenges to the mission and theological identity of the church, the article discusses the three general theological views of the church in South Africa as presented by Smit and adapted by Forster. It considers how the church could become an agent of mission and transformation in the marketplace in each of these three forms. The article comes to the conclusion that the church will need to revisit its missional theology, refocuses its efforts on broader society, and empowers and equips its members for ministry in the marketplace in order to be faithful in partnering with God in the missio Dei.Waar is die kerk op Maandag? Ontwaking van die kerk tot die teologie en praktyk vanbediening en sending in die markplein. Onlangse navorsing deur die Call42 groep het bevind dat Suid-Afrikaanse Christene ervaar dat hulle nie voldoende voorbereid en toegerus is vir die Christelike lewe en dissipelskap in die arbeidsmark - hier genoem die markplein – nie. Hierdie artikel poog om aan te toon dat ’n herontdekking van ’n teologie van werk belangrik is ten einde die kerk in die algemeen asook individuele Christene te bemagtig en toe te rus vir die bediening in die markplein. Hierdie artikel poog dus om die kwessie van die sodanige teologiese leemte in die Suid-Afrikaanse kerk na te vors. Terreine soos onvoldoende teologie van werk en sending word ondersoek, ’n dualisme tussen geloof en werk word uitgewys, en daar word aangetoon dat ’n oorspeling van die predikant se rol en ’n onderspeling van gewone kerklidmate se rol die kerk se betrokkenheid by die missio Dei benadeel. Met inagneming van hierdie uitdagings aan sending en die kerk se teologiese identiteit, bespreek die artikel drie algemene teologiese standpunte van die kerk in Suid Afrika, soos deur Smit aangebied en deur Forster aangepas. Die artikel besin hoe die kerk in elk van hierdie drie bestaansvorme ’n agent van sending en transformasie in die markplein kan wees. Die gevolgtrekking word gemaak dat die kerk die missionale of sendingteologie moet heroorweeg, opnuut moet fokus op die uitreik na die breër gemeenskap en lidmate vir bediening in die markplein moet bemagtig en toerus. Sodoende sal die kerk getrou wees aan die medewerking met God in die missio Dei.

There’s no reason to think that Jesus wouldn’t have Facebooked or twittered if he came into the world now. Can you imagine his killer status updates? Reverend Schenck, New York, All Saints Episcopal Church (Mapes) The fundamental problem of religious communication is how best to represent and mediate the sacred. (O’Leary 787) What would Jesus tweet? Historically, the quest for sacred connections has relied on the mediation of faith communication via technological implements, from the use of the drum to mediate the Divine, to the use of the mechanical clock by monks as reminders to observe the canonical hours of prayer (Mumford). Today, religious communication practices increasingly implicate Web 2.0, or interactive, user-generated content like blogs (Cheong, Halavis & Kwon), and microblogs like “tweets” of no more than 140 characters sent via Web-based applications like text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail, or on the Web. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s latest report in October 2009, 19% of online adults said that they used a microblogging service to send messages from a computer or mobile device to family and friends who have signed up to receive them (Fox, Zickuhr & Smith). The ascendency of microblogging leads to interesting questions of how new media use alters spatio-temporal dynamics in peoples’ everyday consciousness, including ways in which tweeting facilitates ambient religious interactions. The notion of ambient strikes a particularly resonant chord for religious communication: many faith traditions advocate the practice of sacred mindfulness, and a consistent piety in light of holy devotion to an omnipresent and omniscient Divine being. This paper examines how faith believers appropriate the emergent microblogging practices to create an encompassing cultural surround to include microblogging rituals which promote regular, heightened prayer awareness. Faith tweets help constitute epiphany and a persistent sense of sacred connected presence, which in turn rouses an identification of a higher moral purpose and solidarity with other local and global believers. Amidst ongoing tensions about microblogging, religious organisations and their leadership have also begun to incorporate Twitter into their communication practices and outreach, to encourage the extension of presence beyond the church walls. Faith Tweeting and Mobile Mediated Prayers Twitter’s Website describes itself as a new media service that help users communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to the question, “What are you doing?” Some evangelical Christian groups harness these coincident messaging flows to create meaningful pathways for personal, intercessory and synchronised prayer. Using hashtags in a Twitter post creates a community convention or grouping around faith ideas and allows others to access them. Popular faith related hashtags include #twurch (Twitter + church), #prayer, #JIL (Jesus is Lord) and #pray4 (as in, #pray4 my mother). Just as mobile telephony assists distal family members to build “connected presence” (Christensen), I suggest that faith tweets stimulating mobile mediated prayers help build a sense of closeness and “religious connected presence” amongst the distributed family of faith believers, to recreate and reaffirm Divine and corporeal bonds. Consider the Calvin Institute of Worship’s set up of six different Twitter feeds to “pray the hours”. Praying the hours is an ancient practice of praying set prayers throughout certain times of the day, as marked in the Book of Common Prayer in the Christian tradition. Inspired by the Holy Scripture’s injunction to “pray without ceasing” ( 1 Thessalonians 5:17), users can sign up to receive hourly personal or intercessory prayers sent in brief verses or view a Tweetgrid with prayer feeds, to prompt continuous prayer or help those who are unsure of what words to pray. In this way, contemporary believers may reinvent the century-old practice of constant faith mediation as Twitter use helps to reintegrate scripture into people’s daily lives. Faith tweets that goad personal and intercessory prayer also makes ambient religious life salient, and preserves self-awareness of sanctified moments during normal, everyday activities. Furthermore, while the above “praying the hours” performance promotes a specific integration of scripture or prayer into individuals’ daily rhythms, other faith tweets are more focused on evangelism: to reach others through recurrent prayers or random inspirational messages sent throughout the day. For instance, as BBC News reports, religious leaders such as Cardinal Brady, head of Ireland’s Catholic Church, encourage parishioners to use Twitter to spread “the gift of prayer”, as they microblog their daily prayers for their friends and family. Cardinal Brady commented that, “such a sea of prayer is sure to strengthen our sense of solidarity with one another and remind us those who receive them that others really do care" (emphasis mine). Indeed, Cardinal Brady’s observation is instructive to the “Twitness” of faithful microbloggers who desire to shape the blogosphere, and create new faith connections. “JesusTweeters” is a faith-based social networking site, and a service which allows users to send out messages from any random tweet from the Bible Tweet Library, or their own personal messages on a scheduled basis. The site reports that over 500 members of JesusTweeters, each with an average of 500 followers, have signed up to help “spread the Word” worldwide through Twitter. This is an interesting emergent form of Twitter action, as it translates to more than 2.5 million faith tweets being circulated online daily. Moreover, Twitter encourages ‘connected presence’ whereby the use of microblogging enables online faith believers to enjoy an intimate, ‘always on’ virtual presence with their other congregational members during times of physical absence. In the recently released e-book The Reason Your Church Must Twitter, subtitled Making Your Ministry Contagious, author and self-proclaimed ‘technology evangelist’ Anthony Coppedge advocates churches to adopt Twitter as part of their overall communication strategy to maintain relational connectedness beyond the boundaries of established institutional practices. In his book, Coppedge argues that Twitter can be used as a “megaphone” for updates and announcements or as a “conversation” to spur sharing of ideas and prayer exchanges. In line with education scholars who promote Twitter as a pedagogical tool to enhance free-flowing interactions outside of the classroom (Dunlap & Lowenthal), Coppedge encourages pastors to tweet “life application points” from their sermons to their congregational members throughout the week, to reinforce the theme of their Sunday lesson. Ministry leaders are also encouraged to adopt Twitter to “become highly accessible” to members and communicate with their volunteers, in order to build stronger ecumenical relationships. Communication technology scholar Michele Jackson notes that Twitter is a form of visible “lifelogging” as interactants self-disclose their lived-in moments (731). In the case of faith tweets, co-presence is constructed when instantaneous Twitter updates announce new happenings on the church campus, shares prayer requests, confirms details of new events and gives public commendations to celebrate victories of staff members. In this way, microblogging helps to build a portable church where fellow believers can connect to each-other via the thread of frequent, running commentaries of their everyday lives. To further develop ‘connected presence’, a significant number of Churches have also begun to incorporate real-time Twitter streams during their Sunday services. For example, to stimulate congregational members’ sharing of their spontaneous reactions to the movement of the Holy Spirit, Westwind Church in Michigan has created a dozen “Twitter Sundays” where members are free to tweet at any time and at any worship service (Rochman). At Woodlands Church in Houston, a new service was started in 2009 which encourages parishioners to tweet their thoughts, reflections and questions throughout the service. The tweets are reviewed by church staff and they are posted as scrolling visual messages on a screen behind the pastor while he preaches (Patel). It is interesting to note that recurring faith tweets spatially filling the sanctuary screens blurs the visual hierarchies between the pastor as foreground and congregations as background to the degree that tweet voices from the congregation are blended into the church worship service. The interactive use of Twitter also differs from the forms of personal silent meditation and private devotional prayer that, traditionally, most liturgical church services encourage. In this way, key to new organisational practices within religious organisations is what some social commentators are now calling “ambient intimacy”, an enveloping social awareness of one’s social network (Pontin). Indeed, several pastors have acknowledged that faith tweets have enabled them to know their congregational members’ reflections, struggles and interests better and thus they are able to improve their teaching and caring ministry to meet congregants’ evolving spiritual needs (Mapes).Microblogging Rituals and Tweeting Tensions In many ways, faith tweets can be comprehended as microblogging rituals which have an ambient quality in engendering individuals’ spiritual self and group consciousness. The importance of examining emergent cyber-rituals is underscored by Stephen O’Leary in his 1996 seminal article on Cyberspace as Sacred Space. Writing in an earlier era of digital connections, O’Leary discussed e-mail and discussion forum cyber-rituals and what ritual gains in the virtual environment aside from its conventional physiological interactions. Drawing from Walter Ong’s understanding of the “secondary orality” accompanying the shift to electronic media, he argued that cyber-ritual as performative utterances restructure and reintegrate the minds and emotions of their participants, such that they are more aware of their interior self and a sense of communal group membership. Here, the above illustrative examples show how Twitter functions as the context for contemporary, mediated ritual practices to help believers construct a connected presence and affirm their religious identities within an environment where wired communication is a significant part of everyday life. To draw from Walter Ong’s words, microblogging rituals create a new textual and visual “sensorium” that has insightful implications for communication and media scholars. Faith tweeting by restructuring believers’ consciousness and generating a heightened awareness of relationship between the I, You and the Thou opens up possibilities for community building and revitalised religiosity to counteract claims of secularisation in technologically advanced and developed countries. “Praying the hours” guided by scripturally inspired faith tweets, for example, help seekers and believers experience epiphany and practice their faith in a more holistic way as they de-familarize mundane conditions and redeem a sense of the sacred from their everyday surrounds. Through the intermittent sharing of intercessory prayer tweets, faithful followers enact prayer chains and perceive themselves to be immersed in invariable spiritual battle to ward off evil ideology or atheistic beliefs. Moreover, the erosion of the authority of the church is offset by changed leadership practices within religious organisations which have experimented and actively incorporated Twitter into their daily institutional practices. To the extent that laity are willing to engage, creative practices to encourage congregational members to tweet during and after the service help revivify communal sentiments and a higher moral purpose through identification and solidarity with clergy leaders and other believers. Yet this ambience has its possible drawbacks as some experience tensions in their perception and use of Twitter as new technology within the church. Microblogging rituals may have negative implications for individual believers and religious organisations as they can weaken or pervert the existing relational links. As Pauline Cheong and Jessie Poon have pointed out, use of the Internet within religious organisations may bring about an alternative form of “perverse religious social capital building” as some clergy view that online communication detracts from real time relations and physical rituals. Indeed, some religious leaders have already articulated their concerns about Twitter and new tensions they experience in balancing the need to engage with new media audiences and the need for quiet reflection that spiritual rites such as confession of sins and the Holy Communion entail. According to the critics of faith tweeting, microblogging is time consuming and contributes to cognitive overload by taking away one’s attention to what is noteworthy at the moment. For Pastor Hayes of California for example, Twitter distracts his congregation’s focus on the sermon and thus he only recommends his members to tweet after the service. In an interview with the Houston Chronicle, he said: “If two people are talking at the same time, somebody’s not listening”, and “You cannot do two things at once and expect you’re not going to miss something” (Patel). Furthermore, similar to prior concerns voiced with new technologies, there are concerns over inappropriate tweet content that can comprise of crudity, gossip, malevolent and hate messages, which may be especially corrosive to faith communities that strive to model virtues like love, temperance and truth-telling (Vitello). In turn, some congregational members are also experiencing frustrations as they negotiate church boundaries and other members’ disapproval of their tweeting practices during service and church events. Censure of microblogging has taken the form of official requests for tweeting members to leave the sanctuary, to less formal social critique and the application of peer pressure to halt tweeting during religious proceedings and activities (Mapes). As a result of these connectivity tensions, varying recommendations have been recently published as fresh efforts to manage religious communication taking place in ambience. For instance, Coppedge recommends every tweeting church to include Twitter usage in their “church communications policy” to promote accountability within the organisation. The policy should include guidelines against excessive use of Twitter as spam, and for at least one leader to subscribe and monitor every Twitter account used. Furthermore, the Interpreter magazine of the United Methodist Church worldwide featured recommendations by Rev. Safiyah Fosua who listed eight important attributes for pastors wishing to incorporate Twitter during their worship services (Rice). These attributes are: highly adaptive; not easily distracted; secure in their presentation style; not easily taken aback when people appear to be focused on something other than listenin; into quality rather than volume; not easily rattled by things that are new; secure enough as a preacher to let God work through whatever is tweeted even if it is not the main points of the sermon; and carried on the same current the congregation is travelling on. For the most part, these attributes underscore how successful (read wired) contemporary religious leaders should be tolerant of ambient religious communication and of blurring hierarchies of information control when faced with microblogging and the “inexorable advance of multimodal connectedness” (Schroeder 1). To conclude, the rise of faith tweeting opens up a new portal to investigate accretive changes to culture as microblogging rituals nurture piety expressed in continuous prayer, praise and ecclesial updates. 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