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1
Dancer, Anthony. "Welfare, Church and the Pursuit of Justice in the Land of the Long White Cloud." International Journal of Public Theology 3, no. 1 (2009): 97–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156973209x387334.
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AbstractThe relationship between Christianity and social development in New Zealand has been an historically complex one. Many of the early settlers to these islands came to escape a life of poverty in their mother country. Yet wherever there is wealth, there is poverty social problems, and they cast a long shadow over the promised land for the early colonizers and the indigenous Maori. The emergence of the welfare state in the 1930s paved the way for significant social transformation. It was understood by some to express 'applied Christianity'. With the comparatively recent demise of the Welfare State in New Zealand at the hands of neo-liberalism it is reasonable to consider whether this can equally be understood to indicate the demise of the Christianity's social import. Yet an appreciation of the church's predominantly informal social involvement throughout the history of these islands provides both a helpful interpretative key to the past and the future. Aotearoa New Zealand history may be one signifier that the priority for the pursuit of justice is to be found primarily at the margins amidst the informality of the ordinary, and far less at the centre of formality, systems and political institutions, and that the role of intentional Christian community in this might be as significant to the identity of the church as it is to the state.
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Fritz, Peter Joseph. "Keeping Sense Open: Jean-Luc Nancy, Karl Rahner, and Bodies." Horizons 43, no. 2 (November 8, 2016): 257–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/hor.2016.62.
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This article introduces the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy to theologians by placing him in critical dialogue with Karl Rahner. It examines how Nancy's deconstruction of Christianity accuses Western reason, including Christianity, of forgetting the body and supporting an ethos of disembodiment. Nancy proposes a new opening of reason (déclosion, “dis-closure”) and a corresponding praxis (“adoration”). This reason and praxis involve an exit from Christianity. Rahnerian essays on matter, spirit, and sacramentality demonstrate that while Christianity has, historically, fallen prey to the pathologies Nancy identifies, it also has thought in terms of something like dis-closed reason and has practiced something like “adoration.” While Nancy's insistence on the need for an exit from Christianity is not necessarily well posed, his deconstruction of Christianity can help Christian theologians as they develop thinking that supports an ethos sensitive to the body—or that keeps the body's sense open.
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Jani, Anna. "Historicity and Christian Life-Experience in the Early Philosophy of Martin Heidegger." Forum Philosophicum 21, no. 1 (November 1, 2016): 29–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.35765/forphil.2016.2101.03.
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In his early Freiburg lectures on the phenomenology of religious life, published as his Phenomenology of Religious Life, Heidegger sought to interpret the Christian life in phenomenological terms, while also discussing the question of whether Christianity should be construed as historically defined. Heidegger thus connected the philosophical discussion of religion as a phenomenon with the character of the religious life taken in the context of factical life. According to Heidegger, every philosophical question originates from the latter, which determines such questions pre-theoretically, while the tradition of early Christianity can also only be understood historically in such terms. More specifically, he holds that the historical phenomenon of religious life as it relates to early Christianity, inasmuch as it undergirds our conception of the religious phenomenon per se, reveals the essential connection between factical life and religious life. In this way, the conception of religion that Heidegger establishes through his analyses of Paul’s Epistles takes on both theological and philosophical ramifications. Moreover, the historicity of factical life finds its fulfillment in our comprehension of the primordial form of Christianity as our very own historical a priori, determined by our own factical situation. Hence, historicity and factical life belong together within the situation that makes up the foundation of the religious life.
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Vandyshev, A. "Christianity on the Bosporus in the III–VI centuries." Voprosy kul'turologii (Issues of Cultural Studies), no. 3 (March 1, 2020): 19–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.33920/nik-01-2003-03.
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Historically, the Christian archeological monuments discovered in the territory of modern Kerch and the ancient Bosporus state are considered, as well as their significance for the study of the dissemination of Christianity in the Crimea (Tavrida).
5
Kulagina-Stadnichenko, Hanna. "Sources of religious syncretism of Christianity." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 20 (October 30, 2001): 41–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2001.20.1180.
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Christianity - a phenomenon historically and territorially limited. This is an ideology inherent in a certain time and a separate territory. At the same time, for its time and territory, it became the norm and sign system: any thought was translated into the images of the Christian myth, in the traditional phraseology of the Holy Scripture and the works of the Fathers of the Church. Like other religions, Christianity tended to shift the terrestrial problems to unearthly spheres, but its specificity does not manifest itself in what it did, but in how it did it. In other words, it is not enough to say that Christianity is a religion with all the peculiarities of thinking, it is important to find out what exactly Christianity is distinguished among other religions. To clarify this we will proceed from the ratio of Christianity with the main ideological movements of late antiquity, the era of formation of the basic principles of Christian doctrine.
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Keith, Chris. "The Claim of John 7.15 and the Memory of Jesus' Literacy." New Testament Studies 56, no. 1 (December 2, 2009): 44–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0028688509990130.
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This article argues that John 7.15 claims neither literacy nor illiteracy for Jesus, but rather that Jesus was able to confuse his opponents with regards to his scribal literacy. According to the Johannine narrator, Jesus' opponents assumed he did not ‘know letters’, but also acknowledged that he taught as if he did. This article also suggests that the claim of John 7.15 is historically plausible in light of first-century Christianity's corporate memory(ies) of Jesus' literacy.
7
Hogan, Trevor. "The Social Imagination of Radical Christianity." Pacifica: Australasian Theological Studies 5, no. 1 (February 1992): 67–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1030570x9200500107.
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This article reviews Gary Dorrien's Reconstructing the Common Good and Christopher Rowland's Radical Christianity. Dorrien aims to retrieve Christian socialism as a central and vital tradition of Christian social theology and practice. Rowland endeavours to show that despite, or because of, its historically marginalised position vis à vis the institutional churches, radical apocalypticism is anything but heretical. Christian hope represents a life-affirming disposition for a humanity confronting the possibility of its own collective death. If hope is to be prophetic, however, its witnesses must stipulate in what they hope and for whom. The constructive imagining of social order implies the need of a theological anthropology and social theory and ethics as well.
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Jørgensen, Jonas Adelin. "“Kristendommens absolutte status”: Religionsteologien hos Ernst Troeltsch." Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift 77, no. 2 (May 10, 2014): 139–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.7146/dtt.v77i2.105710.
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The contribution of E. Troeltsch towards a modern Protestanttheology of religions takes its point of departure in the conundrumof Christianity as (theologically) absolute and (historically) relative religion.The article describes the background for Troeltsch’s theology, his analysis of other religious traditions, and his theological reflections based on his approach informed by the ‘Religionsgeschichtliche Schule’. The article argues for a development in Troeltsch’s theology of religions from a fairly common liberal protestant hierarchical view to a much more relativistic understanding. Troeltsch’s contribution is contextualized and placed in the larger modern discussion on the relationship between Christianity as a historical phenomenon, its relation to other religious traditions, and the specific content of Christianity and its claim to truth. In conclusion, the article characterizes Troeltsch’s theology of religions as an act of balancing between a methodological or epistemological relativism and a more holistic relativism, which is the very possible dead-end of metaphysical thinking
9
Kim, Kirsteen. "The Evangelization of Korea, c.1895–1910: Translation of the Gospel or Reinvention of the Church?" Studies in Church History 53 (May 26, 2017): 359–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/stc.2016.21.
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Several studies of the history of Protestant Christianity in South Korea have argued that the religion's rapid growth was chiefly because of the successful translation of the gospel into Korean language and thought. While agreeing that the foundation laid in this respect by early Western missionaries and Korean Christians was a necessary prerequisite for evangelization, this article challenges the use of a translation theory, such as has been developed by Lamin Sanneh, to describe the way that Christianity took root in Korea, both on the basis of conceptual discussions in the field of mission studies and also on historical grounds. It draws on research for A History of Korean Christianity (2014) to examine the years of initial rapid growth in Protestant churches in Korea – 1895 to 1910. Its findings suggest that rather than ‘translation of the gospel’ a more historically accurate description of what took place is ‘reinvention of the Church’.
10
Salamah Eka Susanti. "Konsep Keselamatan Dalam Al-Qur'an." HUMANISTIKA : Jurnal Keislaman 4, no. 2 (June 15, 2018): 185–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.36835/humanistika.v4i2.39.
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The doctrine of salvation is an important concept that is common to every religion. Therefore, each religion claims to be the savior (Salvator) for each of its followers. In Protestant Christianity for example, there is a doctrine known as "No Salvation Outside Christianity", beyond Christianity there is no salvation. Likewise in Catholic Christianity, adhering to, a doctrine that mentions "Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus", outside the church there is no salvation. For Judaizers, the doctrine of "The Chosen People" becomes their theological foundation that only Jews will gain salvation. Whereas in Islam itself, the theological argument of salvation as their own is based on the doctrine of ultimate cessionism (ie, Christianity and Judaism) remains valid before the coming of the new (Islamic) rule that replaces the old rule, the new rule by itself cancel the previous rule. This argument is based primarily on the verse (إن الد ين عند الله الاء سلام) .If historically examined, all religions without exception, both tertiary and non-theistic are born and have a claim to the truth about the assurance of salvation, whether expressed explicitly or implicitly. In other words, no religion does not have a doctrine of salvation because the claim of salvation is something that is already inherent in every religion.
11
Vanden Auweele, Dennis. "The Later Schelling on Philosophical Religion and Christianity." Idealistic Studies 48, no. 1 (2018): 69–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/idstudies201912486.
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Schelling’s later philosophy (1820 onwards) was historically received as a disappointment: the once brazen Romantic and pantheist becomes a pious Christian in his old age. Indeed, Schelling’s Berlin lectures on revelation and mythology culminate in a suspicious level of Christian orthodoxy. In the last few years, a number of scholars have offered a different reading of Schelling’s Spätphilosophie, particularly by pointing out his rethinking of nature, revelation, and Christianity. In this paper, I offer a systematic reading of Schelling’s later philosophy so as to show that his views of a philosophical religion fit within the trajectory of his thought. Nevertheless, Schelling does recourse overtly hasty in (Christian) religion.
12
Kyiak, S. R. "Foundations and history of the formation of the social doctrine of Ukrainian Catholicism." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 33 (February 22, 2005): 85–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2005.33.1567.
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The problem of becoming a social doctrine of Ukrainian Christianity, in particular Ukrainian Catholicism, has become especially relevant today in theological, philosophical and religious sciences, since objective study contributes to the production of not only a true picture of the Church-theological identity of the Ukrainian Orthodox ), which entrenched the historically and theologically not justified name - Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), but also the place and role of Christianity in modern times. to this Ukrainian public life in general. Ukrainian Catholicism, represented by the Ukrainian Catholic Church, the heir to the Kyiv Church, has accumulated significant experience of collaborating with the public in various spheres of its activity, including in the social sphere, for more than a thousand years.
13
Mang, Pum Za. "The Politics of Religious Conversion among the Ethnic Chin in Burma." Studies in World Christianity 24, no. 3 (December 2018): 188–211. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/swc.2018.0227.
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Through an analysis of some possible reasons for religious conversion among the ethnic Chin in the western frontier of modern-day Burma to Christianity from their old religion that historically shaped and impacted Chin society for centuries, this article argues that missionary agency, Chin religion, social change and political awakening after the Chin were finally exposed to the wider modern world appear to have played a critically crucial role in a long process of the choice of religious conversion among the Chin when Christian missionaries came to their country and evangelised them at the turn of the twentieth century. Moreover, their newly adopted religion has been not only a historical source of political awareness and social progress, but also a hallmark of their ethnic identity. Chin leaders now proudly maintain that Christianity has provided them with a cementing source for retaining their ethnic identity and that Chin identity and Christianity have become interwoven.
14
Burdziej, Stanislaw. "Christianity and Democracy: A Marriage of Reason." Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 21, no. 1 (2009): 66–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/jis2009211/24.
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Historically, modern democracy can be rightly regarded as an extension of some of the basic tenets of Christianity, with the letter's focus on individual dignity and inalienable rights of every person regardless of their ethnic or social origin. In some aspects, however, democracy remains a project directly rivaling Christianity. This essay traces the rivalry to the French Revolution which tried to replace Catholicism with the cults of Reason and Supreme Being, which shows that without recourse to traditional sources of authority, such as religion, democracy is incapable of constructing a legitimate social order While democracy continues to be the form of government most compatible with Christian doctrine, the relationship between the two is not a necessary nor an equal one. It depends on whether democracy is viewed as a technique of government, when compromise and cooperation are possible, or as an ideology, when such coexistence is increasingly difficult.
15
Davies, Oliver. "Meister Eckhart’s Ethical Universalism, Confucianism, and the Future of Christianity." Journal of Chinese Philosophy 41, no. 5 (March 3, 2014): 651–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15406253-04105009.
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Meister Eckhart is known for having developed a sophisticated form of inclusivist Christian universalism in the late Middle Ages. This universalism arose from the particular “globalizing” contexts of his times, for which there are real parallels in our own day. The author argues that in key respects, Eckhart’s ethical universalism shows strong affinities with Confucian principles, and can be informed by these as set out historically by Xinzhong Yao and in a contemporary setting by Tu Weiming. In the conclusion, the author sketches the possible influence of Confucianism on a future Christianity, in the light of the Eckhartian universalist inheritance.
16
Gorbachenko, T. G. "Christianity and Slavic literary culture: handwritten book." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 16 (December 5, 2000): 23–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2000.16.1110.
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At all times, the book was understood not only as a means of preserving and transforming knowledge, but also as a means of knowing the world around us. At the same time, from ancient times it was a subject of knowledge. Gradually its theoretical phenomenon was formed. The book essentially (and it happened historically) is the most important form of consolidation and transfer of information in space and time. From the point of view of the theory of communication, the book serves as one of the forms of existence and dissemination of semantic information, a means of organizing the work of individual consciousness into a sign system for the perception of its social consciousness. After all, the evolution of the book is inextricably linked with the history of mankind. She is the foundation on which the culture of peoples is built. It helps society to grow and improve, borrow and use all the mass of knowledge accumulated by mankind. The book is the most complete and comprehensive expression of the spiritual culture of mankind, since its origin and development are inextricably linked with it.
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Walls, A. F. "The Western Discovery of Non-Western Christian Art." Studies in Church History 28 (1992): 571–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0424208400012699.
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Christianity is in principle perhaps the most syncretistic of the great religions. Unlike Hinduism, it does not have a unifocal religious culture belonging to a particular soil; nor, like Islam, does it have common sacred language and a recognizable cultural framework across the globe. Historically, Christian expansion has been serial, moving from one heartland to another, fading in one culture as it is implanted in another. Christian expansion involves the serial, generational, and vernacular penetration of different cultures.
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Linjamaa, Paul. "The Diminishing Importance of Fate and Divine Femininity During the High and Late Roman Empire." Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion 57, no. 1 (June 23, 2021): 81–101. http://dx.doi.org/10.33356/temenos.97345.
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Weaving and femininity are historically intimately connected withthe concept of Fate. In antiquity Fate was portrayed as a powerfulfemale principle controlling the cosmic system humans inhabited.However, as the antique religious world gave way to a new era,the role of Fate subsided under Christian dominance. This articleexamines how this change played out, and how the worldview thatwon prominence as Christianity prevailed gradually lost touch withthe presence of powerful female cosmic principles. It shows that thedisappearance of Fate from the prevailing world was seminal in thebirth of a new ‘technology of the self’. In conclusion, the article placesthe disappearance of Fate in the context of a discussion of how theview of the self changed in the aftermath of Christianity, which hadbecome dominant. This discussion is related to the scholarship ofPeter Brown, among others, as well as a newly published posthumouswork by Michel Foucault (2018).
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Kuru, Ahmet. "Islam, Catholicism, and Religion-State Separation: An Essential or Historical Difference?" International Journal of Religion 1, no. 1 (November 22, 2020): 91–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.33182/ijor.v1i1.982.
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There exist severe restrictions over religious dissent in most Muslim-majority countries. This problem is associated with the alliance between religious and political authorities in these cases. I argue that the alliance between Islamic scholars (the ulema) and the state authorities was historically constructed, instead of being a characteristic of Islam. Hence, the essentialist idea that Islam inherently rejects religion-state separation, whereas Christianity endorses it, is misleading. Instead, this article shows that the ulema-state alliance in the Muslim world was constructed after the mid-eleventh century, as well as revealing that the church-state separation in Western Europe was also historically institutionalized during that period. Using comparative-historical methods, the article explains the political and socioeconomic backgrounds of these epochal transformations. It particularly focuses on the relations between religious, political, intellectual, and economic classes.
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Power, Patricia A. "Blurring the Boundaries: American Messianic Jews and Gentiles." Nova Religio 15, no. 1 (August 1, 2011): 69–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2011.15.1.69.
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Messianic Judaism is usually equated with Jews for Jesus, an overtly missionizing form of ethnically Jewish Evangelical Christianity that was born in the American counter-culture revolution of the 1970s. The ensuing and evolving hybrid blend of Judaism and Christianity that it birthed has evoked strong objections from both the American Jewish and mainline Christian communities. What begs an explanation, though, is how a Gentile Protestant missionary project to convert the Jews has become an ethnically Jewish movement to create community, continuity, and perhaps a new form of Judaism. This paper explores the way in which Messianic Jews have progressively exploited the space between two historically competitive socio-religious cultures in order to create an identity of their own in the American religious landscape. It also introduces Messianic Israelites, non-Jewish but sympathetic believers who are struggling with the implications of an ethnically divided church where Jews are the categorically privileged members.
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Suryawan, I. Ngurah. "Lahirnya Zaman Bahagia: Transformasi Teologi Pribumi di Tanah Papua." JSW: Jurnal Sosiologi Walisongo 1, no. 1 (November 7, 2017): 121. http://dx.doi.org/10.21580/jsw.2017.1.1.1939.
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<div><p class="ABSTRAKen">This article discusses oral traditions of indigenous theologies that various communities in Papua believe about their God as life savers. The indigenous theology has historically played an important role in shaping the knowledge of religion, customs, and culture into their life orientations. The indigenous theologies include Ugatamee, Hai and Koreri and their oral traditions experienced transformation in the presence of religion. The tension between indigenous theology and the values of the gospel in Christianity in particular has a serious impact on religious orientation as well as the culture of society. The spread of Christianity, especially the one that touches people's lives, leads to a great transformation of people's trust in God. The great transformation was in the land of Papua, one of which was brought about by the influence of religious education, which subsequently played a major role in the construction of their religious life and experience. </p></div>
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Witte, John, and Justin J. Latterell. "CHRISTIANITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS: PAST CONTRIBUTIONS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES." Journal of Law and Religion 30, no. 3 (October 2015): 353–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jlr.2015.29.
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AbstractThis article analyzes the historical sources and forms of human rights in Western legal and Christian traditions, and it identifies key questions about the intersections of Christianity and human rights in modern contexts. The authors identify nine distinctions between different conceptions of rights correlating with at least four types of jural relationships, and they argue that leading historical accounts of human rights attribute “subjective” rights too narrowly to Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment legal thought. Earlier forms of classical Roman law and medieval canon law, and legal norms developed by Protestant reformers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries shaped Western human rights regimes in historically important ways, anticipating most of the rights formulation of modern liberals. In response to contemporary scholars who criticize human rights paradigms as inadequate or incompatible with Christian faith and practice, the authors argue that rights should remain a part of Christian moral, legal, and political discourse, and that Christians should remain a part of pluralistic public debates about the appropriate scope and substance of human rights protections.
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Strong, Rowan. "The Resurgence of Colonial Anglicanism: the Colonial Bishoprics Fund, 1840–1." Studies in Church History 44 (2008): 196–213. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0424208400003594.
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Revival and resurgence is not simply something that happens to individuals or groups of persons; it is a phenomenon that, takes place within organized communities, institutions, and societies. The Church has existed in history as an organized society of believers, and this institutional dimension of Christianity has frequently shaped Christian history and the influence of Christianity on wider society for better and worse. Indeed, it could be argued that this is the dimension of Christianity which has been most influential historically. However, in the case of the Church of England in the British Empire its organized influence as a Church was seriously curtailed by its restricted and partial institutional existence throughout the eighteenth century in the North American colonies. There it existed without a bishop to provide local leadership and an effective counterweight to local lay elites. When that situation reversed and the British state began to support colonial bishoprics after the loss of the thirteen colonies in the new United States of America, the Church of England remained largely at the mercy of fluctuating political agendas to supply colonial bishops with sufficient legality and infrastructure. However, in the early 1840s the Church of England underwent a resurgence in the British Empire as a consequence of developing a new response to its metropolitan political situation, which initiated a revival in its colonial engagement.
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Maqsood, Ruqaiyyah Waris. "Christianity in the Arab World." American Journal of Islam and Society 15, no. 3 (October 1, 1998): 153–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v15i3.2166.
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As Prince Charles commented in his opening words, "Jordan has long been conspicuousas a land of tolerance and peaceful coexistence between people of different faiths,"a coexistence increasingly abused by extremists of all three faiths included in the phraseAhl al Kitiib (People of the Book). Prince Hassan 's original intent in writing this book wasto brief Muslim Arabs on the nature of Christianity and Christian religious institutions.His major focus is on the historical development of the Eastern Christian traditions in theMuslim Arab milieu and the standing of Christians in Arab society today. ft is his intentionto provide Muslim Arabs with accurate and concise information about the Christianswho historically have lived in their midst. The text was first published in English andArabic by the Royal Institute for Inter-faith studies in Amman, Jordan. and should be classifiedunder both historical and theological sections. It is in wide demand in the Westbecause of the paucity of easily accessible relevant information.The Arab Christian tradition goes back to Christianity's very earliest days, antedatingIslam by those six centuries that witnessed the growth of Christian Trinitarian theology,the spread of the Church, and the division of that Church into different communions.Some of these historical communions have survived in the Arab world and bear titles thatusually are greeted with complete ignorance on the part of Christian tourists encounteringChristianity in Arab lands for the first time.As an overall picture of the historical development of Christian doctrine, this bookpresents the main features and arguments with exceptional clarity and a highly admirabledepth of understanding of extremely confusing issues. A more clear, precise, concisegestalt picture of the subject does not exist, so far as I know. The reader can follow thereasons for the various theological developments, the schisms that arose, and the passionswith which various positions and views were defended.The text is academic, excellent at history and explanation, and displays a sensitiveawareness of words and concepts that require careful definition. The Prince has presentedthe world of religious scholars and the issues that were so important to them that theywere (and remain) willing to sacrifice everything, even life. It does not show the world ofactual church people who regard themselves as the body of the living Christ, the devotedfollowers who strive to live good, prayerful lives pleasing to God by imitating the way ofJesus to the best of their ability. This is not a criticism, but I felt the book would have beenimproved with a short section on Christian spirituality to counter all the nitpicking andskullduggery that went on in the theological realm ...
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Justice, Steven. "Did the Middle Ages Believe in Their Miracles?" Representations 103, no. 1 (2008): 1–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rep.2008.103.1.1.
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For all the proud accomplishments of its last decades, the study of premodern Christianity continues to bruise its shins against the problem of "belief." New categorical explanations of religious belief repeatedly and inadvertently prove identical with old explanations; more oddly, so do categorical refusals to explain it. The fallacy lies in thinking that belief can be categorically identified in the first place. But recognition of the fallacy does not leave us stymied. A short theoretical discussion of St. Thomas Aquinas and a longer reading of the Life of Christina of Markyate suggest how belief may be historically discussed without being unhistorically cartooned.
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Andrews, Frances. "Introduction." Studies in Church History 52 (June 2016): 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/stc.2015.1.
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Doubt is a promising subject of inquiry for historians. Its initial definition in the Oxford English Dictionary reads ‘[t]he (subjective) state of uncertainty with regard to the truth or reality of anything; undecidedness of belief or opinion’, which might be advocated as a necessary mindset for any historically inclined investigator embarking on research. Although not always articulated, historians constantly face the ‘state of uncertainty’ of knowledge of the past and the continuous need, therefore, to test the evidence. The compilers of the OED then, perhaps unwittingly, underscore the particular relevance of ‘doubt’ as a subject for ecclesiastical historians by further defining it as ‘uncertainty as to the truth of Christianity or some other religious belief or doctrine’. The prominent placing of this second definition acknowledges the reality that doubts about religious ideas and individual doctrines, if not faith itself, have long been conspicuous in human language, and not just when speaking about Christianity. Nonetheless, the means and the consequences of communicating doubt depend on, and are intensely revealing of, changing historical circumstance.
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Haire, James. "Public Theology—a Latin Captivity of the Church: Violence and Public Theology in the Asia-Pacific Context." International Journal of Public Theology 1, no. 3 (2007): 455–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156973207x231725.
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AbstractThis article looks at public theology from the perspective of the Asia-Pacific context. Thus, the focus is on theology from the standpoint of Christianity as a minority faith, seeking to do theology in a world outside that of the western church. The article considers the activity of public theology through the engagement of theology with a world of violence. It begins by looking at violence and the transformed communities of peace in the New Testament, through examining the milieu of violence, the transformed communities of peace and the dynamics which created those transformed communities. It then goes on to observe the dynamics of peace and violence in the intercultural history of Christianity, by looking historically at cyclic culture and word culture and the interaction between the two, particularly as they relate to peace and violence. From this, the article draws out conclusions on the Christian experience of peace and violence in relation to cultures, and looks at how Christians are called to engage in public theology in such a world.
28
McLean, Bradley H. "What Does A Thousand Plateaus Contribute to the Study of Early Christianity?" Deleuze and Guattari Studies 14, no. 3 (August 2020): 533–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/dlgs.2020.0415.
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What difference does the philosophical revolution of Deleuze and Guattari make to our understanding the early Christianity? In honour of the fortieth anniversary of publication of A Thousand Plateaus, this article argues that the discipline of Christian origins is currently premised on a historically condemned mode of subjectivity, that of subject/object metaphysics. The philosophical processes found in A Thousand Plateaus are particularly apposite to the current dilemma of Christian origins: as a rhizome-book consisting of plateaus, machines, singularities and non-representational concepts, this book models new modes of thinking that can help the discipline rejuvenate itself and accomplish new tasks which are presently beyond its reach – for Deleuzian philosophy privileges the virtual over the actual, becoming over being, machinic transformations over static structures, and semiotics over linguistics.
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Suiter, David. "Establishing Uniform Headings for the Sacred Scriptures: A Persistent Issue in Hebraica-Judaica Cataloging." Judaica Librarianship 9, no. 1 (December 31, 1995): 83–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.14263/2330-2976.1187.
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The Library of Congress headings used for the Bible are theologically laden terms showing a clear preference for Christian designations (Old Testament and New Testament). This is so despite the fact that four-fifths of what Christianity calls "Bible" is also scripture for Judaism (called Bible or Tanakh). This paper explores the issues in identifying sacred scriptures for catalog access. Several alternatives to the qualifiers O.T. and N.T. are posited, including one proposal to replace the terms altogether with First Testament and Second Testament. Such terminology would account for the canons of the distinct religious communities by replacing the theological terms with terms that are historically objective.
30
Lieu, Judith M. "What Was from the Beginning: Scripture and Tradition in the Johannine Epistles." New Testament Studies 39, no. 3 (July 1993): 458–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0028688500011322.
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‘That which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched, concerning the word of life’ (1 John 1.1). However that claim to ear-, eye- and touch-witness is to be understood, there can be no dispute that for 1 John a claim to ‘that which was from the beginning’ is a linch-pin in the argument and in the theology of the letter. Yet the question of the use of Scripture in 1 John points further – to the relation between New Testament and Old, theologically and historically, but also to the origins and development of Johannine Christianity.
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Martin, Luther H. "History, historiography and Christian origins." Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 29, no. 1 (March 2000): 69–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000842980002900105.
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The study of Christian origins should in no way differ from the study of anything past and, yet, historical studies of Christianity continue to "privilege" the data with imagined origins. In contrast to such imaginative fictions, critical historiography is based on human events presumed actually to have occurred. The productions of and, consequently, the explanations for such data instantiate both the material and the mental environments of human beings. Whereas the common constraints of biology are clear and those of cognition are increasingly so (although both are traditionally discounted in accounts of Christian beginnings), historically valid theories of socio-cultural contingencies remain contested, as does the relationship between these three domains. Since the earliest historical evidence for "Christian" groups is socio-cultural, i.e., textual, might these texts be better understood historically as themselves positive data for a plurality of Christian social formations rather than as historiographical documents containing positivistic data about Christian origins? In this way, it is possible to access real activities of real human beings in the past in their actual relationships.
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Spolsky, Bernard. "5. RELIGION AS A SITE OF LANGUAGE CONTACT." Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 23 (March 2003): 81–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0267190503000205.
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Until recently, the interaction between language and religion as topics relevant to bilingualism or multilingualism has been relatively little explored, although there is an extensive body of research on religious language. This chapter first provides an overview of earlier work, much of it on the translation of sacred texts into various languages. Past research has also identified the linguistic consequences of the spread of various religions, particularly with respect to choice of ritual language and orthographic systems. The language use patterns and practices historically characteristic of different religious traditions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Quakerism, are reviewed. The chapter then describes the linguistic effects of missionary activity in several postcolonial settings, concentrating mainly on those pertaining to Christian groups. Other recent research has examined the linguistic consequences of linkages between regionally prominent languages and dialects and religious practice in diverse international locations. Relationships between immigration and language maintenance and shift in religious domains are also discussed. The chapter concludes by noting that recent political events, interest in conversion efforts of religions other than Christianity, and growing recognition of the academic legitimacy of the field of language and religion predict a likely increase in applied linguistic research in this area.
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Olender, Maurice. "Between Sciences of Origins and Religions of the Future: Questions of Philology." Philological Encounters 2, no. 3-4 (August 16, 2017): 201–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/24519197-12340030.
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The antique Christian “appropriation” of Hebrew by the Early Church Fathers was succeeded historically by a kind of scholarly appropriation that resulted in the emergence of a “ready-made India” founded on a new discourse about Sanskrit. In a world governed by romanticist visions undergirded with colonial aspirations, in a historical period between a Christianity weakened by Enlightenment philosophers and the advancement of scientistic secularism, certain scholarly fables about a primordial India came to resemble the fables about Hebrew. In this race toward the discovery of human origins, the new “Aryan Bible” required a new language of paradise: Sanskrit. Can one then say that India was appropriated within a scholarly environment that was being pulled between Christianity, secularism and scientism? Since our investigations have allowed us to demonstrate that this hypothesis is plausible, it is necessary to test this hypothesis through the clarification of the historical contexts, intellectual dynamics, and theological and political fields of action in which myth and reason mutually reinforce one another. While underlining the political stakes of the comparative method of anthropology, this article also recalls that not so long ago, knowledge of ancient and modern humanities often bore the mark of racial sciences that influenced all university disciplines from the early 19th century to the late 1940s.
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Więckowski, Paweł. "Filozoficzno-historyczne zaplecze etyki biznesu." Kwartalnik Kolegium Ekonomiczno-Społecznego. Studia i Prace, no. 2 (December 3, 2018): 151–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.33119/kkessip.2012.2.7.
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The text describes different philosophical concepts and historically important cultural phenomena that should be considered while rethinking ethical side of business. Broad range of both philosophical (such as the search for the foundations of morality, social contract) and social subjects (such as history of centralized state, individualism) is presented to help the reflections. The background for analysis is the history of culture, especially of primary collective society; contrasted with it is individualism of classical Athens with corresponding reaction of philosophers; development of state and Christianity in Roman Empire; organismic medieval state; Renaissance, reformation and the birth of capitalism; the Enlightenment breakthrough and English capitalism; liberalism and Darwinism of the 19th century; the catastrophe of European culture and success of America of the 20th century.
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Linker, Damon. "The Reluctant Pluralism of J. G. Herder." Review of Politics 62, no. 2 (2000): 267–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0034670500029466.
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According to Isaiah Berlin's influential interpretation, J. G. Herder (1744–1803) deserves to be recognized as the first cultural pluralist in the West, and thus also as an important historical source of the pluralistic ideas espoused by increasing numbers of political theorists today. Herder's importance actually lies in the ambivalent stance he takes toward his own pluralistic insights. That is, convinced that it is impossible to adhere to a completely pluralistic view of the world, Herder sets out to combine pluralism and its theoretical opposite (“monism”) into a novel theory of historical progress according to which history reaches its culmination in the realization of a purified form of Christianity. Contemporary pluralists have much to learn—both historically and theoretically—from Herder's confrontation with his pluralism.
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Nolte, Insa. "Introduction: Learning to be Muslim in West Africa. Islamic Engagements with Diversity and Difference." Islamic Africa 10, no. 1-2 (June 12, 2019): 11–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/21540993-01001001.
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In West Africa, Muslim learning has historically been shaped by two key engagements: the participation in wider Islamic debates and the co-existence with non-Muslims. In the twentieth and twenty-first century, Islamic education in West Africa was transformed by the imposition of the secular state and Western education. But as Muslims encountered secularism and Christianity, they also increasingly drew on pedagogies that emanated from Middle Eastern and Asian Islam. The articles in this Special Issue illustrate that as Islamic scholars and leaders from different backgrounds engaged simultaneously with the diversity of global Islam and the growing presence of secular and Christian institutions, they developed a multiplicity of educational practices and visions. Thus learning to be Muslim in West Africa reflects both the engagement with Islamic discourse and debates about the boundaries of Islam.
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Aristova, Alla. "Muslim Educational Institutions in Ukraine." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 70 (May 28, 2014): 114–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2014.70.415.
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One of the essential features of the history of Islam and Muslim religious spirituality is the cult of knowledge. Islam has developed a completely different model of the relationship between faith and knowledge, knowledge of God and knowledge of the universe, religion, and science than that which was characteristic of Christianity (this is the medieval Christianity that Islam has found historically). For centuries, this difference will be startling: we will see the European civilization, where the church authorities brutally destroyed the germs of free thought and scientific thought and Muslim civilization, where the cult of knowledge acquired a sacred dimension. The widespread development of medieval Muslim culture, science and art, which has made a significant contribution to the development of world scientific thought, has been posited as the embodiment of Muslims in the life of one of the main religious duties - the acquisition of knowledge, since the path to knowledge is interpreted in Islam as a way to comprehend power and the mercy of the Almighty. "There is no better worship for Allah than gaining knowledge" - it will be written on Maktabas and madrasah. Teachers and students will quote the verses of the Qur'an: "O Lord! Increase my knowledge "! Each new Muslim ruler - from the Caliph to his advisers and ministers - had to build a mosque, his own mausoleum and ... a library.
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Kang, Young Ahn. "GLOBAL ETHICS AND A COMMON MORALITY." Philosophia Reformata 71, no. 1 (December 2, 2006): 79–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22116117-90000376.
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'Globalization’ is on everybody‘s lips; a fad word fast turning into a shibboleth, a magic incantation, a pass-key meant to unlock the gates to all present and future mysteries. For some, ‘globalization‘ is what we bound to do if we wish to be happy; for others ‘globalization‘ is the cause of our unhappiness. For everybody, though, ‘globalization‘ is the intractable fate of the world, an irreversible process; it is also a process which affects us all in the same measure and in the same way.1 These words of Zygmund Bauman succinctly depict the contemporary situation all of us are facing no matter where we come from. As Christians, it is very difficult for us to oppose globalization, in principle, since Christians have been globalist almost from the start. Even though Christians have historically felt a deep rootedness in a certain national, ethnic or cultural identity, there was always someone or some groups who were ready to transcend their local and cultural bounds. Christian zeal for mission work over the whole globe: “to the ends of the earth” demonstrates this. Christianity is a ‘global religion,‘ even though there is still prejudice to think of it as typically Western. Contrary to the global North, Christianity is rapidly growing in the global South, especially in Africa and Latin America.
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Krindatch, Alexei. "The American Orthodox Churches and Clergy in the 21st Century." Chronos 17 (January 15, 2020): 7–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.31377/chr.v17i.644.
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In 1794, the foundation of a mission on Kodiak Island in Alaska by the Orthodox monks from Russia marked the entrance of Orthodox Church in America. Two centuries later, the presence of over one million faithful gathered into more than 2,400 local parishes bears witness to the firm establishment of Eastern Christianity in the US. The notion of "one state - one Church" was historically very characteristic of Orthodox Christianity. When the Orthodox Church is mentioned, one tends to think of its ethnic aspect, and when Orthodox Christians are asked about their religious affiliation, they almost always add an cthnic qualificr: Grcck Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, etc. Consequently, many Orthodox Churches — Byzantine and Oriental alike — that have faithful in the United States have organized their own jurisdictions in North America: the individual "ethnically based" parishes were later united into centrally administrated dioceses subordinated to the "Mother Churches" in the Old World. The original goal of American Orthodox jurisdictions was clear: to minister to the religious needs of the diverse immigrant ethnic communities: the Greeks, Russians, Serbians, Romanians, Armenians, Copts, etc. There is no doubt that for the first generation of immigrants these ethnically based Orthodox jurisdictions brought a big measure of order and unity to ethnic groups that otherwise would have remained fragmented and enfeebled in an "American melting pot".
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Eshete, Tibebe. "Persecution and Social Resilience: The Case of the Ethiopian Pentecostals." Mission Studies 34, no. 3 (October 9, 2017): 309–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733831-12341521.
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Abstract Persecution has long constituted part of the spiritual repertoire of evangelical Christians in Ethiopia. Ever since its introduction by Western missionaries, the new Christian faith has provided an alternative model to the one that pre-existed it in the form of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (eoc). The new dimension of Christianity that is anchored in the doctrine of personal salvation and sanctification provided a somewhat different template of what it means to be a Christian by choice rather than belonging to a preset culture. This was antithetical to the conventional mode of culturally and historically situated Christianity, which strongly lays emphasis on adherence to certain prescribed rituals like fasting, the observances of saintly days, and devotions to saints. Its introduction by foreigners is often contrasted with an indigenous faith tradition which is considered to have a long history dating back to the apostolic times. The tendency of evangelical Christians to disassociate themselves from the local culture, as emblematic of holiness and separation from the world, viewed from the other optic, lent it the label mete, literally “imported” or “of foreign extraction”. The state support the established church had garnered for a long time, plus its massive influences, also accorded the eoc a privileged position to exercise a dominant role in the social, political, and cultural life of the country. This article explores the theme of persecution of Evangelical Christians in light of the above framework. It crucially examines the persecution of Pentecostals prior to the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974 and afterwards. Two reasons justify my choice. First, it lends the article a clear focus and secondly, Pentecostalism has been one of the potent vehicles for the expansion of evangelical Christianity in Ethiopia. I argue that the pre-revolutionary persecution stems from the fact that the Pentecostals presented some kind of spiritual shock waves to the familiar terrains of Christianity and that the main reason for their persecutions during the revolution was the fact that they countered hegemonic narratives that presented themselves in the form of Marxism, which became the doctrine of the state under the banner of “scientific socialism.”
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Tremlett, Paul. "Animated Texts." Fieldwork in Religion 5, no. 2 (July 14, 2011): 207–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/firn.v5i2.207.
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In this essay I argue for a shift away from the study of texts in the study of religions in order to facilitate a move towards the critical study of audiences and interpretive communities. Through an analysis of historical and contemporary materials relating to the lowland Christianized Philippines, I suggest that the meaning of Christianity and Christian texts and symbols in the Philippines has always been mediated by culturally and historically located audiences and interpreters. As such, in order to understand the transmission and authorization of Christian "truth" in the archipelago, special attention must be paid to the creative and agentive forces unintentionally unleashed by mission, colonialism and on-going processes of modernization and globalization. In the concluding part of the essay I raise some general questions and problems arising from this attentiveness to audiences and interpretive communities.
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Tasch, Laman. "Defining Nation and Religious Minorities in Russia and Turkey: A Comparative Analysis." Politics and Religion 3, no. 2 (April 23, 2010): 327–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1755048310000076.
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AbstractMany countries today face the challenges posed by their ethnic and religious diversity. This article comparatively analyzes how defining nation in Russia and Turkey affects what groups constitute religious minorities and what their prospects of integration into the Russian and Turkish societies are. It conceptualizes religious minorities as those religious groups that are excluded from the prevailing and institutionalized definitions of nation. This article studies what role religion, comprising Orthodox Christianity, and Sunni Islam, respectively, has played historically and until nowadays in Russia and Turkey in the definitions of their national identities and what kind of religious minorities each of these definitions created. It argues that a position of religious minorities depends not only on the informal association of national identity of the majority with certain religion, but also on the institutionalized support for the dominant religion by the ruling political forces.
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Pietsch, Andreas, and Sita Steckel. "New Religious Movements before Modernity?" Nova Religio 21, no. 4 (May 1, 2018): 13–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nr.2018.21.4.13.
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Can the study of new religious movements be extended historically towards a longue durée history of religious innovation? Several sociological theories suggest that fundamental differences between premodern and modern religious configurations preclude this, pointing to a lack of religious diversity and freedom of religion in premodern centuries. Written from a historical perspective, this article questions this view and suggests historical religious movements within Christianity as possible material for a long-term perspective. Using the Franciscans and the Family of Love as examples, it points out possible themes for productive interdisciplinary research. One suggestion is to study the criticisms surrounding premodern new religious movements, which might be used to analyze the historical differentiation of religion. Another avenue is the study of premodern terminologies and concepts for religious communities, which could provide a historical horizon for the ongoing debate about the typology of new religions.
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Davis, Joseph. "The Movement Toward Mysticism in Gustavo Gutiérrez’s Thought: Is This an Open Door to Pentecostal Dialogue?" Pneuma 33, no. 1 (2011): 5–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157007411x554668.
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AbstractOver the last few years a distinct shift has occurred within the thought of liberation theology’s most famous proponent, Gustavo Gutiérrez. Specifically, Gutiérrez has ventured into mysticism. With this movement a fascinating question can be posed: Does the incorporation of mysticism open up a door for dialogue with Latin America’s other popular theology, Pentecostalism? Conversely, should Pentecostalism reflexively understand itself historically and theologically as a liberating movement of the poor? Placed together, an emphasis on praxis seems to reveal, at minimum, a common starting point. The methodology of the paper incorporates a detailed historical analysis of Gutiérrez’s position on mysticism and moves to the conclusion that the shift in emphasis opens the door, albeit a small crack, to one of the most exciting opportunities to occur within the history of Christianity: the marriage of Pentecostal spirituality with liberating social action.
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Novikov, Oleg Alekssevich, Igor' Olegovich Nadtochii, and Sergei Vyacheslavovich Nikishin. "Medieval “liberation theology” in the works of Theodore the Studite." Право и политика, no. 1 (January 2021): 49–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.7256/2454-0706.2021.1.34832.
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The subject of this article is the political-legal ideas of the Byzantine philosopher, public figure and theologian Theodore the Studite. His life and activity were closely related with the policy of Byzantine Iconoclasm conducted in the VIII – IX centuries. The emperors of the Romans, in their struggle against the political and economic power of the Orthodox Church, used discrepancies in interpretation of one of the doctrinal questions of Christianity, which historically manifested as a “stumbling block” among the adherents of this religion. Western province of the Byzantine Empire were against the policy of “iconoclasm” and its monasticism, the prominent representative of this intellectual tradition of which (in the medieval understanding of the latter) was Theodore the Studite. The political-legal ideas of Theodore the Studite, unlike his theological views, are poorly studied in the Russian science. However, they have certain scientific value due to the uniqueness of views of the philosopher comparing to the works of contemporaries and the Byzantine political;-legal literature overall. In his polemical works of theological orientation, Theodore the Studite discusses the problems of the liberty of conscience, individual autonomy, human rights (in their medieval interpretation), boundaries of intrusion of public authorities in social life, etc. The ideas of the Byzantine philosopher represent one of the first attempts of apologetics of “democratic Christianity”.
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Bartholomä, Philipp F. "The Ecclesiological Self and the Other: Concepts of Social Identity and Their Implications for Free Churches in Secular Europe." Ecclesial Practices 2, no. 2 (October 28, 2015): 156–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22144471-00202002.
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This article suggests that social identity research, especially the concept of self-other differentiation, may shed light on the observable ecclesiological and missional identity crisis of free churches in secular Europe. As free churches find positive value, meaning, and perspective in distinction to particular ‘collective others’, both their ecclesiological self as well as their philosophy of ministry are shaped by these kinds of social psychological procedures. It is thus proposed that the ecclesiological and missiological difficulties of free churches in Europe are at least partly due to the fact that what has historically been the most relevant ‘identity-forming other’ is fading away. While free churches originated within a Christendom context, they now face an increasingly secular environment. This seems to necessitate a mental rearrangement of sorts since it is no longer suitable to determine one’s identity in comparison and opposition to other Christian groups within the sphere of cultural Christianity.
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Cornelio, Jayeel, and Robbin Charles M. Dagle. "Weaponising Religious Freedom: Same-Sex Marriage and Gender Equality in the Philippines." Religion & Human Rights 14, no. 2 (August 13, 2019): 65–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/18710328-13021146.
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Abstract This article spells out the ways in which religious freedom has been deployed against proponents of same-sex marriage and gender equality in the Philippines. While the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community and allies have appealed to religious freedom to gain equal rights under the law, conservative Christian entities have fought back by invoking the same notion. They have appropriated religious freedom, which has historically been interpreted by the courts in favour of individual liberties, to defend majoritarian values surrounding sexuality. This article describes this move as the weaponisation of religious freedom in defence of the dominant religion and an assumed majority of Filipinos whose moral sensibilities are purportedly under attack. Towards the end, the article relates this weaponisation to the experience of the Catholic Church in the contemporary public sphere and the militant character of Christianity that continues to view the Philippines as a Christian nation.
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Kuyak, Svyatoslav. "Problems of state-confessional relations, religious freedom and human dignity in the context of the Second Vatican Council." Ukrainian Religious Studies, no. 66 (February 26, 2013): 46–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.32420/2013.66.249.
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Two decades of independence of Ukraine and the free development of Ukrainian Christianity in Kyiv traditions indicate that the time of the underground life of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the communist past of Ukrainian Christians in general left deep marks in their souls and mentality and throughout Ukrainian society. New social problems, especially of a social and economic nature, have generated in this society a number of new spiritual and social negative phenomena and challenges that the Church is looking for explanations and answers: a significant dominance of people in the material purpose and its negative impact on their spiritual freedom; the inner spiritual conflict in the souls of people between religious and secular consciousness (double faith as at the time of the baptism of Rus-Ukraine - faith in God and, so to speak, worship of the earthly divine "mammon" - earthly blessings); the need for spiritual and social equilibrium and interconfessional understanding; the latest practical atheism; the phenomenon of the so-called "man of the Soviet" - "homo sovietikus", which manifests itself in the distortion of the representatives of this group of people historically established and traditional for the pre-Soviet period and restored rudiments during the independence of Ukraine of the Ukrainian social-spiritual worldview and religious mentality. Therefore, Ukrainian Christianity, in particular Ukrainian Catholicism, faces the task of realizing Christian "reinclusion" and the new evangelization of Ukrainian society to overcome the consequences of the atheistic Soviet past, which should be based on the experience of the Universal Church.
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Jakob Løland, Ole. "The Position of the Biblical Canon in Brazil: From Catholic Rediscovery to Neo-Pentecostal Marginalisation." Studies in World Christianity 21, no. 2 (August 2015): 98–118. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/swc.2015.0113.
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This study analyses the historically significant shifts in the diffusion and reception of the bible in Brazilian Christianity. It questions whether Brazil is turning Protestant, given the marginalisation in Brazilian neo-Pentecostalism of scripture, which is the fundamental pillar of Protestant faith. While scripture has traditionally been marginal to Brazil's popular Catholicism, it was regarded as the primary medium for access to the sacred in classical Pentecostalism. Whilst Brazilian Catholicism rediscovered the bible through the liberation theology movement, a contrary trend of marginalisation of scripture is evident in the Brazilian neo-Pentecostal church Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD). Although there is a performative use of the bible in IURD, the original meaning of the biblical texts is given little weight within this performance. Based on this evaluation of the bible's position, the article suggests that neo-Pentecostalism stands in continuity with popular Catholicism and discontinuity with classical Pentecostalism in relation to the biblical canon.
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Black, Stephanie L. "“In the Power of God Christ”: Greek inscriptional evidence for the anti-Arian theology of Ethiopia's first Christian king." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 71, no. 1 (February 2008): 93–110. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0041977x08000062.
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AbstractFour fourth-century ad inscriptions of Ezana, first Christian king of Aksum (Ethiopia), are surveyed, with special attention to Ezana's only known post-conversion inscription, written in Greek. Greek syntax and terminology in Ezana's inscription point to an anti-Arian Christology which may be associated with Frumentius, first bishop of Aksum, and his connection with Athanasius of Alexandria. The inscription's trinitarian formula “the power of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit” is structured in such a way as to assert the identity of the three members of the Trinity. The phrase “in the power of God Christ” further equates Christ with God. This christological language stands in contrast to the Arian imperial policy of the time, and is historically significant in light of Constantius's attempt to force Frumentius's recall to Alexandria. This inscription serves as the first internal documentary evidence for an anti-Arian Christology in the earliest developments of Ethiopian Christianity.