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Journal articles on the topic 'Church Church polity'
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1
Avis, Paul. "Polity and Polemics: The Function of Ecclesiastical Polity in Theology and Practice." Ecclesiastical Law Journal 18, no. 1 (December 10, 2015): 2–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956618x15000800.
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This article affirms the importance of ecclesiastical polity as a theological–juridical discipline and explores its connection to ecclesiology and church law. It argues that the Anglican Communion, though not itself a church, nevertheless has a lightly structured ecclesiastical polity of its own, mainly embodied in the Instruments of Communion. It warns against short-term, pragmatic tinkering with Church structures, while recognising the need for structural reform from time to time to bring the outward shape of the Church into closer conformity to the nature and mission of the Church of Christ. In discussing Richard Hooker's contention that the Church is a political society, as well as a mystical body, it distinguishes the societal character of Anglican churches from the traditional Roman Catholic conception of the Church as a societas perfecta. In the tradition of Hooker, the role of political philosophy in the articulation of ecclesiology and polity is affirmed as a particular outworking of the theological relationship between nature and grace. The resulting method points to an interdisciplinary project in which ecclesiology, polity and church law, informed by the insights of political philosophy, serve the graced life of the Church in its worship, service and mission.
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Faber, Ryan. "Dort, Doleantie and Church Order." STJ | Stellenbosch Theological Journal 6, no. 2 (January 22, 2021): 235–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.17570/stj.2020.v6n4.a10.
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This article attends to the relationship between minor and major assemblies as prescribed by the foundational principles of Reformed church polity proposed by Mary-Anne Plaatjies-Van Huffel. It reviews the limited autonomy of local congregations and the authority of broader assemblies in the Church Order of Dordrecht (1618/19), the touchstone of Dutch Reformed church polity. It considers the challenge to historic Reformed church polity posed by the ecclesiology of the Doleantie, a secession from the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk (NHK) in 1886 under the leadership of Abraham Kuyper. Finally, it evaluates a contemporary church order (of the United Reformed Churches in North America), that explicitly codifies Doleantie ecclesiology. The church order fails to embody the principles of Reformed church polity set forth by Plaatjies-Van Huffel. This article concludes that it cannot be considered a Reformed church order.
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Doe, Norman. "The Ecumenical Value of Comparative Church Law: Towards the Category of Christian Law." Ecclesiastical Law Journal 17, no. 02 (April 10, 2015): 135–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956618x15000034.
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This study explores juridical aspects of the ecclesiology presented in the World Council of Churches' Faith and Order Commission Paper,The Church: Towards a Common Vision(2013). It does so in the context of systems of church law, order and polity in eight church families worldwide: Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, Presbyterian and Baptist.Common Visiondoes not explicitly consider church law, order and polity or its role in ecumenism. However, many themes treated inCommon Visionsurface in church regulatory systems. This study examines how these instruments articulate the ecclesiology found inCommon Vision(which as such, de facto, offers juridical as well as theological principles), translate these into norms of conduct and, in turn, generate unity in common action across the church families. Juridical similarities indicate that the churches share common principles and that their existence suggests the category ‘Christian law’. While dogmas may divide the churches of global Christianity, the profound similarities between their norms of conduct reveal that the laws of the faithful, whatever their various denominational affiliations, link Christians through common forms of action. For this reason, comparative church law should have a greater profile in ecumenism today.1
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Hofmeyr, J. W. "Kerkvereniging en Kerkreg: Geskiedenis, beginsel en praktyk." Verbum et Ecclesia 17, no. 2 (April 21, 1996): 329–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ve.v17i2.521.
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Church unity and church polity: History, principle and practice In this article the need for a clearer focus on the history, principles and practice of church polity in the process of church re-unijication is addressed. This is specijically focused on the process currently under way in the Dutch Reformed Church family. After an extensive discussion of issues pertaining to the history, principl~s and practice of church polity within this church family, it is concluded that the process of re-unijication need to be implemented with the necessary urgency, but also with patience.
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Botha, C. J. "Die stand van die Gereformeerde kerkreg." Verbum et Ecclesia 14, no. 1 (September 9, 1993): 1–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ve.v14i1.1271.
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The stance of Reformed church polityThe author deals with the resistance against the study of church polity and stresses its necessity. He sketches the development in Protestant church polity, and then investigates the fact that the confessions function as the paradigm for a particular church. The problem with the reformed confessions is that they are based on sixteenth century exegesis. Consequently there is a growing rift between church polity and the Biblical disciplines. He argues for a debate on the issue of the reformulation of the reformed confessions, and that Mt 28:18-20 be the Scriptural "sitz im leben" of church polity and not 1 Cor 14:40.
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Koffeman, Leo J. "The Ecumenical Potential of Church Polity." Ecclesiastical Law Journal 17, no. 02 (April 10, 2015): 182–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956618x15000058.
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This article is a reflection on Norman Doe's bookChristian Law: contemporary principles (2013)from a Protestant and Continental perspective. Against the background of the self-evident impact of ecumenical progress in terms of church polity, it explores the relation between ecumenism and church polity from the opposite perspective: can the academic discipline of church polity foster ecumenism, as Doe suggests in his statement that ‘whilst doctrines divide, laws link Christians in common action’? After stating that a more nuanced understanding of the concept of ‘normativity’ is of fundamental importance in this respect, the article then indicates the possible risk of an ideological use of church law. Five reasons are given as to why church polity often hampers rather than fosters ecumenical progress, even if traditional doctrinal issues have been resolved. Finally, the fundamental category of divine law is explored, and its impact on ecumenical progress.
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More, Ellen S. "Congregationalism and the Social Order: John Goodwin's Gathered Church, 1640–60." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 38, no. 2 (April 1987): 210–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046900023058.
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In 1644 the Puritan lawyer and parliamentary pamphleteer, William Prynne, voiced a question much on the minds of moderate Puritans: Would not Congregationalism ‘by inevitable necessary consequence subvert…all settled…forms of civil government…and make every small congregation, family (yea person if possible), an independent church and republic exempt from all other public laws’? What made Congregationalism seem so threatening? The calling of the Long Parliament encouraged an efflorescence of Congregational churches throughout England. While differing in many other respects, their members were united in the belief that the true Church consisted of individually gathered, self-governing congregations of the godly. Such a Church was answerable to no other earthly authority. The roots of English Congregationalism extended back to Elizabethan times and beyond. Some Congregationalists, in the tradition of Robert Browne, believed in total separation from the Established Church; others, following the later ideas of Henry Jacob, subscribed to semi-separatism, believing that a godly remnant remained within the Established Church. For semi-separatists some contact with the latter was permissible, as was a loose confederation of gathered churches. During the English civil wars and Interregnum, the Church polity of most leading religious Independents actually was semi-separatist.
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Boldon, Dean A. "Formal Church Polity and Ecumenical Activity." Sociological Analysis 49, no. 3 (1988): 293. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3711591.
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King, Benjamin J. "‘The Consent of the Faithful’ from 1 Clement to the Anglican Covenant." Journal of Anglican Studies 12, no. 1 (October 29, 2012): 7–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s174035531200023x.
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AbstractThe origins of the term consensus fidelium lie in the rhetorical tropes of pagans who exhorted unity between friends and within cities – tropes supporting the hierarchy of imperial elites. The earliest Christians adapted this language for the same purpose within churches: to speak of unity and lay involvement in support of Church hierarchy. After the Reformation, Church of England writers used this rhetoric to enforce conformity to church polity and morality. The Tractarians and their successors employed a rhetorical ‘voice of the laity’ as a bolster for episcopal power. While the early twentieth century saw some in the Church of England and Anglican Communion use this same rhetoric to bring the laity into actual decision-making processes, the rhetoric of recent statements by the Communion has left power firmly with bishops.
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Bianchi, Eugene C. "Resources for a Democratic Catholic Church." Horizons 18, no. 2 (1991): 207–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0360966900025123.
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AbstractThis article explores sources in the Christian tradition that can be helpful for re-shaping present Roman Catholic ecclesial polity. The underlying theme is that the Catholic Church, in order to enhance efforts at church reform, needs to re-structure itself from a monarchical polity to a democratic one. A theological subtheme argues that the monarchical polity is not mandated by the gospel, but is rather a creature of history. Furthermore, the monarchical polity is a root cause obstructing reform in specific areas. By selecting loci from early church history to the present time, democratic movements and ideas are highlighted as constituting an important part of Catholic history. Certain of these loci have not yet been examined for their democratic potential. This democratic tradition can be a springboard for moving toward a democratic church in the twenty-first century.
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Binfield, Clyde. "The Bolton Prelude to Port Sunlight: W. H. Lever (1851–1925) as Patron and Paternalist." Studies in Church History 42 (2006): 383–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0424208400004095.
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Christ Church United Reformed Church (formerly Congregational), Port Sunlight, and St George’s United Reformed Church (formerly Congregational), Thornton Hough, do not spring to mind as Free Church buildings. There is scarcely one architectural respect in which either announces a Dissenting presence. Each conforms to nationally established tradition. Their quality, however, is as incontestable as it is incontestably derivative. Their role in their respective village-scapes is important, even dominant. As buildings, therefore, they are significant and perhaps suggestive, but do they say anything about ecclesiastical polity? The answer to that question illustrates the interaction between elite and popular religion in Edwardian English Protestant Nonconformity, for the polity to which these two churches give space is in fact successively congregational, Congregational, and Reformed. It is representative throughout but never democratic. Yet can any shade of Congregationalism truly develop in either a squire’s village or a manufacturer’s? And what might be deduced of the man who provided these buildings, created their villages, shaped their communities, and regarded himself lifelong as a Congregationalist even if a masonic lodge were the only fellowship to which he could statedly commit himself? These questions prompt this paper.
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Bersnak, P. Bracy. "“Spirituals and Temporals”." Catholic Social Science Review 26 (2021): 99–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/cssr2021269.
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While Orestes Brownson’s works are the object of renewed interest, his writings on the relationship between Church and polity have received little notice. Some attention has been given to Brownson’s analysis of these issues in America, but little has been given to his views on Church and polity in Europe and the West more broadly. This article considers Brownson’s analysis of the history of Church-state relations in Europe to examine how it shaped his view of Church-state relations in the U.S. It then put Brownson in dialogue with subsequent Catholic debates in America about those relations down to the present.
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Buda, Daniel. "Second International Conference on Protestant Church Polity: Good Governance in Church and Society today." Review of Ecumenical Studies Sibiu 6, no. 2 (December 1, 2014): 310–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/ress-2014-0123.
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Coleman, Stephen. "The Process of Appointment of Bishops in the Church of England: A Historical and Legal Critique." Ecclesiastical Law Journal 19, no. 2 (May 2017): 212–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956618x17000072.
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‘The manner of appointment [of bishops] reflects the delicate balance between the established nature of the Church of England and its autonomous self-governance.’ As with most matters of Church of England ecclesiology and polity, the process of the appointment of bishops in the Church of England is firmly rooted within the reforms of the sixteenth century, but has origins which stretch back to the mediaeval Church. This comment article focuses on the appointment of diocesan bishops in the Church of England.
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Williams, Rowan. "Richard Hooker: The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity Revisited." Ecclesiastical Law Journal 8, no. 39 (July 2006): 382–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956618x00006682.
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Richard Hooker's book, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, is much more than a museum piece or a dissertation on how to run churches. It is a classic of doctrinal reflection, and is topically relevant. His main opponents at the time belonged to the militant Puritan wing of the English Church, and in answering them Hooker provides a still-rich line of thought. Theologically speaking, the most basic sense of law, for Hooker, is God's acceptance of the logic of a limited creation. A crucial concept is ‘compatible variety’, and this should be kept in mind when reading Hooker on the laws of nature, the laws of society, and the law that regulates the Church. Also of importance is the distinction between the unchangeable basics, in Church or state, and those laws that contribute to the maintenance of this or that particular society or Christian community. For Hooker, the mistake of his Puritan opponents was to think that the Bible is an exhaustive source of laws of both kinds. The Bible is neither a complete nor an incomplete law book. Law, as the form of compatible variety, is also the form in which God's ‘abundance’ is to be perceived and experienced. Outside the abiding truths about the sort of life God's life is and the dignity given to creatures, human intelligence and ingenuity and prudence have a wide remit. According to Hooker, the most basic rebellion is to refuse the limits that make compatible variety possible. Law assumes, then, that we do not ‘begin socially as a set of unrelated atoms, whether individuals, classes, races or interest groups. Our basic position is one of potential agents in a negotiation through which we discover our welfare, and discover something we do not know at the start. Key theological notions are creation and the Body of Christ.
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Doe, Norman. "The Teaching of Church Law: An Ecumenical Exploration Worldwide." Ecclesiastical Law Journal 15, no. 3 (August 15, 2013): 267–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956618x13000422.
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Religion law – the law of the state on religion – has been taught for generations in the law schools of continental Europe, though its introduction in those of the United Kingdom is relatively recent. By way of contrast, within the Anglican Communion there is very little teaching about Anglican canon law. The Church of England does not itself formally train clergy or legal officers in the canon and ecclesiastical laws that they administer. There is no requirement that these be studied for clerical formation in theological colleges or in continuing ministerial education. The same applies to Anglicanism globally – though there are some notable exceptions in a small number of provinces. This is in stark contrast to other ecclesiastical traditions: the Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist and United churches all provide training for ministry candidates in their own systems of church law, polity or order. However, no study to date has compared the approaches of these traditions to the teaching of church law today. This article seeks to stimulate an ecumenical debate as to the provision, purposes, practices and principles of the teaching of church law across the ecclesiastical traditions of global Christianity. It does so by presenting examples of courses offered (institutions, purposes, subjects, methods and levels), the educative role of church law itself, requirements under church law for church officers to study the subject, and parallels from the secular world in terms of debate in the academy and practice on the nature of legal education, particularly the role played in it by the Critical Legal Studies movement.1
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Anderson, Philip J. "Sion College and the London Provincial Assembly, 1647–1660." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 37, no. 1 (January 1986): 68–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046900031912.
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The events which together finally resulted in a restructuring of the Church of England along Presbyterian lines had been lengthy, complex and exceedingly frustrating for all concerned. Since the earliest days of the Long Parliament, both pulpit and press had been brimming not only with invective against Laudian Episcopacy, but also with a plethora of ideas about church government. After 1643, having accepted the conditions of the Solemn League and Covenant, the Westminster Assembly laboured fitfully to fulfil its responsibility of producing a new polity for parliament's approval. The assembly conducted its work in the midst of independent Dissenting Brethren who argued for a congregational form of gathered churches in the context of toleration, Scottish commissioners who would not be satisfied with anything less than their own rigid model of Presbyterianism, and a parliament that was generally desirous of a Presbyterian settlement but committed to an Erastian structure that would make its own body the highest judicial authority in the Church.
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O'Donovan, Joan Lockwood. "The Church of England and the Anglican Communion: a timely engagement with the national church tradition?" Scottish Journal of Theology 57, no. 3 (August 2004): 313–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0036930604000237.
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The following is a critical appreciation of the Reformation theological foundations of English church establishment which seeks to demonstrate their importance not only for the Church of England in the current political and legal climate, but also for non-established Anglican churches and for the Anglican Communion. It identifies as their central structure the dialectic of church and nation, theologically articulated as the dialectic of proclamation and jurisdiction. The enduring achievement of this dialectic, the paper argues, is to hold in fruitful tension the two unifying authorities of sinful and redeemed human society: the authority of God's word of judgement and grace and the authority of the community of human judgement under God's word. The historical analysis traces the evolving ecclesiastical and civil poles of the dialectic through their Henrician, Edwardian and Elizabethan formulations, from William Tyndale and the early Cranmer to John Whitgift and Richard Hooker, clarifying the decisive late medieval and contemporary continental influences, and the key schematic contribution made by the humanist Thomas Starkey. A continuous concern of the exposition is with the paradigmatic place occupied by interpretations of monarchical Israel in the shifting constructions of both civil and ecclesiastical polity, with the attendant dangers from a relatively undialectical relation between the ‘old Israel’ and the ‘new Israel’. The concluding evaluation and application focuses on the contemporary need for a theological construction of the nation and the church that grasps the complexities of the dialectic of proclamation and jurisdiction, especially as they bear on the unity and discontinuity of ecclesiastical and secular law at the national and international levels.
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Rampelt, Jason M. "Polity and liturgy in the philosophy of John Wallis." Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science 72, no. 4 (October 10, 2018): 505–25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0027.
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John Wallis, a founding member of the Royal Society, theologian and churchman, participated in the leading ecclesiastical conferences in England from the beginning of the English Civil War to the Restoration. His allegiance across governments, both civil and ecclesiastical, has provoked criticism. Close investigation into his position on key church issues, however, reveals a deeper philosophical unity binding together his natural philosophy, mathematics and views on church polity and liturgy.
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Selderhuis, Herman J. "Die Bedeutung der Reformation Luthers für die kirchenrechtliche Entwicklung in den Niederlanden." Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonistische Abteilung 102, no. 1 (September 1, 2016): 381–405. http://dx.doi.org/10.26498/zrgka-2016-0115.
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Abstract The Impact of Luther’s Reformation on the development of Church Law in the Netherlands. This essay describes how essential the specific history of the reformation in the Netherlands was for the developments of reformed church law in that country. The Dutch reformation was relatively late and was more Calvinistic than Lutheran. Calvin’s model of structuring the church, the essential effect of the refugee situation of many reformed believers and the fact that the revolt as well as the reformation were movements mainly ,from below‘, result in a church polity with the following characteristics: self-government of each individual congregation, active involvement of all church members, independence towards political authorities and a presbyterial-synodical church organisation. This church model was reached through a series of synodical meetings that started in the 1560ies and came to a conclusion at the Synod of Dordt in 1618/1619.
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Mulder, Mark T. "Evangelical Church Polity and the Nuances of White Flight." Journal of Urban History 38, no. 1 (January 2012): 16–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0096144211420637.
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Laurence, Anne. "A Priesthood of She-believers: Women and Congregations in Mid-seventeenth-century England." Studies in Church History 27 (1990): 345–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s042420840001216x.
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This paper considers women’s participation in the congregations of Civil War and Interregnum England. In particular it is concerned with the idea of whether women sectaries in the 1640s and 1650s had a different idea of church polity from their brethren, or whether, within the confines of the sects, they continued to play the role traditionally assigned to women in Christianity: that of the spiritually inspired, the example of holiness rather than the leader. In short, did women even in the sects remain outside the church polity?
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Dreyer, Wim A., and Jerry Pillay. "Historical Theology: Content, methodology and relevance." Verbum et Ecclesia 38, no. 4 (December 20, 2017): 117. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ve.v38i4.1680.
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In this contribution, the authors reflect on historical theology as theological discipline. The authors propose that historical theology be applied to different areas of research, namely prolegomena, history of the church, history of missions, history of theology, history of ecumenical theology or public theology and church polity. The point is made that historical theology, when properly structured and presented, could play a major role in enriching the theological and ecclesial conversation and in assisting the church in the process of reformation and transformation.
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Koffeman, Leo J. "‘Ecclesia Reformata Semper Reformanda’ Church Renewal from a Reformed Perspective." Review of Ecumenical Studies Sibiu 7, no. 1 (April 1, 2015): 8–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ress-2015-0002.
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Abstract With a view to the theme of Church renewal, this article explores the role of a wellknown and popular phrase in the Reformed tradition within Protestantism, i.e. ecclesia reformata semper reformanda (‘the reformed Church should always be reformed’). Is this a helpful slogan when considering the pros and cons, the possibilities and the limitations of Church renewal? First, the historical background of this phrase is described: it is rooted in the Dutch Reformed tradition, and only in the twentieth century was it widely recognized in Reformed circles. Against this background the hermeneutical problem, linked with the principle of sola Scriptura, is presented, and put into an ecumenical perspective: the Church as grounded in the gospel. Finally, the article focuses on Church polity as an important field of renewal, taking into account Karl Barth’s interpretation of this phrase. From this perspective, a balanced and ecumenical approach of Church renewal is possible.
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Pearce, Augur. "Marriage Reform and the Constitution of the United Reformed Church." Ecclesiastical Law Journal 19, no. 3 (August 31, 2017): 307–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956618x17000485.
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Recent reforms to English and Scots marriage law faced the United Reformed Church (URC) with two challenges. Its hybrid structure of church government, entwining Congregational and Presbyterian strands, complicated application of the statutory criterion ‘persons recognised by [the membership] as competent for the purpose of giving consent’. Precedent from earlier decisions on human sexuality explains the ultimate identification of the local church meeting as the competent council of the URC in England, and why the ‘enabling resolution’ passed regarding civil partnership formation was not repeated. The very different focus of Scots marriage law posed different questions, less focused on buildings or the churches using them and allowing willing celebrants to be nominated by the synod, as for opposite-sex marriage.Advisers differed on whether the denomination possessed any binding doctrine of marriage which would obstruct implementation of the amended law. The General Assembly decision on polity and how it was reached suggest an implicit ruling in the negative. This article defends that outcome, considering the doctrinal foundation of the URC in the light of concessions made at the formative union. Marriage appears as a topic on which no denominational doctrine exists, letting all councils reach theological conclusions necessary to practical decisions within their remit.
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Forster, Dion. "A state church? A consideration of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa in the light of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ‘Theological position paper on state and church’." STJ | Stellenbosch Theological Journal 2, no. 1 (July 30, 2016): 61. http://dx.doi.org/10.17570/stj.2016.v2n1.a04.
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This article considers whether South Africa’s largest mainline Christian denomination, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, is in danger of embodying or propagating a contemporary form of ‘state theology’. The notion of state theology in the South African context gained prominence through the publication of the ‘Kairos Document’ (1985) – which celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 2015. State theology is deemed inappropriate and harmful to the identity and work of both the Christian church and the nation state. This article presents its consideration of whether the Methodist Church of Southern Africa is in danger of propagating ‘state theology’ in dialogue with Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s important document, <i>Theological Position Paper on State and Church</i>. The article offers some insights into the complex relationship between the state and the church in South Africa in the apartheid and democratic eras. It further problematizes the relationship between the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and the governing African National Congress by citing some concerning examples of complicit behaviour from recent history. The MCSA’s polity and doctrine on church and state relationships are also considered before some critique and warning is offered in the light of Bonhoeffer’s <i>Theological Position Paper on State and Church</i>.
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PETERSON, MARK. "WHY THEY MATTERED: THE RETURN OF POLITICS TO PURITAN NEW ENGLAND." Modern Intellectual History 10, no. 3 (October 24, 2013): 683–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1479244313000267.
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Puritans had big stories to tell, and they cast themselves big parts to play in those stories. The fervent English Protestants who believed that the Elizabethan Church urgently needed further reformation, and the self-selecting band among them who went on to colonize New England, were sure that they could re-create the churches of the apostolic age, and eliminate centuries’ worth of Romish accretions. By instituting scriptural forms of worship, these purified churches might have a beneficial influence on the state as well, and bring about the rule of the godly. If a purified English church and state could inaugurate reformation across all of Christendom, spread the gospel to infidels around the globe, and usher in the millennium, then all the better. In 1641, an anonymous tract called A Glimpse of Sions Glory announced that the new puritan-controlled Parliament would bring on “Babylon's destruction . . . The work of the day [is] to give God no rest till he sets up Jerusalem in the praise of the whole world.” The leading minister of colonial Boston at the time, John Cotton, predicted that as soon as 1655, as Michael Winship summarizes Cotton: the states and Christian princes of Europe, under irresistible supernatural influence, would have instituted congregationalism [Massachusetts’ form of church polity] and overthrown Antichrist and Muslim Turkey. The example of their churches’ pure Christianity would have brought about the conversion of Jews and pagans across the globe. Thereafter, the churches of Christ would enjoy the millennium's thousand years of peace before the climactic battle with Gog and Magog at the end of time. Those are big stories.
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Northcott, Michael S. "Parochial Ecology on St Briavels Common: Rebalancing the Local and the Universal in Anglican Ecclesiology and Practice." Journal of Anglican Studies 10, no. 1 (November 3, 2011): 68–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1740355311000167.
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AbstractThe rise of the global market economy has advanced forms of centrist, corporatist and statist rule that are insensitive to local indicators that this novel social order is ecologically, and socially, unsustainable. For many political theologians, and for secular political ecologists, the related crises of species extinction and climate change, combined with structural economic crisis, require a fundamental relocalization of the global economy and of the harvesting of natural resources. The contest between the political economy of global ‘free’ trade and a relocalized economy and polity bears analogies with debates around the relation between the local and the universal in Christian ecclesiology. In the eucharistic body politics of Saint Paul Christian communion is focused in the eucharistic gathering. However, centrist tendencies in ecclesiastical polity emerged in fourth-century accounts of the universal church. The subsequent doctrine of the primacy of Peter gave a powerful push to centrist over localist accounts of the esse of the Church in the West, and the contest between local and universal in Anglican and Catholic ecclesiologies continues to this day. Orthodox theologians Zizioulas and Afanassieff, describe and fill out the doctrinal implications of a primitive ecclesiology in which ‘the eucharist makes the church’.2 This recovery of a local eucharistic ecclesiology offers valuable resources for thinking about the nature of communion between Anglicans in a Communion increasingly riven by controversy, and for thinking about the nature of the parish in a Church of England prone in the last forty years to centrist and managerial conceptions of the Church, and to the denigration of the local parish church as theesseof the ministry and mission of the Church in England.
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Thompsett, Fredrica Harris. "Inquiring Minds Want to Know: A Lay Person's Perspective on the Proposed Anglican Covenant." Journal of Anglican Studies 10, no. 1 (February 13, 2012): 42–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1740355312000010.
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AbstractBaptism is the sacrament that incorporates Christians into the Body of Christ; 99 percent of the church are laity. The proposed Anglican Covenant's emphasis on formal authority exercised by bishops and primates changes the relationships among all Anglicans, not just bishops. This change may run against a fundamental Anglican tradition of ongoing communal reflection that acknowledges that elements of church life change because they are no longer convenient or useful in particular locales. In adopting the Anglican Covenant, are we stating that traditional Anglican polity is no longer convenient or useful for the Provinces of the Anglican Communion, including the Episcopal Church?
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PERROTT, M. E. C. "Richard Hooker and the Problem of Authority in the Elizabethan Church." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 49, no. 1 (January 1998): 29–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046997005654.
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In the spring of 1593 Richard Hooker published the first part of his work Of the laws of ecclesiastical polity which has come to be known as the most famous attempt to persuade Elizabethan Puritans to conform to the laws of the English Church. Hooker's writings have received more scholarly attention than those of any other contemporary church polemicist but no consensus has, as yet, been arrived at regarding the nature of his argument or the way in which his ideas addressed the major issues of Elizabethan church controversy. It is my intention in this essay to focus on these issues and thus provide some insight into the details of Hooker's theory of law and its broader significance as an argument relating to the legislative authority of the Church of England.
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McKinney, William, Dorothy C. Bass, and Kenneth B. Smith. "The United Church of Christ: Studies in Identity and Polity." Review of Religious Research 30, no. 1 (September 1988): 105. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3511860.
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Lake, Peter. "William Bradshaw, Antichrist and the Community of the Godly." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36, no. 4 (October 1985): 570–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046900044006.
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Hatred of popery was hardly a puritan monopoly in late sixteenthand early seventeenth-century England. The conviction that the pope was Antichrist was something of a commonplace amongst Protestant Englishmen. Considerable attention has recently been paid to the terms in which the identification was established and asserted. The supposed link between such concerns and a ‘millenarian’ radicalism has quite rightly been challenged, most notably by Dr Bauckham. It remains true, of course, that sensitivity towards the extent and nature of the popish threat was a hallmark of puritanism. The consequences of this, however, were ambiguous. The conviction of the reality and pervasiveness of the popish threat undoubtedly prompted much of the puritan critique of the established Church. Certainly, the rhetoric of Antichrist played a crucial role in puritan denunciations of the corruptions of the English Church. But such denunciations drew much of their polemical force from the fact that the premise on which they were based – the antichristian nature of popery – was generally accepted by English Protestants. For the whole strength of the puritans’ case rested on their ability to present their position as but the logical extension to the area of church polity and ceremony of positions readily accepted in the realm of doctrine. Even the most committed Presbyterians accepted that the doctrine of the established Church was unequivocally Protestant. For the immediate polemical purposes of Presbyterians this provided a powerful argument for a parallel and equally thorough reformation of church polity and discipline. Taking a longer perspective and in the face of the threat from Rome, such considerations served to underline the ties of common interest and identity that bound puritans to the national Church.
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Walsh, Katherine. "One Church and Two Nations: a Uniquely Irish Phenomenon?" Studies in Church History. Subsidia 6 (1990): 81–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0143045900001198.
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The Reformation in the sixteenth century brought with it the complex and—for contemporary religious and political groupings—unacceptable phenomenon of religious plurality. In the Middle Ages citizenship as an independent concept scarcely existed, and tacit assumptions about the function of Church-State relations rested on the view that all inhabitants of the polity were members of the Christian respublica. There were, of course, some specific, necessary, and therefore tolerable exceptions, such as Jews in many, but not in all countries. Heretics and infidels, who did not conform to these specifications, were therefore regarded as legitimate targets for repression, even for physical violence, in the complex machinery of the Inquisition and in the ideology of the crusades. The Reformation brought about a reversal of this monolithic thinking about the nature of the Christian polity. Faced with plurality of religious ideas and organizations, various solutions were attempted. The earliest, and that which was to have the most widespread and long-lasting effect in pre-Enlightenment and pre-Emancipation Europe, was that formulated in the Religious Peace of Augsburg (1555). Here the decree of cuius regio, ejus religio—with a deliberate retrospect to the Emperor Constantine—guaranteed the continuation of the medieval principle, whereby the good and loyal citizen was one who conformed in religious as well as political sentiment with the ruling authority.
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Doe, Norman. "THE CATEGORY “LEGAL THEOLOGY” AND THE STUDY OF CHRISTIAN LAWS." Journal of Law and Religion 32, no. 1 (March 2017): 64–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jlr.2017.13.
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Theology, the study of God, consists of a network of subdisciplines: biblical theology, moral theology, ecumenical theology, and so on. Each branch of theology has its own distinctive object of study, methods, and purposes. For example, pneumatology studies the Holy Spirit, practical theology uses the pastoral cycle, and liberation theology seeks to transform unjust societal structures that oppress the marginalized. Each branch of theology has its own distinctive community of scholars. It is a common view (though perhaps a contested one, as between the different church traditions) that the main purpose of Christian theology is to proclaim the Gospel of Christ. The branches of theology, in turn, are vehicles for each of this core purpose. Legal theology could become a branch of theology with its own distinctive objects of study, methods, and purposes. What follows explores these themes, how the subdiscipline of legal theology might be defined and developed in the context of the study of the systems of law, order, and polity, of churches across the Christian traditions that deal with, for example, forms of regulation, ministry (lay or ordained), governance (institutions and functions), discipline, doctrine, worship, rites, property, and external relations. It does so as to the following. (1) The object of study: legal theology should at its core be about the relationship between theology and church law—more particularly, the relationship between church law and each of the other branches of theology. (2) The method of study: legal theology may involve the theological study of church law and/or the legal study of theology using standard juristic methods (such as text and context, critical, historical, analytical) as well as methods used in the other branches of theology (3) The purpose of study: the development of a community of scholars collaborating with a view to its impact on ecclesial practice. Theology is indispensable to a full understanding of the place of law in the life of the church; and law provides evidence to test the propositions of theology in the practical life of the church as this is translated through norms to action.
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Holder, R. Ward, David W. Hall, and Joseph H. Hall. "Paradigms in Polity: Classic Readings in Reformed and Presbyterian Church Government." Sixteenth Century Journal 27, no. 2 (1996): 533. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2544179.
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Colton, Paul. "The Teaching of Church Law, Order and Polity in Ministerial Education." Ecclesiastical Law Journal 18, no. 1 (December 10, 2015): 80–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956618x15000885.
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Chan, Simon. "The Church and the Development of Doctrine." Journal of Pentecostal Theology 13, no. 1 (2004): 57–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/096673690401300104.
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AbstractDoctrines are the authoritative teachings of the Church, yet the modern church is hampered by its inability to speak authoritatively even to its own members on matters of doctrine. One reason is that doctrines are widely perceived as archaic and fixed formulations with little significance for the present day. True doctrines, in fact, are constantly developing as the Church moves towards eschatological fulfillment. Yet for doctrines to develop properly there needs to be a proper ecclesiology. The Church is not an entity that God brought into being to return creation to its original purpose after the Fall; rather, the Church is prior to creation, chosen in Christ before the creation of the world (Eph. 1.4). It is a divine-humanity, ontologically linked to Christ the Head. It is the living Body of Christ, the totus Christus.Within the continuing life of prayer and worship, the Church’s doctrines are re-enacted, renewed and developed. These acts constitute the ecclesial experience or the living tradition. The living tradition is the transmission and development of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the on-going practices of the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit. The coming of the Spirit upon the Church at Pentecost is not just to enable the Church to preach the gospel but to constitute the Church as part of the gospel itself. That is to say, the gospel story includes the story of the Spirit in the Church. The third person of the Godhead is revealed as such in his special relation to the Church. The Church, therefore, could be called the ‘polity of the Spirit’, that is, the public square in which the Spirit is especially at work to bring God’s ultimate purpose to fulfillment. There is, therefore, no separation between ecclesiology and pneumatology. They are necessary for maintaining the living tradition and ensuring the healthy development of doctrine until the Church attains unity of the faith. Pentecostals who see the Pentecost event as the distinctive mark of their identity have a special role to play: by becoming more truly catholic in their ecclesiology, they become more truly Pentecostal. This accords well with their early ecumenical instinct.
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Jenkins, Gary W. "Between the Sacraments and Treason: Aspects of the Politicgal Thought of the English Recusants in the First Decade of Elizabeth I's Reign." Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis / Dutch Review of Church History 85, no. 1 (2005): 301–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187607505x00182.
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AbstractThis essay treats how English Roman Catholics, deprived of place and standing in their native church, addressed the two essential elements underlying the Protestant political economy of the Elizabethan Settlement. After a brief précis of how other studies have looked at political thought, the Protestant axioms of a lay supremacy and a unilateral national prerogative in the government of the church shall be delineated. The two main sections shall then treat the Catholic critique of the English national church and its lay supremacy respectively. The conclusion shall address the dilemma of conscience that these principles inflicted on Roman Catholics in Elizabethan England. Having been both summarily deprived of ecclesiastical standing and alienated from their native polity by their refusal to acknowledge the demands of the Elizabethan Settlement, England's Catholics found themselves justifying their actions and assailing the new ecclesio-political arrangements. Specifically the Recusants took aim at the notion of the laity exercising authority over the church whether from the throne or in parliament, and at the concept that England apart from the rest of the Church at all times and in all places could order its rites, liturgies, sacraments, and creed. This second item became more pronounced in that the Oath of Supremacy specifically mentioned the renunciation of all bishops unless they were English. For the Recusants these two elements created an insurmountable barrier for any sincere Catholic conscience.
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Cavill, Paul. "Perjury in Early Tudor England." Studies in Church History 56 (May 15, 2020): 182–209. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/stc.2019.11.
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The break with Rome was enforced through a nationwide programme of oath-taking. The Henrician regime resorted to oaths because they were already fundamental to the functioning of the polity. In the preceding half-century, activities as diverse as heresy prosecution, tax assessment and debt litigation depended upon oaths. Irrespective of their often mundane subject matter, oaths were held to be religious acts. Prolific oath-taking, however, led to frequent oath-breaking. Perjury was therefore a more pressing and broader concept than it is today. It was an offence against God, against oneself and against others. How this crime was prosecuted and punished sheds light on the intersection of religious doctrine, legal systems and social practice in pre-Reformation England. An analysis of perjury also draws attention to a jurisdictional shift that was underway before the Reformation. In 1485, church courts had exercised an extensive cognizance of perjury; by 1535, they no longer did. The most important factor contributing to this decline in ecclesiastical jurisdiction was the constraint imposed by common lawyers on what cases the church courts could hear. Common law defined the crime of perjury more narrowly than did canon law. Hence the contraction of the church's jurisdiction would alter how perjury was perceived.
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Dugre, Neal T. "Repairing the Breach: Puritan Expansion, Commonwealth Formation, and the Origins of the United Colonies of New England, 1630–1643." New England Quarterly 91, no. 3 (August 2018): 382–417. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/tneq_a_00684.
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“Repairing the Breach” interprets the United Colonies of New England as a Puritan innovation in polity formation. Beginning in the 1630s, New England Puritans overcame the problem of expansion by reinforcing church and colony government with a confederation of neighbor colonies designed to make their commonwealth viable on a regional scale.
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Young, Ralph F. "Breathing the “Free Aire of the New World”: The Influence of the New England Way on the Gathering of Congregational Churches in Old England, 1640–1660." New England Quarterly 83, no. 1 (March 2010): 5–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/tneq.2010.83.1.5.
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Puritans in England, although engaged in the struggle against Charles I and setting up the Commonwealth under Cromwell closely watched the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. In demonstrating how the New England Way of church polity influenced the rise of Congregationalism in England, Young details the transatlantic flow of ideas from colony to motherland.
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Spinks, Bryan. "Durham House and the Chapels Royal: their liturgical impact on the Church of Scotland." Scottish Journal of Theology 67, no. 4 (October 10, 2014): 379–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0036930614000179.
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AbstractEver since the laying of the foundation stone of the present Norman building, Durham Cathedral has had an ambiguous relationship with Scotland – some good (the huge contribution of Dean William Whittingham through liturgy, metrical psalms and the Geneva Bible) and some extremely negative (the cathedral served as the prison for the Scottish prisoners after the battle of Dunbar). Amongst the more negative are the liturgical ideals and practices of the Durham House group, more commonly though inaccurately known as ‘Laudians’. The members of the group, which did include William Laud, were the protégés of the bishop of Durham, Richard Neile, and they met in his house in London. He promoted many as prebendaries at Durham Cathedral, and there they developed their liturgical ideals and practices. These ideals were ones which Neile shared with his contemporaries and close friends, Bishops Lancelot Andrewes and John Buckeridge. This article argues that the origin and precedent for these practices were the Chapels Royal with which most of the ‘players’ had affiliation in some way or other. Elizabeth I insisted on liturgical ceremonial and furnishings that supported or matched the grandeur of court ceremonial. It was a style which she hoped would also be adopted in English cathedrals. It was a style of worship which also appealed to James VI and through the Chapels Royal in Scotland he attempted to introduce a similar liturgical style. He also sought to conform the Church of Scotland to the Church of England, both in polity and liturgical text. The policy was continued by Charles I, who attempted to extend it to the Scottish cathedrals. Opponents of this court liturgical style and ‘Englishing’ of the liturgy found it convenient to blame the bishops who were given the task of implementing the liturgical changes rather than attack the source, namely the monarchy. The ultimate outcome was that, rather than the Church of Scotland adopting the 1637 Book of Common Prayer and Durham House ceremonial, it eventually even lost the liturgy which Scottish tradition had ascribed to John Knox, but the lion's share of which was more probably the work of Dean William Whittingham. Instead the Church of Scotland accepted the Directory of Public Worship, itself mainly the work of English divines. It became one of the few Reformed churches that did not have a set form for its public worship.
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Matar, Nabil. "England and Religious Plurality: Henry Stubbe, John Locke and Islam." Studies in Church History 51 (2015): 181–203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s042420840005018x.
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The Elizabethan Settlement identified religious conformity with political allegiance. Not unlike the cuius regio eius religio of the 1555 Peace of Augsburg in the Holy Roman Empire, from 1559 onwards subjects in England had to subscribe to the two Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, the first declaring the monarch as head of the state and the second determining worship under the monarch as head of the Church. In such an Anglican monarchy, there could be no legal space for the non-Anglican subject, let alone for the non-Christian. The few Marranos (Jews forcibly converted to Christianity) lived as Portuguese immigrants, at the same time that Protestant Dutch and Walloon traders congregated in stranger churches, and whilst they were allowed to worship in their own languages, they remained outsiders to the English/Anglican polity.
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Van Wyk, Barry J. "Kerkreg? Die plek van Kerkreg en Kerkregering." HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 63, no. 2 (May 6, 2007). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hts.v63i2.215.
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Church polity? The position of church polity and church government
It is generally accepted that John Calvin can be referred to as the founder of the presbyterial-synodal form of church government which is found in the Reformed Churches. It would therefore be appropriate to focus on his views and to indicate to what extent he influenced the notion that Jesus Christ is Head of the Church and Lord of the world. If it can once again be concluded that there is a close relation between Church, Confession and Church Ordinance, then it is quite evident that Church polity occupies a fundamental place in the Reformed Churches which must be treated with greater concern.
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Brown, E. "Die hervertolking van die paradigma in verband met die Kollegialisme om die Afrikaanse kerke kerkregtelik te verstaan." HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 48, no. 3/4 (January 23, 1992). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hts.v48i3/4.2436.
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Reinterpreting the paradigm concerning ‘Kollegialisme’ in order to understand the Afrikaans churches according to church law The Afrikaans term ‘Kollegialisme’ is used to convey criticism of the polity and history of the Afrikaans churches of Reformed persuasion. The well-known Dutch theologian, Abraham Kuyper, constructed this methodological paradigm. A philosophical concept originating within the German church was rendered contextually to communicate the development of the national church of the Netherlands. An analysis of the relevant sources indicates that what was implied was an understanding of the church in terms of a society (‘genootskap’). Accordingly, the polity and history of the Reformed churches needs to be reinterpreted.
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Resane, K. Thomas, and J. Buitendag. "The temptation of Realpolitik and vox populi in the ecclesiology of the Emerging Apostolic Churches with special reference to the fivefold ministry." HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 64, no. 3 (January 23, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hts.v64i3.79.
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The Emerging Apostolic Churches do not have a uniform church polity since the power of governance is claimed to be with the fivefold ministers, while at the same time embracing either the Episcopal, Presbyterial, or Congregational church governments. The fivefold ministry is a generally accepted term that refers to the five ministries given by Christ to the Church to stand in unique spiritual offices, as found in Ephesians 4:11. This article tries to answer the question: “Are the Emerging Apostolic Churches ecclesiologically correct by centring the authority of governance in the fivefold ministers and the popular voices of the followers?” At the same time it is endeavored to argue that due to Biblical and theological grounds the fivefold ministry is untenable to church polity hence Realpolitik and vox populi dominating the ecclesiastical life and polity of the Emerging Apostolic Churches. The aim is to demonstrate that these two concepts (Realpolitik and vox populi) play a significant part in shaping the church polity and structures of this ecclesiastical phenomenon.
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Van Wyk, Barry J. "Kerkordelike toleransie en die reg van usansie." HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 76, no. 1 (April 15, 2020). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hts.v76i1.5634.
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A tolerant treatment of church order and the law of usance: This article discusses the recent decline of church polity in the Netherdutch Reformed Church which is obvious in different areas of the Church with special reference to the liturgy practised in sermons of some congregations. This decline is also observed in other churches in South Africa and abroad. The article is a reaction to the reason for this situation and indicates that it should not be found in a collegialistic concept of church, but rather due to congregationalism or independentism in modern form. The article’s viewpoint is that the above-mentioned church polity decline is a result of the fact that church order is not valued as an order with a Scriptural and therefore an ecclesiological basis.
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Strauss, Pieter J. "Ekumeniese kerkreg: Die aangewese weg?" In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi 47, no. 1 (November 29, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ids.v47i1.73.
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Die argument word gehoor dat kerkregeringstelsels soos dié van die Rooms-Katolieke, Lutherse en gereformeerde kerke van ’n transendentale aard was en is. Daardeur word geïmpliseer dat hierdie stelsels een transendentale, unieke vaste beginsel gebruik om ’n hele stelsel van kerkregering van buite af te bepaal. Volgens Leo Koffeman, ’n voorstander van ’n ekumeniese kerkreg, plaas hierdie stelsels hulself hiermee buite die diskoers oor kerkreg en kerkregering en die beweging van die Heilige Gees. ’n Ekumeniese kerkreg, daarenteen, is ten gunste van ’n gemeenskaplike kerkreg tussen kerke. Omdat dit verskillende tradisies bymekaar bring, is dit ’n kritiese en daarom beter benadering. Die skrywer oorweeg hierdie argumente krities in die lig van ’n gereformeerde benadering tot kerkreg.The argument is used that church political systems like that of the Roman Catholic, Lutheran and reformed churches were of a transcendental character. By that it is implied that it used one transcendental and unique ‘hard principle’ from outside to direct a system of church government. Such uniqueness, according to Leo Koffeman who advocates an ecumenical church polity, places it outside the church political discourse and the way of the Holy Spirit. An ecumenical church polity seeks a combined polity between churches and is, by bringing different traditions together, a critical and therefore better undertaking. The author examines these arguments critically in the light of a reformed church polity.
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Du Plooy, Andries Le Roux. "Die hermeneutiek van gereformeerde kerkreg." In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi 46, no. 1 (September 14, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ids.v46i1.36.
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Die artikel het op die belangrikheid en noodsaaklikheid van ‘n hermeneutiek vir die gereformeerde kerkreg gefokus. Die kerkregtelike dokument wat besonderlik ter sake was, is die kerkorde van die Gereformeerde kerke in Suid-Afrika, met sy besondere band met die Dordtse kerkorde van 1618 en 1619. Agtereenvolgens is aandag gegee aan die volgende aspekte soos (1) die eiesoortige aard van ‘n kerkorde as ‘n teologiese dokument en teks, in onderskeiding van regsdokumente; (2) die aard van die hermeneutiek van kerkreg; (3) enkele teorieë oor die interpretasie of uitleg van tekste, veral regstekste en (4) normatiewe vooronderstellings en reëls vir die interpretasie en verstaan van die teks en artikels van die kerkorde asook besluite van kerklike vergaderinge. Die gevolgtrekking was dat weinig indringende navorsing gedoen is oor die saak van hermeneutiek vir kerkreg, hoewel dit noodsaaklik is. Duidelike hermeneutiese reëls is gesuggereer en verduidelik, wat sou kon meehelp dat kerke en kerklike vergaderinge die artikels van die kerkorde asook besluite en reglemente wat daarop berus het, kan interpreteer en toepas.The hermeneutics of reformed church polity. The article focused on the importance and urgency of a design for reformed hermeneutics on church polity. The Church Order referred to in the article is the Church Order of the Reformed Churches in South Africa, which are closely related to the Church Order of Dordt of 1618 and 1619. The following aspects received attention namely (1) the unique character of a Church Order, in comparison to and distinguished from legal documents and statutes; (2) the character and nature of hermeneutics of church polity; (3) theories of interpretation in the common law tradition and their relevance to church polity and (4) normative presuppositions and marks for the interpretation and understanding of the text and articles of the Church Order, as well as the resolutions of church assemblies. It was found that minimum research has been done on the topic of hermeneutics for reformed church polity. This contribution was an effort to suggest and explain a number of hermeneutical principles and guidelines, which may serve and encourage churches and assemblies to interpret, utilise and apply the Church Order in an adequate and responsible way.
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Duncan, Graham A., Johan Van der Merwe, and Barry Van Wyk. "Church History and Church Polity in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria." Verbum et Ecclesia 30, no. 3 (December 17, 2009). http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/ve.v30i3.131.
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Theology has been an integral part of the University of Pretoria since its inception and Church History has been taught since the establishment of the Faculty of Theology in 1917. At that time, the Presbyterian Church of South Africa and the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk van Afrika (NHK) were partners. The Presbyterian link with the Faculty ceased in 1933. From 1938 the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK) joined the NHK and this remained the situation until 2002 when the Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa re-established its links with the Faculty. At the present time, the Department of Church History and Church Polity is staffed by representatives of all three partner churches.