Journal articles on the topic 'First Congregational United Church of Christ'

This article examines the predictors of overall congregational vitality in the United Church of Christ (UCC), a US mainline Protestant denomination of approximately 5,000 churches and 800,000 members. This analysis is based on data from the UCC version of the Faith Communities Today survey, which surveyed all UCC congregations in early 2020. An overall congregational vitality scale was created from survey questions; factors associated with congregational vitality were tested to see which ones had a statistically significant relationship with a congregation's level of overall vitality. Aspects of congregations that were significantly associated with overall congregational vitality included the fit between the pastor and congregation, innovative worship, racial diversity, and total number of participants, while the percentage of young adults, contemporary worship, founding year of congregation, percentage change in worship attendance over the past five years, current financial health of congregation, and percentage of female participants did not influence overall congregational vitality. This research may be useful for congregations seeking to maintain or increase their vitality and for researchers interested in identifying the components and predictors of congregational vitality.

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.

Abstract: This paper specifically suggests how the evangelistic movement carried out by the church is related to the growth of congregational spirituality. The focus of this paper outlines how the evangelistic movement carried out by the church from the first, mid to the modern century. This article was written using qualitative methods with a literature study approach. The results of the presentation of this study suggest that the church is actively carrying out evangelistic movements aimed at the growth of congregational spirituality. This is captured when tracing churches in the first century, middle, modern, post-modern to the digital age. The evangelistic movement has always been a church identity aimed at the growth of congregational spirituality. In the evangelistic movement carried out by the church, there has always been a figure of missionary mobilization Luther and Calvin along with other figures. The evangelistic movement carried out by the church in response to the Great Commission so that the world undergoes a change in relation to knowing Jesus Christ through the growth of congregational spirituality.Keyword: Evangelistic Movement, Church, Spirituality, BelieversAbstrak: Tulisan ini secara spesifik mengemukakan bagaimana gerakan penginjilan yang dilakukan oleh gereja dalam kaitan pada pertumbuhan spiritualitas jemaat. Fokus dari tulisan ini menguraikan bagaimana pergerakan penginjilan yang dilakukan oleh gereja dari abad pertama, pertengahan, modern, dan sampai pada post modern. Artikel ini ditulis dengan menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan pendekatan studi kepustakaan. Hasil dari pemaparan kajian ini mengemukakan bahwa gereja secara aktif melakukan gerakan penginjilan yang bertujuan pada pertumbuhan spiritualitas jemaat. Ini terpotret bila menelusuri gereja pada abad pertama, pertengahan, modern, post modern sampai era digital. Gerakan penginjilan selalu menjadi identitas gereja yang bertujuan pada pertumbuhan spiritualitas jemaat. Di dalam gerakan penginjilan yang dilakukan oleh gereja, selalu ada tokoh penggeraknya misialnya Luther dan Calvin bersama tokoh lainnya. Gerakan penginjilan yang dilakukan oleh gereja sebagai respon pada Amanat Agung agar dunia mengalami perubahan dalam kaitan mengenal Yesus Kristus melalui pertumbuhan spiritualitas jemaat.Kata Kunci: Gerakan Penginjilan, Gereja, Spiritualitas, Orang Percaya

How may spiritual formation, with its emphasis upon the individual, spiritual direction, and its shaping of spiritual life, and the ministry of social justice, with its stress upon the community, be balanced in a religious tradition? This study examines the United Church of Christ as an example of a social justice tradition within Protestant Christianity, with special interest in how it combines spiritual formation, spiritual direction, and social justice. Although during the first decades of its existence, the United Church of Christ seemed more interested in social justice, ostensibly to the diminishing of more spiritual concerns, during the 1990s the church began to develop greater interest in spirituality. At present, the denomination is starting to try to link spirituality, spiritual formation, and spiritual direction with social justice ministries.

In Ukrainian church life, the influence of the Byzantine Empire, which has existed for over eleven centuries, holds a special place. This unique Greek superpower became the first independent state where faith in Jesus Christ became part of the entire state complex. It was this faith that united Byzantium with the Ecumenical Church, whose center of history was rooted in Rome.

This article responds to David Moser’s essay commending the Totus Christus to Protestants who wish to be biblical, identify with the catholic tradition, and speak truly about the Church. The article recognizes the Totus Christus as an important case study of the relationship between Christology and ecclesiology. The article evaluates Moser’s case in three movements: first, by examining the way in which biblical language of Christ as the “head” of the Church “body” has been interpreted by Augustine and others; second, by comparing and contrasting the Reformed (soteriological) emphasis on mystical union with the Roman (ecclesiological) emphasis on mystical body; third, by examining the metaphysics of the Totus Christus and, in particular, the conceptual coherence of claiming that the Totus Christus designates a “united person” with “two subjects” that are “distinct in their being.” The article concludes by asking about the practical consequences of accepting the Totus Christus, and by noting that the Totus Christus never did receive the necessary creedal support commensurate with catholic doctrine.

AbstractThe church has an important role in a movement for the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Great Commission is the center of the church in carrying out the mission of the Kingdom of God in this wolrd. Since the days of the early church, the church has experienced tremendous growth. Many souls believed in Jesus and experienced tremendous spiritual growth. The extraordinary growth of God’s church makes all components of the church must be well integrated into a unified whole. All of this cannot be separated from the Lord Jesus prayer so that His disciples remain united in the project of the great commission. But in reality, the church that should have remained united as the Lord Jesus prayer in John 17:1-26 did not materialize well. The church began to fokus on worldly interests and was no longer a universal church unit. Some of the problem that occurred, the disorganization of the church which is often referred to as ecumenical did not happen well, because of differences in doctrine, there are elements of self-interest, leadership problem and finanacial problems. So that the essence of the church to carry out the mission of the great commsission has shifted. This writing uses a descriptive method of literature by extracting library data ro strengthen understanding as a whole. The goal is that through writing, namely, First, church leaders realize how important a unity is in God’s church. Second, the church becomes a pleasant family as a member of the body of Christ. Third, believers are focused again on thinking about the realization of the Lord Jesus prayer, so that they become one.. Keywords: Ecumenical, Unity, Church, Christian, Jesus Prayer.

The Church as “People of God” is a term that has gained prominence since the Vatican II Council although the term has been in use since the times of the Old Testament (OT). In the OT the Israelites were referred to as People of Yahweh, In Exodus Moses conducts a covenant between the “People of God” and God himself; “You shall be my people and I will be your God” (Deut 32:9). Today we have some theologians who argue that all humankind is indeed the “People of God” (Osei-Bonsu) since they were created by the same God who is our Father. Others think that the term “People of God” refers to all Christians in the NT context where it involves the community of believers (1 Peter 2:9) “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people set apart to sing God’s Praises.” The limitations of the image “Populi Dei” (or People of God) arises in two ways; first, that of understanding the unity that is demanded by core concepts such as ‘Body of Christ,” and secondly, the more sociological meaning that risks the mystery aspect of Christ’s mission in the world. In comparing the Catholic and evangelical conceptualization about the image of the Church, the evangelicals often tend to focus more on the virtual or spiritual unity, while the Catholic understanding refers to both physical and spiritual unity of the Church. Therefore, the term “People of God” is greatly accepted among evangelicals than Corpus Christ that is often more popular in the Catholic circles. Lumen Gentium (Vat. II) used the term “People of God” in direct reference to the Church as an image hence giving it a deeper meaning. The second chapter of Lumen Gentium bears the title ““People of God”.” This title does not refer to the laity in contra-distinction to the “hierarchy,” but rather it applies to all members of the Church. First it was used to refer to the Church as a body of the New covenant in Christ’s blood and in the sense of Koinonia or communion of the Christ’s faithful. Therefore the “People of God” refers to the Corpus Christi (i.e., Body of Christ) that is united in one faith and one love and moving towards the soteriological calling by Christ their head. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the Populi Dei concept that underscores the practical implications of the term Populi Dei in continuous self-awareness of the Church in the increasing roles to be taken up by the lay faithful. Keywords: Church, People of God, Lumen Gentium, Body of Christ

This paper examines views of women among the most prominent “progressive” American religious groups (as defined by those that liberalized early on the issue of birth control, circa 1929). We focus on the years between the first and second waves of the feminist movement (1929–1965) in order to examine these views during a time of relative quiescence. We find that some groups indeed have a history of outspoken support for women’s equality. Using their modern-day names, these groups—the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and to a lesser extent, the Society of Friends, or Quakers—professed strong support for women’s issues, early and often. However, we also find that prominent progressive groups—the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the United Presbyterian Church—were virtually silent on the issue of women’s rights. Thus, we conclude that birth control activism within the American religious field was not clearly correlated with an overall feminist orientation.

In 1987, the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice released its groundbreaking study, Toxic Waste and Race in the United States. The report found race to be the most significant predictor of where hazardous waste facilities were located in the United States. We review this and other studies of environmental racism in an effort to explain the relationship between race and the proximity to hazardous waste facilities. More recent research provides some evidence that the effect is causal, where polluting industries follow the path of least resistance. To date, the published work using Census data ends in 2000, which neglects the period when economic and political changes may have worsened the relationship between race and toxic exposure. Thus, we replicate findings using data from 2010 to show that racial disparities remain persistent in 2010. We conclude with a call for further research on how race and siting have changed during the 2010s.

In Origen’s theological research, the term „Church” has a very wide meaning, which conveys the framework of the earthly religious institution and the community of believers. In its fundamental sense, it means the family of all rational beings created by God and His works relating to the history of angels and people. According to this Alexandrian, God created beings gifted with rational thinking, to make up one community closely bonded with Him, meaning the Church understood in a broad sense. There turned out to be an impediment to achieving this eternal plan of God because of the incorrectly used gift of free will by rational beings. The fall through sin caused a breakdown of the first heavenly and earthly Church, and at the same time initiated the long process of a return to the original state of harmony. It is divided into two stages: the Old Testament Church and the Church of Christ.The later, being the fullest manifestation of the community of united people by God in the annals of the visible world, does not have a status as the ultimate Church and only comprises an image of the eschatological reality. There will be a bringing together of the heavenly Church with the earthly Church and a complete union of rational beings with Christ. The Church understood in this way crosses the limits of the present time and becomes an everlasting reality, prepared in the preexistence and also having a continuation and fulfillment in eschatology. It is not eternity understood in an absolute way, pertaining only to God, but in the sense of a lengthy continuation which had a beginning but does not have an end.Origen’s ecclesiology wastonic teaching on the preexistence of the soul and the Platonic-formed in a climate of ancient Greek philosophy, under the strong influence of Platonic teaching on the preexistence of the soul and the Platonic-stoic theory of the wandering of worlds, which was a normal phenomenon in the Alexandrian environment at the turn of the II and III centuries. Despite such a dependency on erroneous philosophical theories and certain logical inconsistencies, Origen's concept of the eternal Church on many essential points turned out to be an inspiration for later Catholic ecclesiology, particularly in her ecumenical and mystical tendencies. It presents all of humanity as chosen from the beginning by God and called to be His Church. It acknowledges Christ as the foundation and Bridegroom not only of the Christian Church instituted by His incarnation, but the entire community of people for whom this Church of Christ is the visible sacramental sign and invitation to return to unity with God. It is proof that the world was created for Church which does not pass away but grows and changes, in order to finally become the perfect coronation of works as the only family under Christ as the Head, and through Him – the Father of the universe.

Abstract This article studies the rhetoric of a traditional Protestant denomination, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), in advocating the resumption of peace talks during the Duterte administration. The church believes that the peace negotiations between the Philippine government and communist revolutionary groups will solve the fifty-year conflict that has claimed thousands of lives of combatants and civilians in the countryside. At the beginning of Duterte’s term, the UCCP extended support for his administration. This was based on the alignment between the church and the President’s goals of purging of systemic sins in Philippine society through peacemaking. Using the theological rhetoric of the social gospel as framework, the UCCP first considered President Duterte as the ideal rhetorical audience who can address urgent needs through the resumption of peace talks. However, after two years of Duterte’s broken campaign promises, the church began to address its own constituents as the rhetorical audience they need to persuade in order to purge the systemic sins of Philippine society. Church members must be in solidarity with their leaders in opposing President Duterte’s policies. Through a shift from a rhetoric of transcendence to that of resistance, the church persuades its audiences of the sacredness of political support or opposition, giving religious justification to the mission of social reform.

Abstract Initially, the article concentrates on a major change in ancient Mediterranean religions that can be understood as an “intellectualization of religion.” Focusing on the text-based practices of early Christian religious specialists, it looks at this phenomenon as a facet of an urban religion rather than an inherent quality of early Christ religion. The article goes on to address heterarchy, i.e., the tendency toward a nonhierarchical arrangement of power, as a further element that characterizes city life as well as relations among cities. Not linearly ranked and topographically fractionated, the first urban Christ groups also constituted heterarchical formations shaped by the assorted types of power coalescing in urban environments. Zooming in on the imperial city of Carthage in the mid-3rd century, the article then analyzes the intersection of the two phenomena. It demonstrates the effects that the enforcement of a textually designed and conceptually sophisticated project of Church order produced on the Christ networks by arguing that, in urban contexts characterized by a host of powers, authority claims, and forms of capital, Cyprian’s intellectualized religion contributed to breaking apart existing coalescences of people united by religion.

AbstractThis study of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Madonna-figures questions some influential arguments about the novelist's treatment of motherhood and domesticity. Critics such as Jane Tompkins, Elizabeth Ammons, and Gillian Brown have claimed that the novels privilege an alternative maternal culture and may even present the Christian Savior in feminized terms. But the early novels in fact reveal the gender restrictions of nineteenth-century Protestantism, which allowed no sanctified female roles. Uncle Tom's Cabin and Dred, for example, have Christ-figures but no Madonnas. Stowe's travels overseas, which exposed her to European religious art, and her gradual movement from the Congregational to the Episcopal church (documented by John Gatta), had a profound impact on two subsequent novels, The Minister's Wooing and Agnes of Sorrento. Here, for the first time, female characters are made Madonna-figures. But the novelist presents them as contemplative saints and prophetic virgins, rather than as mothers. Only in her late religious writings does Stowe portray the biblical Mary as not only prophet and poet but also mother—and then in an inimitable way. In The Minister's Wooing and Agnes as well as her religious writings, Stowe examines the New Testament sisters Martha and Mary of Bethany, who in church tradition represent, respectively, the active and the contemplative life. These discussions reveal the conflict the author experienced between her domestic responsibilities and artistic vocation, and her misgivings about many of the maternal characters found throughout her fiction. Stowe's contemplative and creative Mary-figures include Mary Scudder, Agnes, and the Virgin Mary herself. The contrasting Martha-figures are domestic geniuses but have “worldly” values, which sometimes threaten their daughters' happiness. These Marthas, who are increasingly subjected to authorial criticism, suggest some needed qualifications of arguments for the consistently positive valence of motherhood and domesticity in Stowe.

Genealogical research is full of opportunities for connecting generations. Millions of people pursue that purpose as they put together family trees that span hundreds of years. These data are valuable in linking people to the people of their past and in developing personal identities, and they can also be used in other ways. The purposes of this paper are to first give a short history of the development and practice of family history and genealogical research in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has developed the FamilySearch website, and second, to show how genealogical data can illustrate forward generation migration flows across the United States by analyzing resulting patterns and statistics. For example, descendants of people born in several large cities exhibited distinct geographies of migration away from the cities of their forebears.

The foundations of modern Catholic bioethics were laid with the teachings of Christ, especially in the example He set as the Divine Physician and through the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Church thus cared for the sick and built hospitals for two thousand years before adopting a definite bioethical focus. Equally important for Catholic bioethics, especially in clinical practice, was the development of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services. They are based on the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Hospitals, which were first published by the Catholic Hospital Association in 1948, revised in 1955, and revised and adopted by the United States Catholic Conference in 1971. Secular bioethics split from theology and metaphysics in favor of the rationalism and humanism which developed out of Enlightenment thought, whereas Catholic bioethics continued its own development, keeping both its theological and its metaphysical roots.

In 1641, the Congregational minister Thomas Goodwin delivered a series of sermons to his independent church in London, expounding the letter to the Ephesians in characteristically meticulous detail. Goodwin had recently returned to England after a brief but formative period of religious exile in the Netherlands, and as the Sundays passed, his auditors were surely moved by the oratory of a speaker so “blessed with a rich invention and a solid and exact judgment.” The minister's breadth was equally impressive. The sermons opened up a cornucopia of Christian themes, flowing from one topic to the next as Goodwin's capacious mind found stimulus in the scriptural text. Seemingly eager to follow every possible digression, application, and excursus, Goodwin's unhurried pace required thirty-six sermons simply to exhaust the epistle's first chapter. And yet, amid this abundance of subject matter, one issue in particular arrested Goodwin's attention. While delivering his thirty-fifth discourse on Ephesians, Goodwin paused to consider what he described as “the Great question of these times” and, alternatively, “the great Controversy of the times.” By the middle of 1641, Goodwin's world was experiencing an unprecedented upheaval—England had been invaded by Scottish covenanters, the archbishop of Canterbury had been arrested and imprisoned, and the king had been forced to call a parliament he would be unable to dissolve. Yet Goodwin's “great Controversy” turned not upon political or cultural convulsion but rather upon a seemingly obscure point of ecclesiastical polity, a question not often considered by modern historians and even less often fully appreciated: “the great Question of these times,” said Goodwin, was “whether yea or no . . . many congregations, many Churches united in one may not be called one particular Church.” What did this strangely worded question mean to Goodwin and his hearers, and why did the future president of Magdalen College and religious adviser to the Lord Protector deem this rather specific query the very hinge upon which the nation's future turned? To answer these questions, we must consider how the early modern English mind understood the idea of a “national church”—for though he does not explicitly invoke the term, it was, as we will see, a concept embedded at the very center of Goodwin's “great Controversy.”

Evolution is a prominent component of biology education and remains controversial among college biology students in the United States who are mostly Christian, but science education researchers have not explored the attitudes of Muslim biology students in the United States. To explore perceptions of evolution among Muslim students in the United States, we surveyed 7,909 college students in 52 biology classes in 13 states about their acceptance of evolution, interest in evolution, and understanding of evolution. Muslim students in our sample, on average, did not agree with items that measured acceptance of macroevolution and human evolution. Further, on average, Muslim students agreed, but did not strongly agree with items measuring microevolution acceptance. Controlling for gender, major, race/ethnicity, and international status, we found that the evolution acceptance and interest levels of Muslim students were slightly higher than Protestant students and students who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, Muslim student evolution acceptance levels were significantly lower than Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu students as well as students who did not identify with a religion (agnostic and atheists). Muslim student understanding of evolution was similar to students from other affiliations, but was lower than agnostic and atheist students. We also examined which variables are associated with Muslim student acceptance of evolution and found that higher understanding of evolution and lower religiosity are positive predictors of evolution acceptance among Muslim students, which is similar to the broader population of biology students. These data are the first to document that Muslim students have lower acceptance of evolution compared to students from other affiliations in undergraduate biology classrooms in the United States.

In his inaugural lecture as Professor of World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Stanley discusses three individuals connected to Edinburgh who have major symbolic or actual significance for the development of world Christianity over the last 150 years. Tiyo Soga (1829–71) studied in Edinburgh for the ministry of the United Presbyterian Church, and became the first black South African to be ordained into the Christian ministry. His Edinburgh theological training helped to form his keen sense of the dignity and divine destiny of the African race. Yun Chi'ho (1865–1945) was the sole Korean delegate at the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh in 1910. His political career illustrates the ambiguities of the connection that developed between Christianity and Korean nationalism under Japanese colonial rule. John Alexander Dowie (1847–1907) was a native of Edinburgh and a student of the University of Edinburgh who went on to found a utopian Christian community near Chicago – ‘Zion City’. This community and Dowie's teachings on the healing power of Christ were formative in the origins of Pentecostal varieties of Christianity in both southern and West Africa.

AbstractEDITOR'S NOTE: Luis C. Fontalvo, a Colombian, began to preach in his home-land, but several years ago he moved with his family to Canada, and there he found himself in an altogether different cultural, climatological and economic world, to which he had to adapt. Fontalvo, however, in contrast to most preachers who come from the Third to the First World, did not migrate to Canada in the company of fellow Colombian believers nor with the intention of establishing a Spanish-speaking church, but to preach in French to the people of the province of Quebec and in response to what he interpreted as a specific call. His work crystalized into what is now known as the Eglise des Apôtres de Jesus-Christ, with very different and farther-reaching results than he expected. His work and presence in Canada became an experiment that may, or may not, be repeated in another country or under different circumstances. It leaves open the question as to what will happen if and when the church he founded is totally integrated or if migration to Canada ceases in the future. Fontalvo's experience is simply one instance of the many things that are happening in countries like the United States and Canada, and even on European soil, to which Latin American Pentecostals arrive silently, learn to live many times surreptitiously or anonymously in the country of their choice, and do what is most natural to them: Share the gospel. The results may not be exactly what the preacher expected, they may be as new as a "hybrid" church, as it happened to Montalvo. These hybrid churches may well become the trend of the future in some of the First World cities. Although Montalvo does not say so, the implicit lesson is that the preacher is the key to success and has to begin by becoming a polyglot and not simply the monolingual head of the operation who thinks that one language is enough either for the preacher or for a situation as that described in this article.

Grundtvig's Relations with Luther and the Lutheran TraditionBy Leif GraneGrundtvig’s relations with Luther and the Lutheran tradition are essential in nearly the whole of Grundtvig’s lifetime. The key position that he attributed to Luther in connection with his religious crisis 1810-11, remained with the Reformer until the very last, though there were changes on the way in his evaluation of the Reformation.The source material is overwhelming. It comprises all Grundtvig’s historical and church historical works, but also a large number of his theological writings, besides a number of his poems and hymns. Prior to Grundtvig’s lifelong occupation with Luther there had been a rejection of tradition as he had met with it in the Conservative supranaturalism. After the Romantic awakening at Egeløkke and the subsequent »Asarus« (the- ecstatic immersion in Nordic mythology), over the religious crisis 1810-1811, when Grundtvig thought he was »returning« to Luther, it was a different Luther from the one he had left a few years before. Though Grundtvig emphasizes the infallibility of the Bible, it is wrong to describe him as »Lutheran-Orthodox« in the traditional sense. In Grundtvig’s interpretation, Luther is above all the guarantee of the view of history he had acquired in his Romantic period, but given his own personal stamp, as it appeared in slightly different ways in the World Chronicles of 1812 and 1817. There already he turns against the theologization of the message of the Reformation that set in with the confessional writings. Ever since he maintained the view of the Reformation that he expounds in the two World Chronicles, though the evaluation of it changed somewhat, especially after 1825.The church view that Grundtvig presented for the first time in »Kirkens Gienmæle« (The Rejoinder of the Church), and which he explained in detail in »Om den sande Christendom« (About True Christianity) and »Om Christendommens Sandhed« (About the Truth of Christianity), was bound to lead to a conflict (as it did) with the Protestant »Scripturalism«, and thus to clarity about the disagreement with Luther. This conflict attained a greater degree of precision with the distinctions between church and state, and church and school, as they were presented in »Skal den lutherske Reformation virkelig fortsættes?« (Should the Lutheran Reformation Really Be Continued? 1830), but it was not really until the publication of the third part of »Haandbog I Verdens-Historien« (Handbook in World History) that the view of church history and of Luther’s place in it, inspired by the congregational letters in the Apocalypse, was presented, in order to be more closely developed, partly in poetical form in »Christenhedens Syvstjeme« (The Seven Star of Christendom), partly in lectures in »Kirke-Spejl« (Church Mirror).Grundtvig had to reject orthodoxy since the genuineness of Baptism and Eucharist depended on their originating from Christ Himself. Nothing of universal validity could therefore have come into existence in the 16th century.Thus the evaluation of Luther and Lutheranism must depend on how far Lutheranism corresponded to what all Christians have in common. Luther is praised for the discovery that only the Word and the Spirit must reign in the church. It is understandable therefore that Luther had to break down the false idea of the church that had prevailed since Cyprian, and Grundtvig remained unswervingly loyal to him. But he cannot avoid the question why Luther’s work crumbled after his death. The answer is that it crumbled because of »Scripturalism« which Grundtvig considers a spurious inheritance from Alexandrian theology. We must maintain Luther’s faith which centres on all that is fundamentally Christian, but not his theological method.Grundtvig believes that with his criticism of Luther he is really closer to him than those who are cringing admirers of him. Grundtvig confesses himself to having committed the mistake of confusing the Bible with Christianity, and he cannot exempt Luther from a great responsibility for this aberration. All the same, in Luther’s case the wrong Yet Luther was induced to want to make his own experiences universally valid since he did not understand that his own use of the Scriptures could not possibly be right for every man. Here Grundtvig is on the track of the individualism which to him is an inevitable consequence of Scripturalism: everybody reads as he knows best. It was not in school, but in church that he saw Luther’s great and imperishable achievement.So while Grundtvig cannot exempt Luther from some responsibility for an unfortunate development in the relation between church and school, he is very anxious to exempt him from any responsibility for the assumption of power in the church by the princes, which is due, in his opinion, to a conspiracy between the princes and the theologians with a view to tying the peoples to the symbolical books.In the development of Grundtvig’s view of church history it turns out that the interest in the national, cultural and civic significance of the Reformation has not decreased after he has given up fighting for a Christian culture. The Reformation must, as must church history on the whole, be seen in the context of the histories of the peoples. Therefore, if it is not to be pure witchcraft, it must have its foundation deep in the Middle Ages.Grundtvig points to what he calls »the new Christendom«: from the English and the Germans to the North. Viewed in that light, the Reformation is a struggle for a Christian life, a folkelig life of the people, and enlightenment.Though the 17th century wrenched all life out of what was bom in the 16th, and the 18th century abandoned both Christianity and folkelig life altogether, it was of great significance for culture and enlightenment that the people was made familiar with Luther’s catechism, Bible and hymn book. What was fundamentally Christian survived, while folkelig life lay dormant.The Reformation was unfinished, and its completion must wait until the end of time. But compulsion is approaching the end, and the force of the Reformation in relation to mother tongue and folkelig life manifests itself more strongly than ever before, Gmndtvig believes. What is fundamentally Christian in Luther must be maintained and carried onwards, while the Christian enlightenment, i.e. theology, depends on the time in question.Life is the same, but the light is historically determined. With this concept of freedom, which distinguishes between the faith in Christ as permanent and the freedom of the Holy Ghost that liberates us from being tied to the theology of the old, Gmndtvig may convincingly claim that it is he who – with his criticism - is loyal to Luther, i.e. to »the most excellent Father in Christ since the days of the Apostles«.

Abstract This study focuses on the actions of the priesthood by priests related to the prevalence of sexual abuse cases among the clergy. The disgraceful acts committed by the priests have become a disgrace that the Church has to endure to this day. The church as a continuation of Christ's mission in the world feels the need to reorganize and reorganize by taking a firm stance in resolving the current struggle. To maintain her holiness, the Church first takes a stance of refusing and will not allow the clergy to continue to create sin in her body. Through its leaders, the Church continues to seek to voice that priests should take the path of repentance and return to the essence of priestly life which has united it with the priesthood of Christ. In addition, the Church lovingly welcomes and accepts those who have been victims of sexual abuse by priests. The Church hopes that they will continue to love the Church and believe that the Church is a home that protects and protects them from all crimes and inhumane treatment. As a form of feeling, the Church will continue to stand for justice and respect the rights and dignity of life for victims of sexual harassment, providing assistance, assistance, and healing service to rediscover the meaning of life that is valuable and worthy. Keywords: priesthood power, sexual harassment, ministerial priesthood, pastoral. Abstrak Studi ini menaruh perhatian pada tindakan penyalahgunaan kuasa imamat yang dilakukan oleh para imam terkait dengan merebaknya kasus sexual abuse dikalangan kaum klerus. Tindakan tidak terpuji yang dilakukan oleh para imam telah menjadi aib yang harus ditanggung oleh Gereja hingga saat ini. Gereja sebagai kelanjutan dari misi Kristus di tengah dunia merasa perlu untuk membenah dan menata dirinya kembali dengan mengambil suatu sikap tegas dalam menyelesaikan pergulatan yang tengah terjadi. Demi menjaga kekudusannya, Gereja pertama-tama mengambil suatu sikap untuk menolak dan tidak akan pernah membiarkan kaum klerus terus menerus menciptakan dosa di dalam tubuhnya. Melalui para pemimpinnya Gereja terus berupaya menyuarakan agar para imam mengambil jalan tobat dan kembali kepada hakikat hidup imamat yang telah mempersatukannya dengan imamat Kristus. Di samping itu Gereja dengan penuh cinta menyambut dan menerima mereka yang telah menjadi korban sexual abuse yang dilakukan oleh para imam. Gereja berharap mereka tetap mencintai Gereja dan percaya bahwa Gereja menjadi rumah yang akan menjaga dan melindungi mereka dari segala kejahatan dan perlakuan yang tidak berprikemanusiaan. Sebagai bentuk rasa tanggungjawabnya, Gereja akan terus berdiri di atas keadilan dan menghormati hak serta martabat hidup para korban sexual abuse, memberikan pendampingan, pertolongan serta tindakan penyembuhan sehingga menemukan kembali makna hidup yang berharga dan bernilai. Kata kunci: kuasa imamat, sexual abuse, imamat ministerial, pastoral.

O artigo apresenta o atual carisma palotino no apostolado com os migrantes em conexão com a Sagrada Escritura e o Magistério da Igreja, bem como a história vivida por São Vicente Pallotti. São quatro aspectos que se relacionam entre si, mas sistematicamente estudados: antes de tudo a experiência da migração no Antigo Testamento e o mandamento de Deus ao povo judeu para amar os migrantes, porque também eles foram migrantes no Egito. No Novo Testamento, Jesus Cristo foi identificado como migrante, quando a primeira comunidade cristã foi enviada a anunciar o Evangelho a todos os povos e recomendou a acolhida e a hospitalidade aos estrangeiros. O segundo ponto é a ação apostólica de Pallotti com os migrantes devido ao deslocamento em massa no século XIX e o cuidado necessário aos migrantes italianos, seja pela necessidade espiritual seja pela solidariedade social. Os primeiros Palotinos foram também para os Estados Unidos, Brasil, Argentina, Uruguai, entre outros países. A terceira parte é sobre o ensinamento da Igreja a respeito da migração, começando por Pio XII, passando pelo Vaticano II e alcançando o atual pontificado de Francisco. Em conclusão, há uma proposta para o apostolado universal e sinodal realizado pela família Palotina. The article presents the current Pallottine charism on the apostolate with migrants in connection with Holy Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church, as well as the history lived by St. Vincent Pallotti. There are four aspects that relate to each other but are systematically studied: first of all the experience of migration in the Old Testament and God's commandment to the Jewish people to love the migrant because he too was a migrant in Egypt. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is identified as a migrant, while the first Christian community was sent to proclaim the Gospel to all peoples and recommended welcoming and hospitality to foreigners. The second point is Pallotti's apostolic action with migrants due to the mass displacement in the nineteenth century and the necessary care for Italian migrants both for spiritual necessity and social solidarity. The first Pallottines also went to the United States of America, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, etc. The third part is on the ecclesial teaching on migrations beginning with Pius XII, passing through Vatican II and achieving the current pontificate of Francis. In conclusion there is a proposal for the universal and synodal apostolate carried out by the Pallottine Family.

Gudbilledlighed og syndefald. - Aspekter af Grundtvigs og Kierkegaards menneskesyn på baggrund af Irenæus.[The Image and Likeness of God and the Fall of the Human Being. - Aspects of Grundtvig's and Kierkegaard's Conceptions of the Human Being in light of Irenaeus]By Niels Jørgen CappelørnIn his account of the human being, the early church father Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon (in the second century, C.E.), makes a distinction between imago dei and similitudo dei based on the Genesis account of the creation of human beings in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27). It is the thesis of this article that this distinction can be traced in the works of N. F. S. Grundtvig and Soren Kierkegaard and that this distinction opens possibilities for finding and demonstrating new and parallel elements in Grundvig’s and Kierkegaard’s respective conceptions of the human person, particularly concerning the relationship between the image and likeness of God in human beings and the Fall.Grundtvig studied Irenaeus for the first time in 1823 and produced a translation of the fifth and final book of his apologetic work, Adversus haereses, in 1827. Kierkegaard seems not to have studied Irenaeus’ own texts, but a good ten years after Grundtvig’s translation he read about the theology of Irenaeus in Johannes Adam Mohler’s Athanasius der Große und die Kirche seiner Zeit from 1827.Irenaeus’ conception of the human being with regard to both the Fall and the rebirth in Christ can be summarized as follows: The human being consists of body and soul, which is its substance, and this substance must become united with the Spirit of God if the individual is to become a complete spiritual person. What was lost in Adam is won in Christ. But not all was lost with the Fall. The image of God is still within the human soul while the likeness of God, which resides in the human spirit, has been lost and must be reborn of the Holy Spirit.The image of God in the soul is freedom, and this remains with human beings. At times, this freedom assents to the flesh and falls into earthly desire, at times it follows the will of God and submits to His Spirit, which is granted anew in Christ.The account here of Grundtvig’s conception of the human being - specifically with regard to the consequences of the Fall for the image and likeness of God that was endowed to human beings at creation – is based on Den christelige Børnelærdom, [Elementary Christian Doctrine], which was first published in a series of articles in 1855-61 and which was later republished in book form in 1868. Additionally, it is based on a series of hymns and spiritual songs from the same period, especially “Hvor skal jeg Guds Billed finde?” [Where Shall I God’s Image Find?] and “I Begyndelsen var Ordet / Gjenlyds-Ordet i vort Bryst,” [In the Beginning Was the Word / The Resonating Word in Our Breast] together with a sermon from 1839 on Mark 7: 31-37, and finally, ‘Christenhedens Syvstjeme’ [The Pleiades of Christendom] (1854-55).The corresponding account of Kierkegaard’s conception is based on several sources: The Concept of Anxiety (1844) where the author engages in a critical rejection of the Augustinian-Lutheran understanding of inherited sin; “An Occasional Discourse” and “What We Learn from the Lilies in the Field and the Birds of the Air” from Upbuilding Discouses in Various Spirits (1847); and his discourses for Friday Communion in Christian Discourses (1848), in Three Discourses at Communion on Fridays. The High Priest - The Tax Collector - The Woman Who Sinned (1849) and in Two Discourses at the Communion on Friday (1851). Additionally, a series of other texts is consulted, including passages from Philosophical Fragments (1844) and Journals EE (1839) and HH (\ 840-41).These two respective accounts reveal that the thesis of the article cannot be comprehensively applied in every detail and for every text; the constmction is too schematic and static to do justice to Gmndtvig’s dynamics and Kierkegaard’s dialectics. But as a backdrop to a reading and comparison of their respective conceptions of the human being with regard to the Fall and its consequences for the image and likeness of God in human beings, it has been helpful to treat essential aspects of their respective anthropologies.Both Gmndtvig and Kierkegaard agree with Irenaeus that human beings consist of a triad: body, soul and spirit. And they share the conviction that human beings possess an original divine stamp, established in creation, in the form of the image and likeness of God.This stamp has not completely perished with regard to the image of God, but with regard to the likeness of God, it has been lost – though Grundtvig and Kierkegaard do not make the distinction between imago dei and similitudo dei as sharply.In Grundtvig, one finds first and foremost that despite the Fall, a positive element of God’s image survives in the soul as “the resonating word” which can both hear and utter God’s creative Word. In Kierkegaard, one finds first and foremost that because of the Fall a negative element of God’s image is left behind as a cracked and split freedom which is, however, manifest positively as a consciousness of sin and a desire for God. For both of them - insofar as Irenaeus’ distinction can be sustained - a remnant of God’s image in the soul remains while the likeness of God in the spirit has been lost. They likewise agree that God’s Spirit is the driving force for both the renewal and reunification of the image and likeness of God. For Grundtvig, this renewal of the image of God and the rebirth of the likeness of God takes place through the Holy Spirit in Baptism. For Kierkegaard, where Baptism does not have the same signifying meaning, it takes place in the interaction between Confession and Communion.Grundtvig maintains a clear axis between Baptism and Communion, with an emphasis on Baptism as the place where human “sin-guilt,” which is a consequence of the Fall, is forgiven and erased once and for all. By contrast, Kierkegaard inserts a third element, Confession, so that the schema appears as follows: Baptism, Confession, Communion, but with an emphasis on Confession as the place where human beings confess their sins and God grants His forgiveness. Grundvig underscores first and foremost that Baptism is a spiritual bath of rebirth and, secondly, that it is a covenant. To be sure, they are in agreement that Baptism must be appropriated in faith but Kierkegaard, more than Grundtvig, insists that human beings constantly fall away from and break the covenant. It is here that the confessee’s admission of sin and the absolved one’s reception of God’s forgiveness in Confession receives decisive significance as a preparation to and precondition for going to Communion worthily and for accepting forgiveness at the Lord’s table.In neither of them is there a mention of a “creation anew” in the form of a second creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing) - at least not as the dominant theme - but rather a renewal, a rebirth, a redemption, a restoration, a repetition, and a reunification in spirit and truth. While Grundtvig, who thinks especially dynamically and metaphorically, places emphasis on the homogeneous quality of the states before and after the Fall or, more specifically, before and after renewal and rebirth, Kierkegaard - who thinks more dialectically and conceptually - points to the heterogeneous quality. For both of them, one can speak of a growth: in Grundtvig, a growth in faith, hope and charity; in Kierkegaard, a growth in faith and especially in following Christ as truth which brings about a sanctifying fellowship of love and suffering in Christ.

The Young Grundtvig and NorwayBy Gustav AlbeckThis article is a revised and extended version of the lecture given by Professor Albeck on April 30th 1984 at the annual general meeting of the Grundtvig Society in Oslo. It describes Grundtvig’s close relationship to a number of Norwegian friends he made during his residence at the Walkendorf hostel in Copenhagen in the years 1808-11; this circle of friends lasted and widened to include other Norwegians in his later life.Grundtvig was 67 before he set foot on Norwegian soil, but from his early youth he had familiarised himself with the Norwegian landscape and history through Norwegian literature. His feeling of kinship with the spirit and history of Norway was for a time stronger than his consciousness of being Danish. In his youth Norway and the Norwegians played a major role in opinion-making in Denmark, and in this respect Grundtvig was no different from his contemporary Danes. But the idea of Norway’s future continued to concern him long after his youth was over. The lecture, however, confines itself to the way certain Norwegians regarded Grundtvig between 1808 and 1811.When Grundtvig returned to Copenhagen from Langeland in 1808 he had no friends in the capital. But at the Walkendorf hostel he met first and foremost Svend B. Hersleb, a Norwegian theologian, to whom he addressed a jocular poem in the same year, revealing that Grundtvig now felt himself young again and among young people following his unrequited passion for Constance Leth. Otherwise we have only a few witnesses to this first period of happiness, with Grundtvig gaining a foothold on the Danish parnassus through his first Norse Mythology and Scenes from Heroic Life in the North.The fullest accounts of Grundtvig’s relationship to the Norwegians in the period following his nervous breakdown and religious breakthrough in 1810 come from the journals of the Norwegian-Danish dean and poet, Frederik Schmidt, made during various trips to Denmark. These journals were published in extenso between 1966 and 1985 in three volumes, the last of which includes a commentary by the editors and a postscript by Gustav Albeck. Many of the valuable notes about Grundtvig are repeated in the lecture. Frederik Schmidt was the son of a Norwegian bishop; he became a rural dean and later a member of the first National Assembly at Eids voll in 1814. He was a Norwegian patriot but loyal to the Danes and in fact returned to Denmark in 1820. His descriptions of Grundtvig’s conversations with Niels Treschow, the Norwegian-born Professor of Philosophy at Copenhagen University, give an authentic and concentrated picture of Grundtvig’s reflections on his conversion to a strict Lutheran faith, which for a time threatened to hinder his development as a secular writer. Schmidt found their way of presenting their differing views “very interesting and human”, and Grundtvig’s Christian faith “warm, intense and sincere”. “In the animated features of his dark eyes and pale face there is something passionate yet also gentle”. When Schmidt himself talked to Grundtvig about a current paper which stated that in early Christianity there was a fusion between Greek thought and oriental feeling, Grundtvig exclaimed, “Yet another Christianity without Christ!” A draft of a reply to one of Schmidt’s articles shows that at that point, April 1811, Grundtvig did not believe in the working of “the living word” in its secular meaning. The draft was not printed and Grundtvig does not appear to have discussed it with Schmidt. There is a very precise description of Grundtvig’s appearance: “There is... something confused in his eyes; he sometimes closes them after a tiring conversation, as if he wants to pull his thoughts together again.” Schmidt in no way agrees with Grundtvig’s point of view, which he partly puts down to “disappointed hopes, humbled pride and the persecution... he has been subjected to...” But he does find another important explanation in Grundtvig’s “need for reassuring knowledge” and his conviction “that the misery of the age can only be helped by true religious feeling”.There are also descriptions of Grundtvig in a more jovial mood, for example together with Professor George Sverdrup, where Grundtvig repeated some rather unflattering accounts of the playwright Holberg’s behaviour towards a couple of professors who were colleagues. The same evening he and Schmidt set about attacking Napoleon while Treschow and Sverdrup defended him. Schmidt considered Grundtvig’s little book, New Year’s Eve, “devout to the point of pietist sentiment”, but thought the error lay rather in Grundtvig’s head than his heart. Lovely is the Clear Blue Night (Dejlig er den himmel blaa), published in April 1811 was even read aloud by Schmidt to a woman poet; but he criticised The Anholt-Campaign.After 1814 Schmidt adopted a somewhat cooler tone towards Grundtvig’s books. He was unable to go along with Grundtvig’s talk of a united Denmark- Norway as his fatherland. He criticised the poems Grundtvig published in his periodical, Danevirke, including even The Easter Lily for its “vulgar language”, which Grundtvig appeared to confuse with a true “language of power”. It is impossible to prove any close relationship between Schmidt and Grundtvig, but he was an attentive observer when they met in Copenhagen in 1811.With the opening of the Royal Frederik University in Christiania in 1813 Grundtvig became separated from his Norwegian friends, as Hersleb, Treschow and Sverdrup were all appointed to the new Norwegian university. They were keen for Grundtvig to join them as Professor of History. Sverdrup in particular was captivated by his personality, and in a letter dated April 21st 1812 he informed Grundtvig that he was among the candidates for the post proposed by the commission to the King. But Grundtvig himself hesitated; he felt “calm and quietly happy” in Udby “as minister for simple Christians”. To his friend, the Norwegian-born Poul Dons, he wrote, “... something in me draws me up there, something keeps me down here.” The fact that he never got the job was in many ways his own fault. His World Chronicle (1812) could not but offend scholars of a rationalist approach, in particular the prediction at the end of the book about the new university’s effect. It is linked to Grundtvig’s interpretation (1810) of the letters to the seven churches in Revelation, which are seen as a prediction of the seven great churches in the historical advance of Christianity.“It was an idea,” says Albeck, “which in spite of its obvious irrationality never left Grundtvig, and as late as 1860 it found poetic form in the great poem, The Pleiades of Christendom (Christenhedens Syvstjerne).” Grundtvig “was in no doubt that the sixth church was the Nordic, and that it would grow out of the Norwegian university, the new Wittenberg.” In 1810 Grundtvig felt himself “chosen to be the forerunner of a new reformer, a new Johan Huss before a new Luther.” From a scholarly point of view there is no reason to reproach the Danish selection panel for the negative judgment they reached regarding Grundtvig’s qualifications as a historian. His name was not even mentioned in the appointments for the new professorships. He had caused quite a stir not long before by writing a birthday poem for the King in which he directly expressed his wish that the new university might become a Wittenberg. The poem took the form of a series of accusations against Norway and the Norwegians, and in particular against Nicolai Wergeland, who in a prize-winning essay on the Norwegian university entitled Mnemosyne had stuck a few needles into Denmark and the Danes. Grundtvig accused the Norwegians of ingratitude to Denmark and unchristian pride. Even his good friend Hersleb reacted to such an attack.From the diaries of the Norwegian, Claus Pavels, we know how the Norwegian poet, Jonas Rein, wrote and told Grundtvig that “a greater meekness towards people with a different opinion would be more fitting for a teacher of Christianity.” Grundtvig replied that he had had to speak the truth loud and clear in a degenerate age. The Bishop of Bergen, Nordal Brun, also considered Grundtvig’s views as expressed to the King “misplaced and insulting”. He was particularly hurt that Norway “should have to thank Denmark for its Christianity and protestantism”. When Grundtvig printed the poem in Little Songs (Kv.dlinger) in 1815, Nicolai Wergeland was moved to write Denmark’s Political Crimes against the Kingdom of Norway, published in 1816.For Grundtvig’s Norwegian friends it was a matter of regret that he did not come to Norway, not least for Stener Stenersen, who in 1814 became a lecturer and in 1818 a professor of theology at the Norwegian university. His correspondence with Grundtvig from 1813 is now regarded as a valuable source for Grundtvig’s view of Christianity at that time. In his diary entry for August 27th 1813 Pavels notes that Stenersen had proposed that the Society for the Wellbeing of Norway should use all its influence to get Grundtvig to Norway. In his proposition Stenersen asked who possessed such unity and purity of thought as to be able to understand fully the importance of scholarship; he himself had only one candidate - Grundtvig. From a contemporary standpoint he had won his way to the Christian faith. But the rationalist Pavels, the source of our information, was far from convinced that “no man in the whole of Norway” possessed these abilities in equal measure to Grundtvig”. He therefore had misgivings about “requesting him as Norway’s last and only deliverer”.When Grundtvig heard of Stenersen’s proposition he sought an audience with the King on September 8th at which he clearly expressed his desire to become Professor of History at the Norwegian University. Two Danish professors, Børge Thorlacius and Laurids Engelsto. found it strange, however, that Treschow, Sverdrup and Hersleb could “deify Grundtvig”. And his great wish was never fulfilled. Nonetheless he did not give up. On November 15th he saw that the post of curate was being advertised at Aggers church near Christiania and applied for the job. From his book Roskilde Rhymes (published on February 1st 1814) it is clear that he believed that it was there that his great work was to be accomplished. But in those very days Frederik VI was signing the peace of Kiel which would separate Norway from Denmark, and Grundtvig from his wish.In the preface to Danevirke (dated May 1817) he realised that he had deserved the scorn of the Norwegians, for he had expected too much of them. But he never forgot his Norwegian friends. He named one of his sons after Svend Hersleb, and another son married Stenersen’s daughter. When he himself visited Norway in 1851 he was welcomed like a prince.

The return of Jesus Christ, the end of the world, war, devastating earthquakes, invading space ships, asteroid strikes, the Y2K bug, what do they all have in common? Little if anything really, except that they have all been associated with the coming of the year 2000. To many in Australia the year 2000 may well be an end, if not the End. To some of those, however, it may also be the beginning of something else most significant. That expectation will now be examined. You will have a conducted tour through war and peace, demonic activity, and aeroplanes crashing and people flying. The subject is how a significant number of Australian Christians understand the end of the world ("The End Times"), most particularly the return of Jesus Christ. Those who hold this view we will call "EndTimers". That Jesus Christ will return has been the expectation of the church from its conception. The day of Pentecost is usually regarded as the birthday of the church, and a few days before that Jesus ascended into heaven and the astonished disciples who witnessed it were told by two angels that Jesus would return (Acts 1:9-11). An expectation of the literal return of Jesus Christ has been with the church ever since. It being commonly featured in its creeds both ancient and modern. However, some individual Christians do not hold to a literal, physical return, though they would be in the minority. But amongst those who do expect a literal return, there has not always been agreement about its nature. EndTimers are one group among many, but scattered throughout the Protestant churches. They predict that Jesus Christ will return very soon, indeed, he will return in "this generation". This phrase and many of the ideas commonly associated with it are to be found in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 24. In this chapter Jesus predicts some cataclysmic events, and towards the end of his address, in verse 34, says that they will happen in "this generation". The most natural understanding of this phrase in context is that those events would happen in the life time of his hearers. Indeed, events very much like those described by Jesus did happen in the Fall of Jerusalem about forty years later. Such are the similarities between the two, many Christians with a more liberal view of the Bible see Christ's words as a later construct of the church placed on his lips, and thus as prophecy after the event. For reasons that are more complex than logical EndTimers regard the phrase "this generation" as referring to the generation beginning at the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948. From that, the events predicted by Jesus are regarded not specifically about a fall of Jerusalem, but about his return and the end of the world. Therefore those who hold this view believe that the End Times will begin within a generation of 1948. If these EndTimers, then, believe that Jesus Christ will return within a generation of 1948, the first question one has to ask is, "How long is a generation?" In the 1960s and 1970s, even into the 1980s, the common answer to that was "Forty years!". Consequently, a glut of books and videos appeared predicting that the End would begin in the 1980s, and they included such titles as: Will Christ Return by 1988: 101 Reasons Why; 88 Reasons Why Christ Will Return in 1988; and Decade of the 80's: A World in Spasm. But the most prominent and influential of them was Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth, published in 1970. That book is said to be the third largest selling Christian book of all time, with over 20 million copies in print (weep your heart out Bryce Courtney). Most books of this type have been published in America, but were frequently available in Australia. Though this system of belief seems to have had its origins in nineteenth century Britain, American fundamentalists have been its main advocates and developers. As so often happens with American ideas and practices, many Australians have enthusiastically adopted it. In Australia one of the leading teachers in the EndTimers' camp is Brisbane's Ray Yerbury, though New Zealander Barry Smith through lecture tours and books has probably had more influence here. The books of Hal Lindsey, Ray Yerbury, Barry Smith and a few other sources will now be used to detail the beliefs of these Australian EndTimers. Lindsey is included because though he is American, Late Great Planet Earth has been a major, perhaps the major, factor in many Australian Christians adopting these beliefs. The starting point must be the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. To EndTimers this is fulfilment of biblical prophecy. Lindsey says that the "paramount prophetic sign" concerning the return of Jesus Christ is that "Israel had to be a nation again in the land of its forefathers". As has already been noted, within this scheme the return of Christ must happen within a generation of that occurrence. Lindsey writing in 1970 was bold enough to say a generation was "something like forty years" (Late, 43, 54), and is said to believe that Christ will definitely return before the year 2000. Yerbury, writing twenty years later, had to have other options, and he stated that a generation could be either 40, 70-80, 100 or 120 years (Vital, 11). Now 1988 is well in the past, many EndTimers seem to expect Christ's return in or around the year 2000. However, this belief is not usually held with great dogmatism or precision. Indeed, End Times expectations in Australia have been quieter in 1999 than many would have expected. There has been little banner-waving or overt demonstration. In addition the sale of books about the End Times through Australian Christian bookshops has also been slower this year than expected. EndTimers commonly believe that further "signs" of Jesus Christ's return include widespread wars, earthquakes and famines. This is based on a particular understanding of Matthew chapter 24. In addition, a decline in Christian moral values (2 Timothy 3:1-4) and a worldwide control of the money markets (Revelation 13:11-18) are also seen as signs that Christ's return is not far away. To what level wars, earthquakes and famines have to rise or moral values decline before they can be considered authentic signs is not usually discussed, but is clearly a difficulty. Another "sign" of the approaching End is the emergence of a demonic political leader, the Antichrist, also known as "the Beast" (Revelation 13:1-18). With the time scale involved it is necessary to believe that this man, and it always seems to be a man, is alive today, so Antichrist candidates have included the present Pope, the President of a rapidly emerging United States of Europe, Bill Gates, and Prince Charles. Australian leaders do not seem to be considered sufficiently important or frightening to feature as Anichrist candidates. The Bible gives the identification of this "Beast": the number 666. Barry Smith, with neat numerics (a = 6, b = 12, etc.), favoured Henry Kissinger for this role, his surname totalling 666 on Smith's method. Yerbury, with characteristic caution, says that we cannot know his identity at this stage. Another figure that must appear is the Antichrist's henchman, "the False Prophet", a religious leader (Smith, Warning, 22-56; Second Warning, 57-66; better, 170-173; Yerbury, Ultimate, 99-112; Vital, 53-4). Central to EndTimers' beliefs is the Great Tribulation, a time of terrible war and suffering. The duration of this cataclysm is variously described as being seven years (Lindsey, Late, 42, 137-8; Yerbury, Vital, 42-4) or three and a half years (Smith, Warning, 102-112). Where does the return of Jesus Christ fit into this? Commonly EndTimers believe that he will return twice, the first time will be immediately prior to the Great Tribulation, the second time will be seven years later. This first return is for a particular purpose: to remove all the "true" Christians from Earth and take them to heaven, in what is usually known as "the Rapture". This is sometimes referred to as "His coming for the saints". On this occasion he does not actually visit Earth; he only appears above it, and "the saints" will literally rise up to meet him in the sky (Matthew 24:37-41; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). But for those remaining on Earth this will all be hidden, that is they will know that their Christian friends and neighbours have disappeared, but will have no idea where they have gone or what has happened (Lindsey, Late, 135-142; Smith, Warning, 150-157; Yerbury, Ultimate, 119-122; Vital, 33-6). This belief conjures up some extraordinary expectations. A Christian doctor operating on a patient will be whisked away, mid operation. Car drivers will disappear, causing their vehicles to crash. Airline pilots will suddenly vanish with terrible consequences. Indeed, it is rumoured that some American airlines do not allow Christians to be both pilot and co-pilot of the one aircraft. Christians must be teamed with non-Christians, in case the Christian is suddenly "raptured". Though this specific belief may not have as much significance in Australia as it does in America, there is no doubt that it is still held tenaciously by its Australian advocates. After the Great Tribulation Jesus Christ will return once more, this time actually to Earth. This return is sometimes referred to as Christ's coming "with the saints", for he will bring back the previously taken Christians with him. This will be followed by the fearsome battle of Armageddon, which Christ will win. He will then establish his reign over the whole world, ruling from Jerusalem, in peace, with equity. This reign will last for 1000 years, the millennium of chapter 20 of the book of Revelation. It is normal for EndTimers to perceive this as literally 1000 years, whereas many other Christians, often with very different understandings of End Times events, would see it as symbolic for a long period (Lindsey, Late, 169-178; Smith, Warning, 158-160; Yerbury, Ultimate, 137-149; Vital, 78-101). Following the Millennium there will be a Satan-led rebellion, but this will be short lived, possibly once more of a seven year duration (Lindsey, 178; Yerbury, Vital, 105-7). God, however, will then triumph over Satan, and wrap up the events of this world and this age, judge its inhabitants, and create a new Heaven and a new Earth, upon which the saved will live with Christ forever (Lindsey, 178; Yerbury, Ultimate, 150-154; Vital, 108-117). Who in Australia holds the views outlined above? They are held by most Australian Christian fundamentalists and some Christian evangelicals. Who are these fundamentalists and evangelicals and what else do they believe? Both groups hold to the core traditional Protestant beliefs (the deity of Jesus Christ, the Trinity, etc), and are to be found in most, if not all, Protestant denominations in Australia, from the Anglican Church to the more recently formed charismatic churches. Fundamentalists and evangelicals are not always clearly distinguishable from each other, for there is much overlapping in beliefs between them. But there are, however, some basic differences between the two. Fundamentalists have a very strong emphasis on a literal interpretation of the Bible, frequently interpreting in an unnatural way, often taking metaphors, symbols, and other figures literally. They are also frequently anti-intellectual. Evangelicals, on the other hand, would take a more rational approach to the Bible, giving due regard to the form of the specific writing, and are usually prepared to engage in intellectual debate. Both groups believe that Jesus Christ will literally return, though there is disagreement about the details between and within the two groups. How many evangelical and fundamentalist Christians are there in Australia? A survey published in 1994 was conducted amongst the attenders of numerous Protestant congregations, and discovered that 48% of those people believed that "the Bible is the Word of God which needs to be read in the context of the times". These, most of them at any rate, would be what have here been termed "evangelicals". Another 21% believed that "the Bible is the Word of God, to be taken literally word for word", and thus would be "fundamentalists" (Kaldor, 45-7). If the survey was anything like accurate, approaching 70% of those attending Australian Protestant churches are either evangelicals or fundamentalists. As it would also seem that there are over 1 million attenders at Protestant churches in Australia (Kaldor, 344), it is probable that there are more than seven hundred thousand evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in Australia. The specific beliefs outlined in this article are widespread amongst fundamentalist Christians, but also seem to be held by some evangelicals. These Christians can be found in probably all Protestant denominations, though are much more common in charismatic and Baptist churches than in, say, Anglican and Uniting churches. These beliefs are also found in some of the sects outside the mainstream Christian church. The number of EndTimers in Australia is almost certainly well in excess of one hundred thousand, and may be above two hundred thousand. How do these beliefs manifest themselves in current Australian life? First, one would expect EndTimers to be less concerned about certain issues of social concern than other Christians, and this often seems to be the case. For example, one does not often find them championing the protection of the environment. If Christ's Kingdom on Earth is not many years away, then why worry about such things now? They can be attended to when Christ returns. The important issue is to prepare people for that return. Another manifestation is the setting of dates for that return, which is probably more common than many realise. Those writers consulted for this study do not predict exact dates for these events. They rely on the more elastic concept of the "this generation" idea. But other people do predict precise dates and times. It is not uncommon to hear individuals, and it is usually individuals rather than movements, predicting that Christ will return on this date or another. They each have their own schemes of interpreting the numerics of such biblical books as Daniel and Revelation. One of the most famous of these predictions was in 1992 when posters began appearing in various Australian towns declaring: THE FINAL WARNING OF GOD JESUS is COMING IN 1am 29th OCT 1992 IN THE AIR (It's the Rapture) Remember the days of Noah and Lot Reject the 666 of computer bar code Repent your sins to God Ready the 7 years Great Tribulation This particular prediction originated in a movement in Korea, and, indeed, its leader in Australia was a Korean on temporary residence here. Several of the teachings discussed in this article are indicated in the poster, with the addition of a very precise prediction of Jesus Christ's return. When the day approached, the leader of the Australian wing of the movement was interviewed in newspapers and on TV, and he politely but boldly confirmed his conviction to the Australian public. The Current Affair interview with him the day after the prediction was proved false was especially touching. He apologised with great sincerity to those he had misled, and soon after returned to his homeland. Ironically, the organisation of which this man was part seems to have left open the possibility of future predictions. It is one of the astonishing facts of this type of endeavour throughout history, that those who predict the end of the world are not discouraged by failure. They just try again. Why? The answers may vary, but central is a strong belief in the certainty of biblical prophecy and the confidence that some have that they know best how to interpret it. It would seem that it would take more than failure to dent that confidence. References Kaldor, Peter (ed.) Winds of Change: The Experience of Church in a Changing Australia. Sydney: Anzea, 1994. Lindsey, Hal. The Late Great Planet Earth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970. Smith, Barry R. "... better than Nostradamus." Marlborough: Smith Family, 1996. ---. Second Warning. New Zealand: Smith Family, 1985. ---. Warning. New Zealand: Smith Family, 1980. Yerbury, Ray W. The Ultimate Event. Brisbane: Cross, 1988. ---. Vital Signs of Christ's Coming. Brisbane: Cross, 1990. Citation reference for this article MLA style: David Bennett. "That Year 2000: The End or a Beginning?." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.8 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/end.php>. Chicago style: David Bennett, "That Year 2000: The End or a Beginning?," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 8 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/end.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: David Bennett. (1999) That year 2000: the end or a beginning?. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(8). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/end.php> ([your date of access]).

In our roles as lead pastor (Gad Mpoyo) and worshiping member/lay preacher (Jennifer L. Aycock), we have conducted a case study of Shalom International Ministry, a New Worshiping Community in the Presbyterian Church USA. The present and future religious vitality of the United States may be more clearly assessed through measures of participation, leadership, and ownership of congregational and community life by African immigrants and refugees aged twelve to twenty-seven. As African immigrant young adults’ spirituality and personal capacities are cultivated within the life of the church, it empowers them to contribute to American religious life in potentially transformative ways.

This article concerns itself with the development of a missional ecclesiology and the practices that may accept the challenge of conducting pastoral ministry in the context of South African, middleclass congregations adapting to a rapidly changing, post-apartheid environment. Some practical theological perspectives on pastoral counselling are investigated, whilst Narrative Therapy is explored as an emerging theory of deconstruction to enable the facilitating of congregational change towards a missional understanding of church life in local communities. Subsequently, the theological paradigm of missional ecclesiology is investigated before drawing the broad lines of a theory for pastoral ministry within missional ecclesiology.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: In this article, a missional base theory is proposed for pastoral counselling, consisting of interdisciplinary insights gained from the fields of Missiology, Practical Theology, Narrative Therapy and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. The implications of this proposal for the development of a missional pastoral theory focus on the following three aspects:� re-establishing pastoral identity: exploring Christ� pastoral development: intentional faith formation� pastoral ministry: enabling Christ-centred lives.In such a missional pastoral theory four practices should be operationalised: first of all, a cognitive approach to increasing knowledge of the biblical narrative is necessary. This provides the hermeneutical skills necessary to enable people to internalise the biblical ethics and character traits ascribed to the Christian life. Secondly, a pastoral theory needs to pay close attention to development of emotional intelligence. Thirdly, this should be done in the context of small groups, where the focus falls on the personality development of members. Finally, missional pastoral theory should also include the acquisition of life coaching skills, where leaders can be adequately mentored in their roles as coaches of nonequipped people. In taking the research to a further level of normative reflection, attention should be turned to developing specific areas of pastoral care:� formal clinical education and subsequent accreditation of pastors (in the South African context pastoral care is not legally recognised as a valid area of psychological therapy) � specifically pertaining to Narrative Therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy� basic counselling skills for non-theologically trained congregational leaders� qualitative and quantitative research methods� organisational theory for congregational ministry� crisis counselling skills for congregation members serving in a community context� marriage and family therapy� emotional intelligence as outcome of a spiritual growth cycle� leadership development and personality assessment� personal growth by confronting and crossing emotional and cultural boundaries.

Because of continual shifts in the sociocultural, political, and economic realities of any setting, theology, in order to maintain relevance, must be reflective of such shifts. It must commit itself to the maintenance of recognised confessional constants, but it must speak in relevant ways to the needs of the church’s present situation. This is the voice of many African Christian theologians. Black theology in the United States is confronted with the same type of challenge, namely, what is relevant reflection for the black church and the black community in the present? Confronting and overcoming racism has been a constant challenge for people of African descent in the United States. What kind of theological reflection emerging from the black church, would best accomplish two things: to enable the black church to exercise leadership in the movement toward black flourishing despite the effects of racism, and to contribute to the enhancement of Christian theological reflection for the church of Jesus Christ, in general. There are a number of important factors to be considered, but I see three areas of needed consideration. First, what is the meaning of “blackness” in play today? Second, what is the nature of “oppression” experienced in the present? Finally, is there a place for forgiveness in the black church in the present?

Abstract The role and function of children’s ministry during the first six months of the Covid-19 pandemic is explored, including a comparison of observations from four different contexts: Norway, South Africa, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom. Theological reflection examines the emerging ecclesiologies, form and adaptation of sacramental practices and pastoral care of families during this time of crisis. This investigation acknowledges awareness that there were significant restrictions and consequent challenges facing churches during this time, causing implications on children’s ministry that were unprecedented and frustrating for the Church on a global scale. Observations and recommendations are presented to aid churches globally in ensuring that children’s ministry during such times of crisis is child-centred, values the child as part of the body of Christ, fosters intergenerational role modelling and solidarity, and helps rather than hinders children on their spiritual journey.

In the 1980's, I was privileged to attend the profession ceremony of my sister into the Catholic Sisters of St. Joseph (SSJ). She entered the convent in the fall after her high school graduation and, ten years later, had decided that she was ready to make her final vows and commit her life to the work of God on earth and to this particular apostolic community. Though I was happy that my sister was following her calling in life, I worried that she was committing herself to an unnecessarily harsh life, ruled by the long-standing patriarchy of the Catholic Church. I didn't have much faith that the Church, in its tradition and dogma, could accommodate my sister's spirit of activism and desire to bring about social justice. However, this ceremony, designed and enacted by the SSJ, changed my mind about the possibilities. They demonstrated how "sisterhood" and life in community would position my sister to affect change in the community and allow her to participate in the creation of a kinder, more inclusive version of the Catholic religion. The profession ceremony and the accompanying mass, though they reflected the new directions in the Church, were unlike any other Catholic ceremonies that I had ever experienced. In a break from the usual service, the Sisters performed the majority of the activities of the mass. A priest (male, of course) was present only to carry out the consecration of the host for communion services and to give the blessing. The taking of such freedom in the mass by the Sisters was something that was unheard of in earlier days in the Church. In the Catholicism that I knew, the strictly ordered rituals of the mass were to be enacted by the priest and observed by the congregation. The enactment of mass also served as a subliminal vehicle for hierarchically ordering the congregation: from God to priests, to nuns, and finally to the people. The positioning of priests and nuns and their respective roles in the church has been an ongoing struggle for nuns since Vatican II, a series of councils created in 1962 by Pope John XXIII to update the workings and interactions of the Church (http://www.rcchurch/vatican2/). Religious orders were given much more autonomy over their lives and lifestyles, but little had changed in regard to the hierarchy. In 1979 when the Pope visited the U.S., women religious urged him to allow greater recognition and participation for nuns. Theresa Kane, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) asked the Pope on behalf of all nuns to "respond by providing the possibility of women as persons being included in all ministries of the church" (Kane, in McNamara, 1996, p.663). Their request went unheeded. Even now, with the turn of a new century, Catholic women religious are still denied the privilege of becoming priests or moving into positions of power within the Church. It has been a great disappointment for many nuns, but they have persevered and created new ways of operating. They changed into contemporary dress, moved beyond just teaching and nursing positions and took up social activism in earnest (Rogers, 1996). They have been bolstered by their desire to make a difference in the church and society, and are determined to find alternative ways to have their voices heard in their work of serving the people. My sister's commitment ceremony also broke from Catholic tradition and reflected the new directions of the SSJ. She based her personal statement of commitment on the Shakertown Pledge, making a connection to another monastic community, the Shakers, who live simply in the service of God and community (http://www.nypl.org). Among others, she made promises of becoming a world citizen, leading an ecologically sound life, living a life of creative simplicity, sharing of her personal wealth with the poor, renewing herself through prayer, meditation, and study, and responsibly participating in a community of faith. This personal statement was followed by her formal commitment to the Sisters of St. Joseph. To the President of the SSJ, (no longer a Mother Superior), my sister vowed to unite her life to the Community, bring the Gospel to the people and seek union of neighbor with neighbor through commitments to poverty, celibacy and obedience. She received a plain gold wedding band, not as a "bride of Christ", but as a symbol of her commitment to God, the community of the SSJ, and the world community. In their simplicity and sincerity, the vows touched my heart. My sister had moved from our nuclear family into a new family of the SSJ and the world. Her work and the world in which she moved would certainly be different than the one we had envisioned throughout our childhood together. According to Schneiders (2000), it is much more difficult today to "locate" and "situate" women religious. Unlike nuns of the earlier part of the century, my sister would not be secluded in a convent, away from people and identifiable only by a flowing black habit and service in an insular community. The world was open to her to find her ministry. In these times, many religious orders find and create their own ministries, like a "bricolage", pieceworking solutions to individually fit the myriad of life situations. Schneiders (2000, p. xxvii) describes the phenomenon in this way: "The unity of the final product and its utility result not from a preordained plan correctly followed but from the inner directedness of the one creating." More than likely, the possibility of continually being involved in creative change was the lure of the SSJ for my sister. For the SSJ, the ever-changing, creative nature of their work allows them the freedom to work in places where ministries are most needed. The Sisters of St. Joseph use their marginalized position in the Church and society as a position for change. At the profession ceremony, the Sisters had found an alternative way to reach the people and serve their congregation. They knowingly pushed the limits of tradition in the church as they expanded their participation in the ceremony and the mass. Then and in the present time, the SSJ, like bell hooks, choose to live on the margins of society for a reason; the margins are "a site one stays in, clings to even, because it nourishes one's capacity to react. It offers to one the possibility of a radical perspective from which to see and create, to imagine alternative-new worlds (1990, pp. 149-50)." At the ceremony, members of the SSJ made statements of ongoing commitment to service and their ministries. They spoke in support of poor people, disabled people, those labeled as criminals, and for all those who were not getting their fair share of life. The SSJ profoundly believe in God "who is the origin of all that is", and they seek "the union of ourselves and all people with God and with one another in and through Christ Jesus" (1987, Constitution of the Sisters of St. Joseph, p. 3; http://www.nd.edu/~csjus/home.html). For the SSJ, this charism means becoming prophets of the Church. Like their founding order, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Le Puy, France in the seventeenth century, they continually seek out those people and organizations that are in need and create solutions with them. Once programs are established and integrated into the community, they move on to the next area of need. Similarly, they see their formation as Sisters of St. Joseph as a "lifelong process" (SSJ Constitution, p. 18). After the seriousness of the vows and statements, the profession ceremony became a celebration. Happiness and energy filled the chapel as people smiled widely and enthusiastically joined in the singing of hymns. The final song, an old Black spiritual, "Oh, Happy Day", nearly brought the house down. It was the most emotional group expression I had ever seen in a Catholic service. A special experience had been co-created and shared by all of us, even the many long-time traditional Catholics who all responded enthusiastically. With the staid protocol of the mass was cast aside, the spirit of the people took over. Pearce and Cronen (1980) would propose that we, the nuns and laity, in our conjoint action, had reached a moment of liberation; we were able to create a new way of being in the Catholic Church. In their work, the SSJ accept and circumvent the worldly struggles they face with the Catholic Church by acting in a spirit of connection with the people and the community. In their ongoing ministries, the SSJ give witness to their "love of God and neighbor by living simply and working for a more just society" (SSJ Constitution, p. 12). They often struggle with the most difficult of situations and work with the most unfortunate members of society. With their love of God and service, they encourage community members to work with them to change not only the daily conditions of life, but also, the way the Church and others in the community understand and accept all people. The Catholic religion in this form is reachable; the Creator, positioned as God, works through and is simultaneously created in the actions and words of the people. In a circular fashion, God is connected with people, and people are connected neighbor to neighbor, as they connect with the spirit and word of God. In this way, the SSJ continually work toward and create their goal "that all may be one." At the profession ceremony, the people took this gift of spirit with them and, hopefully, were inspired to begin connecting in new ways with the people and chosen God/spirit of their own lives. When my sister first entered the convent, I used to wonder why nuns thanked each other after sharing a religious service. After participating in the profession ceremony, I knew. Thank you, Teresa.

IntroductionIn the year 2000, a group of likeminded individuals got together and convened the first annual World Barista Championship in Monte Carlo. With twelve competitors from around the globe, each competitor was judged by seven judges: one head judge who oversaw the process, two technical judges who assessed technical skills, and four sensory judges who evaluated the taste and appearance of the espresso drinks. Competitors had fifteen minutes to serve four espresso coffees, four cappuccino coffees, and four “signature” drinks that they had devised using one shot of espresso and other ingredients of their choice, but no alcohol. The competitors were also assessed on their overall barista skills, their creativity, and their ability to perform under pressure and impress the judges with their knowledge of coffee. This competition has grown to the extent that eleven years later, in 2011, 54 countries held national barista championships with the winner from each country competing for the highly coveted position of World Barista Champion. That year, Alejandro Mendez from El Salvador became the first world champion from a coffee producing nation. Champion baristas are more likely to come from coffee consuming countries than they are from coffee producing countries as countries that produce coffee seldom have a culture of espresso coffee consumption. While Ireland is not a coffee-producing nation, the Irish are the highest per capita consumers of tea in the world (Mac Con Iomaire, “Ireland”). Despite this, in 2008, Stephen Morrissey from Ireland overcame 50 other national champions to become the 2008 World Barista Champion (see, http://vimeo.com/2254130). Another Irish national champion, Colin Harmon, came fourth in this competition in both 2009 and 2010. This paper discusses the history and development of coffee and coffee houses in Dublin from the 17th century, charting how coffee culture in Dublin appeared, evolved, and stagnated before re-emerging at the beginning of the 21st century, with a remarkable win in the World Barista Championships. The historical links between coffeehouses and media—ranging from print media to electronic and social media—are discussed. In this, the coffee house acts as an informal public gathering space, what urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls a “third place,” neither work nor home. These “third places” provide anchors for community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction (Oldenburg). This paper will also show how competition from other “third places” such as clubs, hotels, restaurants, and bars have affected the vibrancy of coffee houses. Early Coffee Houses The first coffee house was established in Constantinople in 1554 (Tannahill 252; Huetz de Lemps 387). The first English coffee houses opened in Oxford in 1650 and in London in 1652. Coffee houses multiplied thereafter but, in 1676, when some London coffee houses became hotbeds for political protest, the city prosecutor decided to close them. The ban was soon lifted and between 1680 and 1730 Londoners discovered the pleasure of drinking coffee (Huetz de Lemps 388), although these coffee houses sold a number of hot drinks including tea and chocolate as well as coffee.The first French coffee houses opened in Marseille in 1671 and in Paris the following year. Coffee houses proliferated during the 18th century: by 1720 there were 380 public cafés in Paris and by the end of the century there were 600 (Huetz de Lemps 387). Café Procope opened in Paris in 1674 and, in the 18th century, became a literary salon with regular patrons: Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and Condorcet (Huetz de Lemps 387; Pitte 472). In England, coffee houses developed into exclusive clubs such as Crockford’s and the Reform, whilst elsewhere in Europe they evolved into what we identify as cafés, similar to the tea shops that would open in England in the late 19th century (Tannahill 252-53). Tea quickly displaced coffee in popularity in British coffee houses (Taylor 142). Pettigrew suggests two reasons why Great Britain became a tea-drinking nation while most of the rest of Europe took to coffee (48). The first was the power of the East India Company, chartered by Elizabeth I in 1600, which controlled the world’s biggest tea monopoly and promoted the beverage enthusiastically. The second was the difficulty England had in securing coffee from the Levant while at war with France at the end of the seventeenth century and again during the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13). Tea also became the dominant beverage in Ireland and over a period of time became the staple beverage of the whole country. In 1835, Samuel Bewley and his son Charles dared to break the monopoly of The East India Company by importing over 2,000 chests of tea directly from Canton, China, to Ireland. His family would later become synonymous with the importation of coffee and with opening cafés in Ireland (see, Farmar for full history of the Bewley's and their activities). Ireland remains the highest per-capita consumer of tea in the world. Coffee houses have long been linked with social and political change (Kennedy, Politicks; Pincus). The notion that these new non-alcoholic drinks were responsible for the Enlightenment because people could now gather socially without getting drunk is rejected by Wheaton as frivolous, since there had always been alternatives to strong drink, and European civilisation had achieved much in the previous centuries (91). She comments additionally that cafés, as gathering places for dissenters, took over the role that taverns had long played. Pennell and Vickery support this argument adding that by offering a choice of drinks, and often sweets, at a fixed price and in a more civilized setting than most taverns provided, coffee houses and cafés were part of the rise of the modern restaurant. It is believed that, by 1700, the commercial provision of food and drink constituted the second largest occupational sector in London. Travellers’ accounts are full of descriptions of London taverns, pie shops, coffee, bun and chop houses, breakfast huts, and food hawkers (Pennell; Vickery). Dublin Coffee Houses and Later incarnations The earliest reference to coffee houses in Dublin is to the Cock Coffee House in Cook Street during the reign of Charles II (1660-85). Public dining or drinking establishments listed in the 1738 Dublin Directory include taverns, eating houses, chop houses, coffee houses, and one chocolate house in Fownes Court run by Peter Bardin (Hardiman and Kennedy 157). During the second half of the 17th century, Dublin’s merchant classes transferred allegiance from taverns to the newly fashionable coffee houses as places to conduct business. By 1698, the fashion had spread to country towns with coffee houses found in Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Wexford, and Galway, and slightly later in Belfast and Waterford in the 18th century. Maxwell lists some of Dublin’s leading coffee houses and taverns, noting their clientele: There were Lucas’s Coffee House, on Cork Hill (the scene of many duels), frequented by fashionable young men; the Phoenix, in Werburgh Street, where political dinners were held; Dick’s Coffee House, in Skinner’s Row, much patronized by literary men, for it was over a bookseller’s; the Eagle, in Eustace Street, where meetings of the Volunteers were held; the Old Sot’s Hole, near Essex Bridge, famous for its beefsteaks and ale; the Eagle Tavern, on Cork Hill, which was demolished at the same time as Lucas’s to make room for the Royal Exchange; and many others. (76) Many of the early taverns were situated around the Winetavern Street, Cook Street, and Fishamble Street area. (see Fig. 1) Taverns, and later coffee houses, became meeting places for gentlemen and centres for debate and the exchange of ideas. In 1706, Francis Dickson published the Flying Post newspaper at the Four Courts coffee house in Winetavern Street. The Bear Tavern (1725) and the Black Lyon (1735), where a Masonic Lodge assembled every Wednesday, were also located on this street (Gilbert v.1 160). Dick’s Coffee house was established in the late 17th century by bookseller and newspaper proprietor Richard Pue, and remained open until 1780 when the building was demolished. In 1740, Dick’s customers were described thus: Ye citizens, gentlemen, lawyers and squires,who summer and winter surround our great fires,ye quidnuncs! who frequently come into Pue’s,To live upon politicks, coffee, and news. (Gilbert v.1 174) There has long been an association between coffeehouses and publishing books, pamphlets and particularly newspapers. Other Dublin publishers and newspapermen who owned coffee houses included Richard Norris and Thomas Bacon. Until the 1850s, newspapers were burdened with a number of taxes: on the newsprint, a stamp duty, and on each advertisement. By 1865, these taxes had virtually disappeared, resulting in the appearance of 30 new newspapers in Ireland, 24 of them in Dublin. Most people read from copies which were available free of charge in taverns, clubs, and coffee houses (MacGiolla Phadraig). Coffee houses also kept copies of international newspapers. On 4 May 1706, Francis Dickson notes in the Dublin Intelligence that he held the Paris and London Gazettes, Leyden Gazette and Slip, the Paris and Hague Lettres à la Main, Daily Courant, Post-man, Flying Post, Post-script and Manuscripts in his coffeehouse in Winetavern Street (Kennedy, “Dublin”). Henry Berry’s analysis of shop signs in Dublin identifies 24 different coffee houses in Dublin, with the main clusters in Essex Street near the Custom’s House (Cocoa Tree, Bacon’s, Dempster’s, Dublin, Merchant’s, Norris’s, and Walsh’s) Cork Hill (Lucas’s, St Lawrence’s, and Solyman’s) Skinners’ Row (Bow’s’, Darby’s, and Dick’s) Christ Church Yard (Four Courts, and London) College Green (Jack’s, and Parliament) and Crampton Court (Exchange, and Little Dublin). (see Figure 1, below, for these clusters and the locations of other Dublin coffee houses.) The earliest to be referenced is the Cock Coffee House in Cook Street during the reign of Charles II (1660-85), with Solyman’s (1691), Bow’s (1692), and Patt’s on High Street (1699), all mentioned in print before the 18th century. The name of one, the Cocoa Tree, suggests that chocolate was also served in this coffee house. More evidence of the variety of beverages sold in coffee houses comes from Gilbert who notes that in 1730, one Dublin poet wrote of George Carterwright’s wife at The Custom House Coffee House on Essex Street: Her coffee’s fresh and fresh her tea,Sweet her cream, ptizan, and whea,her drams, of ev’ry sort, we findboth good and pleasant, in their kind. (v. 2 161) Figure 1: Map of Dublin indicating Coffee House clusters 1 = Sackville St.; 2 = Winetavern St.; 3 = Essex St.; 4 = Cork Hill; 5 = Skinner's Row; 6 = College Green.; 7 = Christ Church Yard; 8 = Crampton Court.; 9 = Cook St.; 10 = High St.; 11 = Eustace St.; 12 = Werburgh St.; 13 = Fishamble St.; 14 = Westmorland St.; 15 = South Great George's St.; 16 = Grafton St.; 17 = Kildare St.; 18 = Dame St.; 19 = Anglesea Row; 20 = Foster Place; 21 = Poolbeg St.; 22 = Fleet St.; 23 = Burgh Quay.A = Cafe de Paris, Lincoln Place; B = Red Bank Restaurant, D'Olier St.; C = Morrison's Hotel, Nassau St.; D = Shelbourne Hotel, St. Stephen's Green; E = Jury's Hotel, Dame St. Some coffee houses transformed into the gentlemen’s clubs that appeared in London, Paris and Dublin in the 17th century. These clubs originally met in coffee houses, then taverns, until later proprietary clubs became fashionable. Dublin anticipated London in club fashions with members of the Kildare Street Club (1782) and the Sackville Street Club (1794) owning the premises of their clubhouse, thus dispensing with the proprietor. The first London club to be owned by the members seems to be Arthur’s, founded in 1811 (McDowell 4) and this practice became widespread throughout the 19th century in both London and Dublin. The origin of one of Dublin’s most famous clubs, Daly’s Club, was a chocolate house opened by Patrick Daly in c.1762–65 in premises at 2–3 Dame Street (Brooke). It prospered sufficiently to commission its own granite-faced building on College Green between Anglesea Street and Foster Place which opened in 1789 (Liddy 51). Daly’s Club, “where half the land of Ireland has changed hands”, was renowned for the gambling that took place there (Montgomery 39). Daly’s sumptuous palace catered very well (and discreetly) for honourable Members of Parliament and rich “bucks” alike (Craig 222). The changing political and social landscape following the Act of Union led to Daly’s slow demise and its eventual closure in 1823 (Liddy 51). Coincidentally, the first Starbucks in Ireland opened in 2005 in the same location. Once gentlemen’s clubs had designated buildings where members could eat, drink, socialise, and stay overnight, taverns and coffee houses faced competition from the best Dublin hotels which also had coffee rooms “in which gentlemen could read papers, write letters, take coffee and wine in the evening—an exiguous substitute for a club” (McDowell 17). There were at least 15 establishments in Dublin city claiming to be hotels by 1789 (Corr 1) and their numbers grew in the 19th century, an expansion which was particularly influenced by the growth of railways. By 1790, Dublin’s public houses (“pubs”) outnumbered its coffee houses with Dublin boasting 1,300 (Rooney 132). Names like the Goose and Gridiron, Harp and Crown, Horseshoe and Magpie, and Hen and Chickens—fashionable during the 17th and 18th centuries in Ireland—hung on decorative signs for those who could not read. Throughout the 20th century, the public house provided the dominant “third place” in Irish society, and the drink of choice for itd predominantly male customers was a frothy pint of Guinness. Newspapers were available in public houses and many newspapermen had their own favourite hostelries such as Mulligan’s of Poolbeg Street; The Pearl, and The Palace on Fleet Street; and The White Horse Inn on Burgh Quay. Any coffee served in these establishments prior to the arrival of the new coffee culture in the 21st century was, however, of the powdered instant variety. Hotels / Restaurants with Coffee Rooms From the mid-19th century, the public dining landscape of Dublin changed in line with London and other large cities in the United Kingdom. Restaurants did appear gradually in the United Kingdom and research suggests that one possible reason for this growth from the 1860s onwards was the Refreshment Houses and Wine Licences Act (1860). The object of this act was to “reunite the business of eating and drinking”, thereby encouraging public sobriety (Mac Con Iomaire, “Emergence” v.2 95). Advertisements for Dublin restaurants appeared in The Irish Times from the 1860s. Thom’s Directory includes listings for Dining Rooms from the 1870s and Refreshment Rooms are listed from the 1880s. This pattern continued until 1909, when Thom’s Directory first includes a listing for “Restaurants and Tea Rooms”. Some of the establishments that advertised separate coffee rooms include Dublin’s first French restaurant, the Café de Paris, The Red Bank Restaurant, Morrison’s Hotel, Shelbourne Hotel, and Jury’s Hotel (see Fig. 1). The pattern of separate ladies’ coffee rooms emerged in Dublin and London during the latter half of the 19th century and mixed sex dining only became popular around the last decade of the 19th century, partly infuenced by Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier (Mac Con Iomaire, “Public Dining”). Irish Cafés: From Bewley’s to Starbucks A number of cafés appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, most notably Robert Roberts and Bewley’s, both of which were owned by Quaker families. Ernest Bewley took over the running of the Bewley’s importation business in the 1890s and opened a number of Oriental Cafés; South Great Georges Street (1894), Westmoreland Street (1896), and what became the landmark Bewley’s Oriental Café in Grafton Street (1927). Drawing influence from the grand cafés of Paris and Vienna, oriental tearooms, and Egyptian architecture (inspired by the discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamen’s Tomb), the Grafton Street business brought a touch of the exotic into the newly formed Irish Free State. Bewley’s cafés became the haunt of many of Ireland’s leading literary figures, including Samuel Becket, Sean O’Casey, and James Joyce who mentioned the café in his book, Dubliners. A full history of Bewley’s is available (Farmar). It is important to note, however, that pots of tea were sold in equal measure to mugs of coffee in Bewley’s. The cafés changed over time from waitress- to self-service and a failure to adapt to changing fashions led to the business being sold, with only the flagship café in Grafton Street remaining open in a revised capacity. It was not until the beginning of the 21st century that a new wave of coffee house culture swept Ireland. This was based around speciality coffee beverages such as espressos, cappuccinos, lattés, macchiatos, and frappuccinnos. This new phenomenon coincided with the unprecedented growth in the Irish economy, during which Ireland became known as the “Celtic Tiger” (Murphy 3). One aspect of this period was a building boom and a subsequent growth in apartment living in the Dublin city centre. The American sitcom Friends and its fictional coffee house, “Central Perk,” may also have helped popularise the use of coffee houses as “third spaces” (Oldenberg) among young apartment dwellers in Dublin. This was also the era of the “dotcom boom” when many young entrepreneurs, software designers, webmasters, and stock market investors were using coffee houses as meeting places for business and also as ad hoc office spaces. This trend is very similar to the situation in the 17th and early 18th centuries where coffeehouses became known as sites for business dealings. Various theories explaining the growth of the new café culture have circulated, with reasons ranging from a growth in Eastern European migrants, anti-smoking legislation, returning sophisticated Irish emigrants, and increased affluence (Fenton). Dublin pubs, facing competition from the new coffee culture, began installing espresso coffee machines made by companies such as Gaggia to attract customers more interested in a good latté than a lager and it is within this context that Irish baristas gained such success in the World Barista competition. In 2001 the Georges Street branch of Bewley’s was taken over by a chain called Café, Bar, Deli specialising in serving good food at reasonable prices. Many ex-Bewley’s staff members subsequently opened their own businesses, roasting coffee and running cafés. Irish-owned coffee chains such as Java Republic, Insomnia, and O’Brien’s Sandwich Bars continued to thrive despite the competition from coffee chains Starbucks and Costa Café. Indeed, so successful was the handmade Irish sandwich and coffee business that, before the economic downturn affected its business, Irish franchise O’Brien’s operated in over 18 countries. The Café, Bar, Deli group had also begun to franchise its operations in 2008 when it too became a victim of the global economic downturn. With the growth of the Internet, many newspapers have experienced falling sales of their printed format and rising uptake of their electronic versions. Most Dublin coffee houses today provide wireless Internet connections so their customers can read not only the local newspapers online, but also others from all over the globe, similar to Francis Dickenson’s coffee house in Winetavern Street in the early 18th century. Dublin has become Europe’s Silicon Valley, housing the European headquarters for companies such as Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Paypal, and Facebook. There are currently plans to provide free wireless connectivity throughout Dublin’s city centre in order to promote e-commerce, however, some coffee houses shut off the wireless Internet in their establishments at certain times of the week in order to promote more social interaction to ensure that these “third places” remain “great good places” at the heart of the community (Oldenburg). Conclusion Ireland is not a country that is normally associated with a coffee culture but coffee houses have been part of the fabric of that country since they emerged in Dublin in the 17th century. These Dublin coffee houses prospered in the 18th century, and survived strong competition from clubs and hotels in the 19th century, and from restaurant and public houses into the 20th century. In 2008, when Stephen Morrissey won the coveted title of World Barista Champion, Ireland’s place as a coffee consuming country was re-established. The first decade of the 21st century witnessed a birth of a new espresso coffee culture, which shows no signs of weakening despite Ireland’s economic travails. References Berry, Henry F. “House and Shop Signs in Dublin in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 40.2 (1910): 81–98. Brooke, Raymond Frederick. Daly’s Club and the Kildare Street Club, Dublin. Dublin, 1930. Corr, Frank. Hotels in Ireland. Dublin: Jemma Publications, 1987. Craig, Maurice. Dublin 1660-1860. Dublin: Allen Figgis, 1980. Farmar, Tony. The Legendary, Lofty, Clattering Café. Dublin: A&A Farmar, 1988. Fenton, Ben. “Cafe Culture taking over in Dublin.” The Telegraph 2 Oct. 2006. 29 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1530308/cafe-culture-taking-over-in-Dublin.html›. Gilbert, John T. A History of the City of Dublin (3 vols.). Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1978. Girouard, Mark. Victorian Pubs. New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 1984. Hardiman, Nodlaig P., and Máire Kennedy. A Directory of Dublin for the Year 1738 Compiled from the Most Authentic of Sources. Dublin: Dublin Corporation Public Libraries, 2000. Huetz de Lemps, Alain. “Colonial Beverages and Consumption of Sugar.” Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. 383–93. Kennedy, Máire. “Dublin Coffee Houses.” Ask About Ireland, 2011. 4 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/history-heritage/pages-in-history/dublin-coffee-houses›. ----- “‘Politicks, Coffee and News’: The Dublin Book Trade in the Eighteenth Century.” Dublin Historical Record LVIII.1 (2005): 76–85. Liddy, Pat. Temple Bar—Dublin: An Illustrated History. Dublin: Temple Bar Properties, 1992. Mac Con Iomaire, Máirtín. “The Emergence, Development, and Influence of French Haute Cuisine on Public Dining in Dublin Restaurants 1900-2000: An Oral History.” Ph.D. thesis, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, 2009. 4 Apr. 2012 ‹http://arrow.dit.ie/tourdoc/12›. ----- “Ireland.” Food Cultures of the World Encylopedia. Ed. Ken Albala. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2010. ----- “Public Dining in Dublin: The History and Evolution of Gastronomy and Commercial Dining 1700-1900.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 24. Special Issue: The History of the Commercial Hospitality Industry from Classical Antiquity to the 19th Century (2012): forthcoming. MacGiolla Phadraig, Brian. “Dublin: One Hundred Years Ago.” Dublin Historical Record 23.2/3 (1969): 56–71. Maxwell, Constantia. Dublin under the Georges 1714–1830. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1979. McDowell, R. B. Land & Learning: Two Irish Clubs. Dublin: The Lilliput P, 1993. Montgomery, K. L. “Old Dublin Clubs and Coffee-Houses.” New Ireland Review VI (1896): 39–44. Murphy, Antoine E. “The ‘Celtic Tiger’—An Analysis of Ireland’s Economic Growth Performance.” EUI Working Papers, 2000 29 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.eui.eu/RSCAS/WP-Texts/00_16.pdf›. Oldenburg, Ray, ed. Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About The “Great Good Places” At the Heart of Our Communities. New York: Marlowe & Company 2001. Pennell, Sarah. “‘Great Quantities of Gooseberry Pye and Baked Clod of Beef’: Victualling and Eating out in Early Modern London.” Londinopolis: Essays in the Cultural and Social History of Early Modern London. Eds. Paul Griffiths and Mark S. R. Jenner. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2000. 228–59. Pettigrew, Jane. A Social History of Tea. London: National Trust Enterprises, 2001. Pincus, Steve. “‘Coffee Politicians Does Create’: Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture.” The Journal of Modern History 67.4 (1995): 807–34. Pitte, Jean-Robert. “The Rise of the Restaurant.” Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. 471–80. Rooney, Brendan, ed. A Time and a Place: Two Centuries of Irish Social Life. Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, 2006. Tannahill, Reay. Food in History. St Albans, Herts.: Paladin, 1975. Taylor, Laurence. “Coffee: The Bottomless Cup.” The American Dimension: Cultural Myths and Social Realities. Eds. W. Arens and Susan P. Montague. Port Washington, N.Y.: Alfred Publishing, 1976. 14–48. Vickery, Amanda. Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England. New Haven: Yale UP, 2009. Wheaton, Barbara Ketcham. Savouring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300-1789. London: Chatto & Windus, Hogarth P, 1983. Williams, Anne. “Historical Attitudes to Women Eating in Restaurants.” Public Eating: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1991. Ed. Harlan Walker. Totnes: Prospect Books, 1992. 311–14. World Barista, Championship. “History–World Barista Championship”. 2012. 02 Apr. 2012 ‹http://worldbaristachampionship.com2012›.AcknowledgementA warm thank you to Dr. Kevin Griffin for producing the map of Dublin for this article.

Apocacidal Tendencies: Three Excerpts from the Heaven's Gate Website 1995 (A term which blends apocalypse with suicide, apocacides could be best described as those groups or individuals who understand salvation from an imagined approaching armageddon to involve, indeed depend upon, the voluntary sacrifice of one's own life on earth.) 1. '95 Statement by An E.T. Presently Incarnate: "... We brought to Earth with us a crew of students whom we had worked with (nurtured) on Earth in previous missions. They were in varying stages of metamorphic transition from membership in the human kingdom to membership in the physical Evolutionary Level Above Human (what your history refers to as the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven). It seems that we arrived in Earth's atmosphere between Earth's 1940s and early 1990s. We suspect that many of us arrived in staged spacecraft (UFO) crashes and many of our discarded bodies (genderless, not belonging to the human species), were retrieved by human authorities (government and military). Other crews from the Level Above Human preceded our arrival and 'tagged' -- placed a despite 'chip' -- in each of the vehicles (bodies) that we would individually incarnate into, when that instruction would be given. These 'chips' set aside those bodies for us ... In any given civilisation on a fertile planet such as Earth (and Earth has had many periodic/cyclical civilisations), the Level Above Human plants all the new life forms (including humans) for that civilisation in a neutral condition so that they have a chance to choose the direction of their growth. The Level Above Human -- or Next Level -- directly (hands on) relates significantly to the civilisation at its beginning stage, and subsequently (with few exceptions) at approximately 2000-year intervals (48-hour intervals from a Next Level perspective) until that civilisation's final 'Age.' ..." 2. Our Position Against Suicide: " ... We know that it is only while we are in these physical vehicles (bodies) that we can learn the lessons needed to complete our own individual transition, as well as to complete our task of offering the Kingdom of Heaven to this civilisation one last time. We take good care of our vehicles so they can function well for us in this task, and we try to protect them from any harm. We fully desire, expect, and look forward to boarding a spacecraft from the Next Level very soon (in our physical bodies). There is no doubt in our mind that our being 'picked up' is inevitable in the very near future. But what happens between now and then is the big question. We are keenly aware of several possibilities ... The true meaning of 'suicide' is to turn against the Next Level when it is being offered. In these last days, we are focused on ... entering the Kingdom of Heaven ..." 3. Last Chance to Evacuate Earth Before It's Recycled (Sept 29, 1996): "... I'm in a vehicle that is already falling apart on me, and I'm desperate to try to help you have a last chance to go ... I don't mean to make fun of this. I am desperate -- for your sakes. Within the past twenty-four hours I have been clearly informed by my Older Member of how short the remaining time is; how clearly we cannot concentrate on anything except the perspective that says: the end of this civilisation is very close. The end of a civilisation is accompanied by spading under, refurbishing the planet in preparation for another civilisation. And the only ones who can survive that experience have to be those who are taken into the keeping of the Evolutionary Level Above Human ..." Heaven's Gate -- http://www.trancenet.org/heavensgate/index.html Magnificat Meal Movement [Toowoomba, Australia] -- http://homepages.iol.ie/~magnific/ Apocaholic Cocktails: Mixing Visions of the End Armageddon Anonymous: Hidden Faces Plotting the End on Television The 1996 book release X-Files Confidential describes its subject matter as "'social-science fiction' ... fuelled by the realities -- and internal anxieties -- of [our] time: the era of diminished expectations", a television show which "concerns itself with the dark side of technology, competition, politics, ambition, and selfishness", warning against the "risks of abandoning an interior life or one's community" and reinforcing the notion that "our attempts to combat evil are usually an exercise in futility" though that "effort alone is significant". Unlike the participants within the apocaholic communities who intimate that the 'truth is with us', the X-Files, as an entertainment product of the secular industry, proclaims that the 'truth is out there'. This conceptual and narrative framework within the X-Files works on several levels: Frustrates resolution through contrived revelation; Frustrates revelation through contrived resolution; Identifies and resists externally imposed futures; Gives a narrative voice to marginalised hierarchies of genres, values and futures mythology, eg., those involving ufology, genetic mutations and the like; De-emphasises mainstream hierarchies of authority, genres, values and futures mythology; Suggests a regime of hidden truth, embedded within what initially appears as disconnected and unrelated phenomena; Implicates the mainstream future as conspiricist (i.e., the governments which control our futures do not have our interests at heart); Identifies the ritualistic reassurance set by the mainstream discursive strategy (e.g., "apology is policy"); Cultivates its own in-language, or futurespeak, where special terms refer to a future-oriented conspiracy of mammoth proportions. And, finally, it gives meaning to the millennium beyond a mere change in dates. All in all, the X-Files is popular and successful because it explores the possibilities of resolvable and unresolvable endings. It blurs the boundaries between the theological and the secular imaginings of the end. It borrows elements common to contemporary evangelicalism, endtime signs such as the mark of the beast, and gives them a plausible secular narrative. For example, whereas it might be difficult to suspend disbelief for a story that has a charismatic antichrist controlling the world through marking its population with 666, X-Files modernises the setting by creating a mysterious consortium of 12 elders who are in allegiance with some alien plan to initiate a scheduled holocaust. Such an organised drive towards armageddon involves genetic tagging of the populations through smallpox injections, little biochips which switch on and switch-off cancers, transportation of plague through bee stings and heavenly lights that harbour creatures with sinister purposes. In the X-Files, mainstream society is the cult whose future has been pre-organised by its real architects and whose adherents, the general populace, move through society blinded by ideas and doctrines of thought that Mulder sees as lies. His ultimate quest is find the truth, to reveal the future being secretly planned for the world. His quest involves reading the signs of the times in his encounters with the X-Files. Scully, whose initial introduction was to provide a sceptic balance to his quest, in fact provides a scientific rationale for Mulder's seemingly odd flights of fancy. In explaining Mulder's theories away in pseudo-scientific terms, Scully makes the unthinkable seem more plausible, and her character development from sceptic to believer provides the narrative added credibility for long-term viewers. If Scully can be convinced, then there must really be a hidden sinister future embedded beyond the mainstream outlook. Mainstream programmes such as these can in themselves throw wine of the proverbial armageddon fire. Both Star Trek and the X-Files were favourite pastimes for the Heaven's Gate Cult. Star Trek epitomised the ultimate open-ended humanist future, exploration of the unknown, while the X-Files epitomised the nature of this level, a conspiricist and closed future in which the world's only hope lay in the revealing of the sinister unknown before the great destructive end. Needless to say, X-Files-styled sites proliferate the Webscape in late 1999: Apocalypse Soon -- http://www.apocalypsesoon.org/english.html UFOs & Antichrist Millennium Bug Connection New World Order -- http://www.mt.net/~watcher/nwoy2k.html UFOs, Aliens & Antichrist: The Angelic Conspiracy & End Times Deception -- http://www.mt.net/~watcher/ "The Bible says that the b'nai Elohim, angels, sons of God, were ministers of creation, from before the worlds, Job 38:7. Contrary to popular secular theories, the b'nai Elohim are created beings distinct from ELOHIM the God of Israel. God created the b'nai Elohim to reflect His glory, and reflect His word which spoke all things into being. Before a third of the heavenly host rebelled, they were stewards of creation, building civilizations on the terrestrial planets of our solar system designed to glorify the Word of God. The Cydonia "face" is a monument constructed by these Sons of God, revealing their knowledge of the message in the stars. Both the Cydonia face and the Sphinx are cherubim, combining figures in the constellations Virgo and Leo, symbolic representations of the first and second advent of Christ on Earth." Satan's Plan to Escape Judgement -- http://www.mt.net/~watcher/hate.html "Previous pages explained how Satan was created to lead the angelic hierarchy, ruling over physical civilizations of angels on planets, such as the one still in evidence on Mars. After Satan rebelled, the center of his angelic civilization was destroyed "from among the stones of fire", yet the Bible tells us Satan is still waiting for the time of God's judgment. Satan is not in hell, he is still allowed audience before God, where he accuses the faithful (Rev.), and he still roams above and within the earth (Job). Since Satan is the most beautiful and powerful cherub, Prince of the Powers of the Air, intelligence behind UFO phenomena, the authority over all the aerial regions outward from earth..." The Millennium Group -- http://www.millenngroup.com/ Australia's Fair Dinkum Magazine -- http://unforgiven.iweb.net.au/~dinkum/ Eyes on the World -- http://eotw.orac.net.au/articles/index.html Antichrist / False Prophet -- http://members.tripod.com/jonastheprophet1/antipope.html "Antichrist will arise out of the British Monarchy within the context of the European Union/False prophet will arise out of the Vatican-Whore Church/Both will work together to build Satan's end time kingdom in these last and final days." 666 Sketch: The Mark of the Beast -- http://www.greaterthings.com/Essays/666mark.htm Conspiracy Books -- http://parascope.com/parastore/booksconspiracy.htm Corrupt Government, Conspiracy, New World Order, A Future? -- http://www.pushhamburger.com/ Dark Conspiracy -- http://www.blazing-trails.com/DarkConspiracies/welcome.html "Things have gotten really seriously convoluted. To try to follow some of the conspiracies requires a substantial amount of dedication. Any one thread can lead to so many other threads, eventually, maybe they will come together into a complete tapestry that could scare the bejabbers out of you." New World Order Conspiracy -- http://www.ufomind.com/para/conspire/nwo/ Silver Screen Endings: Blockbuster Profits in Apocalypse Gripped in a delirium of apocaholicism, contemporary secular society is exploring the conditions and consequence of endings. Mainstream presentations such as Independence Day, Event Horizon, Armageddon, End of Days, The Matrix and Deep Impact depict the notion of endings in elaborate and extravagant modes. Independence Day is a lesson in Orwellian doublethink -- it begins by destroying the very values it eschews at its closure. The statue of liberty, the White House, and the Empire State Building, all contemporary icons of western democratic and consumerist values, are brutally and spectacularly disintegrated. Yet the very core of the western meta-narrative, the maintenance of independence, which brought about the empowerment of these icons, is upheld throughout the film, leaving a critical viewer with the sense that what we are watching in this film is not the destruction of the world by some alien force -- certainly no other nation is depicted as so grossly devastated nor are any icons of other significantly known cultures destroyed -- but the annihilation of contemporary western icons: essentially, the death of icons. The values are constant, as emoted by the President of the United States towards the fiery conclusion of the movie, but the icons are unstable, susceptible to external disruption, unlike the proverbial humanist spirit. Hence, most audiences reacted gleefully to seeing famous landmarks blasted to smithereens -- this goes hand in hand I suspect with the prevailing social atmosphere cultivating change: do away with the current icons, they are no longer valid nor do they faithfully represent the social world around us, we require new ones to image our emerging spirit. Event Horizon is very different in content and style. It blends conventional theology with science fiction to create an incredible narrative about a starship so fast that it punches a hole through to hell and back. The concern throughout the film as the blood thickens is not with the collective end to society but rather with the very personal and private closure to individual life and the post-death experience. Other films, like Deep Impact and Armageddon, draw on the "worst bits" in the bible, to quote one trailer, and depict disturbing destructive images of the western metropolitan society, with dramatic wrangling over who will survive and how in order to establish a brave new world. What links these varying cinematic depictions of the end? Is it perhaps the imagined triumph of humanist spiritism, usually legitimised through the sacrificial offering of a main character in a film's final showdown? (Bruce Willis dies in Armageddon, Tea Leoni waits with her estranged father for the tidal wave in Deep Impact, and a half-drunk kamikaze pilot in an old biplane destroys the mothership at the close of Independence Day.) Being excessively popular, one needs to ask what role these films play within the collective social narrative of endism: do these films serve to quiet anxieties about the end by visualising human solutions to impossible destructive odds? Or do apocalyptic blockbusters market towards existing endtimes tension, reflecting the growing apocaholic nature of our societies as we near the close of the twentieth century and thereby, in true western capitalist fashion, profit from this cultural dysfunction? Or do films of this nature answer a more base, unacknowledged desire within our societies to see the end and survive? Event Horizon -- http://www.eventhorizonmovie.com/ End of Days -- http://www.end-of-days.com/ The Matrix -- http://www.whatisthematrix.com/ Deep Impact -- http://www.deepimpact.com/ Timeout: Clocking the Endtimes Christian End-Time Expectations -- Millennia Monitor -- http://www.fas.org/2000/endtime1.htm This resource provides links to a wide variety of Christian sources with a primary focus on millennial, apocalyptic, or other End Time expectations. Countdown 2000: Your Guide to the Millennium -- http://www.countdown2000.com/index.htm "As we approach the millennium, the world seems to be getting weirder. Countdown 2000 is packed with the latest news, hype, and hysteria. Where will the blow-out parties be? Will Y2K cause global havoc? How can I get involved in improving the world? Whatever the millennium and year 2000 mean to you, Countdown 2000 can help you learn what you want to know. Countdown 2000 is packed with over 150 pages, and 2500 links." Amazing Prophecy -- http://bibleprophecy.com/ Topics covered: Bible prophecy, rapture, tribulation, millennium, last days, end times, end of time, second coming, covenants, revelation, advent, antichrist, 666, parousia (appearing of Christ), preterist (fulfilled prophecy), eschatology (the study of last things), and many more. 888 Christ Come: Your Bible Prophecy Website -- http://www.888c.com/ Apocalists: The Tribulation Inbox Interesting things happen on discussion lists. Perhaps a more significant example of apocalyptic dissemination, capable of real-time feedback and iteration on endtime signs within every corner of the Web, millions on the bible highway speak of the premillennial tension that characterises contemporary cultural life and thousands more direct these lunges into apocalyptic extrapolation via discussion lists. Nowhere has the apocalyptic urge to image the end, to identify the sign of its approach, been more revitalised than on this electronic frontier: indeed, Apocalypse has an impressive online presence. Today, anyone can receive daily updates sent to their email inbox on the progress or nearness of the great endtimes tribulation, press releases of the latest armageddon publication list, prophecy ezines, the latest incarnation of the mark of the beast 666, new candidates for antichrist identification and revelation reports, to name but a few: Bible Prophecy Discussion List -- http://www.geocities.com/~dawn-/index.html Bible Prophecy-L was created as an open, moderated forum to discuss and share information related to end times Bible prophecy. Some of the topics you may find discussed are: Eschatology; Global Government; Global Religion and the New Age Movement; Rapture; Antichrist; Environmental Changes (earthquakes, tornados, volcanoes, freak storms, flooding etc.); Israel and the Middle East; Signs in the Heavens (UFOs, Comets, etc.); Pestilence (infectious diseases); Wars and Rumors of Wars; Prophecy Conference Updates ... etc. Bible Prophecy Report -- http://philologos.org/bpr Bible Codes News Update -- http://thebiblecodes.com/news/bcnu.htm Tribulation News -- http://www.tribnews.net/mir Conspiracy Journal -- http://www.members.tripod.com/uforeview/welcome.html Citation reference for this article MLA style: Jason Ensor. "Apocacide, Apocaholics and Apocalists: A Selective Webography of Endism." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.8 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/apocacide.php>. Chicago style: Jason Ensor, "Apocacide, Apocaholics and Apocalists: A Selective Webography of Endism," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 8 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/apocacide.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Jason Ensor. (1999) Apocacide, Apocaholics and Apocalists: A Selective Webography of Endism. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(8). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/apocacide.php> ([your date of access]).

IntroductionMusically-inclined people often speak about the soundtrack of their life, with certain songs indelibly linked to a specific moment. When hearing a particular song, it can “easily evoke a whole time and place, distant feelings and emotions, and memories of where we were, and with whom” (Lewis 135). Music has the ability to provide maps to real and imagined spaces, positioning people within a larger social environment where songs “are never just a song, but a connection, a ticket, a pass, an invitation, a node in a complex network” (Kun 3). When someone is lost in the music, they can find themselves transported somewhere else entirely without physically moving. This can be a blessing in some situations, for example, while living in a disaster zone, when almost any other time or place can seem better than the here and now. The city of Christchurch, New Zealand was hit by a succession of damaging earthquakes beginning with a magnitude 7.1 earthquake in the early hours of 4 September 2010. The magnitude 6.3 earthquake of 22 February 2011, although technically an aftershock of the September earthquake, was closer and shallower, with intense ground acceleration that caused much greater damage to the city and its people (“Scientists”). It was this February earthquake that caused the total or partial collapse of many inner city buildings, and claimed the lives of 185 people. Everybody in Christchurch lost someone or something that day: their house or job; family members, friends, or colleagues; the city as they knew it; or their normal way of life. The broken central city was quickly cordoned off behind fences, with the few entry points guarded by local and international police and armed military personnel.In the aftermath of a disaster, circumstances and personal attributes will influence how people react, think and feel about the experience. Surviving a disaster is more than not dying, “survival is to do with quality of life [and] involves progressing from the event and its aftermath, and transforming the experience” (Hodgkinson and Stewart 2). In these times of heightened stress, music can be a catalyst for sharing and expressing emotions, connecting people and communities, and helping them make sense of what has happened (Carr 38; Webb 437). This article looks at some of the ways that popular songs and musical memories helped residents of a broken city remember the past and come to terms with the present.BackgroundExisting songs can take on new significance after a catastrophic event, even without any alteration. Songs such as Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? and Prayer for New Orleans have been given new emotional layers by those who were displaced or affected by Hurricane Katrina (Cooper 265; Sullivan 15). A thirty year-old song by Randy Newman, Louisiana, 1927, became something of “a contemporary anthem, its chorus – ‘Louisiana, they’re trying to wash us away’ – bearing new relevance” (Blumenfeld 166). Contemporary popular songs have also been re-mixed or revised after catastrophic events, either by the original artist or by others. Elton John’s Candle in the Wind and Beyonce’s Halo have each been revised twice by the artist after tragedy and disaster (Doyle; McAlister), while radio stations in the United States have produced commemorative versions of popular songs to mark tragedies and their anniversaries (Beaumont-Thomas; Cantrell). The use and appreciation of music after disaster is a reminder that popular music is fluid, in that it “refuses to provide a uniform or static text” (Connell and Gibson 3), and can simultaneously carry many different meanings.Music provides a soundtrack to daily life, creating a map of meaning to the world around us, or presenting a reminder of the world as it once was. Tia DeNora explains that when people hear a song that was once heard in, and remains associated with, a particular time and place, it “provides a device for unfolding, for replaying, the temporal structure of that moment, [which] is why, for so many people, the past ‘comes alive’ to its soundtrack” (67). When a community is frequently and collectively casting their minds back to a time before a catastrophic change, a sense of community identity can be seen in the use of, and reaction to, particular songs. Music allows people to “locate themselves in different imaginary geographics at one and the same time” (Cohen 93), creating spaces for people to retreat into, small ‘audiotopias’ that are “built, imagined, and sustained through sound, noise, and music” (Kun 21). The use of musical escape holes is prevalent after disaster, as many once-familiar spaces that have changed beyond recognition or are no longer able to be physically visited, can be easily imagined or remembered through music. There is a particular type of longing expressed by those who are still at home and yet cannot return to the home they knew. Whereas nostalgia is often experienced by people far from home who wish to return or those enjoying memories of a bygone era, people after disaster often encounter a similar nostalgic feeling but with no change in time or place: a loss without leaving. Glenn Albrecht coined the term ‘solastalgia’ to represent “the form of homesickness one experiences when one is still at home” (35). This sense of being unable to find solace in one’s home environment can be brought on by natural disasters such as fire, flood, earthquakes or hurricanes, or by other means like war, mining, climate change or gentrification. Solastalgia is often felt most keenly when people experience the change first-hand and then have to adjust to life in a totally changed environment. This can create “chronic distress of a solastalgic kind [that] would persist well after the acute phase of post-traumatic distress” (Albrecht 36). Just as the visible, physical effects of disaster last for years, so too do the emotional effects, but there have been many examples of how the nostalgia inherent in a shared popular music soundtrack has eased the pain of solastalgia for a community that is hurting.Pop Songs and Nostalgia in ChristchurchIn September 2011, one year after the initial earthquake, the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) announced a collaboration with Christchurch hip hop artist, Scribe, to remake his smash hit, Not Many, for charity. Back in 2003, Not Many debuted at number five on the New Zealand music charts, where it spent twelve weeks at number one and was crowned ‘Single of the Year’ (Sweetman, On Song 164). The punchy chorus heralded Scribe as a force to be reckoned with, and created a massive imprint on New Zealand popular culture with the line: “How many dudes you know roll like this? Not many, if any” (Scribe, Not Many). Music critic, Simon Sweetman, explains how “the hook line of the chorus [is now] a conversational aside that is practically unavoidable when discussing amounts… The words ‘not many’ are now truck-and-trailered with ‘if any’. If you do not say them, you are thinking them” (On Song 167). The strong links between artist and hometown – and the fact it is an enduringly catchy song – made it ideal for a charity remake. Reworded and reworked as Not Many Cities, the chorus now asks: “How many cities you know roll like this?” to which the answer is, of course, “not many, if any” (Scribe/BNZ, Not Many Cities). The remade song entered the New Zealand music charts at number 36 and the video was widely shared through social media but not all reception was positive. Parts of the video were shot in the city’s Red Zone, the central business district that was cordoned off from public access due to safety concerns. The granting of special access outraged some residents, with letters to the editor and online commentary expressing frustration that celebrities were allowed into the Red Zone to shoot a music video while those directly affected were not allowed in to retrieve essential items from residences and business premises. However, it is not just the Red Zone that features: the video switches between Scribe travelling around the broken inner city on the back of a small truck and lingering shots of carefully selected people, businesses, and groups – all with ties to the BNZ as either clients or beneficiaries of sponsorship. In some ways, Not Many Cities comes across like just another corporate promotional video for the BNZ, albeit with more emotion and a better soundtrack than usual. But what it has bequeathed is a snapshot of the city as it was in that liminal time: a landscape featuring familiar buildings, spaces and places which, although damaged, was still a recognisable version of the city that existed before the earthquakes.Before Scribe burst onto the music scene in the early 2000s, the best-known song about Christchurch was probably Christchurch (in Cashel St. I wait), an early hit from the Exponents (Mitchell 189). Initially known as the Dance Exponents, the group formed in Christchurch in the early 1980s and remained local and national favourites thanks to a string of hits Sweetman refers to as “the question-mark songs,” such as Who Loves Who the Most?, Why Does Love Do This to Me?, and What Ever Happened to Tracey? (Best Songwriter). Despite disbanding in 1999, the group re-formed to be the headline act of ‘Band Together’—a multi-artist, outdoor music event organised for the benefit of Christchurch residents by local musician, Jason Kerrison, formerly of the band OpShop. Attended by over 140,000 people (Anderson, Band Together), this nine-hour event brought joy and distraction to a shaken and stressed populace who, at that point in time (October 2010), probably thought the worst was over.The Exponents took the stage last, and chose Christchurch (in Cashel St. I Wait) as their final number. Every musician involved in the gig joined them on stage and the crowd rose to their feet, singing along with gusto. A local favourite since its release in 1985, the verses may have been a bit of a mumble for some, but the chorus rang out loud and clear across the park: Christchurch, In Cashel Street I wait,Together we will be,Together, together, together, One day, one day, one day,One day, one day, one daaaaaay! (Exponents, “Christchurch (in Cashel St. I Wait)”; lyrics written as sung)At that moment, forming an impromptu community choir of over 100,000 people, the audience was filled with hope and faith that those words would come true. Life would go on and people would gather together in Cashel Street and wait for normality to return, one day. Later the following year, the opening of the Re:Start container mall added an extra layer of poignancy to the song lyrics. Denied access to most of the city’s CBD, that one small part of Cashel Street now populated with colourful shipping containers was almost the only place in central Christchurch where people could wait. There are many music videos that capture the central city of Christchurch as it was in decades past. There are some local classics, like The Bats’ Block of Wood and Claudine; The Shallows’ Suzanne Said; Moana and the Moahunters’ Rebel in Me; and All Fall Down’s Black Gratten, which were all filmed in the 1980s or early 1990s (Goodsort, Re-Live and More Music). These videos provide many flashback moments to the city as it was twenty or thirty years ago. However, one post-earthquake release became an accidental musical time capsule. The song, Space and Place, was released in February 2013, but both song and video had been recorded not long before the earthquakes occurred. The song was inspired by the feelings experienced when returning home after a long absence, and celebrates the importance of the home town as “a place that knows you as well as you know it” (Anderson, Letter). The chorus features the line, “streets of common ground, I remember, I remember” (Franklin, Mayes, and Roberts, Space and Place), but it is the video, showcasing many of the Christchurch places and spaces only recently lost to the earthquakes, that tugs at people’s heartstrings. The video for Space and Place sweeps through the central city at night, with key heritage buildings like the Christ Church Cathedral, and the Catholic Basilica lit up against the night sky (both are still damaged and inaccessible). Producer and engineer, Rob Mayes, describes the video as “a love letter to something we all lost [with] the song and its lyrics [becoming] even more potent, poignant, and unexpectedly prescient post quake” (“Songs in the Key”). The Arts Centre features prominently in the footage, including the back alleys and archways that hosted all manner of night-time activities – sanctioned or otherwise – as well as many people’s favourite hangout, the Dux de Lux (the Dux). Operating from the corner of the Arts Centre site since the 1970s, the Dux has been described as “the city’s common room” and “Christchurch’s beating heart” by musicians mourning its loss (Anderson, Musicians). While the repair and restoration of some parts of the Arts Centre is currently well advanced, the Student Union building that once housed this inner-city social institution is not slated for reopening until 2019 (“Rebuild and Restore”), and whether the Dux will be welcomed back remains to be seen. Empty Spaces, Missing PlacesA Facebook group, ‘Save Our Dux,’ was created in early March 2011, and quickly filled with messages and memories from around the world. People wandered down memory lane together as they reminisced about their favourite gigs and memorable occasions, like the ‘Big Snow’ of 1992 when the Dux served up mulled wine and looked more like a ski chalet. Memories were shared about the time when the music video for the Dance Exponents’ song, Victoria, was filmed at the Dux and the Art Deco-style apartment building across the street. The reminiscing continued, establishing and strengthening connections, with music providing a stepping stone to shared experience and a sense of community. Physically restricted from visiting a favourite social space, people were converging in virtual hangouts to relive moments and remember places now cut off by the passing of time, the falling of bricks, and the rise of barrier fences.While waiting to find out whether the original Dux site can be re-occupied, the business owners opened new venues that housed different parts of the Dux business (live music, vegetarian food, and the bars/brewery). Although the fit-out of the restaurant and bars capture a sense of the history and charm that people associate with the Dux brand, the empty wasteland and building sites that surround the new Dux Central quickly destroy any illusion of permanence or familiarity. Now that most of the quake-damaged buildings have been demolished, the freshly-scarred earth of the central city is like a child’s gap-toothed smile. Wandering around the city and forgetting what used to occupy an empty space, wanting to visit a shop or bar before remembering it is no longer there, being at the Dux but not at the Dux – these are the kind of things that contributed to a feeling that local music writer, Vicki Anderson, describes as “lost city syndrome” (“Lost City”). Although initially worried she might be alone in mourning places lost, other residents have shared similar experiences. In an online comment on the article, one local resident explained how there are two different cities fighting for dominance in their head: “the new keeps trying to overlay the old [but] when I’m not looking at pictures, or in seeing it as it is, it’s the old city that pushes its way to the front” (Juniper). Others expressed relief that they were not the only ones feeling strangely homesick in their own town, homesick for a place they never left but that had somehow left them.There are a variety of methods available to fill the gaps in both memories and cityscape. The Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand (HITLab), produced a technological solution: interactive augmented reality software called CityViewAR, using GPS data and 3D models to show parts of the city as they were prior to the earthquakes (“CityViewAR”). However, not everybody needed computerised help to remember buildings and other details. Many people found that, just by listening to a certain song or remembering particular gigs, it was not just an image of a building that appeared but a multi-sensory event complete with sound, movement, smell, and emotion. In online spaces like the Save Our Dux group, memories of favourite bands and songs, crowded gigs, old friends, good times, great food, and long nights were shared and discussed, embroidering a rich and colourful tapestry about a favourite part of Christchurch’s social scene. ConclusionMusic is strongly interwoven with memory, and can recreate a particular moment in time and place through the associations carried in lyrics, melody, and imagery. Songs can spark vivid memories of what was happening – when, where, and with whom. A song shared is a connection made: between people; between moments; between good times and bad; between the past and the present. Music provides a soundtrack to people’s lives, and during times of stress it can also provide many benefits. The lyrics and video imagery of songs made in years gone by have been shown to take on new significance and meaning after disaster, offering snapshots of times, people and places that are no longer with us. Even without relying on the accompanying imagery of a video, music has the ability to recreate spaces or relocate the listener somewhere other than the physical location they currently occupy. This small act of musical magic can provide a great deal of comfort when suffering solastalgia, the feeling of homesickness one experiences when the familiar landscapes of home suddenly change or disappear, when one has not left home but that home has nonetheless gone from sight. The earthquakes (and the demolition crews that followed) have created a lot of empty land in Christchurch but the sound of popular music has filled many gaps – not just on the ground, but also in the hearts and lives of the city’s residents. 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