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Over the last century unprecedented numbers of Christians from traditionally Orthodox societies migrated around the world. Once seen as an ‘oriental’ or ‘eastern’ phenomenon, Orthodox Christianity is now much more widely dispersed, and in many parts of the modern world one need not go far to find an Orthodox community at worship. This collection offers a compelling overview of the Orthodox world, covering the main regional traditions of Orthodox Christianity and the ways in which they have become global. The contributors are drawn from the Orthodox community worldwide and explore a rich selection of key figures and themes. The book provides an innovative and illuminating approach to the subject, ideal for students and scholars alike.
Theology of ministry has always been a controversial issue in the relation between churches, especially with its juridical approach that concentrated on authority. In recent decades the secularization and individualization in the Western world have intensified the challenge to reformulate the mission of the church and its ministries. Building on the Reformed theology of the 16th century (Zwingli, Calvin and confessions) and on the results of the ecumenical convergence on ministry (BEM) in the 20th century, this study presents building blocks for a renewed theology of ministry in the 21st century.
Sharp controversies -- about biblical authority, the ordination of women, evangelical "worship styles," and the struggle for homosexual "inclusion" -- have rocked the Lutheran church in recent decades. In Changing Churches two men who once communed at the same Lutheran Eucharistic table explain their similar but different decisions to leave the Lutheran faith tradition -- one for Orthodoxy, the other for Roman Catholicism. Here Mickey L. Mattox and A. G. Roeber address the most difficult questions Protestants face when considering such a conversion, including views on justification, grace, divinization, the church and its authority, women and ministry, papal infallibility, the role of Mary, and homosexuality. They also discuss the long-standing ecumenical division between Rome and the Orthodox patriarchates, acknowledging the difficult issues that still confront those traditions from within and divide them from one another.
Theologian, poet, public intellectual, and clergyman, Rowan Williams is one of the leading lights of contemporary British theology. He has published over twenty books and one hundred scholarly essays in a distinguished career as an academic theologian that culminated in his appointment as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford University. Williams left this post to serve in the Anglican Church, first as Bishop of Monmouth, then Archbishop of Wales, before finally being enthroned in 2003 as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. In this collection of essays, a talented younger generation of Australian theologians critically analyzes the themes that bind together Williams's theology. These sympathetic yet probing essays traverse the full breadth of Williams's work, from his studies on Arius, the Desert Fathers, Hegel, and Trinitarian theology to his more pastoral writings on spirituality, sexuality, politics, and the Anglican Church.
This book examines how the practice of episcopacy in the Church of England and the EKD affects the claim that the 'historic episcopate' is a necessary condition for 'the full interchangeability of ministers'. It addresses four questions relating to the practice of oversight: How have different forms of oversight sought to maintain the apostolic 'historic' faith in history and today? How does the exercise of authority within contemporary societies relate to the pre-modern ideas expressed in the idea of historic episcopate? How has the practice of oversight changed in the light of demographic changes and declining levels of church membership? What are the implications of synodical government and shared oversight for the concept of 'historic episcopate'? The book's goal is to explore whether an interdisciplinary analysis of episcopacy can assist the churches in establishing a new understanding of the "historic episcopate". With papers by Mark Chapman, Jonathan Gibbs, Matthias Grebe, Miriam Haar, Alex Hughes, Frances Knight, Morwenna Ludlow, Ralf Meister, Friederike Nüssel, Bernd Oberdorfer and Peter Scherle.
A collection of talks given during a conference near Rome marking the 40th anniversary of the Decree on Ecumenism of the Second Vatican council, 'Unitatis redintegratio'.
The denominational plurality in continental Europe keeps growing. The churches of African origin are of increasing number. Seeking for a new identity in their new home, the concept of Diaspora and the question for legal issues get important for their identity. To what extent is their identity determined rather by seclusion or openness? Are the churches missionizing amongst Germans and are there ecumenical relations? What are the characteristics of such a new identity? How does it develop? By analyzing three different types of churches of African origin in the German context, especially by examining their sermons, the author demonstrates how those churches develop in a missionary direction and how they can become ecumenical partners.
How did Germany's Christians respond to Nazism? In Twisted Cross, Doris Bergen addresses one important element of this response by focusing on the 600,000 self-described 'German Christians,' who sought to expunge all Jewish elements from the Christian church. In a process that became more daring as Nazi plans for genocide unfolded, this group of Protestant lay people and clergy rejected the Old Testament, ousted people defined as non-Aryans from their congregations, denied the Jewish ancestry of Jesus, and removed Hebrew words like 'Hallelujah' from hymns. Bergen refutes the notion that the German Christians were a marginal group and demonstrates that members occupied key positions within the Protestant church even after their agenda was rejected by the Nazi leadership. Extending her analysis into the postwar period, Bergen shows how the German Christians were relatively easily reincorporated into mainstream church life after 1945. Throughout Twisted Cross, Bergen reveals the important role played by women and by the ideology of spiritual motherhood amid the German Christians' glorification of a 'manly' church.
Praise for the German edition: "A master listener, a master arguer, a master of ecumenical sensitivity, [Fries] is concerned to hand on an existential and reflected experience of the faith, and to make it comprehensible to other men and women as an answer to their questions about the meaning and direction of life . . . thus Fundamental Theology is not just a textbook, but also a book of faith." --Herder Korrespondenz Fundamental theology--with its traditional divisions of faith, revelation, and Church--studies the basic anthropological, philosophical, biblical, and historical foundations of theology. It is the place where theology's religious, intellectual, and cultural presuppositions are m...