Showing papers on "Baptism published in 1988"

Deeper Christian Life Ministry: a Case Study of the Charismatic Movements in Western Nigeria

Abstract: One of the most profound changes that have taken place in Nigerian Christianity, especially in Western Nigeria, since the Aladura Movements in the first part of the century, is the emergence of the Charismatic Movements in the 1970s. The Charismatic Movements took their origin from the entry of American and British pentecostalism into Nigeria's institutions of higher education. Although the pentecostal movement had been introduced into Nigeria in the 1920s and 1930s through The Apostolic Church, Faith Tabernacle and Assemblies of God, yet it did not have such a great impact until the seventies. This was due partly to the fact that higher education began in Nigeria in 1932, and it was only in the sixties that the number of students in the higher institutions rose beyond a thousand. Rapid developments in independent Nigeria also led to the establishment of four new universities in 1960 and 1962, in addition to the University of Ibadan which was established in 1948 as a college of the University of London.2 Secondly, many American pentecostal evangelists intensified their activities in Nigeria from the sixties, this time using literature, radio and television to reach an audience fluent in the English language. Therefore it was the entry of the pentecostal movement into the higher educational institutions in the early seventies, which drastically affected the existing evangelical Christianity, and resulted in the emergence of the Charismatic Movements. A rising tide of evangelistic activities characterized the Charismatic Movements in the 1970s. Doctrinal emphasis was inititially placed on baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues and out of this eventually grew the whole Charismatic Movement which became thoroughly trans-denominational in

Intermarriage Between Christians and Jews in Medieval Canon Law

Abstract: Restrictions on contact between Christians and Jews appeared early in Christian history and remained a prominent feature of ecclesiastical law throughout the Middle Ages. Many of the Church's members during the earliest generations of the Christian era were converts from Judaism, and Church authorities sought to assure that when Jews became Christians they severed their former ties and discontinued the religious practices they had observed prior to baptism. From a very early period the Church was particularly anxious about the dangers that marriage ties might pose when one partner converted to Christianity while the other did not.1 As the numbers of non-Jewish converts grew during the second and third centuries, canon law also attempted to insulate gentile Christians from exposure to Jewish beliefs and practices.

Conversion and school at Chikuni, 1905–39

Abstract: the viewpoint of the Africans undergoing conversion but the missionaries, the advocates of conversion, have received no comparable attention (Beidelman, 1974: 235; cf. Beidelman, 1982). This article aims to present an integral perspective on the history of conversion at the Chikuni mission, southern Zambia, where conversion to Catholicism embodied a minimal degree of psychological transformation in that baptism frequently followed upon some basic instructions in Catholic dogma and moral theology with little attention being devoted to the experience of God's gift of grace (Colborn, 1970: 692-711; Katekisma, 1911; Lane, 1976: 264; Lane, 1981; Fashole-Luke, 1978: 512). Although baptism indicated membership of the Roman Catholic Church, the missionaries envisaged a gradual growth in conversion after baptism on the part of their converts which was, from the missionaries' viewpoint, manifested in the reception of the other sacraments. Marriage, confirmation, frequent reception of the eucharist and penance, extreme unction and burial in the mission cemetery constituted some of the main socially recognised displays of full-scale acceptance of Catholicism (Peters, 1976: 85-7, 97). The approach adopted in this case study will include Horton's hypothesis in order to discuss the African experience but will also focus selectively on the missionaries' ideology and background so as to understand how such factors coloured the experience of conversion at Chikuni. A central hypothesis of this study is that the Chikuni converts chose to become Catholics initially principally because of the socio-cultural inducements which the mission presented. In itself the religious message of the missionaries appeared unattractive, foreign, paradoxical and demanded a long period for assimilation.

Lutheran Convergence? An Analysis of the Lutheran Responses to the Convergence Document ''Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry'' of the World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission.

Abstract: Reflexion sur les reponses lutheriennes a propos du document ''Bapteme, Eucharistie, Ministere'' (Lima, 1982)

A Study of the Religious Attitudes and Behaviors of Seventh-day Adventist Adolescents in North America Related to their Family, Educational, and Church Backgrounds

Abstract: A STUDY OF THE RELIGIOUS ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS OF SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST ADOLESCENTS IN NORTH AMERICA RELATED TO THEIR FAMILY, EDUCATIONAL, AND CHURCH BACKGROUNDS

Ancestral Beliefs and Practices: a Program for Developing Christian Faith Among Adventists in Zimbabwe

Abstract: ANCESTRAL BELIEFS AND PRACTICES: A PROGRAM FOR DEVELOPING CHRISTIAN FAITH AMONG ADVENTISTS IN ZIMBABWE

Discerning the Body: Sign and Reality in Luther's Controversy with the Swiss

Abstract: Erich Heller's The Disinherited Mind, in the American edition, has an epilogue on "The Hazard of Modern Poetry." In it, Heller's thoughts go back to the great debate between Luther and Zwingli at Marburg (1529), and he suggests that, so far from being a mere exercise in scholastic hairsplitting, the colloquy signaled a revolution: the reduction of symbols to the merely symbolic. "And ever since Zwingli the most common response to the reality of symbols has been a shrugging of shoulders or an edified raising of eyes and brows, or an apologia for poetry, or an aesthetic theory."' It would be absurd to lay all these dreadful consequences wholly at Zwingli's door, as though he alone were responsible. Heller is using words advisedly, I assume, when he says that the theological dispute signaled the revolution. But Zwingli would not mind being thought revolutionary. In his treatise On Baptism (1525) he announced, though with regret, so he said ("I would have preferred to keep silence"), that all the doctors of the church since the time of the apostles had been wrong because they had ascribed to the water of baptism a power it does not have.2 He detected a like error in what had been said for centuries about the bread of the eucharist, and the tragedy for the Protestant cause was that he detected this error in the writings of Luther.

Communion Ecclesiology and Baptism in the Spirit: Tertullian and the Early Church:

Abstract: THERE ARE within Roman Catholicism at least two dominant ways of theologizing about baptism in the Holy Spirit. One view, promoted by Francis Sullivan of the Gregorian University in Rome, looks upon baptism in the Spirit as a special grace, a new imparting of the Spirit unrelated to any immediate sacramental context. This view is based on the quite valid supposition that there can be multiple impartings of the Spirit. In patristic times the question of multiple impartings of the Spirit was widely discussed. The nonsacramental view of baptism in the Spirit has many advantages, among them its ecumenical appeal to the evangelical churches, which do not have a highly sacramental polity. The other view, which was the theological stance adopted at the beginning of the charismatic renewal, relates baptism to water baptism or to the rites of initiation (water baptism, confirmation, Eucharist). Baptism in the Spirit in this view is a bringing of the graces of initiation already received to awareness and a new actuality. An actualist position in regard to infant baptism was already in place by the time of Augustine

Spiritual Circumcision in Early Christianity

Abstract: Modern ecumenical discussions and liturgical reform have given new interest to the ceremonies of Christian initiation. The Reformed churches have traditionally held the view that baptism takes the place of circumcision in the economy of salvation. The interpretations of circumcision in early Christian and patristic literature would suggest a modification, or at least a nuance, to that view.

Soviet Men on the Road to Utopia: A Moral‐psychological Sketch

Abstract: The year 1988 marks a special anniversary for Russia. Exactly 1,000 years ago Christianity was officially introduced into Russia from Byzantium. This was accomplished when, in 988, Prince Vladimir of Kiev ordered a mass baptism of the Russian people

Jovinian's Four Theses on the Christian Life: An Alternative Patristic Spirituality

Abstract: In the decree Lumen Gentium the Second Vatican Council emphasized the great variety of ways in which all Christians are called to pursue holiness. This hallmark document of the Roman• Catholic church states that 'all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity ... In the various types and duties of life, one and the same holiness is cultivated by all who are moved by the Spirit of God. " Ironically, sixteen centuries earlier, a Roman monk named Jovinian was condemned by Pope Siricius in AD 393 for promulgating a similar teaching about the vocation to holiness common to all believers. He recognized the unity of all baptized Christians and resolutely challenged the rigorous, Oriental-style monasticism and Manichaean tendencies that segregated the Christian community of his day. For Jovinian, all Christians were called equally by baptism to live a holy life. He denied that the practice of ascetical virtues such as fasting...

The Russian Orthodox Church in the millennium year: What it needs from the Soviet state

Abstract: The Moscow Patriarchate has made lavish plans to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the baptism of Kievan Rus' by Prince Vladimir. In July 1987 the Patriarchate opened an information centre where Soviet and foreign journalists could be briefed on the preparations for the "millennium" and receive literature on the position of religion in the USSR. 1 By now the church will have held its local council (Sobor) at the Trinity-St Sergius Lavra in Zagorsk (6-9 June), only the fourth such council in the entire Soviet period (the previous Sobory had been convoked in 1917-18, 1945 and 1971, and on each occasion a new patriarch of the Russian Church had been elected). The main ceremony to mark the millennium will have taken place on 10 June at the Cathedral of the Resurrection in Moscow's Danilov Monastery. Ceremonies have also been planned for Kiev, Leningrad, Minsk and Vladimir, to be attended by delegates to the council as well as by visitors from abroad. Special worship services have been scheduled in all dioceses and parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate. 2 To the untrained Western eye, all of this suggests that religious life is flourishing in the Soviet Union. But unfortunately, appearances can be deceptive. The true status of the Russian Orthodox Church today can be understood only after one has become aware of the legal framework within which the Russian Church must lead its existence. In this context, it is instructive to look at how the state-controlled Soviet press is covering the millennium what are Soviet citizens being told about the event? --:and to com.pare what the press says with the arguments advanced in a number of recent samizdat statements by Orthodox believers.

Revivalism and the advent of cash economy on the georgia coast

Abstract: in the very year that the black community was firmly catapulted into participation in the national economy recalls various efforts to understand religious revivalism as a response to sudden and disturbing changes in a group's socioeconomic circumstances. Perhaps the best known of such accounts-E. P Thompson's description of the Methodist response to the industrialization of England-convincingly illustrates the manner in which such religious movements may accommodate individuals to the demands of new work rhythms. However, the evidence from St. Simons Island, Georgia, suggests that in other instances the implicit ideology ofa religious movement may present challenges to dominant conceptualizations of the social order. The ostensive otherworldliness ofAfrican-American Pentecostalism may militate against overt challenges to the status quo in the here and now; yet on the ideological level it withholds validation of dominant precepts by seeking meaning in the sphere of sacred relations and by attributing circumstances and events to forces beyond the control of individuals. In 1928, a year that heralded far-reaching economic changes for the island of St. Simons, Georgia and the adjacent mainland town of Brunswick, two "revival" movements appeared. In the island's black community, the first Pentecostal "saints" received the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. Simultaneously, members of the English Church Army-an evangelizing movement established in the early part of the century to renew the interest of the working class in the Anglican Churchvisited the white Episcopal churches of Brunswick and held a series of wellattended, exuberant out-door revival meetings. Scholars have consistently associated the history of innovative religious movements among African-Americans with experiences of social dislocation and disorganization. From slave religion to African-American Pentecostalism, the effort to understand "ecstatic" or "enthusiastic" religious practices has focused on the way in which they "compensate" individuals for the experience of deprivation. In this century, those African-American religious movements which, due perhaps to their lack of denominational stature, are usually referred to as "sects" or "cults" have been regarded as the response of people suffering the social dislocations caused by migration, industrialization, urbanization, or marginalization. This is true of the writing of those who have attempted to address more general questions about the nature of African-American religion (Clark 1937, Fauset 1944, Frazier 1963), as well as of those who have written specifically about African-American Pentecostal

The history of the interpretation of Colossians 2:11 and 12 up to the council of Chalcedon, with particular reference to the use of these verses as an argument for infant baptism.

Abstract: After a consideration of those passages within the New Testament, either by St. Paul himself or other authors, which were written after Colossians, and which reflect the thought or language of Colossians 2:11 and 12 and which may thus be regarded as a commentary upon these verses, the main part of the thesis consists of a study of the way in which these verses were interpreted by Patristic writers. Colossians 2:11 and 12 have played an important part historically in the rationale for infant baptism. Some paedobaptists, especially those within the Reformed tradition, assume that infants were baptized from Apostolic times on the basis of a covenantal analogy between circumcision and baptism. This study seeks to ascertain when this analogy in general, and Colossians 2:11 and 12 in particular, first occur as an argument for infant baptism. Along side the study of the way in which Colossians 2:11 and 12 were interpreted reference is made to early explicit testimony for the practice of infant baptism, and an attempt is made to ascertain what arguments were advanced for infant baptism at any given time. An attempt is also made to ascertain at what stage in the development of the analogy between circumcision and baptism its use is consistent as an argument for infant baptism. Special attention is paid to any factors not specifically arising from the exegesis of Colossians 2:11 and 12 which may have contributed to the view that in these verses Paul is directly comparing the two rites of circumcision and baptism.

Kierkegaard on Baptism

Abstract: 3 Hal Koch" Danmarks Kirke Gennem Tiderne (Copenhagen, Gyldendal, 1949), p. 116. The Danish Eucharist lost its Kyrie and Gloria under influence from the Enlightenment theologians. This was also the time in Germany when eucharistic vestments disappeared. 4 Information from family papers, as well as correspondence with Pastor Gunther Hintze, Augustenborg Church. 5 T. G. A. Baker, Questioning Worship (London, SCM Press, 1977). 6 See Kenneth W. Stevenson, 'Lex Grandi and Lex Credendi-Strange BedFellows?: Some Reflections on Worship and Doctrine' in Scottish Journal of Thenlogy, 39 (1986), pp. 237ff (whole article, pp. 225-41). 7 See Kenneth W. Stevenson, Eucharist and Offering, with foreword by Mark Santer (New York, Pueblo, 1986). 8 See Michael Vasey, Reading the Bible at the Eucharist, Grove Worship Series 94 (Bramcote, Grove, 1986), pp. 13ff.

Religion in Conrad’s Life, 1857–95

Abstract: Conrad was born in the Ukraine in 1857 as Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski, the son of a father who was deeply imbued with the Messianic visions of Poland’s romantic poets. Significantly, Conrad’s first sense of identity was that of ‘Pole, Catholic, nobleman’, expressed by him at the age of five in a letter to his grandmother.1 Earlier, his baptism had been greeted by Apollo Korzeniowski with verses that exemplify the father’s nationalistic beliefs: My child, my son, if the enemy calls you a nobleman and a Christian — tell yourself that you are a pagan and that your nobility is rot… My child, my son — tell yourself that you are without land, without love, without Fatherland, without humanity — as long as Poland, our mother, is enslaved.2