Comparing the Patrologia Latina and the CETEDOC Library of Christian Latin Texts Databases from a User's Perspective

ABSTRACT

This review article provides a detailed comparison of two major patristic databases, the Patrologia Latina and the CETEDOC Library of Christian Latin Texts from a user's perspective.     

Military Service in the Church Orders

The debate concerning the approach of the early Christians to the military can be advanced by paying attention to a genre of literature that scholars have largely ignored: the church orders. These documents—the Apostolic Tradition, Canons of Hippolytus, Testament of Our Lord, and Apostolic Constitutions—are illuminating in that they deal with ethics within comprehensive treatments of worship, catechesis and pastoral life. They also are useful in that they, as variations upon a common original, are means of monitoring change across the third and fourth centuries. This article uses the church orders to assess four elements of a “new consensus” (David Hunter) on Christians in the military. By and large it confirms these, but at times it alters emphases and adds nuances. It argues that: (1) the church orders viewed killing as the big problem for Christians in the legions, not idolatry; (2) the church orders confirm that the pre‐Christendom church was divided on Christian participation in the legions; (3) the church orders provide evidence for both discontinuity and continuity on the issue across the centuries, although the deepest continuity, based on John the Baptist's “rule” of Luke 3.14, is between the pre‐Constantinian laity and later theologians; (4) the church orders confirm a regional variation in attitude and practice. The church orders' authority in practice is never clear.     

Linking clergy psychological type profile and church growth in the Diocese of Chester: a pilot study

Two recent studies (one in England and one in Australia) have linked church growth and church decline with the psychological type profile of church leaders. The present study, conducted within the Diocese of Chester, compares the psychological type profile of two groups of clergy who had served in the same parishes for five years or more: 29 leading declining churches and 19 leading growing churches. The data found a significantly higher preference for perceiving among those leading growing churches, although there were no significant differences in terms of the orientations, the perceiving process, or the judging process.     

‘Serving Two Masters’: Protestant Churches in Korea and Money

Materialism or religio-economic entrepreneurship has been a primary impetus for the explosive growth of Protestant churches in Korea, especially since the 1960s, when rapid industrialisation began to propel Korean society into tremendous economic prosperity. However, since the early 1990s, there has been stagnation, even decline. The primary aim of this article is to identify the most pressing problems facing the Korean Protestant churches and show how these problems have begun to render them less vibrant and possibly to bring about decline in their membership. More specifically, the article identifies how materialism, having deeply penetrated Korean Christianity, led it first to grow and then decline; thus robbing it of its requisite or intrinsic organisational characteristics – being the light and salt of the world.     

Studying the ecclesiology of a national church: the Danish context

Studying the ecclesiology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark is a complicated matter. It requires knowledge of a broad range of subjects such as theology, political science, history, and anthropology. This article shows some of the difficulties and problems related to studying a national church which is heavily politicised, because a national church, in a globalised context, easily becomes the symbol of a past identification of nation, state, church, and people. Today, this identification is changing because of immigration, secular ideologies, and secularisation. Researchers in ecclesiology must be aware of the political and national dimensions of their research and how their conclusions are used in the political debate.     

What Does the Development of Fresh Expressions of Church in the UK Tell Us about Mission Today?

This article explores the significance of the Fresh Expressions movement in the UK since the ground‐breaking Mission‐Shaped Church report was published by the Church of England in 2004. After reviewing the background to this report, the article explores some of the report's central themes and examines some of the more recent research on the movement's impact in the UK. It then highlights six ways in which fresh expressions continue to be significant as a missionary response in a post‐Christian context. These include the movement's theological underpinnings, its reassessment of key questions in ecclesiology, its commitment to local and contextual mission, and the emergence of a predominantly lay leadership. In recognizing that the movement is still in a state of evolution, the article concludes by suggesting some areas of continuing debate and challenge for the future.     

Looking Beyond the Church Tax: Families and the Disaffiliation of Austrian Roman Catholics

This study aims to understand the reasons why Roman Catholics leave the church based on the example of Austria, a country with high rates of disaffiliation since the 1980s. Although previous research focused mainly on the church tax, this study provides a more comprehensive analysis based on a mixed‐methods approach that reveals the central relevance of the family in the process. We began by conducting and analyzing 19 qualitative interviews with former Catholics. Next we used the Generations and Gender Survey (two‐wave representative panel data) to study the characteristics of Catholics who disaffiliated in the intersurvey period (2008–2012). Two types could be distinguished in the qualitative and the quantitative sample: attached and distant leavers. Both rarely attended religious services and were critical of the church, but attached leavers held a private form of religiosity and engaged in religious practices whereas distant leavers self‐identified as agnostics or atheists. The church tax was the main reason for disaffiliation among attached leavers while distant leavers disaffiliated on ideological grounds. One identical factor, however, was of major importance for explaining church‐leaving behavior among both types: family‐related matters and experiences. We conclude that family members and family transitions play a major role in the process of religious disaffiliation.     

Church discipline and excommunication

Abstract

A perspective of the Reformed conception of church discipline in the sixteenth century has highlighted two models: the disciplinarian one associated with Geneva and the magistratical one identified with Zurich. This essay argues that a simple binary distinction between the Geneva and Zurich models of church discipline is inadequate to account for the complexity and diversity of sixteenth-century Reformed theological positions, particularly as represented in the articulations of the influential reformer, Peter Martyr Vermigli.     

‘Resacralising’ secular space: new churches in a northern city, 1980–2012

This article explores the way new church congregations in a city in northern England, the city of York, are using religious and non-religious spaces in which to meet. These new congregations show a diverse approach to the material realm and especially to sacred space. Some use existing church buildings, some build their own structures. But many use a range of buildings: schools, community centres, a pub or the garage of a private house. An examination of these structures offers insights into ways in which faith engages with wider social realities and into contemporary religious history. This article will focus primarily on Britain, but casts an eye to developments elsewhere.     

The Church as an Agent of Help in the Battle Against Late Life Depression

Late life depression has become recognized as a serious mental health problem. Almost 1 in 6 elderly suffer (often in silence) with late life depression. New care delivery agents need to be uncovered and mobilized. Because older Americans' religious habits positively impact their sense of well-being and physical health, the church becomes an ideal medium to offer educational programming focused onprevention and early intervention. This article presents a proposal for how the church could become an agent of help to depressed elderly and their families.     

Church Attendance and Happiness Among Northern Irish Undergraduate Students: No Association

Robbins and Francis (1996) note that the relationship between religiosity and happiness varies according to the precise measures used and the samples studied. To further explore the association between religiosity and happiness, 154 Northern Irish undergraduate students completed the Depression–Happiness Scale and a measure of frequency of Church attendance. No significant association was found between a greater frequency of Church attendance and happiness scores. As such, these findings compliment previous research using the Depression–Happiness Scale alongside an attitudinal measure of religion, and support the view that when happiness is operationalised in terms of the Depression–Happiness Scale there is no association with either attitudinal of behavioural measures of religiosity.     

Hymns and Hymn‐Singing as an Indicator of the Situation of the Church

Abstract : This article investigates the hymnals of four Lutheran churches in Germany, North America, Sweden and Denmark in order to identify the connection between ecclesiastic and theological development during the 20^th century, as well as the editorial process used in creating the hymnals of the period. The hymnals reflect a significant development from a traditional non‐ritualistic to an Anglican‐inspired ritualistic conception of the Sunday service as a side‐effect of the transition of the typical Lutheran churches from majority to minority churches.     

Missional Congregations as Public Companions with God in Global Civil Society: Vocational Imagination and Spiritual Presence

This article explores the intersection of missional ecclesiology and civil society studies and proposes that the Holy Spirit is calling emerging missional congregations to the vocation of public companions with God in global civil society. This congregational vocation of public companion entails four dimensions of missional congregations’ spiritual presence within civil society: perichoretic communion, prophetic speech, sapiential wisdom, and pacific action.     

Spare the Rod? Ideology,Experience, and Attitudes Toward Child Discipline Among Presbyterian Clergy

Despite the recurrent public and academic controversies over the issue of corporal punishment, few studies have examined the attitudes of clergy members. This oversight is noteworthy, because clergy members may influence the beliefs and behaviors of church members and others via their roles in parish ministry, counseling, and civic leadership. Our study addresses this gap in the research literature using data from a nationwide sample of Presbyterian Church (USA) clergy members. Key findings include the following: (a) Approval of corporal punishment is higher among male, non-white, less affluent, and parish (vs. specialized) clergy; (b) Theological conservatism is unrelated to corporal punishment attitudes, but political conservatism and Republican Party leanings are strongly predictive of greater approval of physical discipline; and (c) Clergy members who know someone in their congregation who has experienced abuse are less supportive of the corporal punishment of children, although direct personal experiences with physical or emotional abuse are less consistently related to corporal punishment attitudes. Several implications and promising directions for future research are discussed.

Holiness as a mark of the Church in the writings of John Henry Newman

‘Church’ is a common word to denote ordinary, traditional, mass Christian churches. In sociology, four main characteristics are used to describe these religious organisations: a bureaucratic organisational structure, a passive relationship with their members, a positive relationship and attitude to society and the state, and a leading vision for the whole of society including a positive attitude to other religious bodies. This article states that these characteristics are under pressure in the context of globalised social relations. With examples from European churches, it is shown that these organisations are becoming less likely to conform to the ideal type of ‘church’. In the conclusion, three scenario's for the future of ‘churches’ in western society are portrayed.     

Truly Inclusive or Uniformly Liberal? An Analysis of the Politics of the Emerging Church

The emergent church movement has fashioned itself as an alternative for Christians who do not want to walk away from their faith, but feel uncomfortable with the dogmatic conservatism found in mainstream evangelicalism. The emerging church movement has portrayed itself as diverse and inclusive, which is a direct result of evading ingroup‐outgroup boundaries. However, despite the desire for a plurality of opinions, the movement's leaders have been known to take political positions that are largely left‐leaning. We use the first dataset known to gather this identity from a sample of Protestant clergy, and assess whether denominationally connected emergent church clergy do, in fact, present a distinctive political profile. Emergent clergy are what they say they are—diverse and inclusive—while they are, on average, more liberal than nonemergent clergy in the sample.     

Empirical and historical perspectives on the growth of Pentecostal-style churches in Malaysia,Singapore and Hong Kong

This article considers the growth of Pentecostal-style churches in Southeast Asia, and specifically in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. It outlines four reasons for the growth that occurred and then, using qualitative and quantitative data in a mixed mode, seeks to test the hypotheses it derives. It concludes that each of the hypotheses remains plausible but notes that contextual factors or major social disruptions undermine any deterministic account.     

Making room: a place for children’s spirituality in the Christian church

A relatively uncharted territory until recently, the concept of children as innate spiritual beings has garnered significant attention among scholars over the past two decades. The more that is learned about children’s spirituality, the more apparent it becomes that the Christian church in the United States generally fails to provide sufficient space for children to explore, develop and share their spirituality. This potentially leads children to suppress or disconnect from their spirituality in later years and also deprives a Christian community of the ability to learn and grow from children’s unique experiences of God and spirituality. This paper examines the underlying theories that foster environments among Christian churches where the ennoblement of a ‘grown-up faith’ and the resulting power adults hold because of that, inhibit the ability for children to be regarded and approached as capable of spiritual and faithful beliefs and understanding apart from adult intervention.     

Religion and Medicalization: The Case of ADHD

As a medicalized condition, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) sparks considerable public controversy. Previous research has highlighted the importance of examining the factors that influence attitudes toward ADHD. This article examines an understudied factor, religion, and its relationship with ADHD attitudes. Using data from the 2002 General Social Survey National Stigma Study‐Children, this research finds that compared to the rest of the population, evangelical Christians are less likely to view ADHD as a real disease and to believe children with ADHD should be treated with medication. Results also demonstrate that evangelicals are more likely to think doctors are overmedicating children with common behavior problems and to think medication prevents families from working out problems themselves. On the other hand, church attendance is unrelated to beliefs about ADHD treatment but is positively associated with thinking ADHD is a real disease. These findings add new insights to the existing literature on religion and medicalization.     

Homosexual Applicants to the Priesthood: How Many and Are They Psychologically Healthy?

The current investigation evaluated the psychological profiles of applicants to seminary who were identified as being either homosexual or heterosexual in orientation. The MMPI-2 from 63 seminary applicants conducted between 1990 and 2004 was reviewed. Results indicate that 49 applicants (78%) identified themselves as being heterosexual while 14 applicants (22%) identified themselves as being homosexual. Few psychological differences emerged on the MMPI-2 when comparing heterosexual to homosexual applicants.