Gender and Sexuality in the Pastoral Encounter

Abstract

At the ‘Embodied Ministry: Gender, Sexuality and Formation’ conference at which the articles in this special issue were delivered, three people in active ministry in different denominations — United Reformed Church, Metropolitan Community Church and Roman Catholic — were invited to take part in a panel discussion on gender and sexuality in the pastoral encounter. Their remarks were originally delivered in this conversational context. Martin Pendergast chaired this panel discussion.     

Rising in Witness: The Metropolitan Community Church in the Religious Press

This detailed article surveys the literature generated by and about the Metropolitan Community Church from its foundation in 1968 to contemporary times in the mainstream religious press and tracks its use as a research venue.     

The Architectural Expression of Primitive Christianity: William Beveridge and the Temple of Solomon

Abstract

On the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, a resurgent religious identity in church and state was informed by identifying the English nation with the biblical Israel, and the worship and buildings of the Church of England with those of the Temple in Jerusalem. The dedication of the Church of St Peter, Cornhill (rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666 and designed by Christopher Wren) in 1681 by the Revd William Beveridge was an expression of the Church of England's confidence in its identity with the ‘primitive Church,’ and as the Church of a chosen and favoured people.     

Violence against Women in Contemporary Ghanaian Society

Abstract

Overcoming violence against women requires critical reflective questioning both by individuals and human societies. At stake are not just questions of whether we respond to situations of violence but more importantly, where, when and how we respond. This paper examines the problem with respect to new dimensions arising from existing interventions on violence against women in the Ghanaian context. It calls for well-planned and sustained strategies to help break the cycle of violence being created.

The paper also calls upon the Church to look within its own resources for strategies that are life transforming to help break the vicious cycle. It notes that the Church is not only well placed to respond appropriately but it has been commissioned and given the requisite tools to do so. The call is therefore for the Church to enlist these foundational resources available to it and to put them to good use as it is demanded by its calling.     

Morality and HIV/AIDS: a Comparison of Russian Orthodox Church and Secular NGO Approaches

Abstract

This paper compares the different moral approaches taken by the Russian Orthodox Church and secular NGOs to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Russia. The paper consists of two parts. The first is a brief summary of the theoretical approach of the project. In this section I outline the theory of moral breakdown that helps provide a coherent framework to the emerging, but yet under-theorised, subdiscipline of the anthropology of moralities. In doing so, I show how this theory provides legitimacy to this choice of topic for a proper study of local moralities. The second section provides a brief background on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Russia, and then moves on to an analysis of the moral discourses and practices of the Russian Orthodox Church and secular NGOs, and how they have influenced the way these institutions approach the HIV/AIDS epidemic.     

Apostolic Administrator Dr Mihael Toroš and his Connections with the Communist Authorities in Slovenia between 1947 and 1953

Abstract

This article presents the work of Apostolic Administrator Dr Mihael Toro? in the western border areas of Slovenia after the annexation of the Primorska region to Yugoslavia in 1947. When he became administrator his parishes were in ruins. He wanted to rebuild religious life, but this was impossible without the help of the communist authorities. However, the authorities used him to cause a rift in the Catholic Church in Slovenia. He and his priests were given material goods and other benefits to show others how profitable cooperating with the authorities was. In return Toro? had to declare his loyalty to the state in public. After a few years he realised that he was being exploited and he distanced himself from the authorities. His connections with the authorities were criticised by the Vatican, but he achieved a good deal for the Catholic Church in Slovenia (a magazine, a boys' seminary) by cooperating.     

‘That is Best,Which Was First’: Christian Primitivism and the Reformation Church of England, 1548-1722

Abstract

This essay explores the Church of England's theologico-historical sense of self during the tumultuous period of the ‘long Reformation.’ By taking its claim to be ‘primitive Christianity restored’ seriously it is argued that Church of England polemical apology was guided by Christian primitivism, an ideology shaped by a belief in the theological primacy of the beginning of Christianity. This made it intellectually possible to conceive of a past true, pure Church that should and could be re-formed in the present. In a more speculative vein it is also argued that this primitivism was formative in the Church's self-defining apologetic recourse to Scripture, reason, and tradition.     

Pope Benedict XVI and the Church in China

ABSTRACT

Pope Benedict XVI’s letter to the Church in China in 2007 emphasises the importance of papal authority, the relationship between local and universal churches, and the appointment of bishops. This article highlights Pope Benedict’s centrist ecclesiology, which had been normative for the Catholic Church since he was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1981 to 2005). In spite of his conservative stance regarding church doctrine, he was open to dialogue with the Chinese authorities. He understood the complexities of the Chinese Church, the hardship and predicament faced by the faithful.     

The Christian Reformed Church Periodical Index

Abstract

This article describes the creation of a web-based database that indexes less well-known periodical titles of importance to scholars in the Christian Reformed Church, and generally not covered by other indexing services. The author explains how the data from the index, originally stored in a card catalog, was moved online to a text-based system, and eventually into its present form in a web-based system. Highlighting some of the challenges that were overcome in creating this resource, brief details are provided on how the data are stored and retrieved in the web environment, on how the data are searched and presented to the researcher, and on the methods used to keep the database current.     

The Church in St Ambrose of Milan

Abstract

A brief account is given of the life of St Ambrose and of modern scholarly views on his work. The Church was favoured by the Emperor Constantine and Christianity established as the state religion by the Emperor Theodosius. Ambrose might have been expected to have been interested in promoting the interests of the Church as an institutional and juridical organisation but he was in fact overwhelmingly interested in its spiritual aspect, as von Campenhausen asserts, opposed by Morino. The Church is seen in Ambrose's writings as the City of God and as the Kingdom of God into which believers are received. His understanding of the Church is markedly christocentric and biblical and is closely linked with his thinking on the Holy Spirit. This article also examines his attitude to the see of Rome, of which he did not recognise a general supremacy. The relevance for Christians today of Ambrose's experience of the Church as a unique spiritual fellowship is touched on.     

The Emerging Church as Corporatization’s Line of Flight

ABSTRACT

In the United States and elsewhere, many religious organizations have adopted structures, mechanisms, and ideologies that can be understood through the concept of corporatization. More than a process, corporatization creates a schema through which social relationships are structured and particular values and beliefs are emphasized (particularly, the valorization of the consumer). The authors of the present article draw on Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s conceptualization of ‘lines of flight’ to illustrate how the Emerging Church, a new religious movement, has leveraged the discontinuities within corporatization. The participants of this movement do so in order to resist institutionalizing systems that rigidify and indoctrinate participants. The authors use ethnographic field methods to demonstrate how Emerging Church participants rely on the tropes of ‘messiness’ and ‘conversation’ to embrace a radical contingency, to foster dialogue, and to avoid adopting rigid, rationalized systems of meaning.     

Book reviews

Truth at all Costs. Review of The Kairos Document, Challenge to the Church, published in UK by Catholic Institute for International Relations and the British Council of Churches

The Bengali Muslims of Bradford. Stephen William Barton Community Religions Project Monograph Series, University of Leeds, 1986 243 pp.

Investigating American Occultism. The Occult in America: New Historical Perspectives. edited by Howard Kerr and Charles L Crow. University of Illinois Press, £13.60

Gurdjieff: an annotated bibliography J. Walter Driscoll & the Gurdjieff Foundation of California Garland Publishing. New York, 1985. pp. xxv + 363, $50     

The Early Influence of Humanism on Balthasar Hubmaier (1485–1528) During His University Studies

ABSTRACT

Historians have long accepted the influence of humanism on Anabaptist origins. The emphasis on text-based support of early reforms and critiques of the Catholic Church characterize the brand of humanism in northern Europe and the Protestant Reformation. However, little attention has been given to the precise dynamics, networks, and mechanisms exposing early Anabaptists to humanism years before they even began to consider a more drastic reformation of the Church. As the martyred Balthasar Hubmaier was a central figure and the only university doctor of the early Radical Reformation, this article will study the personal, textual, and curricular components of his academic career at the universities of Freiburg-im-Breisgau and Ingolstadt; it is important for revealing a commitment to humanism that is deeper than was previously thought. It throws light on how the New Learning affected some Anabaptists, which humanists influenced their radical reforms, and which academic disciplines inspired their reforming methodologies.     

Calvin and the Ecclesiastical Power of Jurisdiction

Abstract

This study offers a hypothesis that the two marks of the Church in the Calvinist Reformed tradition, together with its disciplinary power, restate the twin classical powers granted to the Church in Catholic tradition, namely the powers of order and jurisdiction. Unlike Luther, for whom the chief ecclesiastical power was the authority to preach and teach, Calvin not only acknowledges the teaching and sacramental functions of the Church, but also stressed a jurisdictional power (jurisdictio fori) with autonomous legislative and judicial competence. This jurisdictional dimension is the key to explaining the role played by Geneva-inspired Reformed churches vis-à-vis the State and differences from other other Protestant traditions.     

Indulgences in the Catholic Reformation

Abstract

Ever since Luther’s ‘Ninety-five Theses’ (1517), indulgences have been synonymous with corruption in the Catholic Church, although their proper use was to be reaffirmed at the Council of Trent. This article comprises firstly, an exploration of the theory, nature, uses, and evolution of indulgences after Luther up to about 1700; secondly, an examination of indulgences as a product of ecclesiastical jurisdiction of popes and bishops; and thirdly, an exploration of the individual acquisition of pardons and the progression of different devotions over time. The focus will be on France as a case study. It will be shown how indulgences in Catholicism survived Luther, were reinvented and emerged as a powerful tool of personal and institutional reform. They provide a lens through which to explore the history of the institutional Church, in particular relationships between centre and periphery during the Catholic Counter-Reformation centuries.     

Reformation

Abstract

Thomas Becon (1512/13–1567), one of the early English Reformers, is known for his dialogues, prayers, and Catechism. While the word ‘reformation’ occurs rarely in his works, the notion itself extends further than Church structures and theology. Becon’s approach to reformation does not envision the Church as an object of faith or an ecclesiastical construct to be refurbished. His style reveals undertones that convey a somewhat deeper flavour. Beside his Nicene definition of the Church, his idea of reformation is grounded in subliminal assumptions which we propose to elucidate. The Reformation as a return to a model of ideal Church organization or returning to the supposedly normative Apostolic Church is more like the expression or resurgence of a myth akin to resurrection.     

Reviews

History of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Soviet Union 1917–1938

(Geschichte der Evangelisch‐Lutherischen Gemeinden in der Sovetunion 1917–1938) by Wilhelm Kahle, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1974, 625 pp. No price.

Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR: Their Treatment and Conditions

Amnesty International Report, A. I. Publications (53 Theobald's Road, London, W.C.1) 1975, 154 pp., £1.00

Marxism and the Church of Rome by Hervé Leclerc, Conflict Studies (Institute for the Study of Conflict) No. 45, 1974, 13 pp., £1.00.

Questions of scientific atheism

(Voprosy Nauchnogo Ateizma) No. 16, “Mysl”, Moscow, 1974, 358 pp.     

The Church in the commentaries of St Cyril of Alexandria

Abstract

The Church of Alexandria was a highly centralized institution, reflecting Alexandria's civil status rather than an ecclesiology comparable to that of Rome. Cyril's thinking on the Church was not ideologically driven but the product of his biblical exegesis. Of the many symbolic images of the Church he finds in the Scriptures, the most important are the tabernacle, the temple, the city of Sion, and the body of Christ. In discussing these images, he presents the Church as a community of faith in which humanity is recreated in Christ through the Holy Spirit, a community in which believers reproduce on the moral level the essential unity of the Trinity itself. With a strong sense of the Church as a society in the world, Cyril is anxious to protect this community from competitors who would thwart its purpose through wrong belief.     

Emotional stressors among volunteers operating a diaconal suicide-prevention crisis line in Norway: a qualitative study

ABSTRACT

Despite the worldwide proliferation of suicide-prevention crisis-line networks, there is limited in-depth knowledge of how the volunteer call responders experience and manage emotional stressors. The study’s purpose was to explore emotional stressors related to operating a diaconal suicide-prevention crisis line, and how these are managed in daily operations. In this qualitative study, 27 volunteers were interviewed in four focus groups. The material was analysed using systematic text condensation. The participants experienced emotional stressors related to being unable to actively intervene, encountering traumatised callers and feeling uncertain about representing the Church. They used a combination of personal coping strategies and organisational support factors. Implications for training and practice are further discussed.     

Chinese Christianity in international perspective: some remarks on ecclesiology and fundamental concepts engaging East and West

ABSTRACT

In Chinese legislation on the Church as well as in the theological debate in China and, the concepts of religion and Christianity predominate, depending, from a historical perspective, on the influence of nineteenth-century philosophical and theological ideas from the West, conveyed by socialist political theory, by the weak ecclesiology in missionary societies operatingin China before 1949, and influential theologians setting the scene. The idea of Sinicisation contributed to the perpetuation of the nineteenth-century ideas of religion and Christianity in China. Today, however, there are signs of change. The churches in the accelerating multi-modernity in China wishto clarify what is unique for the Christian Church. Sometimes, however, what is characteristic of the Church in China is also characteristic of the Church in many other places in the world.