The issue of the relationship between church and state has had a long and complex history. During the last two thousand years, many models of church-state relationships have been devised and put into practice in the political structures of different states. It should be noted that the possibility of the church's involvement in secular politics in Russia and Ukraine makes the need for theological conceptualisation in this field especially urgent. The article presents a holistic and comprehensive approach to the theological discussion of the church-state relationship that will certainly be of interest to many contemporary researchers, examining the unique experience of theocracy in Judaism; the historical formation of the idea of Caesaropapism in both pagan and Christian states; and the theological controversy between the monarchical and Berdyaev schools on the issue of close alliance between church and state
The issue of the relationship between church and state has had a long and complex history. During the last two thousand years, many models of church-state relationships have been devised and put into practice in the political structures of different states. It should be noted that the possibility of the church's involvement in secular politics in Russia and Ukraine makes the need for theological conceptualisation in this field especially urgent. The article presents a holistic and comprehensive approach to the theological discussion of the church-state relationship that will certainly be of interest to many contemporary researchers, examining the unique experience of theocracy in Judaism; the historical formation of the idea of Caesaropapism in both pagan and Christian states; and the theological controversy between the monarchical and Berdyaev schools on the issue of close alliance between church and state
This chapter explores the literature of the nascent Jesus movements and emergent Christianity with its varying attitudes toward illegitimate ritual, in particular with such terms as magos, pharmakeia, manteuomai, and perierga. The chapter looks first at Christian narrative depictions of illegitimate ritual, followed by sin-lists that include references to illegitimate ritual practices, canon lists, and imperial legislation. Finally, the chapter turns to "discursive contexts" that framed the illegitimacy of certain ritual practices in terms of the demonic.
A fault line in contemporary scholarship has emerged around what Gil Anidjar calls "the Christian Question," litigating Christianity's historical contributions to the creation of a profoundly unjust arrangement of global politics. On one side of the fault line stand those who argue that Christianity is ultimately abusive, and therefore should be discarded as much as possible through deconversion; on the other side are those who argue that the way out of perverse Christian products is a deeper conversion to a true, pure identity for Christianity. This dissertation wades into the dilemma by arguing that Christianity can be fruitfully understood as a technology of human beings, by which people change the world and themselves. Drawing from Paul Virilio, it suggests further that, like all technologies, Christianity contains unforeseeable accidents (e.g., the invention of the ship is also the invention of the shipwreck), consequences that may not at first seem recognizably Christian but nevertheless descend from Christian sources. Reading Christianity through the lens of the accident, the dissertation aims to provide a method for dealing with Christianity's historical relationship to oppression and liberation, arguing that Christian technologies must be retrofitted according to a horizon of liberation. The study is organized into six chapters, bookended by an introduction and conclusion that ground the dissertation broadly in what Enrique Dussel calls philosophy of liberation, which presents an alternative means of conceiving of the role of philosophy of religion beyond postmodern approaches. The study begins by explaining how Christianity could be conceived of as a technology, engaging media theorists like Peter Sloterdijk and Vilém Flusser (chapter one). Then, the study takes Virilio as a particular theorist of technology and guide for thinking about Christianity and accidents, briefly offering the emergence of white supremacy in the United States as a case study to illustrate this theoretical point (chapter two). To better understand Christianity's historical and formative role in global politics, the study explores critical scholarship on religion and secularism, proposing to see Christianity as an infrastructure undergirding categories that may not seem ostensibly Christian (chapter three). Philosophically, these insights have consequences for philosophy of religion and the secular, which the study demonstrates by engaging Charles Taylor and Jürgen Habermas through critics like Talal Asad and Saba Mahmood (chapter four). With a broad paradigm in place, the study directly engages the fault line around the Christian Question, reading theologian William Cavanaugh as representative of the conversion side and Gil Anidjar and Daniel Colucciello Barber as representative of the deconversion side (chapter five). Lastly, the study puts forward the possibility of constantly retrofitting Christian technology, always accountable to the negative inevitabilities of the accident (chapter six).
The issue of the relationship between church and state has had a long and complex history. During the last two thousand years, many models of church"state relationships have been devised and put into practice in the political structures of different states. It should be noted that the possibility of the church's involvement in secular politics in Russia and Ukraine makes the need for theological conceptualisation in this field especially urgent. The article presents a holistic and comprehensive approach to the theological discussion of the church"state relationship that will certainly be of interest to many contemporary researchers, examining the unique experience of theocracy in Judaism; the historical formation of the idea of Caesaropapism in both pagan and Christian states; and the theological controversy between the monarchical and Berdyaev schools on the issue of close alliance between church and state.
Preacher Marc Bistricer understands Christianity as: "that flow, that current, that identifiable channel in the field of history and characterized - precisely - by certain formulas of thought, by certain ways of conceiving, by certain moral rules, by the claim to certain values, by certain practical attitudes, by certain forms". Christianity for the Preacher Marc Bistricer is primarily something historically identifiable, a form that Christianity takes historically that remains, insofar as it is, different from other possible forms of life by the constant claim to respect for the way of thinking, norms, etc. Christianity has been able to emerge in history as a specific form of Christianity at the time when Christianity itself shapes civilization itself. Preacher Marc Bistricer shares that after the fall of the Roman Empire, Christianity has shaped an entire civilization: laws, institutions, rites, monuments, arts, music, festivals, gave European civilization a Christian tinge. Christian was the religion of kings, peasants, and poets. Christian philosophy. Christian theology. It is not that there was no unbelief or diversity of opinions or social or political immobility. Nor did it mean that all people followed with absolute coherence the Christian values that the civilization to which he belonged suggested as valid. A person born in the realm of Christianity found Christianity precisely through rites, rules, institutions, etc. In the realm of Christianity, the very form of social institutions transmitted the faith. They went to Mass on Sunday, because everyone went to Mass on Sunday, it was believed that the Son and the Father are consubstantial because everyone believed them. In a context like this, the external form, the creation of habits, the multiplication of religious signs and images become instruments of essential importance for the transmission of faith. Preacher Marc Bistricer, who hold a Bachelor's Degree in Theology from the University of Toronto, shares that the faith in the Christian era was not ...
From its inception to the 4th century CE, Christianity experienced a formative process composite of three catalytic phases characterised by distinctive events (i.e. Jewish-Christian Schism, Hellenism and imperial intervention). From the aforementioned era emerged an orthodoxy fostered by an imperial-ecclesiastical link. There appears to have been a parallel story with regard to certain elements of African Christianity, in particular, Ethiopian Christianity. What can be made of the gap regarding Jewish Christianity combined with the absence of African Christianity from Bauer's modular theory on heresy and orthodoxy in the development of early Christianity? Despite the dominant story of the development of an imperial religious establishment at the turn of the 4th century, could there be an alternative narrative to Christianity in the African region derivate from Ethiopia? Reviewing the emergence of a religious political Christianity in this era as modular against Ethiopian Christianity in tangent with its links with Christianity in Roman Africa, establishment of the nature and development of Ethiopian Christianity was performed. This was performed through documentary analysis. Bauer's (1971) theory of orthodoxy and heresy in early Christianity did not exhaustively account for Jewish Christianity and North African distinct intransigent tradition characteristic of Carthage. By extension to African Egyptian, Alexandria is Ethiopian Christianity that was characterised by Judaic tradition in contrast to anti-Judaism. This established a parallel history of Christianity in Africa inclusive of Ethiopia. A review of this perspective contains contemporary momentum in view of the focus on Ethiopian Jews, for example, as religious praxis was as important as ethnicity in determining the Jewishness of whole tribes. ; Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology
The editorial presents the conference "Religion and Politics" arranged by the Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures at the University of Turku in November 2018. Articles 3-7 of the current issue are based on papers presented at the conference. ; publishedVersion ; Peer reviewed
The editorial presents the conference "Religion and Politics" arranged by the Centre for the Study of Christian Cultures at the University of Turku in November 2018. Articles 3-7 of the current issue are based on papers presented at the conference.
Presented in November, 1991, at a conference on "Christianity and Democracy" convened at Emory University Law School with co-sponsorship of Pew Trust and the Association for Public Justice. The title was assigned to Yoder. Corrected at numerous points thanks to counsel from R. Rodes.
Even after fifty years of freedom, the Christian community in India is still struggling to find an identity of its own in the country, and a constructive role in the nation building process. It finds itself at the centre of controversy time and again.1 It is often attacked from without, and disunited from within. So this Golden Jubilee Year should be a time for introspection and reflection on its role in independent India. The author quotes M.M. Thomas perceptively : "The rights of religious minorities must be seen as coupled with the struggle for the rights of all minorities, regional, cultural, and most of all political . It is sheer immaturity which concentrates on Christian minority rights without any reference to issues of civil liberties and democratic rights of all citizens."
The greatest problem of the twentieth century.--The Bible and war.--The church and peace.--Christianity and militarism.--Some fallacies of militarism.--What, then, shall we do? ; Mode of access: Internet.
"Annual sermon preached before the Baptist Missionary and Publication Societies at San Francisco, May 28, 1899." ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Mode of access: Internet.
Indonesia is a multicultural and multireligious nation whose heterogeneity is codified in the state doctrine, the Pancasila. Yet the relations between the various social, ethnic, and religious groups have been problematic down to the present day, and national unity has remained fragile. In several respects, Christians have a precarious role in the struggle for shaping the nation. They are a small minority (about 9% of the population) in a country predominantly inhabited by Muslims; in the past they were interconnected in manifold ways with the Dutch colonial government; they exert great influence in economy and the military, and constitute the majority of the population in some parts of the so-called Outer Islands (such as Flores, Sumba, and Timor), which are characterized by an attitude fraught with ambivalence towards the state apparatus perceived as 'Javanese' and 'Muslim'. In the aftermath of the former president Suharto's resignation and in the course of the ensuing political changes – in particular the independence of East Timor – Christians were repeatedly discredited for allegedly posing a threat to Indonesian unity, and have been involved both as victims and perpetrators in violent regional clashes with Muslims that claimed thousands of lives. Since the beginning of the new millennium the violent conflicts have lessened, yet the pressure exerted on Christians by Islamic fundamentalists still continues undiminished in the Muslim-majority regions. The future of the Christians in Indonesia remains uncertain, and pluralist society is still on trial. For this reason the situation of Christians in Indonesia is an important issue that goes far beyond research on a minority, touching on general issues relating to the formation of the nation-state.