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Contemporary church architecture in Hungary is one of the most monumental and representative architectural topics of the period after the political change; following forty years of communist dictatorship it became possible for congregations to freely raise new church buildings, asserting at the same time their social rights. It is remarkable that among the newly built churches the majority appear through the uniting of diverse functions such as congregation centres. The sacral church spaces of these architectural complexes are flexible and thus often extended with the community´s educational or other functional units used for non-sacral social gatherings, as a result the church may really become the home of a community. The article tries to encompass this phenomenon by analysing in the context of historical antecedents a typical contemporary Catholic and Protestant Hungarian church.

During the nineteenth century, religious newspapers served as an integral source of information for numerous churchgoing individuals. Articles about the finer points of theology, minutes of denominational meetings, and developments regarding domestic and foreign missions filled the pages of these organs and kept ministers and laity informed about current ecclesiastical issues. The Civil War, however, caused editors and correspondents to include matters related to war and politics in addition to typical religious fare. The Church Advocate, the Church of God's national weekly published in Lancaster, is a little-known source that reveals aspects of daily life on the Pennsylvania home front and relates the experiences of soldiers in camp and on the battlefield.

AbstractIn 1992, Jet published "James Cleveland Infected L.A. Youth with HIV, $9 Mil. Lawsuit Claims," which detailed how the Chicago-born gospel musician had not only allegedly sexually abused his foster son, Christopher B. Harris, but had also "[given] him the AIDS virus." This article takes this incident of rumor or accusation as a critical opportunity to think about the archival reality of Black queer sexuality, on one hand, and sexual violence in Black gospel music history on the other. Using the legal documents from Christopher B. Harris v. Irwin Goldring as Special Administrator of the Estate of James Cleveland and commentary from Cleveland's contemporaries, it exhumes Cleveland from dusty church closets for consideration in the history of HIV and AIDS in African American Protestant church and gospel communities and in Black queer studies, ethnomusicology, and gender and sexuality studies. Further, it theorizes "Black church rumor" as a lens for Black queer religious studies and argues that Cleveland's perceived queer sexuality distracted from Harris's allegations of sexual abuse. Thus, it situates Cleveland—the person, the preacher, and the gospel legend—in the literature on "down low" sexuality and explicates the implications of Cleveland's legacy and role in Black gospel music production.

In this new book on the rise of commercial black 'mega churches,' Mary Hinton examines the rich legacy of the historic black church from the dual perspectives of theology and religious education. She explores the new religious models emerging from the tradition of the historic black church and questions whether they are continuing to operate and practice according to the wisdom of this unique form of American religion. Two mega church ministries, those of T. D. Jakes and Creflo Dollar, are examined in detail with regards to how they align with black church religious history. Hinton concludes by proposing that the fastest growing religious phenomenon within and outside of the black community in the United States-the mega church-should no longer be analyzed based on size alone. Instead, Hinton urges readers to consider the ecclesial structures of churches in making appropriate assessments in determining should and should not be classified as a commercial church

In honour of Mary-Anne Elizabeth Plaatjies-Van Huffel, this article is dedicated to her last endeavour, "to reflect on the road travelled" of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA). Plaatjies-Van Huffel became outspoken against the lack of internal unity in URCSA, especially after the retraction of her nomination as Actuarius at the URCSA Cape Synod elections in 2018. In this regard, the article focuses particularly on reconciliation in URCSA with a focus on the role of the church media as a medium for reconciliation. The paper will focus on the media reporting of the DRMC church newspaper, Die Ligdraer, between 1990 and 1994 on church unification between the DRCA and the DRMC as a case study to reflect on what role church media can play in the internal unification processes in URCSA. The author conducts a rhetorical analysis of the DRMC's newspaper, Die Ligdraer, and its role in the facilitation of unification between two churches (DRMC and DRCA), with different ethnic and cultural traditions that became reconciled and united in the context of political transition within the broader South African context.

The debate over whether the early church basilica was "imperial" is bound up with many other questions, including the origins of the building type, and whether building types have fixed or only contingent associations. Krautheimer, for example, maintained that the imperial quality of the early Christian basilica was generally transmitted, as the church basilica was a descendant of the public basilica which it formally resembles, and which itself was in the imperial domain. Deichmann, by contrast, held that no architectural form has inherent meaning, rather buildings are constituted as Christian or imperial through use or posterior interpretation. Recent advances in semiotic theory offer a way around this impasse, by suggesting that the "basilica" is a discursive rather than a formal category, determined neither purely by form nor purely by use, but by a cultural and linguistic understanding; and that the properties of architectural space contribute to this understanding by thematizing culturally meaningful categories. Contrasting the Lateran Basilica to two earlier public basilicas, the Basilica Aemilia and the Basilica Ulpia, demonstrates a fundamental lack of resemblance without denying a possible genetic connection. Semiotic analysis of the Lateran's interior suggests that it thematized many qualities that were also imperial but not exclusively so, including opulence, visibility, and power. It also thematized privacy – not an imperial attribute – and did not refer to the imperial themes par excellence, victory and military prowess.

The debate over whether the early church basilica was "imperial" is bound up with many other questions, including the origins of the building type, and whether building types have fixed or only contingent associations. Krautheimer, for example, maintained that the imperial quality of the early Christian basilica was generally transmitted, as the church basilica was a descendant of the public basilica which it formally resembles, and which itself was in the imperial domain. Deichmann, by contrast, held that no architectural form has inherent meaning, rather buildings are constituted as Christian or imperial through use or posterior interpretation. Recent advances in semiotic theory offer a way around this impasse, by suggesting that the "basilica" is a discursive rather than a formal category, determined neither purely by form nor purely by use, but by a cultural and linguistic understanding; and that the properties of architectural space contribute to this understanding by thematizing culturally meaningful categories. Contrasting the Lateran Basilica to two earlier public basilicas, the Basilica Aemilia and the Basilica Ulpia, demonstrates a fundamental lack of resemblance without denying a possible genetic connection. Semiotic analysis of the Lateran's interior suggests that it thematized many qualities that were also imperial but not exclusively so, including opulence, visibility, and power. It also thematized privacy – not an imperial attribute – and did not refer to the imperial themes par excellence, victory and military prowess.

In Western Europe the Church as an institution was integrated into the military system and was obliged to serve the monarchy. Apart from performing vassal duties, the Latin clergy frequently participated in military actions. Although the Church laws forbade clergymen to shed blood, there were many examples of the violation of this rule. The attitude of the Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire concerning the possible participation of the clergy in war differed significantly from that of Latin Europe. The Byzantine priesthood did not become involved in military actions. The Greek Church possessed neither military units nor vassal commitment to the Empire. Despite a very close relationship with the Byzantine Church the attitude of the Georgian Church to the issue differs from that of Byzantium and is closer to the Western practice. The feudal organization of Georgia conditioned the social structure of the Georgian Church and its obligations before the monarchy. Despite the fact that the Georgian Church enjoyed many advantages, it had to take part in military campaigns. The upper circles of Georgian Church dignitaries were accustomed to both conducting military campaigns or taking part in the combat. In regard to military activities of clergy, Georgian law was much more lenient than Byzantine, and in the case of necessity, it even modified Greek legal norms. The conflict with the Christian canons was decided in favor of military necessity, and it was reflected in the legislation

This article traces the German church struggle form 1933 to 1945 with particular emphasis on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's role. Although Bonhoeffer's status in the world today is that of a great theologian and courageous opponent of the Nazi regime, he did not have much of an impact on the direction of the Confessing Church during the church struggle. Bonhoeffer's striking albeit marginal role in the German church struggle and his inability to affect significantly the direction of the Confessing Church was due to many factors, including his young age, his liberal-democratic politics, his absence from Germany from October 1933 to April 1935, his vacillating and at times contradictory positions on central issues, his radical theological critique of the Nazi state, his friendship with and family ties to Christians of Jewish descent, and ultimately his willingness to risk his life to destroy Hitler's regime.

1. History -- 2. Basic constitutional text and structure -- 3. Personal religious freedom in the United Kingdom -- 4. Personal religious freedom in Germany -- 5. Personal religious freedom in the United States -- 6. Church-state relations in the United Kingdom -- 7. Church-state relations in Germany -- 8. Church-state realtions in the United States -- 9. Comparative observations.

The way a person understands poverty and its causes tends to shape the way a person is how to expose it. Most governments and most institutions define poverty as a whole based on material terminology. If the perception of material used for the problem of poverty is a complete understanding, it is not surprising that the local church is not included. The Bible gives a different understanding of poverty, according to him the most fundamental cause of poverty is spiritual. Sin is that which corrupts and distorts relationships which in many ways creates various forms of human poverty in material, social and spiritual forms. Within this framework of understanding the church can be involved. There are seven things that can be done by the church to be involved in transformational development (leading transformational): serving the community; call people to faith; bring out students who are holistic; contributions to civil society; being a pastoral companion; be the voice of prophethood; provide alternative explanations

AbstractContemporary Russian scholars usually try to abstain from any criticism to Russian Orthodox Church' actions in past and present. Meanwhile a situation in 1917 was very confused: the Holy Synod supported the abdication of its formal head – the Tsar. So historians discussed: what it was – "revolutionary Church" or "revolution inside Church"? One of them insists that bishops become "liberals", another argue that they operated accordingly old religious canons. In reality the full scale revolution inside Church took place: believers tried to overthrow the "reactionary" and "counterrevolutionary" bishops and priests as "serfs of old regime", rank and file clergy supported them.