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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian institutions & organizations > Ecumenism
George Bell was one of the most significant British church leaders
of the mid-20th century and in many ways he came to define the
involvement of British church people with the issues which arose
from the Third Reich. Gerhard Leibholz, a brother-in-law of
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was one of the most senior German lawyers of
the period, a refugee from Nazism who would become a founding
father of the new constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The two figures first encountered each other in the context of
dictatorship and exile and in a brilliant, sustained collaboration
over many years they fashioned a vigorous moral response to the
crises of Nazism, Soviet communism, total war and cold war. This
volume contributes fundamentally to our understanding of the
ethical, religious, legal and political debates which Hitler's
regime provoked. It also brings to life a vivid picture of the
realities of exile and the networks of support which were active
internationally in the great refugee crisis of these momentous
years. With its wealth of primary source material, previously
unavailable in English, this book is an important contribution to
the historiography of the Third Reich and will be of great value to
scholars and students of Nazism and international history.
Gerhard O. Forde has stood at the forefront of Lutheran thought for
most of his career. This new collection of essays and sermons-many
previously unpublished- makes Forde's powerful theological vision
more widely available. The book aptly captures Forde's deep
Lutheran commitment. Here he argues that the most important task of
theology is to serve the proclamation of the gospel as discerned on
the basis of the doctrine of justification by grace alone through
faith alone. For Forde, the doctrine of justification is not one
topic among other theological topics; rather, it is the criterion
that guides "all theology and ministry. Throughout the book Forde
applies this truth to issues of eschatology, authority, atonement,
and ecumenism. Also included are seven insightful sermons that
model the Lutheran approach to proclamation.
There is no doubt that ecumenism occupies a prominent place in the
history of the church in the twentieth century: countless churches
have been renewed through encounter with Christian brothers and
sisters in other confessions and cultures. But it is not clear that
this ecumenical impulse will continue to figure prominently in the
church's story. In this book, Michael Kinnamon argues that the
ecumenical movement, which has given such energy and direction to
the church, needs to be reconceived in a way that provides renewing
power for the church in this era - and he shows how this might
happen. He names the problems with ecumenism, identifies strengths
and accomplishments upon which the church now can build, and
suggests practical, concrete steps we can take in the direction of
revitalization, especially at the local level.
Die Suche nach einer beschreibbaren reformierten Identitat
beschaftigte in den letzten Jahrzehnten Kirchen, akademische
Theologie und Institutionen weltweit. Gleichzeitig entstanden in
reformierten Kirchen mehr als sechzig neue Bekenntnistexte, mit
denen Kirchen nicht allein auf die Herausforderungen ihres
jeweiligen Kontextes reagieren, sondern auch ihre Identitat als
bekennende Kirche zu aktualisieren versuchen. In dieser
Untersuchung macht Margit Ernst-Habib dieses typisch reformierte
Phanomen der offenen Bekenntnistradition zum Ausgangspunkt der
Identitatsbestimmung und zeigt anhand des Bekenntnisverstandnisses
auf, welche gemeinsamen theologischen Grundentscheidungen diesem
zugrunde liegen. Uber diese Bekenntnishermeneutik hinaus fragt sie
aber nach der Tiefendimension reformierter Identitat, die anhand
der Heiligkeit Gottes und der Gemeinschaft der Heiligen entwickelt
wird. Dabei tragt eine konsequent internationale Perspektive nicht
allein in den bearbeiteten Bekenntnistexten, sondern auch in der
verwendeten Sekundarliteratur entscheidend dazu bei, den globalen
Charakter der reformierten Tradition und ihrer Identitat(en)
sichtbar zu machen. Insbesondere die Beschreibung reformierter
Identitat als partizipatorischer, konfessorischer, ex-zentrischer,
deiktischer, pneumatologischer, missionaler und eschatologischer
Identitat bietet reformierten Kirchen und Theologien Hilfe dabei
an, ihre je eigene, aber auch eine gemeinsame reformierte Identitat
in okumenischer Weite zu bestimmen.
In the last century, amazingly, world Christianity's center of
gravity has effectively moved from Europe to a point near Timbuktu
in Africa. Never in the history of Christianity has there been such
a rapid and dramatic shift in where Christians are located in the
world.Wesley Granberg-Michaelson explores the consequences of this
shift for congregations in North America, specifically for the
efforts to build Christian unity in the face of new and challenging
divisions. Centers of religious power, money, and theological
capital remain entrenched in the global, secularized North while
the Christian majority thrives and rapidly grows in the global
South. World Christianity's most decisive twenty-first-century
challenge, Granberg-Michaelson argues, is to build meaningful
bridges between faithful churches in the global North and the
spiritually exuberant churches of the global South.
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