India, the world's largest democracy of 1 billion people, went to the polls in September 1999. In this article the director of the Evangelical Fellowship of India Commission on Relief and Development offers a critical reading of India's journey in building a nation state, and the challenge this represents to evangelicals to present a public face for the Christian faith in such a context. The article is a prelude to a larger and longer study he is undertaking, (...) which the editors hope to include a future issue of Transformation. (shrink)

Those who want to make social issues a bigger part of the world evangelization agenda have “met with the opposition of evangelical forces that seem committed to pull the [missions] movement backwards, towards mission styles of the Cold War era and towards pushing the imperial marketing of theological and missiological packages created within the framework of North American society.” This article examines the Lausanne movement, including the landmark evangelization conferences of 1974 and 1989 and focuses on questions of (...) social issues and the gospel. The major purpose is to identify and describe three missiological streams which must establish dialogue with one another if the task of world evangelization is to be accomplished. The “church growth” missiological school, “managerial missiology” “fails to appreciate those aspects of missionary work that cannot be measured or reduced to figures”. (shrink)

Roland Allen emerged as an independent missionary and theologian within the Anglican Mission to North China from 1895 to 1903. For the rest of his life, he continued as a freelance missiological writer, debater and priest for some time connected to the interdenominational World Dominion Press. As a theologian and churchman, with a genuine incarnational ecclesiology as his foundation, he combined a Catholic view of Anglicanism with a deliberate concern for local Christian initiatives and the spontaneous expansion of local (...) Christian communities within their own environment. Basic in his ecclesiology was his view of the Church as a sacramental body, a network of local fellowships celebrating the Sacraments. Therefore, these nurtured local Christian ‘Churches’ are to be regarded and treated as the proper agents of Evangelization. In order to implement this understanding of mission he encouraged experiments with ordination of local voluntary clergy to open up the access to a sacramental life, and, thereby, promoting growth and expansion in mission. (shrink)

In 2010-2012, on the pages of Catholic publications, there was literally an avalanche of articles entitled "The New Evangelization of Europe"; "Through the evangelization to overcome social and cultural inequalities in a globalized world"; "The Church must continuously renew its gospel mission"; "We need to look for new means of proclaiming the Gospel"; "The Gospel is the greatest power of the change of the world", etc. A special "Pontifical Council for New Evangelization" was created. In October 2012, a (...) meeting of the Synod of Catholic Bishops took place in Rome to discuss the topic "New evangelization for the spread of the Christian faith". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Evangelical Peacemakers: Gospel Engagement in a War-Torn World ed. by David P. GusheeLisa Sowle CahillEvangelical Peacemakers: Gospel Engagement in a War-Torn World Edited by David P. Gushee EUGENE, OR: WIPF AND STOCK, 2013. 135 PP. $21.00This short volume collects papers from a 2012 Evangelicals for Peace conference at Georgetown University. This should not mislead potential readers as to the book's timeliness, coherence, significance, or ecumenical (...) and interreligious appeal. Much of its incisive analysis owes to the editor's preface, introductory chapter, and concluding critical discussion of the positions represented, including his own.Four chapters lay out the Christian arguments for just war, biblical pacifism, and the late Glen Stassen's "just peacemaking theory," presenting ten practices to deter or transform violent conflict. Although Gushee's chapter would have to be placed among just war theorists, he stresses that war must be a last resort to defend innocent life, carried out with the least violence possible. Gushee appreciates the paradox of expressing love through acts of violence. Lisa Sharon Harper insists this goes beyond paradox to outright denial of the redemption Jesus brings, failing to honor the image of God in all persons. Following Anglican theologian Oliver O'Donovan, Erik Patterson sees publicly authorized force to protect society as a positive Christian duty. Striving to unite these two sides in practice, Stassen derives alternative, nonviolent strategies from the Sermon on the Mount to transform conflict at the local, national, regional, and international levels.But are such efforts successful? Can and do Christian peacemakers actually bring about significant societal and political change? Twelve further chapters offer experience-based evidence from Evangelical organizations and ministries that the answer is yes. Authors describe initiatives at home and abroad, giving special attention to Christian–Muslim outreach and understanding. Examples range from Evangelical pastors and churches welcoming Muslims and mosques; to educational ventures in Pakistani madrassas; to organizing Afghan youth as "peace volunteers"; to conflict mediation in Egypt and Indonesia; and the memoir of a Lockerbie bombing victim's sister, who went personally to reconcile with Muammar Gaddafi. Sojourners editor Jim Wallis gives plenty of illustrations of the power in the United States of massive civil disobedience and efforts to pressure Congress or the president through letter and phone campaigns, protests, media attention, and high-level advocacy. Christian political resistance and mobilization can no longer be dismissed as utopian, naïve, or marginal. In many cases, it works.Gushee honestly and acutely articulates why pacifism and just war have had longstanding places in Christian political ethics, and why their adherents are [End Page 206] not easily reconciled. First, Jesus was nonviolent, and even those who construe rare and restrained violence as a form of neighbor love cannot deny that Jesus himself never expressed love in this way (121). Second, although Jesus calls disciples to participate in God's reign, that reign is but "eschatologically" present in a fallen world (119). Violence-transforming practices do not always work (125). Reconciling love may define kingdom discipleship, but when do we gauge love-in-action by the "present" reality of the kingdom, and when by the "not yet"? Third, according to Gushee, there is a difference (not separation) between church and government. This yields the conundrum that although their roles are different, Christians participate in both spheres, responsible not only for the peacemaking activities of the church but also for their social effects and for building just structures (5–6).Gushee does not claim to resolve these paradoxes. The collection underscores a more urgent challenge: to embody and expand Evangelical peacemaking as an integral dimension of discipleship and a powerful form of real-world politics. This book furthers theological-ethical analysis while leading scholars, students, and congregations to become active agents of change.Lisa Sowle CahillBoston CollegeCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In 2011 an American Christian radio broadcaster named Harold Camping attracted massive media attention, and some actual following, for his prediction that on May 21 of that year Christ would return to earth and rapture away the faithful, carrying them heavenward, while the rest went through terrible earthly tribulations that would culminate five months later with the end of the world. It was not Camping's first exercise in date-setting; he had earlier published predictions of the end in 1988 and (...) 1994. When May 22, 2011, dawned with the faithful still very much earthbound, Camping revised his date forward to October 21, 2011.Harold Camping is hardly the first to set dates for the various events in the .. (shrink)

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA), whose leaders govern well over half of the 80 million Anglicans worldwide, have put forward ‘a contemporary rule,’ called The Jerusalem Declaration, to guide the Anglican realignment movement. The FCA and its affiliates, e.g. the newly-formed Anglican Church in North America, require assent to the Declaration. To date, there has been little serious appraisal of the Declaration and the status accorded to it. I aim to correct that omission. Unlike ap-praisals in the social (...) media, however, mine grants the FCA’s conservative stand on same-sex unions and homosexual practice. Nevertheless, I argue, the Declaration mischaracterizes the traditional Christian teaching on marriage, binds Anglicans to falsehoods and dubieties in the Thirty-Nine Articles, and adds to the gospel. Two things follow. First, no one—especially no Anglican who identifies herself as con-servative, traditional, orthodox, evangelical, Anglo-catholic or simply concerned with the truth—should assent to the Jerusalem Declaration. Second, since the FCA and its affiliates know that these defects ex-ist in the Declaration, they should fess up to these shortcomings and retract the Declaration’s status as ‘a contemporary rule’ and they should stop requiring assent to it. Anything less constitutes intellectual dis-honesty of a most egregious sort. (shrink)

Best Book of June 2015 (The Christian Science Monitor) Book of the Year by the Conference on Christianity and Literature C. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J.R.R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades, they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met every week in Lewis's Oxford rooms and in nearby pubs. They discussed literature, religion, and ideas; read aloud from works in progress; took philosophical (...) rambles in woods and fields; gave one another companionship and criticism; and, in the process, rewrote the cultural history of modern times. In The Fellowship, Philip and Carol Zaleski offer the first complete rendering of the Inklings' lives and works. The result is an extraordinary account of the ideas, affections and vexations that drove the group's most significant members. C. S. Lewis accepts Jesus Christ while riding in the sidecar of his brother's motorcycle, maps the medieval and Renaissance mind, becomes a world-famous evangelist and moral satirist, and creates new forms of religiously attuned fiction while wrestling with personal crises. J.R.R. Tolkien transmutes an invented mythology into gripping story in The Lord of the Rings, while conducting groundbreaking Old English scholarship and elucidating, for family and friends, the Catholic teachings at the heart of his vision. Owen Barfield, a philosopher for whom language is the key to all mysteries, becomes Lewis's favorite sparring partner, and, for a time, Saul Bellow's chosen guru. And Charles Williams, poet, author of "supernatural shockers," and strange acolyte of romantic love, turns his everyday life into a mystical pageant. Romantics who scorned rebellion, fantasists who prized reality, wartime writers who believed in hope, Christians with cosmic reach, the Inklings sought to revitalize literature and faith in the twentieth century's darkest years-and did so in dazzling style. (shrink)

The evangelical movement has shown a significant growth among the Brazilian population in recent decades, which has also manifested itself in political representation and, consequently, draws the attention for the political projects that this group raises. For this reason, studies in this area are extremely relevant to understand how this relationship between religious and seculars should take place in the public space. After analysis based on the hypothetical-deductive methodology, it was found that both religious and people with different worldviews (...) should act in the public space with respect and tolerance. Imposing a way of looking at the world goes against the essence of liberalism and the democratic rule of law, as it violates basic issues such as the right to free consciousness and religion freedom itself. (shrink)

Most evangelical Christians have understood their faith, rooted in a high view of biblical authority, to be irreconcilable with "homosexuality." This has meant that devoted LGBT people raised as evangelical Christians must choose between their sexuality and their faith/religious community. This creates enormous psychic distress, turns LGBT Christians and their allies away from Christianity, and contributes to intense alienation between the gay community and evangelicals all over the world. But traditional evangelical attitudes on LGBT people and (...) their relationships are beginning to change. This paper offers a description of the state of the conversation in the North American evangelical community on this issue, and summarizes my own normative proposal. (shrink)

This contribution to the global history of ideas uses biographical profiles of 18th-century contemporaries to find what Salafist and Sufi Islam, Evangelical Protestant and Jansenist Catholic Christianity, and Hasidic Judaism have in common. Such figures include Muḥammad Ibn abd al-Waḥhab, Count Nikolaus Zinzendorf, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Israel Ba’al Shem Tov. The book is a unique and comprehensive study of the conflicted relationship between the “evangelical” movements in all three Abrahamic religions and the ideas of (...) the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment. Centered on the 18th century, the book reaches back to the third century for precedents and context, and forward to the 21st for the legacy of these movements. This text appeals to students and researchers in many fields, including Philosophy and Religion, their histories, and World History, while also appealing to the interested lay reader. (shrink)

Youth ministry as a sub-discipline of practical theology has traditionally always had an ecclesial focus. The focus was often based on the practices of proselytisation and discipleship, a sort of ‘reach and teach’ model whereby Christian believers would do the ‘reaching and teaching’ of the ‘lost’ youth. This is most true in an evangelical context and is further undergirded by a Western concept of personal salvation nearly devoid of any communal responsibilities and context. The traditional model, therefore, in (...) class='Hi'>evangelical churches was reaching the ‘lost’ with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, with the aim of personal salvation for the individual who would eventually become a member of the faith community through a discipleship programme. Thus, the beginning and end of the entire process were the focus on personal salvation devoid of any contextual consideration. Youth ministry as practical theology must move into the area of public theology to engage the practices inherited from the western model by engaging with the public (youths) as public theologians (those who influence the theologies of the youth), and the public faiths and spiritualities (the expression of the youth’s theologies) to be relevant to the majority and developing world.Contribution: In this study, the author suggests that this ‘reach and teach’ paradigm with an ecclesial focus in the context of the majority and developing world is no longer suitable to meet the needs of youth. In addition, the author recommends a more appropriate framework with youth ministry as public practical theology for consideration. (shrink)

Abstract:Increasing attention to climate change and health has re-centered environmental ethics on the medical industry and biomedical ethics on the environment. Yet, without a belief in climate change, there is little reason for sustainability in medicine. In the United States, about one-quarter of all adults self-identify as Evangelical Christians, with a sizable subset of "climate change deniers." In order for millions of Evangelicals to be persuaded about the importance of sustainability in medicine, there must be a theological justification. This (...) article will lay the foundation for an Evangelical environmental bioethic. I will first provide a brief history of environmental bioethics. Then, Christian theology will be introduced. In the following section, the work of Richard Bauckham—as a representative of Evangelical ecological theology—will be explored. His scholarship on biblical limitation can form the basis of an Evangelical environmental bioethic. The views and actions of American Evangelicals demands special attention, not only because of their number, but also because of their influence in one of the most environmentally noxious countries in the world. (shrink)

This book investigates the debates around religion and science at the influential Victoria Institute. Founded in London in 1865, and largely drawn from the evangelical wing of the Church of England, it had as its prime objective the defence of 'the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture' from 'the opposition of science, falsely so called'. The conflict for them was not between science and religion directly, but rather what exactly constituted true science Chapters cover the Victoria Institute's formation, its (...) heyday in the late Nineteenth Century, and its decline in the years following the First World War. They show that at stake was more than any particular theory; rather, it was an entire worldview, combining theology, epistemology, and philosophy of science. Therefore, instead of simply offering a survey of religious responses to evolutionary theory, this study demonstrates the complex relationship between science, evangelical religion, and society in the years after Darwin's Origin of Species. It also offers some insight as to why conservative evangelicals did not display the militancy of some American fundamentalists with whom they shared so many of their intellectual commitments. Filling in a significant gap in the literature around modern attitudes to religion and science, this book will be of keen interest to scholars of Religious Studies, the History of Religion, and Science and Religion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Prophetic Evangelicals: Envisioning a Just and Peaceable Kingdom ed. by Bruce Ellis Benson, Malinga Elizabeth Berry, and Peter Goodwin Heltzel, and: Bearing True Witness: Truthfulness in Christian Practice by Craig HoveyGuenther “Gene” HaasReview of Prophetic Evangelicals: Envisioning a Just and Peaceable Kingdom EDITED BY BRUCE ELLIS BENSON, MALINGA ELIZABETH BERRY, AND PETER GOODWIN HELTZEL Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. 225 pp. $35.00Review of Bearing True Witness: Truthfulness in (...) Christian Practice CRAIG HOVEY Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011. 258 pp. $27.00Christian thought and practice in North America—especially in the evangelical world—has undergone significant changes in recent years. Prophetic Evangelicals and Bearing True Witness deal with two areas where this is evident: first, the attention many evangelicals are now giving to social justice and peace and, second, their determination to witness to the truth about Christ in a manner consistent with the Christian gospel. Prophetic evangelicals is the name the editors apply to a new generation of evangelicals who believe that the gospel of Christ requires a commitment to proclaim and embody “the just and peaceable kingdom” (2). These evangelicals view Jesus as inaugurating “a new social order that is a radical alternative to the order of empire” (7).This trend among evangelicals to move beyond the preaching of the gospel in a narrow sense (over against the liberals’ emphasis on social justice) is the culmination of a trend that has been happening since the publication in 1947 of Carl Henry’s The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. What is new about many younger evangelicals in recent decades is their embrace of the Anabaptist perspective on justice and peace. It is clear in the introductory and concluding chapters by the editors—with their appeals to John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas and their references to the “cultural captivity” of the church—that this is the trend they have in mind. One also reads hints of liberation theology in the editors’ references to the needs of the people being “holy” (12), to God’s being on the side of—and the gospel always being in favor of—the “least” (47), and to a critique of “the order of empire” (7). Of course, [End Page 221] non-Anabaptist evangelicals are also concerned with these themes as part of their commitment to justice and peace. But it is the distinctive emphasis of this book—with some exceptions among the contributors—that it highlights the ways Anabaptist evangelicals are prophetic.The chapters consist of expositions on the following biblical themes: creation, shalom, justice, kingdom, news, Mary, the cross, church, freedom, reconciliation, resurrection, and hope. The authors include a wide range of evangelicals: from a Kuyperian (Vincent Bacote on creation) to a committed Anabaptist (David Gushee on shalom), to postcolonial Christians (Gabriel Salguero on the cross, and Raymond Alfred on freedom). Although the term is slippery, the inclusion of two contributors raises the question about who the editors consider to be an “evangelical”: Helen Slessarov-Jamir (on justice) agrees with her students’ desire not to learn theology from “dead white men” (77) and embraces religious pluralism (85); Pamela Lightsey (on reconciliation) embraces liberalism and liberation theology and calls herself a “womanist theologian” (169).The chapters contain a diversity of contributions in length and quality. Some are good, short expositions of themes: creation (Bacote), kingdom (Christian Collins Winn), Mary—actually about suffering—(Ruth Padilla DeBorst), church (John Franke), and resurrection (Cherith Fee Nordling). Gushee’s chapter contains a good exposition of the Anabaptist view of shalom, along with typical sweeping statements about the “Constantinian compromise” and the evangelical compromise with the state (72). Two chapters deserve special recognition. Chris Boesel’s chapter, “News,” is an excellent account of the Christian call to justice as part of the full goodness of the gospel. He criticizes both liberal-progressive and evangelical-conservative assumptions about the church’s mission and calls for a “recovering evangelical faith” that pursues justice with repentance, humility, and a reliance on the Holy Spirit. Telford Work’s chapter, “Hope,” also articulates a perceptive critique of the activism of both the Christian Right and the Christian Left. Rejecting all alignments with worldly power, he calls on the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:An Evangelical Adrift: The Making of John Henry Newman's Theology by Geertjan ZuijdwegtReinhard HütterAn Evangelical Adrift: The Making of John Henry Newman's Theology by Geertjan Zuijdwegt (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022), xii + 365pp.What do we know of St. John Henry Newman's life, thought, and theological development before 1833, the year in which the Oxford Movement or Tractarian Movement was launched by (...) Newman, John Keble, and Richard Hurrell Froude? Newman, in his rightly famous and indispensable Apologia Pro Vita Sua, covers this period in one brief chapter offering at best a rough outline and some central signposts. A more nuanced and somewhat more expansive picture is emerging in Newman's Autobiographical Writings, published posthumously in 1956. Wilfrid Ward, in the two immense volumes of his 1912 Newman biography, dedicates one single chapter entitled "Life in the Church of England (1801–1845)" to the first forty-four years of Newman's life, and of those fifty-four pages, only thirty cover the time from Newman's birth in 1801 to the signal year 1833. Ian Ker, in his 1988 biography, arguably still the normative and unsurpassed scholarly Newman biography, acknowledged as such by admirers and critics alike, dedicates one chapter of fifty-three pages to the same time period. Finally, Geertjan Zuijdwegt, in his very well written and equally well-researched and well-argued monograph of 344 pages, offers a detailed and nuanced account of Newman's theological development from his teenage conversion to Calvinist Evangelicalism up to and including the beginnings of the Tractarian Movement from 1833 to 1835. One must go back to Maisie Ward's lovely portrait, Young Mr. Newman, from 1948, to find a book that covers roughly the same territory. Ward's captivating biographical portrait and Zuijdwegt's meticulously researched theological biography may be read with great benefit as mutually enlightening and complementary accounts—at least in the eyes of this reader. The latter's new work is, however, a commendable and indeed indispensable achievement of its own. For one, what lies between Ward's portrait of the young Newman and Zuijdwegt's reconstruction of Newman's [End Page 1097] early intellectual and theological development is Frank M. Turner's 2002 John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion, a 750-page ad hominem attack on Newman's person and character, not only making Evangelicalism (and not theological and political liberalism) the alleged primary if not sole object of the post-Evangelical Newman's Tractarian and post-Tractarian, Catholic polemic, but also insinuating alongside in so many ways that Newman was dishonest about his work and thought, that he cared deeply for money or the security of a "living," that he was a closeted and repressed homosexual, and that he was lying about his conversion experiences—charges advanced by Charles Kingsley and other contemporaries of Newman's day and age and debunked—now warmed up und recycled under the guise of what pretended to be a massive scholarly study of intellectual history published by an Ivy League university press. Much ink has been spilled by Newman scholars in the years since Turner's book appeared to set the record straight, while others thought the time was ripe to form a "Turner school" of critical, iconoclastic Newman scholarship. Unsurprisingly, since 2002, there has been no dull moment in the small world of Newman scholarship, now divided between two well-defined camps, with "iconographers" (so called by the iconoclasts) on one side, and on the other those who aim at advancing a hard-nosed form of critical, detached historical Newman scholarship that at points has a hard time identifying the fine line between historical criticism and barely camouflaged detraction.Zuijdwegt's book is a considerable achievement first and foremost simply because he escapes to a commendably high degree, albeit not completely, the trench warfare between the warring camps of Newman scholarship. His unavoidable engagement with Turner's work is judicious, balanced, and overall, in a measured way, critical. He is far more frequently disagreeing with Turner's interpretation than agreeing with a limited number of interpretive points about Newman's early... (shrink)

In this article, I analyze the particular perception of the world Baptists start to learn during their conversion which I call the three-dimensional perception of reality. This concept refers to the ability to incorporate narratives from the Bible into everyday life events and interpret both personal stories and world events accordingly, thereby making the Bible ever relevant. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, I show how events from the believers' daily lives are perceived and explained in the light of biblical (...) stories. Regardless of the fact that the two are separated in time and in space, the biblical story is still seen as a proto-event to the current one. No matter how diverse the believers' experiences, they are capable of finding an equivalent episode in the Bible. The scripture, therefore, is ever present in the believers' lives, as a source of meaning and interpretation. (shrink)

Characterising Liberal and Evangelical theology as positions on a continuum or spectrum is common within Protestant circles. I argue that Liberals and Evangelicals do not share a common conceptual framework but embody competing and incommensurable conceptual schemes. Liberal theology then is not a distortion of true Biblical Christianity, as is often supposed, but rather is an entirely different approach to doing theology, indeed, to seeing the world. What I hope to achieve by way of this paper is to (...) provide a context within which to better understand both Liberal and Evangelical claims, and to offer an explanation as to why the debates between the two schools are seemingly intractable. Further, I hope to encourage Liberals and Evangelicals to pursue the difficult task of understanding each other's position so that genuine dialogue can take place. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Will Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization by Ralph MartinR. Jared StaudtWill Many Be Saved? What Vatican II Actually Teaches and Its Implications for the New Evangelization. By Ralph Martin. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2012. Pp. 332. $24.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8028-6887-9.The proper interpretation of the Second Vatican Council remains a pressing topic fifty years after the Council’s completion. Pope (...) Benedict XVI made it a hallmark of his pontificate to insist upon a hermeneutic of continuity in interpreting the council in relation to the past, opposing this view to one of discontinuity and rupture (see his “Christmas Address to the Roman Curia,” Dec. 22, 2005). Viewing the council in terms of rupture and correspondingly as an opportunity for disruptive innovation has been described by many as the “Spirit of the Council.” Recently, the conflict of these rival hermeneutics has resurfaced in vehement fashion in relation to proposals for innovation in pastoral practice and even in doctrine regarding marriage and sexuality.Ensuring a proper interpretation of the council requires not only a deep and thorough examination of texts themselves of the council, but also a careful placing of the texts within the Catholic tradition. In this endeavor, [End Page 147] Ralph Martin’s Will Many Be Saved? provides a needed analysis of the council’s teaching concerning salvation and its pastoral implications. In particular, Martin focuses on the meaning, historical and scriptural sources, and theological interpretation of Lumen Gentium (LG) §16. In doing so, he touches on a number of key issues relating to the legacy of Vatican II, most importantly the decline of the missions and evangelization in general. Martin argues that abandoning the proclamation of sin and the possibility of hell in favor of the universality of salvation has led to a serious crisis of evangelization.The first chapter, “Vatican II and the Priority of Evangelization,” places the theme of evangelization at the center of the council’s message. Pope Paul VI declared in Evangelii nuntiandi that the very purpose of the council was to make the Church more fit for the evangelization of the modern world. The topic of evangelization was taken up by Pope John Paul II in his own call for a New Evangelization. Although the New Evangelization focuses on restoring faith in the context of post-Christian cultures, John Paul also sought to reinvigorate the foreign missions, as seen in his encyclical Redemptoris missio. Martin contrasts this emphasis on evangelization with its diminishment in practice due to “a lack of conviction that being a Christian is really necessary in order to be saved. If it is not really necessary... why bother to evangelize?” (5). Although Martin recognizes that the Church teaches the possibility of salvation outside of the visible bounds of the Church, he also posits that “doctrinal ignorance or confusion about what the Church is actually teaching about the possibility of salvation” creates “one obstacle... to evangelization” (6). To respond to this confusion, he turns specifically to LG §16 to clarify the Church’s teaching.The second chapter provides Martin’s initial observations on this central text. Martin divides the text into three sections. The first, 16a, enunciates that those who have not received the gospel are still related to the people of God in various ways, mentioning Jews and Muslims explicitly, and affirms God’s universal will for salvation in 1 Tim 2:4. 16b deals with the possibility of salvation for those ignorant of the gospel, who live rightly in accord with conscience. 16c offers a sobering note, stating that “very often” the deception of the evil one and sin lead to “ultimate despair” and ending with the need to evangelize in order “to procure... salvation.” Martin notes that LG §16 was not controversial during the conciliar debates, though it did raise some concern from missionary bishops, who insisted on a strong reinforcement of the need for evangelization. Though LG only speaks of the possibility of salvation, Martin recognizes a leap from possibility to “probability or even certainty” in the later interpretation of the council (17, italics original), and he cites... (shrink)

Forty years ago, speaking of Peter of John Olivi’s commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of John, Raoul Manselli affirmed that these texts prove that Olivi had “a vast knowledge of the exegetes who preceded him, a vivid perception of the role of the Bible within the contemporary life of the Church, and, last but not least, a vivid understanding of the complex significance and value of being Franciscan.”1 Undoubtedly, this judgment can also be extended to the (...) Lectura super Lucam, which Fortunato Iozzelli edited in 2010, thereby becoming the first of Olivi’s Gospel commentaries to be available in a modern edition.2 Iozzelli’s critical edition offers scholars a precious opportunity to better understand... (shrink)

This article examines the legacy of misunderstanding and antagonism that has resulted from the history of past encounters between the Evangelical and Orthodox traditions, as a background for evaluation of more recent dialogues within the WCC and at the level of the Christian World Communions. On the basis of this, suggestions are offered regarding the parameters within which future dialogue could best be conducted. It is argued that such dialogue should be marked by integrity of methodology and realistic (...) expectations; it should be relational and spiritual in character, and open to exploring possibilities for joint co-operation. There is much to gain from such dialogue, but it will not take place unless those with a vision for it take steps to make it a reality. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that while Christians should share Engelhardt’s disappointment in how bioethics functions in the world, they should not share his exasperation. I begin by outlining the general argument in After God, its understanding of secularism, and of how such secularism has impacted bioethics. Next, I suggest that Englehardt appears to lean toward disengagement or at least an extremely suspicious sectarianism. Rather, I claim that it is possible for Christians to morally engage in a useful way (...) with others and still base their own moral activity on proper life telos. Such cooperation is not to serve a commonly-held ultimate purpose, but shared proximate ends. That said, the moral discourse with those outside the Church may be necessarily limited by shallow moral acquaintanceship. I argue that the concept of “middle axioms” can be used as a mechanism for engagement with others in this society. Importantly, this approach does not require abandoning distinctive Christian commitments and foundational assumptions. (shrink)

`Fundamentalism' is a label used often pejoratively of religious conservatism. Evangelicals are growing in number and power around the world and are frequently regarded as fundamentalist. This volume examines fundamentalism as a mentality which has greatly affected evangelicalism, but which some evangelicals now wish to leave behind.

A survey is presented showing an above-average performance by candidates of several Central/Eastern European countries in the world-wide competition for the Alexander von Humboldt fellowships in the period before 1989, in spite of various administrative obstacles imposed by their countries. The success rate can be linked to the traditionally relatively high level of educational standards there. The administrative obstacles are illustrated by taking the former Czechoslovakia as an example, and also by way of a personal case study.

Growing numbers of human beings live with profound and multiple learning difficulties and disabilities. Exploring the moral, social and political implications of this trend, Valuing Profoundly Disabled People addresses questions that are high on policy and practice agendas in numerous regions around the world, including the UK and the EU, the USA, and Australasia. In this important work Vorhaus examines fundamental moral and social questions about profound disability, and each chapter combines a comprehensive review of existing literature with thought-provoking (...) and original philosophical arguments. Vorhaus argues that there is a pressing need to consider the moral and political claims of people whose lives are characterised by extensive impairments, dependency and vulnerability. The book prompts readers to reflect on complex issues relating to the practices of caring, teaching and treating people with profound disabilities in contexts such as education, health care and social policy. Providing a much-needed contribution to the field, this book will be of interest to postgraduates, academics and researchers in a number of distinct and interrelated fields, including disability and impairment, human rights, philosophy, sociology, health and social policy, and education. The book will also be of great interest to practitioners and policymakers seeking to promote the aims of realising human potential and respecting disability. (shrink)

This paper presents my personal convictions, as an Evangelical, regarding the absolute impropriety of doctor-assisted suicide for Christians. They have been “bought with a price” and are owned by Another. Hence, they must always strive to glorify God in their bodies, both in life and in death. Although they crave the well-being of temporal health, when they are ill seek healing or relief, and may well recoil even from the thought of suffering and dying, they should realize that their (...) values and priorities must be rooted in biblical truths and that their well-being is eternal and not temporal, spiritual and not material. As Christians, their attitudes and responses to suffering and dying must be molded by the reality that their Creator and Sovereign will cause all things to work together for their good and that their Lord has called them into a fellowship of His suffering in which they are sustained by dependence upon Him. Hence, for Christians to take their lives in order to escape from the trials and testings ordained by Him would be a failure of love and a breach of trust. (shrink)

The debate among American evangelicals over scriptural inerrancy has received less attention in recent literature than it did during its height in the 1970s and 1980s. Nonetheless the issue itself remains unresolved; indeed, many consider it beyond hope of resolution. Recent work by certain philosophers, however, suggests that there is a way out-not by resolving the debate but by dissolving it. In particular, a model developed by Nancey Murphy for understanding the history of the split between Protestant liberals and conservatives (...) can be appropriated for understanding the history of the inerrancy debate. Examining the history of this debate through the postmodern lens of Murphy's model reveals that certain shortcomings of modern philosophy fed into the debate, forcing theologians to overstate the significance of certain claims. As the debate progressed, there was a steadily increasing concern that Scripture be considered accurate in all matters, including the precise recording of detailed historical events and matters of science. For some conservatives this eventually became a test of orthodoxy; that theologians such as Martin Luther and John Calvin did not share this view reveals the force of modernity's influence. Looking beyond the current evangelical view of Scripture, a postmodern world provides room for an even stronger commitment to the Bible's authority, though one that does challenge certain evangelical assumptions. (shrink)

Following the Washington Conference held from June 28-30 2002 on The Bible and the Ballot Box, the final conference of the Study Programme of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians on Evangelicals and Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America, supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the project director, Canon Dr Vinay Samuel shared these reflections at a chapel service at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. See www.evangelicalsandpolitics.org. Summaries of the regional studies follow this reflection.

This book examines how the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program, the world's largest private fellowship program in higher education, has succeeded in fostering social justice leadership over the past ten years. Top scholars from Asia Pacific, Latin America, the US, Africa, and Europe inquire into the program's development, implementation, and outcomes in their regions. They analyze the program's background, its effects on institutions, its effects on students' learning environments, and how well changes toward social justice worked. Through in-depth (...) studies of leadership, diversity, social inclusion, and social justice in regional context, this book provides a wealth of comparative information on social justice in higher education worldwide. (shrink)

In the history of religious organizations of Western Ukraine in the 20-30th years of the XX century. The activity of such an early protestant denominational formation as the Ukrainian Evangelical-Reformed Church occupies a prominent position. Among UCRC researchers there are several approaches to the preconditions for the birth of the Ukrainian Calvinistic movement in Western Ukraine. In particular, O. Dombrovsky, studying the historical preconditions for the formation of the UREC in Western Ukraine, expressed the view that the formation of (...) the Calvinist cell should be considered in the broad context of the Ukrainian national revival of the 19th and 20th centuries, a new assessment of the religious factor in public life proposed by the Ukrainian radical activists, and significant socio-political, national-cultural and spiritual shifts caused by the events of the First World War. Other researchers of Ukrainian Calvinism, who based their analysis on the confessional-polemical approach, interpreted Protestantism in Ukraine as a product of Western cultural and religious influences, alien to Ukrainian spirituality and culture. (shrink)

Examining key white evangelical voices from the last century, Jacob Cook deconstructs the concept of "worldviews" based on current conversations in psychology, sociology, critical race studies, and theology. He engages Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology of relationality for a constructive alternative to imperial ways of knowing and ordering the world.

The range of issues related to the origins of Christianity, the formation of its doctrine, and its existence in the early, pre-Conciliar period has always been of concern not only to Christian scholars, not only to those scholars who were in one or another way involved in these researches, but also to society as a whole. However, in Ukraine, and especially in academic circles, these issues are still not sufficiently studied. The article examines the reasons that led the official Church (...) to change the key provisions of Christian doctrine, including ideological positions about "this world," narratives about war, and the commandments "thou shalt not kill" and "love your enemies." The author argues that the final rejection of the original evangelical pacifism occurred after the conquest of Christianity by Emperor Constantine the Great, when the Church was transformed into an institution of secular power, changing its original status as the "Kingdom of God" to belonging to the "Kingdom of Caesar." Since the reign of Constantine, Christianity has essentially existed divided into two camps. – the first, to which belong all those who profess the church doctrine in its new, "conciliar" and different from the original form and who, in particular, has rejected Jesus' original idea of renunciation of earthly things and, accordingly, the pacifism and anti-militarism he proclaimed; the second camp are those who remained faithful to the apostolic tradition and who continued to practice Christianity according to the original New Testament standard. The latter camp today includes mostly Protestants, including in Ukraine. However, with the onset of Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine, their pacifist stance is changing. The solution of urgent socio-political issues and issues directly related to defense are increasingly leading Protestants in Ukraine to rethink their traditional pacifism, which may lead to a complete rejection of it in the future. The results obtained in the course of the study provide grounds to significantly adjust the current perceptions of Protestantism in Ukraine, in particular, its positive attitude to socio-political processes and active involvement in them. (shrink)

This article examines narratives, images, and stories that give insight to everyday experimentation and ethical self‐formation. I use the case of World Vision and its early leaders to unpack genealogies of American evangelical humanitarianism. Rather than seeking to identify American evangelicalism’s normative ethical stance, I aim to expand the discussion in anthropology of ethics on ethical self‐formation through examining the tensions, reflections, and processes of becoming among evangelical humanitarians. In doing so, I examine two focal areas of (...) ethical self‐formation among early World Vision leaders. The first is oscillation between and mixing of passion and compassion frameworks in the American evangelical imagination. Second, I identify a range of temporal frames that evangelicals draw on to make sense of and formulate ethical responses to human needs encountered abroad. (shrink)

The term “contemplation” has played a significant role in the history of Christian spirituality. Regardless of the tradition, whether Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, contemplation has been valued. Recently, however, some Evangelicals have raised various concerns about contemplation, including its Roman Catholic origin, the tendency to devalue Jesus Christ and his atonement, the marginalization of Scripture, and the assertion that a person who seeks to grow in the contemplative life will no longer be active to witness to the gospel in (...) the world. This article while recognizing the potential for possible theological distortions argues that there is a biblical and theologically accurate manifestation of contemplation. In particular, this essay seeks to examine the presence of contemplation within the Evangelical church. To that end, the writings of four Americans representative of the beginning of eighteenth-century Evangelicalism are examined to discern whether they display a biblical and orthodox expression of contemplation. In all cases, whether male or female, Calvinist or Wesleyan, this quartet of spiritual leaders reveal and challenge contemporary Christians of all traditions to be more intentional about cultivating a loving and grateful gazing on God and desire to delight in and enjoy God more fully. (shrink)