The idea that the missional context in the West is a ‘post-Christendom’ context is increasingly seen as something not only to be acknowledged but celebrated. For several influential writers, ...Christian identity in the post-Christendom world is clarified when the church loses official power. This article examines how ‘post-Christendom’ thinking has evolved, looking at the influence of views drawn from the sixteenth-century Anabaptists, who rejected the Christendom model. The recovery of Anabaptist perspectives means more attention has been given to mission in pre-Christendom. The article then explores what the Free Church tradition offers when thinking about contemporary mission. While the Free Church view has been that church and state should be separate, the Free Church story includes many examples of mission that seeks to transform society. Finally, the article argues that the growth of non-Western Christianity suggests that Christian communities in non-Christendom settings can increase their influence – without state power.
16세기 재침례교도는 개혁자들로부터 행위구원을 가르친다는 비판을 받았고 그런 시각은 세20기 까지도 이어졌다. 재침례교 신학자 발타자르 휩마이어의 구원론 역시 펠라기우스주의 내지 반펠라기우스주의(Semi-Pelagianism)라는 평가를 받아왔다. 특히 데이빗 스타인메츠(David C. Steinmetz)는 “Scholasticism and Radical ...Reform: No minalist Motifs in the Theology of Balthasar Hubmaier”(1971)라는 논문에서 휩마이어의 구원론에 가브리엘 비엘(의Gabriel Biel) 원리, 즉 ‘하나님은 자신 안에 있는 것을 행하는 자에게 은혜를 거부하지 않으신다’(facientibus quod in se est deus non denegat gratiam)가 남아 있다고 주장했다.스 타인메츠에 따르면 휩마이어는 타락하지 않은 영의 의지로 구원의 과정을 시작할 수 있다고 보았다. 죄인은 자신 안에 있는 두 가지 자원, 곧 ‘타락하지 않은 영의 의지’와 ‘자연 안에 있는 하나님의 계시’로 인해 복음을 듣지 않고도 하나님께 돌이킬 수 있다고 주장했다는 것이다.
그러나 휩마이어는 구원에 있어서 언제나 은혜의 선행성을 인정했다. 스타인메츠의 주장과는 달리 휩마이어는 말씀이 일차적으로 역사하지 않으면 영은 육에 갇혀 무력한 상태로 남아있다고 했다. 스타인메츠는 휩마이어의 구원론에서 말씀이 두 단계로 역사한다는 점을 간과했다. 하나님은 먼저 모든 사람에게 말씀을 보내셔서 영을 해방시키고 혼을 치유하셔서 자유의지를 발휘할 수 있게 하신다. 그러면 영은 하나님께 기도하고 구원을 위해 부르짖을 수 있게 되는데, 하나님은 그에 대한 응답으로 복음 선포자를 보내주셔서 말씀으로 거듭나게 하신다. 즉 말씀은 먼저 보편적 선행은혜로 모든 사람에게 임하고, 다음은 믿음으로 반응하는 자에게 거듭나게 하는 은혜로 임한다. 스타인메츠가 자연상태에서 하나님을 찾을 수 있다는 주장의 증거로 제시한 「의지의 자유의」(1527) 이디오피아 내시와 고넬료의 예는 휩마이어의 다른 논문과 비교해 보면 이미 말씀을 듣고 구원을 갈망하는 부류의 사람들로 이해해야 함을 알 수 있다. 휩마이어는 보편 속죄와 자유의지의 협력을 구원의 필수요소로 인정했다는 점에서 17세기 아르미니우스주의를 예견했다고 할 수 있다.
The sixteenth century Anabaptists were criticized by reformers for teac hing ‘work-righteousness,’ and such criticism has never died out since then. Anabaptist theologian Balthasar Hubmaier was not an exception but his soteriology has often been categorized as Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagia nism. Especially David C. Steinmetz argued in his article “Scholasticism and Radical Reform: Nominalist Motifs in the Theology of Balthasar Hub maier”(1971) that the Gabriel Biel’s norm ‘God does not deny grace to those who do what is in them’(facientibus quod in se est deus non denega t gratiam) remains in Hubmaier’s soteriology. According to him, Hubmai er admitted that man can initiate the process of salvation in natural state by the work of spirit, which has been preserved intact through the fall. That is, sinners can turn to God without hearing the gospel due to two resources in them: “the unfallen will of the spirit” and “God’s revelation in nature.” However, Hubmaier consistently affirmed the prevenience of grace in salvation. Unlike Steinmetz’s contention Hubmaier argued that the spirit is imprisoned in the flesh and remains impotent until the word of God release it. Steinmetz failed to see that the word in Hubmaier’s theology operates in two stages. First, God sends his word Christ to all people so that he may liberate the spirit and heal the soul, and as a result free will is restored to man. Then the spirit in man can pray and cry to God for salvation, in answer to which God sends the preacher of the gospel in order to regenerate the believer. Thus, the word of God comes first to all humanity as prevenient grace, and then to those who respond in faith as regenerating grace. If we compare the Ethiopian eunuch and Corn elius in Freiheit (1527), whom Steinmetz presents as the examples of thos e who cry for God in natural state, with the same in the other treatises of Hubmaier, they ought to be those who long for salvation after hearing the word. Hubmaier antecipated Arminianism in the seventeenth century in that he acknowledged the universal offer of Christ’s atonement and the cooperation of human free will.
This article focuses on the context and reception of John Bunyan's publications on baptism in the early 1670s, which prompted a controversy among Restoration Particular Baptists concerning the ...question of church communion. By taking a closer look at the diffusion of Bunyan's ideas in London, drawing attention to the much-neglected congregation of Petty France, it proposes that Bunyan's position did not isolate him from the Baptist community to the extent that has been generally assumed. The repeated association between Baptists and Anabaptists at the Restoration is responsible not only for Bunyan's adoption of open-communion principles, but also for the violence of his tone. The sense of urgency that permeates his polemical tracts should be read in the context of the Baptists' search for an identity amidst growing anxiety about the ways in which Baptists were represented - and named - outside the dissenting community.
ABSTRACT IN ENGLISH: The Hutterites are an Anabaptist group, and are the oldest family communal group in the Western world. The parenting, sibling, and gender practices of Hutterite families were ...assessed using an open-ended qualitative survey administered on-line. Thirty-two public school teachers on Alberta Hutterite colonies responded. Analyses indicate that parents are loving and supportive of pre-schoolers, but shift more parenting responsibility to the colony once they reach school age. Sibling relationships closely resemble those of the larger society, but are more traditional, as are gender relations. Finally, many teachers are impressed with the level of family unity and the focus on a healthy life-style, but see the lack of privacy on most colonies and the lack of opportunity for personal growth as drawbacks. What this means in terms of maintaining their traditions while interacting with the larger society is discussed. // ABSTRACT IN FRENCH: Les Hutterites sont un groupe Anabaptiste, et sont la plus vieille communauté familliale du monde occidental. Les relations parentales, fraternelles, et entre personnes de sexe'opposé des familles Hutterites, ont été analysées grâce à une enquête qualitative à question ouverte. Trente-deux professeurs d'école publique des communautés Hutterites d'Alberta ont répondu à cette enquête sur Internet. Les analyses indiquent que les parents apportent affection et soutien aux enfants jusqu'à l'école primaire; ensuite la responsabilité parentale est de plus en plus confiée à la communauté. Les relations entre frères sont très similaires à la société extérieure, mais sont plus traditionelles, ainsi que les relations entre sexes opposés. Finalement, de nombreux professeurs sont impressionés par l'unité familliale et la priorité donnée à un mode de vie sain. Dans la plupart de communautés, ils regrettent néanmoins l'absence d'intimité et le manque de possibilité de développement personnel. L'interaction avec la société hors communauté tout en préservant les traditions Hutterites sera le thème de discussion. // ABSTRACT IN SPANISH: Los huteritas son un grupo anabaptista y el grupo comunal de familia más antigua del mundo occidental. Las prácticas paternales, entre Jiermanos y de género de las familias huteritas fueron asesordos usando una encuesta cualicativa pendiente administrado por internet. 32 profesores de al escuela pública de las colonias huteritas de Alberta respondieron. Los análisis indican que los padres son amorosos y apoyadores de niños pre-escolares pero cambian las responsabilidades de crianza a la colonia cuando lleguen a la edad escolar. Las relaciones entre hermanos se parecen mucho a las de la sociedad en general pero son más tradicionales, igual que las relaciones de género. Finalmente, muchos profesores son impresionados con el nivel de la unidad familiar y con el enfoque en el estilo de vida sano, pero ven la falta de la privacidad en la mayoría de las colonias y la falta de la oportunidad para el crecimiento personal como desventajas. Lo que significa en términos de mantenimiento de sus tradiciones mientras se obra recíprocamente con la sociedad en general se examina. Reprinted by permission of Journal of Comparative Family Studies
This article focuses on the context and reception of John Bunyan's publications on baptism in the early 1670s, which prompted a controversy among Restoration Particular Baptists concerning the ...question of church communion. By taking a closer look at the diffusion of Bunyan's ideas in London, drawing attention to the much-neglected congregation of Petty France, it proposes that Bunyan's position did not isolate him from the Baptist community to the extent that has been generally assumed. The repeated association between Baptists and Anabaptists at the Restoration is responsible not only for Bunyan's adoption of open-communion principles, but also for the violence of his tone. The sense of urgency that permeates his polemical tracts should be read in the context of the Baptists' search for an identity amidst growing anxiety about the ways in which Baptists were represented - and named - outside the dissenting community. (Author abstract)
This introduction reconstructs how the meaning of fanaticism evolved in relation to theories of state and mind in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from Luther to Locke. In the radical German ...Anabaptist claim that self-annihilation could turn an individual into an instrument of God’s violence can be located a primal scene for fanaticism that has been overlooked by recent studies, even those that begin with the Anabaptist example. Fanaticism raised the specter of a human being who had been emptied of self and transformed into a vessel of a divinity not bound to any earthly law or hierarchy. The special inspiration of fanatics threatened to spread like a contagion. In the wake of the Peasant Revolt of the 1520s, fanaticism’s unruly fusion of religious violence and anarchic mysticism drew political fear and poetic attention.
Chapter 1 turns to Spenser’s use of allegory to represent the ambiguous fanatical transformation of person into divine instrument. If allegory in The Faerie Queene works by analysis, parsing complex ...motives and essences into their discrete parts, fanaticism proposes an undifferentiated divine violence that threatens to obliterate allegory’s distinctions. Reading The Faerie Queene as an engagement with fanaticism demonstrates that the poem is fundamentally uneasy with divinely inspired action. If, in Book I, The Faerie Queene momentarily achieves an allegorical representation of Redcrosse as an “organ” of divine might, the poem grows progressively more worried about its capacity to distinguish between true instruments of the divine and false prophets like the Anabaptist Giant of Book V. Representations of fanaticism in the poem suggest that allegory in its purest form, void of all difference, may itself be a form of fanaticism, the emptying out of a character so that it might incarnate divine will.
L’essor du protestantisme évangélique en France est un laboratoire d’analyse des effets de la mondialisation sur les identités religieuses. Alors que leurs origines remontent souvent à la Réforme ...protestante en Europe elle-même, les évangéliques français font partie aujourd’hui d’un mouvement à dimensions mondiales où les Américains jouent un rôle de premier rang. Quelle influence ces derniers exercent-ils réellement en France? Pour les évangéliques français, quels sont les enjeux de l’association avec leurs coreligionnaires aux États-Unis? Nous cherchons à fournir des réponses en nous appuyant sur une étude de terrain des églises évangéliques dans l’est de la France. Il en ressort que les États-Unis exercent effectivement une certaine influence, mais que celle-ci n’est ni prépondérante ni uniforme. Le plus souvent, lorsque les églises françaises établissent des liens avec des Américains, elles le font en fonction de leurs propres besoins dans le champ social français. Ainsi les évangéliques français ne sont pas de simples récepteurs d’influence, mais des acteurs sociaux à part entière.
The growth of evangelical Protestantism in France is a laboratory for analyzing the effects of globalization on religious identities. Even though their origins can often be traced to the Protestant Reformation in Europe itself, French evangelicals are today part of a world-wide movement where Americans play a leading role. What influence do American evangelicals really exert in France? What is at stake for French evangelicals who associate with their American coreligionists? Our study of evangelical churches in the east of France shows that the United States does indeed exert a certain influence, but it is neither preponderant nor uniform in nature. Most of the time, when French churches develop ties to Americans, they do so in function of their own needs within the French social field. French evangelicals are thus more than just receptors of influence, but social actors in the fullest sense.
