Gospel Of Truth Research Articles

Гоголь и Пушкин о вере и Государстве Российском

The article deals with the similarity of Gogol’ and Pushkin’s ideas about Russian statehood. Such similarity, according to the author, is quite natural and logical for the Russian Orthodox consciousness. These ideas are based on the gospel truths, the idea of autocracy and the Christian attitude to the people. The two Russian writers understood the necessity and vitality of the principles of Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality for the Russian state.

RISET IMPLEMENTASI PENGAJARAN TIGA PILAR GEREJA SUARA KEBENARAN INJIL MELALUI METODE EKSPLANATORI - KONFIRMATORI

Penelitian ini memiliki tujuan untuk mengetahui berapa besar implementasi pengajaran tiga pilar Gereja Suara Kebenaran Injil(disingkat GSKI), lalu dimensi apa yang dominan serta kategori latar belakang apa yang dominan dalam pengajaran tiga pilar tersebut. Metode yang peneliti gunakan adalah metode kuantitatif dengan pendekatan eksplanatori-konfirmatori. Peneliti mengajukan angket pernyataan kepada pejabat Gereja Suara Kebenaran Injil Jakarta. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian yang diperoleh ternyata besarnya implementasi pengajaran tiga pilar GSKI berada pada level tinggi, lalu dimensi yang dominan adalah tanggung jawab dan kategori latar belakang yang dominan adalah lama melayani dari pejabat gereja. Dengan hasil tersebut, maka rekomendasinya adalah untuk tetap mempertahankan level yang sudah tinggi dengan membuat modul pengajaran yang sistematis, mengadakan seminar tentang tiga pilar GSKI, mengadakan pertemuan rutin antara badan pengurus pusat dengan pejabat gereja, dan pemilihan calon pejabat secara selektif dan objektif.

The ramifications of missionary proselytisation on Tiv culture: Lessons for contemporary critical biblical contextualisation

Christianity, from its inception, has always demonstrated a conscious effort to communicate the gospel in ways that engender transformation. Yet the undying presence of African indigenous religious practices amongst evangelised African communities continues to be a worrisome enigma. The goal of this article is to examine the contextualisation practices, successes and failures of early western missionaries, using literary critical analysis of contemporary literature and cultural phenomenological analysis, and to propose approaches to a biblical inculturation of Christianity in contemporary indigenous societies. We focus on the over 100 years of Christianity in northern Nigeria, with particular emphasis on the Tiv of central Nigeria. The author’s research has shown that the relatively long presence of Christian mission work in Nigeria (especially amongst the Tiv) has not significantly altered the world view of the professed adherents of Christian faith, as it remains largely traditional rather than biblical. Consequently, we proposed the adoption of ethno-hermeneutic and community theologising to make for critical contextualisation of Christianity amongst indigenous people. The proposed critical contextualisation, is essential for rooting Christianity in native populations without uprooting them from their cultures, and for ensuring neither the gospel truth claims nor the Christian world view is surrendered to native cultures in the process of indigenising the gospel.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article highlights the importance of a holistic interdisciplinary approach to evangelisation, requiring the interplay of anthropology, missiology, hermeneutics, and dogmatic and exegetical theology.

<em>The Others</em> (2001) by Alejandro Amenábar in the Light of Valentinian Thought

The article offers a Valentinian interpretation of the Hollywood film The Others (2001). A particular attention is paid to the ways in which cinematic motifs and narrative elements of the film draw on myths, ideas and symbolic imagery present in Valentinian works, especially in the Gospel of Truth (NHC I, 3) and the Gospel of Philip (NHC II, 3). In the course of the heuristic analysis, the paper argues that although the film employs Valentinian ideas, it depicts different understanding of the world. This issue is addressed in the last part of the article by situating the film within broader contexts that refer to the transformations of religion in the second half of the twentieth century in Western societies.

ЕТИКА ІДЕАЛІВ І "ПРОЗИ ЖИТТЯ" В ЕПІСТОЛЯРІЇ ПАНТЕЛЕЙМОНА КУЛІША

The article from a series of publications about the prominent Ukrainian writer, publisher, translator and author of Ukrainian spelling, the so-called "kulishivka", is dedicated to the analysis of the author's worldview constants reflected in his epistolary. The ethical maxims and moral principles of Panteleimon Kulish are considered as the unity of the ideal, inspired by creative, romantic views of the author and real life. P. Kulish's appeals are analyzed from the point of view of his motivation for dominant evaluations of events, circumstances and characteristics of the addressees, such as attitude towards work, people, culture, language, history, etc. Particular attention is paid to the influence of M. Gogol on P. Kulish due to the fact that P. Kulish was the author’s commentator, archiver of texts and memoirs as well as publisher. The letters give an opportunity to chronologize and explain P. Kulish's meetings with M. Gogol's family, an assessment of M. Gogol's creativity by his contemporaries, to find out the peculiarities of work on M. Gogol's texts and the memories of his confederates and P. Kulish’s friends. The analysis of the epistolary introduces P. Kulish’s seek for spiritual truths, comparisons and parallels with M. Gogol's reflections and creative sources, in particular during his visit to Danilov Monastery and to the writer's tomb. P. Kulish's intellectual reflection in epistolary texts reveals a complex of ethical problems around which the author always focuses, substantiating the complexity of views on the issues of "ideal" – "profane", "people" – "service to people", "gospel truths" – "the world of real people", "the commensurability of the gospel word" – "living spiritualized nature " etc. A wide range of P. Kulish addressees is analyzed, which allows us to observe the panorama of the cultural life of the Ukrainian intelligentsia in the mid-19th century, testing in the environment of cultural and public figures of traditional ethical views and formation of new ideas about language, culture and national revival. P. Kulish's general characterization of moral principles is correlated with his appeals to authoritative figures, iconic events and partial manifestation in epistolary texts, in particular the features of requests to addressees. The author concludes that P. Kulish’s personality was complex and ambiguous. At the same time, the writer was a tireless worker who combined high ethical ideals with the moral principles of creative life – the service of the word.

Introduction to the fourth regular issue of JALT

The end of the year – and the dubitable (more on this shortly) close of the decade – invites us to be more philosophical than we usually allow ourselves to be in the hustle-and-bustle of the everyday lives of teachers. It is indeed debatable whether the end of 2019 marks the end of a decade. By the time you read these lines, the 2020s may or may not have started, even when applying the Gregorian calendar (and not another calendar, for instance, the Chinese, Islamic or Thai solar calendar, to mention but a few). The year 1 BC was followed by 1 AD (shockingly, there was no year 0 Anno Domini), and as a consequence, the third millennium and 21st century started in 2001, rather than in 2000. While mathematically, the new decade should only start in 2021, convention tells us that 1 January, 2020, marks the beginning of the new decade. And while we write these lines in the old decade, the jury is still out how to call the 2010s – the ‘tens’, ‘twenty-tens’, ‘two-thousand-tens’ or even ‘teens’, ‘teenies’, ‘teensies’, ‘tensies’, or ‘ten-sions’. Time will tell. If a simple matter like the above calendrical confusion already seems less-than-certain, uncertainty is certainly something that engulfs more complex matters. Falsification has shattered gospel truths. Today, we know that not all swans are white, but people in the Old World certainly thought so till Australia and her black swans were discovered. Inductive reasoning and generalising have long become problematic, knowledge fragile, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book The black swan. The impact of the highly improbable a celebrated bestseller.

100 years of Carte Rouge – a Hungarian ethnographical map by Pál Teleki

Abstract. The Carte Rouge is one of the most notorious Hungarian ethnographical maps to date. The map was planned and executed by Count Pál Teleki (1879–1941) in 1918. Teleki, who was the chief secretary of the Hungarian Geographical Society, later served as the prime minister of Hungary twice within his political career. The first edition of this particular map was published on the 21st of February in 1919. Teleki played a central role in arranging, ascribing and allocating Hungarian geographical works for the peace-negotiations following the First World War. The term “Carte Rouge”, derives from the French; critiquing the subjective colouring of the map. During this period of time, political correspondents and those in power were responsible for planning such maps in order to support their own political programs with regards to their respective national ties and territorial claims.The red pockets on the map signify areas which designate nationality, ethnicity, and language claims, on the part of both the locals and/or the author of the map. Particularly of note, is that this map was viewed and used by the leading politicians of the Entente-powers.On the 16th of January in 1920, the day on which the Hungarian delegations received the peace terms of the First World War, Albert Aponyi gave a speech of significant weight in front of the Entente representatives in Paris, after the peace terms were received. Aponyi (1846–1933), who was the head of the Hungarian delegation, showed this particular map to those present at this meeting following his speech, as justification and proof of his points. Apponyi sent the map to Teleki and to the members of various delegations. Isaiah Bowman (1878–1950), for example, also had a private copy of the map. Bowman's critique of Teleki's ethnographical map is most significant in this discussion:„This idea has occurred to me since examining a map by Count Teleki which gives altogether a wrong impression of the distribution of Magyars in Transylvania that we ought to keep a fairly good collection of propaganda maps, of which I have here several very striking examples, and sometime after I return I should like to write a little paper on the various types of lies and liars that I met in this form of cartography. It would be good popular education, because so many people regard what appears on a map as gospel truth, and almost none of the people, who print maps, understand map technique sufficiently well to distinguish between the various principles followed in the construction of maps. (…).”It is not certain as to whether Bowman was indeed writing about this particular map, however Teleki had at that point and time-edited no other ethnographical map. Others, for example, the Austrian Randolf Rungaldier (1892–1981) had a very positive opinion about the Carte Rouge.In total, and to the best of my knowledge, the Carte Rouge has 12 editions and 27 various versions.In the following analysis, I will consider how the Carte Rouge can be compared to other, similar international examples of the region, based on archival research I conducted in Paris, London, Budapest and Milwaukee. For instance, Emmanuel de Martonne (1873–1955), who also adopted a critical approach to the Carte Rouge, planned a comparable ethnographical map of Romania. This map used another method of cartographic representation; nonetheless, the various territorial concepts designated by the colour-selection, the borders and the represented (and not represented) territories are facets that have similar features.Later Teleki – as member of the Mossul-Commission – designed an ethnographical map of the Turkish-Iraqi border-area, which afforded him international professional recognition. The method of cartographic representation was the same, as was utilized in the creation of the Carte Rouge.Resultantly, the Carte Rouge inspired the production of other ethnographical maps in Hungary as well as in other countries. In Hungary, Ferenc Fodor (1887–1962) – as the member of the Hungarian Peace-Preparation Office (Béke-előkészítő Iroda) – edited a manuscript map about Central-Europe using the same "representing-method". This map was published under the name of G. Bery in 1938. A part of this map was also reused as a propaganda poster. Later, during the Second World War Imre Jakabffy (1915–2006) continued this form of mapping with a slightly modified version of this method of cartographic representation at the Institute of Political Science (Államtudományi Intézet) in Budapest. Subsequently, other ethnographical maps were edited using this method of cartographic representation by the French and by Romanians.In sum, this map was a typical product of the period, as it supported a particular territorial concept. The opinions about the map – not independent from the political context – were very differential in form. Regardless, this method of cartographic representation had an extended international carrier in the fields of geography and cartography for years to come afterwards.

A Comparative Analysis of the Pragmatic Functions of “Amen” in Mainstream Protestant and Pentecostal Churches in Cameroon

One of the words that all Christians agree upon is ‘Amen’. Although many do not know its exact meaning, as informal observations have shown, there is tacit consensus over one of its functions, namely Gospel truth marker. Over the years and following the various developments in the Christian faith, the word has acquired new functions according to the obedience. This paper sets out to investigate the pragmatic functions of ‘Amen’ as used in two different religious trends, namely mainstream Protestant Churches and Pentecostal Churches. The data were collected in one prototypical parish of each trend through participant observation, tape-recording, and field note. Basically, one church service from each trend was randomly selected and transcribed. The analysis of the data revealed that each trend seems to assign different functions to ‘Amen’. In fact, while mainstream Protestant Churches have kept its traditional conclusion and Gospel truth marker illocutionary force, New-Born Churches add to these the phatic communion and power marker among others. The stakes are both communicative and political since the quality of the service, in terms of faithful involvement, may influence the future of both religious trends in the country. This communicative influence spills over the political one as these new functions are slowly but steadily making their way into some traditional churches in the country.

The Intimate and Ultimate Adversary: Satanology in Early Second-Century Christian Literature

Much scholarship has recently been done on the Satanology (Satan-concept) of New Testament books or writers. This study attends to the Satanology of early non-canonical Christian writings, which have been comparatively under-researched. The literature examined includes the Apostolic Fathers and other texts that can be reliably dated to c. 100–150 c.e., namely Ascension of Isaiah, Apocalypse of Peter, Odes of Solomon, Gospel of Truth, Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora, and Justin Martyr’s writings. Over 160 certain or probable references to Satan, under various designations, are identified. Analysis of this data set proceeds in two directions. The first looks at the concept’s explanatory power: for what kinds of evil did Satanology help to account? The discussion traverses various loci of perceived satanic activity, from the human heart to community boundaries to earthly political authorities to a dualistic cosmos to the abstract realm of ideas. The second analytical section explores ways that Christian writers and communities incorporated Satanology into their religious life through liturgical forms, hermeneutics for reading the Jewish Scriptures, and theological debates about the nature of God and evil. Satanology is found to have been a pervasive and distinctive feature of Christianity in the early subapostolic period.

Christian Scriptural Perspectives on Refugees

Christian Scriptural Perspectives on Refugees Peter A. Pettit This exploration must begin with the recollection that my childhood was shaped in part by the very real presence of immigrants—economic refugees. In the late 1950s, my grandparents stepped up as members of a Lutheran congregation that wanted to sponsor a Lutheran refugee family from Germany. A specific family was needed to be the sponsors, and my grandparents volunteered to be that family. Was it because my maternal great‐grandfather had come to America in the late nineteenth century, saying—as my grandmother once told me—“he wouldn't fight in the Kaiser's stupid wars?” I never thought to ask about their motivation. At some point in my preschool years, though, we welcomed a German war veteran and his wife into our extended family. The veteran had been captured on both the Eastern and Western fronts and had spent time in Soviet and American POW camps. Struggling in the difficult post‐war German economy, he and his wife as a young couple chose to seek their future in the United States. Very soon they had a child, adding one more to our extended family. The veteran is now retired from a distinguished career as a professor of German language and culture at a number of colleges up and down the East Coast; his wife died some years ago. But at my grandparents’ dining room table, at Thanksgiving or just on a random Sunday afternoon, they were very much like cousins to us. The idea of kindness and support for the alien first came to me not only as mother's milk in my family; it came also as gospel truth from our church. Grounding that truth in scripture can take a number of different turns. My research has taken me into the literature of the refugee advocacy community and the official documents of the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches as well as my own searching of Christian scripture for relevant themes. There is not a lot of variation among the denominations or the advocacy groups; many of the same materials turn up time and time again. With regard to scriptural sources that address our relationship with refugees, I would suggest that three broad clusters can be identified. These are distinguished from one another by the character of each of the three parties involved in a divinely guided encounter between oneself and a refugee: Our relationship with refugees can be grounded in who we are; it can be grounded in who the other is; and it can be grounded in who God is. Beyond the question of the direct encounter with refugees, we also can explore the scriptural sources relating to the conditions which drive refugees from their homes and create the conditions that they face. We will begin with the direct encounter and its three points of grounding. Encountering refugees on the basis of our identity The first cluster of sources speaks to our character as people of God and the way in which it defines our relationship to those who have been dislocated from their homes. Within this first cluster, we can further discern three sets of sources that characterize the people of God in somewhat different dimensions. For some, we are a people descended from refugees. The International Association for Refugees has compiled a list of nearly thirty biblical characters, plus the collective people Israel, who are in some sense refugees. Many of these come easily to mind from familiar biblical stories, even if the label “refugee” is not one we might choose first to identify the characters: Adam and Eve, Cain, Jacob and his eleven sons, Naomi, and Ruth. Less obvious figures like David and Jeremiah are included. Within the New Testament, Philip and Peter and Aquila and Priscilla are all also identified as refugees at some point, fleeing persecution. Even if it seems a bit of a stretch to include Noah fleeing the flood or Jonah fleeing God's word or the midrashically driven account of the infant Jesus fleeing Herod, there is ample evidence that Christians can be considered, spiritually if not genetically, the descendants of people who needed refuge. A second dimension of this...

Евангелие Истины и рождение христианской философии

Евангелие Истины и рождение христианской философии

Pseudo-Priscillian and the Gospel of Truth

A treatise On the Trinity, once ascribed to Priscillian of Avila, but now more commonly held to be the work of a disciple, quotes the aphorism “the name of the Father is the Son” as an apostolic saying. In fact it appears to be a quotation of the Gospel of Truth, affinities to which are also visible in the teaching of this treatise on the procession of the Word from the Father, the role of the Holy Spirit in this procession, the universal bondage of the human race in oblivion, the revelation of the Father’s face to the elect, and the common brotherhood of the elect with Christ. After noting a further affinity between the Gospel of Truth and another Priscillianist writing, the article concludes with some reflections on the use of apocryphal literature in the fourth century by authors whose theology was in most respects orthodox.

"I DON’T TRADE IN FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA"

"I DON’T TRADE IN FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA"

From Dis-Bodied Discipleship to Embodied Relationality: Experiential Formation in the Life of Prayer

The ContextCan you put me onto a website with daily thoughts for the day? I want to be able to reflect and begin with a prayer while I'm travelling. This question, recently asked of me by a parishioner about to leave for an extended trip overseas, left me thoughtful. It spoke of a phenomenon that is not limited to New Zealand; it is one that we can all recognize as modern and which has become acceptable. Life is fast and demanding. Time is a luxury, and slow living, as in the culture of slow food, is something rather lost to many of us. Indeed, it has become an unquestioned given-even in the life of prayer, and of being formed in that life. Sites for a quick prayer, a paraphrased psalm to carry us through the day have become a kind of spiritual fix, downed like coffee, consumed on the run; the spiritual fife is mediated by gurus in whom we put our trust without the dynamic of embodied living relationality, letting them tell us how to be spiritual, making up prayers for us so we in turn can use them to talk to God. If prayer is about intimate relationship in and with God, then this phenomenon raises questions about why we would be letting others write the script for our souls, and what has caused our own relationship with Christ to become so estranged.In the New Zealand context this is compounded by lingering hangovers of colonialism. Although some of us are part of families that have been here for five or more generations, the idea that we in our own church discover sources from our own southern-centered wisdom heritage is often discounted, particularly in those of us from English roots. The belief that contextual theology can have its own voice here is often betrayed by referencing and legitimizing what is being aspired to in the writings and teachings from alien cultures. In terms of being formed in prayerfulness, of living the life and letting it radicalize us into transforming yeast in society, we still prefer to look to the (usually) offshore academic, to a current venerated guru, to the latest website, to anyone and anywhere, except to the humility of the Christ contextualized in us and around us. The issue that is faced by those of us who teach and nurture the inner life with those who seek it is not so much that others from our own upper echelons of the church and the academies, or from other countries and cultures have nothing to offer. They do, and there is no excuse for ignorance when it comes to faith. The issue has to do with a kind of faith-based elitism that causes us to look beyond what is right in front of us, overlooking the gospel truth that the inner life is one of intimate relationship with Christ. In the formation process this relationship is treated as a source. When in the course of learning participants begin to express experiences that our fathers and mothers in the tradition have discovered before us, then we turn to them. As far as possible we turn to them in their original writings, keeping with a congruent practice of working with sources to learn from them, as opposed to learning about them. When in the context of holy companioning, we are always working with the primary source that is the person present with us. The formational process attempts to work consistently at this level.The Formational ProcessFrom the perspective of the Benedictine solitary life, I find that as a teacher the call to stability in the Rule of Benedict has much to offer and to guide. Benedict does not hold in high regard those who run after other spiritual homes, or live their Christ relationship out in spiritual stopovers; his descriptions of these monks are uncompromising and constitute the entire content of the very first chapter of the Rule. It is very much a spiritual affliction which he knew in his day. We can also recognize the parallels in our own. It is a perilous distraction that turns us to seek and look to anything other than actually staying focused on our Christ relationship. …

The Passion of the Book: The Gospel of Truth as Valentinian Scriptural Practice

This paper explores the multiple references to books and writing in the second-century Gospel of Truth as a form of Valentinian scriptural practice. The text most dramatically represents this scriptural practice through the image of a crucified Jesus, wrapped in a book, reading aloud from his heart as he dies. Believers are invited to receive this revealed book, distribute it, and publish their own texts. Through its depictions of the written word, the Gospel of Truth presents authoritative revelation as a document that transcends oral and written formats. The Gospel of Truth promotes a scriptual practice that presumes a “living document” definition of gospel, and, as a text, conforms to this definition. In sum, this article argues that the Gospel of Truth functioned as gospel for its own community.

“And do not say ’tis superstition”: Shakespeare, Memory, and the Iconography of Death

“And do not say ’tis superstition”:1Shakespeare, Memory, and the Iconography of Death Lawrence Green (bio) Shortly before the reinterment of the remains of King Richard III in Leicester Cathedral on March 22, 2015, the Guardian historian, David Priestland, lamented what he termed “the hullabaloo over the bones of a king dead for over 500 years” to be followed by an “archbishop-led re-interment service”—events he found to be “reminiscent of the saints’ cults of the middle ages,” a “reboot of the medieval craze for relics.” 2 Other broadcasters expressed astonishment that the journey of the king’s remains through the streets of Leicester should have produced pavements thronged with onlookers. It is tempting to speculate that such rare events might have stirred deep-seated collective cultural memories of a time when such relics were venerated and superstition stalked the land. Indeed, Anne E. Bailey has traced significant parallels between the medieval rituals surrounding the translatio of a saint’s remains to a new shrine, and the studiedly ecumenical ceremonial given to King Richard’s remains together with the care afforded to their location so as to accommodate the reception of “pilgrims.”3 In this spirit of renascent medievalism, would it be too fanciful, I wonder, to suggest that the language and stage mise-en-scène that attends human mortality in Shakespeare’s plays sometimes carries strong resonances of material images that conjure the imagination to construct the funerary iconography of a former time? Martin Luther had declared that “Christ’s kingdom is a hearing-kingdom, not a seeing-kingdom,”4 a position supported by scriptural authority since Romans 10:17 has, “Then faith is by hearing, & hearing [End Page 249] by the worde of God.”5 The second commandment alone reinforced the contention that the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century in Europe should be represented as the triumph of the word over the image, notwithstanding the fact that Luther himself came to moderate his scorn of images by arguing that they might be retained as long as they were understood not to be sacred in themselves but merely serving as reminders or teachers of gospel truths. Notwithstanding the moderation of the Lutheran stance, the pretext had been supplied for an iconoclasm that owed as much to policy as to doctrinal purity. In such a climate it was perhaps inevitable that the theft, destruction, or obliteration of popish paraphernalia—what Eamon Duffy has famously termed the “stripping of the altars”—should extend not only to tombs within the church but also to the cemetery beyond. Indeed, “during early and mid-sixteenth-century outbreaks of iconoclasm, English Protestants demolished or mutilated many funerary monuments.”6 Thus, the carved effigies of intercessionary angels and other perceived idolatrous and superstitious Catholic elements were ruthlessly expunged, though when the destruction of the tombs of aristocratic families was thought to challenge a social hierarchy based on lineal succession, a royal proclamation of 1560 relating to the “breaking or defacing of monumentes of antiquitie” deplored the “extinguyshyng of the honorable and good memorye of sundry vertuous and noble persons deceased” while making a careful distinction between those monuments “being set vp…for memory” and those “for superstition.”7 Shakespeare is generally careful to exclude from both the verbal and the visual iconography of his death tableaux any suggestion of Catholic idolatry, and yet at times he seems to encourage his audience imaginatively to construct images that draw upon elements of a shared, universal “Catholic” memory. Martha Fleischer is discussing the incidence of pageantry on the Elizabethan stage when she identifies the inherent “emblematic eye” or the habit of “analogical thinking” as imparting meaning to the received iconography of the history play genre.8 Since profound cultural change arguably emerges from a process of evolution rather than revolution, Shakespeare—in common with his audience—inevitably retained a store of powerful visual cultural memories relating typically to traditional societal rites of passage—particularly marriage and death—upon which [End Page 250] it was natural to draw, irrespective of metaphysical subtleties. He and his contemporaries inhabited a broadly understood shared iconography that came to acquire an identity transcending the “Catholic” to become the truly...

Jesus after Modernity: A 21st-Century Critique of Our Modern Concept of Truth and the Truth of the Gospel

Review of 'Jesus after Modernity: A 21st-Century Critique of Our Modern Concept of Truth and the Truth of the Gospel' by James P. Danaher.

Journey and rest: Hebrews, pilgrimage, and the work of theological education

This article explores the relationship between the motifs of ‘journey’ and ‘rest’ in Hebrews with a view to highlighting the importance and characteristic features of the text’s vision of theological education. The importance of παιδɛία in Hebrews is affirmed, and contrasted with the related but distinct perspective of the Gospel of Truth. The article concludes by highlighting five features of Hebrews that are suggestive of continuing priorities in the work of theological education today.

How Fox News Changed American Media and Political Dynamics

The creation of Fox News in 1996 was an event of deep, yet unappreciated, political and historical importance. For the first time, there was a news source available virtually everywhere in the United States, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a conservative tilt. Finally, conservatives did not have to seek out bits of news favorable to their point of view in liberal publications or in small magazines and newsletters. Like someone dying of thirst in the desert, conservatives drank heavily from the Fox waters. Soon, it became the dominant – and in many cases, virtually the only – major news source for millions of Americans. This has had profound political implications that are only starting to be appreciated. Indeed, it can almost be called self-brainwashing – many conservatives now refuse to even listen to any news or opinion not vetted through Fox, and to believe whatever appears on it as the gospel truth.

Together towards Life and the Mission Studies Curriculum

Personal reflection It was a great privilege as vice-moderator of the WCC Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (WCC-CWME) from 2007--2013 to be asked to chair the drafting group for the planned new policy statement on mission and evangelism, and I hope I may be allowed a few moments to reminisce about that experience. During the previous CWME, preparing the statement and getting it through the relevant processes became our main work. The first stage was to determine our priorities for the document. Since we could not cover all the many facets of mission, we had to select what we could agree were the priorities for mission in today's landscape. Looking back at the only previous statement from 1982, "Mission and Evangelism: An Ecumenical Affirmation," it was clear that the global landscape had altered significantly. (2) The year 1982 came before the end of the Cold War and the onset of globalization, before 9/11 and the so-called "clash of civilisations," (3) and in many other respects it seemed a long time ago. In the light of this, our mission priorities needed rethinking. Once we had decided these at the commission meeting in Bangalore in 2008--marginalization, evangelism, ecclesiology, and mission spirituality--we divided into groups to work on them. Each group held consultations to inform its writing. I was privileged to contribute to a meeting in Manila in July 2011 to discuss mission and pneumatology, another on church and mission in Geneva in May 2011, and a third on mission spirituality in Jamaica that same month. Our joint conference with the Faith and Order Commission in Hungary in 2009 supported the work on ecclesiology, the Edinburgh 2010 project and conference helped to frame our ideas ecumenically, and several other WCC initiatives also fed into our work. It was daunting to receive the first reports from the groups and to try and work out how to put them together as a coherent whole. What is more, each part needed to be approved by the rest of the 25-member commission and the discussions threw up fascinating theological and missiological issues at every turn. Finally, one weekend in Geneva in 2011, the moderator Bishop George Varghese mor Coorilos, secretary Revd Dr Jooseop Keum, and I finalized the introduction and conclusion--initially drafted by Dr Keum--and then the complete draft document could be circulated for the commission's approval. The pre-assembly conference on mission and evangelism in Manila in March 2012 was the most exciting part of the process for me. The draft document was examined and tested by 250 mission practitioners and scholars over five days. In the wonderful atmosphere created by the Philippine Council of Churches, the new statement met with general affirmation and the scrutiny bore fruit in many constructive suggestions that were implemented by a further revision group led by Revd Dr Kenneth Ross. Then at the end of August that year it was my privilege to present the document to the WCC central committee meeting in Crete, and it was to my great relief that I heard it was accepted as official WCC policy. Finally, at the WCC general assembly in Busan in South Korea in 2013, I moderated the plenary on mission--the first for 21 years--at which the message of Together towards Life was introduced to the churches. I believe the success of this document owes a great deal to the forethought of Revd Jacques Matthey, the former commission secretary, to the careful steering and energetic leadership of Dr Jooseop Keum, and to the moderation of Bishop Mor Coorilos. It has been a great honour to contribute. Significance of Together towards Life for missiological education What is the significance of Together towards Life for missiological education? I believe we should see its significance in three main ways: in its novel pneumatological approach, in the ecumenical consensus it represents, and in its use of the world Christianity paradigm. …