National Church Research Articles

The Life and Theology of Alexander Knox: Anglicanism in the Age of Enlightenment and Romanticism by David Mccready

Reviewed by: The Life and Theology of Alexander Knox: Anglicanism in the Age of Enlightenment and Romanticism by David Mccready Shaun Blanchard The Life and Theology of Alexander Knox: Anglicanism in the Age of Enlightenment and Romanticism BY DAVID MCCREADY Series: Anglican-Episcopal Theology and History, vol. 6. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020. 324 pages. Paperback: $69.00. ISBN: 9789004355224. Alexander Knox (1757–1831), a lay theologian of the Church of Ireland, is known mainly to specialists in Anglican studies.1 David McCready's new study provides a detailed account of Knox's manifold theological contributions that will appeal to historians and theologians studying Anglo-Irish Christianity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While the subtitle certainly hints at the broader relevance of this little-known figure, it actually references only a part of the rich web of interconnected themes, persons, and issues illuminated by this study. McCready has delivered an incredibly rich and widely relevant monograph that merits engagement not only by those interested in English-speaking theology's appropriation of Platonism, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. The book is also a deep dive into the eclectic, unique, and innovative thought of a man who helped construct "Anglican" identity itself, engaged Methodists and Roman Catholics in a sincere proto-ecumenical outlook, and was, in certain intriguing aspects, a forerunner of the Oxford Movement. The first chapter sketches Knox's life as a lay theologian, and one who demands attention for his connection to John Wesley and his influence on, among others, Hannah More, William Wilberforce, Gladstone, and Newman. McCready's second chapter is an important analysis of Knox as "a theoretician of Anglicanism" (37–39). In addition to tilling the soil that made the Tractarians possible, the story of the construction of a distinctively "Anglican" identity—Knox was one of the first to popularize the term itself—in the early nineteenth century sheds light not only on dynamics internal to the Church of England/Ireland, but to the broader context of a national church that found itself within a modernizing and expanding empire marked by a plurality of confessions. Knox's unapologetic Erastianism was tempered by an equally sincere commitment to toleration and friendship [End Page 79] across confessional lines, for example with the Evangelical Hannah More. The via media he advocated—familiar to students of Newman's career and of the Oxford Movement—looked to the church fathers instead of the sixteenth-century Protestant reformers for inspiration. In a letter to his confidant John Jebb, a Church of Ireland bishop who is also regarded as a forerunner of the Oxford Movement, Knox bemoaned, with his typical verve, "the nick-name of Protestant" as "a perverse influence" on Anglican identity. Knox's vision for Anglicanism was a middle path "equidistant from puritanism on the one hand, and from popery on the other" (38). McCready rightly notes such a statement as an anticipation of Newman's Anglicanism, which was emphatically "not Protestant" but "merely reformed," in Newman's words (39). While Knox should be honored for his commitment to extending friendship and toleration both to Catholics and to Dissenting Protestant sects, he was not afraid to criticize doctrines that were absolutely central to their self-understanding—"literal transubstantiation" (a theologically dubious phrase) in the case of the former, and sola scriptura for the latter. Knox even referred to this key commitment of the Reformation as a Scylla to the Charybdis of Popery (specifically to its unhappy accretions). Knox's connections to Wesley, whom he highly esteemed, are explored in chapter three. Like Wesley, Knox had serious ecclesial and sacramental commitments, but was in tune with the phenomenon of "heart religion," defined as "a form of piety in which primacy is given to the affective and the experiential" (263). The next three chapters sketch the context of Knox's theology and influences on it by examining Platonism (and Knox's love of the Greek fathers, especially Clement of Alexandria and John Chrysostom), the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. McCready does a good job of showing the complex interplay of these phenomena—Enlightenment and Romanticism are not airtight paradigms, but rather constellations of intellectual, and in this case, spiritual phenomena that dynamically intersect and are...

Into the Enclosure: Collective Memory and Queer History in the Icelandic Documentary “People like That”

ABSTRACT This article criticizes an acclaimed Icelandic documentary film series from 2019, People Like That (“Svona fólk”), which has become the quasi-canonical history of the country’s gay and lesbian rights struggle. The series tells the story of the forward march of normalizing progress and change from below, breaking through with the achievement of registered partnership in 1996. This article views the series as an attempt to create a collective memory corresponding to Iceland’s new self-image as a queer utopia. While avoiding historicist criticism, the article presents new stories and memories from the documentary series‘ own archive, which has been partly released online, and sources unexplored by the series, such as queer journals and official reports. From these stories, different narratives emerge, in which homonormativity is imposed by the Icelandic state and National Church in the 1990s and conceded by Iceland’s National Queer Organization, resulting in a registered partnership legislation that some homosexual Icelanders saw not as a victory but as a loss of power. The contrast between these stories and those of People Like That foregrounds the politics of remembrance and forgetting and exposes the seldom discussed conditions for Icelandic homosexuals‘ inclusion into the nation in the 1990s.

‘All Things Are Lawful’: Adiaphora, Permissive Natural Law, Christian Freedom, and Defending the English Reformation

Abstract Adiaphora (‘indifferent matters’) and permissive natural law both conceptually pointed towards an arena of liberty in which the individual remained free to take up (or not) particular courses of action. In the Reformation debates over the external regulation of Christian freedom for the maintenance of peace and order, these two concepts became freighted with political significance; but they also in turn shaped attitudes over when and where obedience was due in relation to the civic regulation of liberty. Tudor apologetics deployed both ideas in order to defend the English Reformation, especially the claim of the royal supremacy to have due authority to regulate ecclesiastical affairs in indifferent matters, limiting Christian freedom and requiring obedience. By situating these debates within the context of the conceptual development of adiaphora and permissive natural law from their original philosophical roots through to the Reformation, this article establishes the genealogy of claims that defined such apologetics. After surveying the seemingly intractable dilemmas in the thought of Thomas Starkey and John Whitgift over why obedience to lay ecclesiastical supremacy was due, this article considers the radical return to the permissive natural law traditions of the medieval period in the Elizabethan conformist thought of Richard Hooker. In this return, Hooker supplanted divine permissions and scriptural principles as the guide for the proper regulation of indifferent matters with an appeal to the light of reason as the divine instrument through which binding human laws are made to govern society and limit freedom for the public good, even in the life of the national church.

Music and the Identity Process: The National Churches of Rome and their Networks in the Early Modern Period M. Berti E. Corswarem.

In the last decades, early modern Rome has attracted increasing and increasingly diverse attention from scholars of various disciplines. (A recent and accessible guide to such interdisciplinary scholarship can be found in the Companion to Early Modern Rome, 1492–1692, ed. Pamela Jones, Barbara Wisch, and Simon Ditchfield (Brill, 2019).) New musicological investigations and research projects too have contributed to this growth of Roman studies. Among the most stimulating recent enterprises on Roman musical life in the early modern era is the one that produced, inter alia, the present volume on ‘the national churches and their networks’. Its special and perhaps most intriguing character lies in its double, centripetal and centrifugal, perspective. The national churches—that is, the churches established, maintained, and frequented by foreign communities in the papal city—were, in fact, cultural safe havens and reference points for alien residents and visitors, but at the same time places where romanità was absorbed and assimilated by foreign cultures. They were both outposts and thresholds.

Early Islam: An Arab Christian Perspective

The essay provides an Arab Christian perspective on early Islam. It examines the geopolitical and ecclesial context in which early Islam emerged in the seventh-century Middle East. In a context marked by religious fluidity and national churches, the essay argues that Qur’anic verses form the basis for viewing early Islam as part and parcel of the reception history of the Judeo-Christian tradition of late antiquity.

The Assumptionists' Quest For a Religious Leader in The Ottoman Lands: The Bulgarian Uniate Church Movement in Victorin Galabert's Diary (1862-1867)

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Bulgarians sought to establish a national church independent from the Greek Patriarchate. This coincided with the expansion of the missionary activities of the Roman Catholic Church in the Ottoman lands through the Assumptionist sect. A member of this sect, the French bishop Victorin Galabert, was sent to Constantinople in 1862 to conduct Catholic missionary work. He was specifically assigned to establish the Bulgarian Catholic-Uniate Church. During his assignment, Galabert kept a diary of his personal experiences and impressions of the places he went and the events he witnessed. His diary, which apparently has never been studied by scholars, offers a close-up view of the Catholic orthodox conflict in Ottoman geography, as well as unique clues as to why efforts to establish a Bulgarian national church failed. The purpose of this study is to reconsider why the attempts to establish an independent Bulgarian national church failed in the 1860s, in the light of the information revealed by Galabert's diary. This study argues that the main reasons for the failure of efforts to establish a Bulgarian national church are the Catholic Church's underestimation of Russian influence in the region, and the problem of trust between the Bulgarians and the Catholic Church.

Herbert Hensley Henson, J. N. Figgis and the Archbishops’ Committee on Church and State, 1913–1916: Two Competing Visions of the Church of England

This article brings fresh perspective to the Archbishops’ Committee on Church and State that sat from 1913 to 1916, emphasising the divisions in the Church that it both reflected and reinforced. The article focuses on the shadow that two competing legacies cast over the committee's appointment and recommendations, and the reception of its report. This is evident in the work of two prominent figures of the early twentieth-century Church: Herbert Hensley Henson (1863–1947) and J. N. Figgis (1866–1919). While Henson appealed to Hooker's legacy in upholding a national Church, Figgis drew on Tractarianism in defending a narrower, denominational ideal.

Domestic and Family Violence: Responses and Approaches across the Australian Churches

Domestic and family violence (DFV) is a serious and widespread problem in Australia and across the world, including in faith communities. There are calls for research to assist churches to better recognize, respond to and prevent violence. This study draws on data from the 2016 Australian National Church Life Survey (n = 883 senior local church leaders, n = 1270 churchgoers) to provide the first Australia-wide cross-denominational statistics on Christian clergy responses to DFV. Two-thirds of leaders had previously dealt with DFV situations in their ministry, primarily responding to victims of abuse by referring them to specialist support services and by counselling them. The findings suggest a particular depth of experience with DFV situations and strength of awareness of the needs of victims for safety and specialist support among Salvationist leaders. While, overall, a substantial majority of churchgoers felt that they could approach their church for help if they were experiencing DFV, just half of Catholics felt that they could do so. Future research should explore responses to DFV in specific denominations and culturally and linguistic diverse contexts in more detail and seek to understand the practices used by the large minority of clergy who are dealing with perpetrators.

Framing ‘gender ideology’: religious populism in the Croatian Catholic Church

ABSTRACT This paper explores the role of the Catholic Church in the articulation of populist discourse. By analysing the frames in Catholic doctrines and their dissemination by the Croatian clergy, I make three contributions. Firstly, in contrast to research on the populist radical right, which demonstrates the manipulation of religion committed by secular actors, I identify the Church as an influential source and producer of the populist master frame. Secondly, I demonstrate how the bridging of the ‘gender ideology’ frame to this populist master frame allows the national Church to articulate traditionalist stances on morality policies. Thirdly, I identify the local-level argumentation strategies, empowered by frame bridging with anti-communist, nationalist, and sovereignist themes typical of radical-right populism. Focusing on religious actors’ agency allows us to improve theories rooted in the secular world of populist politics that neglect churches as important sources of populist discourse and mobilisation.

Church Competition During the Pandemic: the Case of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

The collapse of the USSR resulted in religious revivals in all former republics, including Ukraine. Religion provided security and emotional support. It legitimized political elites, while some churches also offered public goods, substituting the state. With time, religion became a crucial component of the national identities. Despite many similarities to other primely Orthodox countries, Ukraine has been unique in its religious landscape. Several Orthodox jurisdictions have competed for the status of the national church, which allowed religious fragmentation in all regions of Ukraine. This paper shows the importance of religious pluralism in Ukraine during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

UKRAINIAN LOCAL CHURCH: REALITIES OF THE PROCLAMATION AND PROSPECTS

The article analyzes the process of formation of the newly formed Local Ukrainian Church at the present stage. It is determined that the institutional design of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine takes place in a multi-religious environment. Therefore, the article predicts that today in Ukraine, there is no reason to talk about the United Church in the future. It is determined that the Ukrainian church issue is a kind of watershed in terms of the main controversial issues that have troubled the Ecumenical Church in recent centuries. Therefore, it has been proved that the settlement of the Ukrainian question is of great importance not only for the Orthodox believers of Ukraine, but also for the whole Orthodoxy. Most countries that have received autocephaly in our time have been waiting for decades for world recognition of their own church. Therefore, the recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine by only a part of the Local Churches is a natural process. It is established that autocephaly in modern conditions of society development and hybrid war is a vital condition for the country's survival. It has been studied that in modern conditions the Kyiv Church has received a great credit of trust in the eyes of the Ecumenical Patriarch. The consolidated Kyiv metropolitanate may become the largest national Orthodox church in the world, which will significantly change the balance in the structure of the Universal Orthodoxy.

ХРИСТИЯНСЬКА ГЕОПОЛІТИКА: ЙОГО ВСЕСВЯТІСТЬ ПАТРІАРХ ВАРФОЛОМІЙ І ТА УКРАЇНСЬКА АВТОКЕФАЛІЯ

This article will discuss the role of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew І in restoring the independence of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Today we are witnessing radical changes in our country. These changes are related to the restoration and struggle of Ukraine for its independence. It is a struggle both in the political arena and in the arena of the national church project. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has been an invaluable help in this direction for Ukraine. Therefore, this article will highlight the path Ukraine has taken to receive Thomas. The giving of Thomas to Ukraine is a solution to a universal global question that has lasted for centuries. Thomas is a borderline of sorts against Russian encroachment on Ukrainian lands, church, and culture. And the events of 2018 at the Cathedral of Bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate become important from a geopolitical point of view. The consequence was the restoration of the independence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Религиозный институт как составляющая социальной и экономической сферы

The subject of the article is the peculiarities of functioning of the structural components of the major religious institution, the identification and substantiation of the degree of its significance in the social and economic development of a country on the example of the Roman Catholic Church of Austria (RCCA). The aim of the work is a comprehensive characterization of manifestations of economic, social, culture-forming role of the leading religious organization at the national level, using the methods of processing statistical and empirical data adopted in economic and regional-confessional studies. It is shown that in Austria, since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been a sharp decline in the number of persons who remain members of the national Christian Church. The RCCA has an annual quantitative loss in the number of parishioners: 1–1.5% of their total number. Over a 10-year period (2009–2019), the proportion of Catholic adherents in Austria has fallen from 62.2 to 56%, according to calculations based on official reports. In this study, the territorial concentration coefficient for the parishes of the RCC was calculated and gave a relatively low value, indicating the accessibility of Catholic parishes to the population in various regions of Austria in terms of social and other activities organized on their premises. This indicator remains stable over time. The RCCA is currently represented in the country by a dense network of parishes (3014 as of 2019). The basis of the church-administrative territorial division at the regional level consists of two archdioceses and seven dioceses, the boundaries of which fully coincide with the federal states of Austria. This fact allows us to raise the question of the degree of influence of RCCA structures on the development of individual regions of the country, including through the implementation of socially significant activities, partially duplicating state functions that receive budgetary funding. The RCCA also has a traditional focus on social responsibility for Christian national churches in Europe, which is related to facilitating the adaptation of migrants. Activities contributing to this goal include German as a foreign language courses in individual parishes, temporary housing, employment assistance, etc. The model of development of the confessional space in Austria, where the leading role is played by the national RCC, has a number of distinctive characteristics that condition and confirm the high importance of the religious institution in the social and economic development of the state. The presented experience of Austria can be useful for the leadership of religious organizations in Russia, European and other countries, where the leading civilizational basis is the Christian religion.

Обґрунтування церковної незалежності у теологічному вченні періоду пізньої Візантії

The article considers the main mechanisms and principles of functioning of the church-administrative system of governance of the Ecumenical Church. It is established that church life is a lively and dynamic process. The church is steadily moving forward and is forced to respond to societal demands and problems. It is proved that the formation of two approaches (Greek and Slavic) to the understanding of the structure of the system of Universal Orthodoxy was the cause of the crisis in the church. It is noted that “church misunderstandings” became apparent after the Great Council of Crete and the granting of the Tomos to the Ukrainian Church. The study highlights the transformational processes of the institution of autocephaly in late Byzantium period, as well as its importance for the modern church. It is proved that the ecclesiological conditionality of the autocephalous principle stems from the very nature of the church. The article argues that in the Orthodox tradition there is no generally accepted interpretation of the interdependence of gaining state independence and the autocephalous status of churches. From the point of view of Orthodox ecclesiology, it is obvious that, by its very structure, every church must necessarily be autocephalous. However, in practice, a number of national churches are waiting for PanOrthodox recognition for a long time. During the period of late Byzantium, autocephaly was transformed from a natural state to an ecclesiasticalpolitical phenomenon. And in the modern period – to an exclusively political one. It is established that the key task of modern world theology is to study the problem of autocephaly. Since the beginning of Christianity, autocephaly has become the basic principle of the apostolic foundation of the community-church, taking into account the national and ethnic characteristics of the population of the then Roman Empire. It is emphasized that autocephaly is one of the oldest institutions of the Church, which is the main feature of Orthodoxy. It is proved that the state is always an interested party in the process of church independence. Since each independent country seeks to have its own church, it acts as a protector of the powers and rights of the church located within its territorial authority. This significantly affects the current geopolitical relations between the Local Churches. It has been established that autocephaly was an adaptation of the church to the political geography of the state. The article establishes that the Ecumenical Church, while being united in its essence, is divided into independent Local Churches on an administrative and national basis. The article establishes that the institutional disputes of modern Local Churches in most cases are related to the “canonical territory” and the limits of their influence. This is directly related to the acquisition of autocephalous status. It is concluded that such global problems of All-Church significance can be solved exclusively by a conciliar way and reasonable means. This requires the participation of all Orthodox hierarchs, including unrecognized churches, to take into account their position.

STRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE TRANSCARPATHIAN REFORMED CHURCH ORGANIZATION (1946–1949)

The presented church history research provides a specific denominational study of a post-war transition from a regional perspective. Its purpose is to reveal the process during which (in the Transcarpathian region that became part of the Soviet Union in 1944) the new state power forced the Reformed communities to accept a radical structural transformation of their church organization. In addition, it presents the violent stages of the structural transformations, during which the Soviet bureaucracy gradually suppressed the former Reformed self-administration system which had been built according to the Synod-Presbyterian principle and was based on community autonomy. The research methodology is based on the analysis of little-known and unknown archival sources of the Archives and Museum of the Transcarpathian Reformed Church, the State Archive of the Transcarpathian Region, the State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine in Transcarpathia Region, the Central State Archives of Supreme Bodies of Power and Government of Ukraine, the Synod Archives of the Reformed Church in Hungary, and the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the problem of the history of the Transcarpathian Reformed people after 1944 was carried out only as a partial mosaic-like study in the Ukrainian church history research along with other Protestant denominations, sometimes neglecting the chronological order and cause-and-effect relationship. Despite the fact that the history of the Protestants appears as a collective theme, or as the Protestant denomination with the largest organization, the history of the Baptists receives wide attention in the national church history writing. Our study is primarily not a factual narrative of historical chronology but rather focuses on thematic orientation. Following this point of view, it reflects on the issue (structural transformation) in the context of causality that is, when, why and how the organization of the Reformed church communities which had been based on traditional community autonomy was transferred to the hierarchical structural system. In conclusion, it can be said that the structural transformation through which the Reformed church organization underwent between February 1946 and December 1949, was a specific field for the manifestation of Sovietization. In the present study, the picture of the profound social changes that the Soviet occupation of Transcarpathia in 1944, initiated in the region clearly emerges. Based on its ideology, the openly atheistic imperial state believed that immediately after the annexation of the territory and sufficient transformations of the various denominations, it would be able to use them as ideological support in its interests. However, the Reformed church which had been built according to the council-presbyterian principle and based on the autonomy of parishes did not fit into the clearly hierarchical thinking system of the one-man dictatorship. That is why its church structure had to be transformed and adjusted to the form. Thus, the well-known and completely transparent Russian Orthodox Church served as a model for structural transformations in the Soviet imperial bureaucracy. As a result, the process of transformation of the Transcarpathian Reformed church organization into the Soviet model which ended up in the disappearance of the dioceses, deacons, the bishop, and the church districts is outlined.

Factors Determining the Involvement in Non-Religious Activities in the Parish: A Cross-Sectional Study of the Catholic Laity

Charitable activities of the Catholic Church in Poland are carried out primarily at two levels: national church organizations, diocesan and religious, and at the level of less formalized parish organizations. The data show a relatively low percentage of people who are strongly involved in parish activities and in non-religious (social, charitable) affairs of the parish community. The first purpose of this paper is to indicate the socio-demographic features that characterize people who are socially engaged. The second aim is to search for model regularities indicating determinants of social activity of parishioners. We conducted the research in parishes of Lublin Archdiocese in 2020. The research sample was 1867 people, of whom 70% were women. The average age of the respondents was 54.31 years. We have selected predictors that characterise the participants of the non-religious activities in the parish. Referring to the theoretical model of social participation and the concept of social capital, we have indicated the factors that shape the pro-social attitudes of parish members.

Plastic Decoration of Holy Doors from the Fund of the National Church Historical and Archaeological Museum of the Holy Synod - Elements and Symbolism

The proposed article examines the plastic decoration of the Holy doors from the fund of NCHAM of Holy Synod. The Holy doors are a completely complete separate element, but they also carry their semantic load as a part of a larger unified whole, such as the church iconostasis. The article focuses on questions related to the characteristic and symbolism of the plastic decoration of the Holy doors, the characteristic stylistic features and features of the era, the masters and individual schools. In the course of the exhibition, brief attention is paid and their use and importance of the worship services is presented. Parallels are mentioned and described, as they complete and further reveal the issues. Samples from the Fund of the National Church Historical and Archaeological Museum of the Holy Synod which are represented, are the subject of a comprehensive, independent study. I express my gratitude to the National Scientific Program "Young Scientists and Postdoctoral Scholars" 2020 of the Ministry of Education and Science for the financing of the scientific project at the Theological Faculty of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" on the topic: "Holy doors the fund of the National Church Historical and Archaeological Museum of the Holy Synod (Liturgical function, iconography, plastic decoration. Contributions to national identity)", with a scientific leader Assoc. Prof. Dr. deacon Ivan Ivanov. Thank you to the Director of the National church historical and archaeological museum of the Holy Synod Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ivan Rashkov and his team for attention.

“Here in Britain”: William Fleetwood, His Welsh Translators, and Anglo–Welsh Networks before 1717

This essay explores the circumstances, content, and locus of the first two privately financed political translations into Welsh. Published in 1716 and 1717, both rendered a 1716 anti-Jacobite thanksgiving sermon preached by William Fleetwood, bishop of Ely, into Welsh. An interlude will engage with a cross-genre English verse translation, also done in 1716. Whereas Fleetwood’s text, the 1716 Welsh translation of it, and the cross-genre translation pursued a radical Whig agenda, the 1717 translation of Fleetwood into Welsh took care to remove the most radical content of his sermon. All four texts, however, focused on advertising a Protestant nation centered on a national church and the House of Hanover. The present analysis contributes to explaining how Wales’s separate cultural identity was confirmed while being bound politically into a Hanoverian nation demarcated by the Anglican Church. It explores the uncharted Welsh-language dimension of early eighteenth-century British pamphleteering, non-elite Anglo–Welsh cross-border communication networks, and the role that cultural entrepreneurs and provincial publishing centers like Shrewsbury played in not only disseminating metropolitan ideas but also enabling wider participation in the political discourse.

Continuity and Change in Orthodox Christianity in Contemporary Russia: Enduring Legacies and New Developments in the Making

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in two cities of European Russia, this article analyzes continuity and changes in Orthodox Christianity. In so doing, we emphasize property restitution, the renovation of sacred sites, and the importance of religious education in public schools and parishes. Based on that ethnographic material, we address three related research topics. First, we would like to discuss the importance of Orthodox Christianity for contemporary Russia. Second, we aim to show that an understanding of the Russian Orthodox Church as a national church underscores the local and internal differences as well as the complexities of everyday interactions. Finally, we address the notion of postsocialism and discuss its limits and potentials for the analysis of contemporary Russia.

Competing Visions of Mission and Unity among Japanese Protestants and Missionaries in Japan (1859–1912)

AbstractAfter a brief clarification of terms, this article focuses on the early history of the minority Protestant movement in Japan around the turn of the 20th century, examining rival perspectives on mission and unity among certain Japanese church leaders and Western missionaries. The sudden rise of Japan as the regional political power in Northeast Asia strongly influenced both constituencies, albeit in differing ways. While Protestant missionaries imagined Japanese Christians as future agents in their strategy for world evangelization, Japanese Protestant leaders were more modest, focusing their energies on the development of an independent national church. They did hope that their theological “liberation” from British, Dutch, and German confessional traditions would inspire similar theological developments in “younger churches” elsewhere. In light of the Japanese case, the author turns to John 17 for a “post‐instrumentalist” proposal for Christian unity and mission grounded in the inner life of God and wonders if such a perspective may be better attuned to the polycentric ecumenism of this new era of World Christianity.