Place Of Church Research Articles

REINVENTING THE COUNTER-REFORMATION IN MARIAN ENGLAND, 1553–1558

AbstractOver the last thirty years, historians have made several important contributions to our understanding of the short but dramatic restoration of Catholicism in 1550s England. United by a shared rejection of the hitherto dominant interpretation of Mary I's reign as a retrograde and unfortunate interlude in the history of the English Reformation, so-called ‘revisionists’ have convincingly argued that Mary in fact presided over a remarkably dynamic and innovative revival of Catholicism. Whilst this scholarship has been extremely valuable in tackling the teleological assumption that Marian Catholicism was predestined to fail, this review suggests that the revisionist programme continues to be preoccupied by somewhat ill-conceived and unhelpful questions about how ‘successful’ Mary's church was in providing for a Catholic future. Such questions demonstrate just how far the historiography of Marian religion continues to operate within a framework still subtly shaped by sixteenth-century, confessionally charged polemic. This review suggests that, rather than debates about ‘successes’ or ‘failures’, we need to start working outwards from the valuable findings of revisionists regarding the dynamism of Marian religion, exploring their broader implications for how we understand the long-term development of Catholicism in England, as well as the Marian church's place within European Christendom more broadly.

Racism and “Place” in American Catholic Experience

Racism occurs in place. It is any place where human beings dwell such as a certain location, a house, or even a church. Racism is a lived experience that exposes the tragedy of hate and fear of the other. It pushes people into uncomfortable places. Asian Americans have built enclaves across the United States in order to maintain their cultural identity and help in resettlement. These ethnic enclaves have become, however, a way to silence and sideline Asians from the racial debates that has traditionally pitted blacks and whites for centuries. Asians have "assimilated" well into the dominant white culture but have not been completely accepted instead they continue to experience discrimination and prejudices. Even in the Church, Asian American Catholics struggle for recognition of their contribution and participation. The process of reconciliation that Robert J. Schreiter has elaborated provides an opportunity for Asian American Catholics to engage in the racial conversation while improving the Church's place in healing racism.

State and Citizen: British America and the Early United States ed. by Peter Thompson and Peter S. Onuf (review)

State and Citizen: British and the Early United States. Edited by Peter Thompson and Peter S. Onuf. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013. Pp. 311. Cloth, $49.50.)Reviewed by Andrew J. B. FagalOver the course of the past decade scholars have increasingly challenged the myth of the weak in early U.S. history. In turn, historians have attempted to create an appropriate interpretative framework to replace it. essays in State and Citizen transform the existing narrative of how British subjects became American citizens, offering new interpretations and explaining the implications of such change on political power in the modern world. essays are grouped into three rough chronological and thematic fields that explore the status of persons, state formation, and war.Holly Brewer's and Eliga Gould's contributions investigate the development of the institution of slavery during the colonial and Revolutionary periods. For Brewer, religious debates surrounding the Anglican Church's place in English society circumscribed the legal relations between sovereign and subject and master and slave (26). If only Chris- tians could be subjects of the king, then the conversion and baptism of African slaves presented a very problem for colonial elites who were reliant upon the export of slave-produced staple crops and the trade in human chattel. legal solution for colonial Virginians, then, was to redefine enslaved persons as real estate, thus marking a distinction between the and privileges of Christian subjects and those of slaves attached to land (42). Gould's essay investigates the eighteenthcentury law of nations to show how the basic premise of the 1772 Somerset decision could simultaneously limit the rights of slaveholders in England while affirming the right to own slaves in America (52). According to Gould, Europeans and Americans widely believed that slavery could exist only where legal institutions made it so; or where EuroAmerican laws had no reach, such as the African continent. When it came to slavery as a legal institution, the significance of the American Revolution was its ability to change how both Britain and the United States approached the laws of war and peace. By the early nineteenth century, national statutes trumped international law in both countries.At the core of State and Citizen are essays written by Douglas Bradbum, David Hendrickson, Max Edling, and John Brooke. These authors explore American state formation in its critical years, and show the contours and meaning of American state power at the federal, state, and local levels. Bradbum's essay on the complex, messy meaning of citizenship forces historians to rethink the very process of remaking political belonging during the American Revolution. creation of modem citizenship during the age of revolutions mediated between the necessity of coercive state power and individual demands for fundamental rights. Hendrick- son's and Edling's essays, on the other hand, place state formation within the framework of federalism. For Hendrickson, the framers of the constitution desired a union of states that would escape the European state system of continual warfare. Thus, the national government's power of taxation was part of an attempt to reduce differences among the states. Edling demonstrates that the framers of the Constitution never desired a national polity that would replace the states. Rather, the federal government reigned supreme in the management of international relations, an area where the framework of the Constitution allowed it to excel: The significance of the Constitution does not lie in the expansion of central government powers, but in the creation of an administratively autonomous central government apparatus (163). …

Participation in God and the Nature of Christian Community: Robert Jenson and Eberhard Jüngel

AbstractThis article explores the theme of the church's participation in God by way of two contemporary theologians' accounts of the matter: Robert Jenson and Eberhard Jüngel. Specifically, the question of how Jenson's and Jüngel's respective accounts of the church's participation in God determine their accounts of the church's presence in and to the world is explored. The theme of ‘mission’ is taken up along the way, and it is suggested that Jenson's construal of the church's place in God prevents a sustained account of the church's sending into the world. Jüngel's construal of the church's participation in God, it is argued, allows for an alternative depiction of the church's presence in and to the world that accounts for the fundamentally missionary nature of the Christian community.

Annam Uplifted: The First Vietnamese Catholic Bishops and the Birth of a National Church, 1919–1945

This article explores the place of the first Vietnamese Catholic bishops in the politics and society of late colonial Vietnam. It places the rise of these influential figures in the broader contexts of the decline of missionary Catholicism, the Vatican's push to form national Churches in Asia, and institutional and cultural changes in Vietnamese Catholicism during the interwar years. By doing so, the article explores the links between faith and politics in colonial Vietnam, showing how changes in Vietnamese Catholicism reflect a growing contestation of colonial rule and greater ties to global Catholicism that help explain the Church's place in Vietnamese society after independence.

Constitutive Parliament and its speakers

On April of 1920, elected Constitutive Parliament term continued till the 6th of October 1922. It worked strenuously; there took place 257 ordinary meetings, which continued for some hours every day. They often ended in the next morning. The most important task of the Constitutive Parliament was to prepare a permanent Constitution of the Lithuanian Republic, but it performed other rules' publishing functions too. It performed the control of executive government institutions of all levels. The education of parliament members was much better than the middle education of Lithuanian citizens, but most of them didn't have university education. However, it wasn't a big imperfection of the just born parliamentary system of Lithuania. A diploma or an academic degree isn't identical to the broad mind and the knowledge necessary for political leaders. It can be acquired in the way of self-education too. Oratorical skills are very important as well. In opposition to other parliaments of the West, there weren't many lawyers in the Lithuanian Constitutive Parliament, but there were oratory skills characteristic of other professions' representatives, who sometimes didn't have both the university degree and secondary education. For example, leaders of social democrats like K. Bielinis and J. Plečkaitis. Next to them, the most eminent orators were social democrats: an engineer S. Kairys, a scientist-chemist V. Čepinskis, a leader of populists M. Sleževičius, and a Christian democrat priest M. Krupavičius. In the constitutive parliament, the Right and the Left differed from each other not only in the matter of social reforms, first of all agrarian reform, but also in their standpoint on Catholic religion and the church's place in the state. Disagreements reached their culmination in 1922 during the discussion about the final wording of the constitution. The offers of social democrats and populists were rejected because the majority of votes were held by Christian democrats. In addition, the Right used not only objective arguments but also demagogy. The Right abstained from voting for the Constitution. It was accepted by Christian democrats and by a few executives of national minorities. The anticlericalism of the Left was one of the causes that influenced the downfall of parliamentary democracy in Lithuania as a result of the revolution in December 1926. Discussions in the Constitutive Parliament showed that its members seriously looked at the work of Constitution preparation, though they were not always able to find compromises. They weren't afraid to express their opinion, and they didn't tremble because of the reaction in Warsaw, Paris, Moscow, or London.

Mother Church: Ecclesiology and Ecumenism

Carl Braaten here issues an energetic call for a truly ecumenical church, including a Lutheran rationale for recovery of the historical episcopacy and papal primacy as servants of the gospel. Braaten writes of the church's place in the divine scheme of things and of the various modern isms that distort or hide the classical Christian tradition. Tracing his own ecumenical journey, he outlines an ecclesiology of communion and advances specific proposals for enhancing Christian unity in liturgy, spirituality, and church polity. The confessing movement named after Martin Luther he views in terms of its basic intent to reform and renew the church, not to start a new Christianity in a multiplicity of separate denominations.

Medieval Philosophical Discourse and Muslim-Christian Dialogue

As pluralistic societies in the West become the nonn and the "globalvillage" becomes a reality, ecumenical dialogues gain prominence.Ecumenical dialogues, which, like many other discussions, first beganamong scholars as an exclusively academic activity, now take place inchurches, corrununities, and other sociopolitical organizations. In theUnited States, in particular, attempts are being made to introduce educationalcurricula that are sensitive to the culture and religious orientations ofminorities.The very feasibility of a Christian-Muslim dialogue should be calledinto question. Can the Islamic world enter into a dialogue with the secularWest? Any dialogue or discourse requires a corrunon language, a sharedworldview, and some basic agreement on some of the fundamental axiomsaround which a worldview is formed. I fear that the Islamic world and theWest no longer have such a common language.In the present discussion, I will offer an analysis and interpretation ofMuslim-Christian dialogue that calls for a reflection on the readiness ofMuslims to have a meaningful dialogue with the West. I argue that the necessarycondition for a meaningful dialogue between traditional Islam andthe secular West does not exist and, therefore, that any attempt to do so atthis time either will not succeed or will become a superficial survey of whatwe have in common, such as the Ten Commandments. To elucidate, I willfirst offer a model of a successful dialogue between Muslims and Christiansbased on the medieval philosophical dialogue between Muslim and Christianphilosophers. I will then apply the conclusions drawn from this modelto contemporary attempts at such ecumenical dialogues.Any student of medieval philosophy can observe two distinct periodsin the history of medieval philosophy, defined here as early and later,each of which has distinct characteristics. The early period belongs to theChurch fathers who laid the groundwork for Christian philosophical andtheological frameworks. Early Christian philosophical writings of suchfigures as Augustine, Boethius, John Scotus, St. Anselm, Peter Abaillard,and others were responses to specific questions of an intellectual nature ...