Female Religious Orders

M.A. Thesis in Theology (Church History), 2007

Church History, 1995

2008

AUC THEOLOGICA

This paper argues that if Christianity is to be regarded as a truly world religion, Christians must pay serious attention to the ways in which the Reformation legacy has taken roots and found contextualized expressions around the world, particularly in the global South. If Christians from the North Atlantic fail to acknowledge and take this fact seriously in their theological reflection, it will be to the detriment of their own spirituality and faith tradition. The other, who may well be one's coreligionist, can help one construct one's identity by providing a mirror to one's own self. The structure of the present paper is built around four "sola" principles that succinctly capture the Reformation legacy. As such, contextual interpretations from the global South of sola fide, sola scriptura, sola gratia, and solus Christus will be introduced and discussed. In conclusion, some remarks will be made on these interpretations from a post-communist perspective.

This course examines the fragmentation and expansion of Christianity from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Today, this period, often referred to simplistically as “the Reformation and Counter-Reformation,” is littered with misconceptions. The general public tends to think of this time as a singular religious moment when one person, Martin Luther, confronted the corruption of the Church and ushered in instant, universal change that led to a more “modern” and tolerant era. More properly, however, this was an age of Reformations that gradually affected both Europe and the wider world, possessing links to medieval church criticism, and characterized by attitudes that were far from “tolerant” in a modern sense. We will therefore look at late medieval Christendom and the forces that gave rise to the attack on the Catholic Church by Luther and his contemporaries, the subsequent Catholic response, as well as how this upheaval affected areas outside Europe. We will study the larger social, cultural, and intellectual forces that shaped Christianity’s diverging groups alongside the roles of individual leaders.

HTS, 2016

Charles Peter Wagner is a well-known missiologist and ecclesiologist of the latest era. He is the author, trainer and prayer warrior who founded the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) that seeks to establish a fourth house. The NAR is a heterodox movement in Protestant Christianity sometimes known as the apostolic-prophetic movement, commonly associated with both the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches worldwide since the beginnings of the 1990s. Central to their theology is their locus of dogma that the task of the church, under the leadership of the apostles and prophets, is to take dominion of the earth within Christendom (distinct from Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodox Christianity). The ekklesia is the people of God, whether they are gathered in their congregations on Sunday as the nuclear Church, or scattered in the workplace Monday through Saturday as the extended Church. The extended Church, just like the nuclear Church, is founded on apostles and prophets, but in the extended Church these are the different people who operate differently under a different rule book. It is these extended church leaders who will be most effective in transforming society. Workplace apostles are called to take dominion in business, government, arts and entertainment, media, family and education. Panoramically, Wagner’s ecclesiology, like mainstream evangelical ecclesiology, is trinitarian, communal, missiological and eschatological in nature and character. The weaknesses on his ecclesiology include the notions of polity based on fivefold ministries, balance of power and authority on church leadership, phenomenological approach to texts, exegetical shortcomings, and secular models in ecclesiastical governance.

Claritas: Journal of Dialogue and Culture, 2016

2007

REQUIRED TEXTS 1. Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity: The Reformation to the Present Day, vol. 2. San Francisco: Harper/Collins Publishers, 1985. (390p) 2. Olson, Roger E. The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform. InterVarsity Press, 1999 (Beginning from Part VII, 369-613). (240p) 3. Noll, Mark A., ed. Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1991. (200p) 4. Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: the Coming of Global Christianity. Oxford University Press, 2002. (70p) 5. Course Packet

Theology Today, 2015