Academic literature on the topic 'Christian Theology - Pneumatology'

Destacando linhas centrais da teologia de Jürgen Moltmann, o artigo evidencia sua preocupação ecumência a partir da sustentabilidade e da garantia salvífica da vida, sua pneumatologia integral que articula a vida e a fé, o humano e o divino, e sua visão escatológica, comprometida com o destino que Deus prevê para a história. Moltmann apresenta uma escatologia que realça a mensagem cristã enquanto resposta às possibilidades históricas. Assim, a Teologia da Esperança é uma mensagem atual e relevante, baseada em diferentes contextos sociopolíticos, e que procura ser uma resposta escatológtica para as crises presenciadas no cotidano da sociedade.Abstract: Bringing out some central lines of Jürgen Moltmann’s theology, the article shows his ecumenical preoccupation with the sustainability and the salvific safeguard of life, his integral pneumatology that articulates life and faith, the human and the divine, and his eschatological vision, committed to the fate that God foresees for History. Moltmann presents an eschatology that emphasizes the Christian message insofar as it is an answer to the historical possibilities. Thus, Theology of Hope is a current and relevant message, based on various sociopolitical contexts and that tries to be an eschatological answer for the crises we are seeing in the everyday of society.Keywords: Moltmann. Theology of religions. Pneumatology. Eschatology.

AbstractThis dialogue piece reviews some of the key developments in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in late modern theology that have contributed to the scholarly and practical integration of pneumatology and Christian spirituality. Shifts in the meaning and use of three concepts — matter, person, and force — have played a particularly influential role in these developments. These trends are illustrated in several recent pneumatological proposals. The final section outlines some new directions for the ongoing task of reforming pneumatology.

AbstractReinhard Hütter is a leading theologian who has made important contributions to ecclesiology, pneumatology, and Christian rationality, but his most fundamental one is to the nature of theology and theological method. What makes his work of particular interest to Pentecostals is its attempt to give theology a pneumatological and ecclesiological ground. He suggests that the pathos of theology is doctrina and core church practices; theology receives its character and content from church doctrine and practices. Although successful in respect to his ecclesiological program, his proposal does not give theology a direct pneumatological ground and pathos. Nevertheless, his notion that theology receives its pathos from church doctrine and practices can be adapted to suggest a pneumatological pathos of Christian experience and theology. The result is a proposal that the Holy Spirit conditions the pathos of Christian experience and theology, which provides a theological and explicitly a pneumatological pathos not only for Pentecostal experience and theology but also for the role of Pentecostal experience in developing a uniquely "orthopathic" ecumenical contribution to Christian theology.

Abstract In the context of ecological destruction and the emergence of numerous eco-spiritualities the challenge for Christian theology is to address the question: Where does the Spirit, who liberates nature, take place today? This is addressed in three sections: In a first section pneumatology is revisioned as ecological soteriology while the Spirit is portrayed as a giver and liberator of life. In a second section it is suggested that the doctrine of the Spirit may be reinterpreted in the context of the spatial turn of theology in terms of faith in the Spirit’s inhabitation. The third and concluding section offers an argument for an ecological pneumatology in synergy with animism, an approach which investigates the critical potentials of resisting and overcoming the fetishism of late modern capitalism.

Abstract In this paper an attempt is made to discuss the importance of the Holy Spirit in the development of an Orthodox political theology, by bringing into critical dialogue the recent contributions of two of the most known Orthodox theologians of the young generation, namely A. Papanikolaou and P. Kalaitzidis. It is commonly recognized that the Holy Spirit is closely related both to the very “constitution of the whole Church” in virtue of the Eucharistic event, as well as to the everyday charismatic lives of individual Christians due to the various forms or stages of ascetism. In this respect a careful comparative examination of these two important works, would highlight some invaluable elements (Eucharistic perspective, eschatological orientation, historical commitment, ethical action, open and critical dialogue with modernity etc.) toward a formulation of a comprehensive and urgently necessary political theology. This sort of political theology should have inevitable implications for the Christian perception of the communal and the individual ecclesial life. This “theo-political” program proposed by the two thinkers and founded on a robust Pneumatology, could be perfectly included, following the apostolic kerygma and the patristic ethos, into a new way of doing (Orthodox) Christian theology, that takes as its starting point the grammar of the self-Revelation of God in the ongoing history of salvation (“Church and World Dogmatics”).

In this essay, the author summarizes previous work done (by himself and others) in the formulation of a theology of religions approached from the standpoint of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit (pneumatology), assesses the implications of such a pneumatological theology of religions for Christian mission in the religiously plural world of the twenty-first century, and responds to some of the most important critical questions regarding Christology, soteriology, and the doctrine of revelation that have been raised in response to this project so far.

This article, the 1996 presidential address given to the Canadian Theological Society, outlines the interdisciplinary nature of liturgical studies with focus on aspects of particular interest to theologians. The changing relationship of the terms in the frequently cited axiom lex orandi [ est] lex credendi is explored. As a kind of theological case study new approaches to the présence of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Christian liturgy are set out to show what theology of liturgy might offer christology and pneumatology. Finally, observations about some feminist rituals are offered from the perspective of a liturgical theologian.

Theology, the study of God, consists of a network of subdisciplines: biblical theology, moral theology, ecumenical theology, and so on. Each branch of theology has its own distinctive object of study, methods, and purposes. For example, pneumatology studies the Holy Spirit, practical theology uses the pastoral cycle, and liberation theology seeks to transform unjust societal structures that oppress the marginalized. Each branch of theology has its own distinctive community of scholars. It is a common view (though perhaps a contested one, as between the different church traditions) that the main purpose of Christian theology is to proclaim the Gospel of Christ. The branches of theology, in turn, are vehicles for each of this core purpose. Legal theology could become a branch of theology with its own distinctive objects of study, methods, and purposes. What follows explores these themes, how the subdiscipline of legal theology might be defined and developed in the context of the study of the systems of law, order, and polity, of churches across the Christian traditions that deal with, for example, forms of regulation, ministry (lay or ordained), governance (institutions and functions), discipline, doctrine, worship, rites, property, and external relations. It does so as to the following. (1) The object of study: legal theology should at its core be about the relationship between theology and church law—more particularly, the relationship between church law and each of the other branches of theology. (2) The method of study: legal theology may involve the theological study of church law and/or the legal study of theology using standard juristic methods (such as text and context, critical, historical, analytical) as well as methods used in the other branches of theology (3) The purpose of study: the development of a community of scholars collaborating with a view to its impact on ecclesial practice. Theology is indispensable to a full understanding of the place of law in the life of the church; and law provides evidence to test the propositions of theology in the practical life of the church as this is translated through norms to action.

This article responds to criticisms regarding pneumatology and the church’s social responsibility that are often joined and directed at Reformed tradition and theology. We will argue that, as reflected by its confessional standards, the Reformed tradition inherits a comprehensive doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, it also provides rich materials for Christian guidance and reflection on the church’s social responsibility. Therefore, if local churches neglect their social responsibility, it must not be because of the lack of the church’s teaching on its social responsibility; rather, the cause of this neglect has to be sought elsewhere.

Abstract This article examines practical theological hermeneutics through the lens of Catholic spirituality. Key to understanding the movement from description to analysis to revised praxis is the ways in which interpretive communities understand the connections between divine reality and human reality. In light of this, the article explores the relationship between epistemology and pneumatology found within Christian tradition by proposing an approach to practical theological hermeneutics rooted in the Ignatian practice of spiritual discernment. By doing so, this article seeks to contribute the potential contours of a distinctive Roman Catholic contribution to practical theology, and in a broader sense, show how the practice of discernment presents studies and methods in practical theology with a way of understanding connections among practical wisdom, habitus, research, and theological interpretation.

The large numbers of Africans that have come to live in Britain in the last few decades have necessitated a better understanding of African Christianity. Focusing on Pneumatology, this study sets out to achieve such understanding by first undertaking a research of a church in London with a congregation made up of mostly Africans. This fieldwork yielded twelve concrete statements or “pattern-theories” on what the church members believe about the Holy Spirit. At that point, a review of existing literature was used to understand these “pattern-theories” more deeply. A second fieldwork was then carried out whereby two of these twelve “pattern-theories” were tested on a larger number of Africans drawn from four different Christian denominations. The second phase enabled the study to achieve a wider understanding based on a more diverse population of Africans. These two phases of fieldwork constituted the empirical cycle. Following the analysis of the findings the study advances five factors which determine African Pneumatology. These are their day to day experience of life, the Bible, their African worldview, the African traditional concept of God and the worldwide Pentecostal movement. The study also suggests that the Doctrine of the Trinity is a key factor determining African Pneumatology.

My study centres on Karl Barth’s pneumatology with special attention to its inseparable relationship with his vision of the Christian life. Many critics say that Barth’s emphasis upon the gracious God revealed in Christ improperly undermined both the role of the Spirit and the importance of human agency. In contrast, my research will demonstrate that it is possible to read Barth as offering a robust Spirit theology, which resulted in rich reflection upon the Christian life. More specifically, my thesis will first examine Barth’s pneumatology within the context of his incomplete doctrine of redemption. I will show that his unique understanding of redemption was largely shaped by his exegesis of Paul’s Spirit theology, in which he developed central pneumatological motifs, including the Spirit’s incorporation of humanity into the intra-divine fellowship, mediation in the form of pneumatic prayer, and the shaping of moral agency. I will, then, examine these redemptive works of the Spirit within a more comprehensive context of his theology, coordinating synchronic and diachronic approaches. In particular, I will read ‘through’ and ‘across’ Barth, tracing underpinning pneumatological themes, with special focus on the three modes of the Spirit’s work in the opera ad extra – the mediation of divine and human logic in revelation, the drawing of creation into God’s self-glorification movement through beauty, and the calling of individuals through community into God’s drama of salvation. In short, unlike criticisms that Barth reduced pneumatology to the subjective possibility of revelation, my study will show that his pneumatology is mainly about our prayerful participation in God, the constitution of human agency and a new vision of the Christian life under the direction of the Spirit.

L'articulation de cette thèse découle d'une curiosité sur la façon dont les croyants africains contemporains urbains comprennent le Saint-Esprit. Les portraits que les théologiens africains ont dressés de la compréhension africaine du Saint-Esprit, semblent être basés sur un paradigme théologique dichotomique: la religion traditionnelle africaine et la tradition chrétienne occidentale, qui avait créé la dissonance dans la scène académique. Ce paradigme soulève un débat de continuité et de discontinuité entre les êtres spirituels des deux traditions, les esprits traditionnels et le Saint-Esprit. Cette thèse va prendre une attention particulière sur les travaux de Elochukwu Uzukwu et de Matthew Michael, qui figurent parmi les quelques théologiens africains ayant travaillé sur la compréhension de l'Esprit Saint. Uzukwu soutient la continuité fondée sur l'orientation théologique des églises indépendantes africaines, tandis que Michael s'est rangé du côté de ceux qui déclarent la discontinuité, se basant sur l'orientation théologique évangélique. Ces théologiens, qui adoptent des positions opposées en s’appuyant sur leurs orientations théologiques respectives, défendent des positions théologiquement bipolarisées de la pneumatologie africanisée et de la religiosité africaine. Étonnamment, le débat en cours parmi les théologiens n'a pas accordé beaucoup de place à la religiosité des croyants laïcs, ni à son étude empirique. Par conséquent, cette thèse a décidé d'interroger les croyants africains laïcs sur qui le Saint-Esprit est pour eux, en espérant que cette étude pourrait régler la dissonance persistante dans le terrain académique. Les voix des laïcs africains contemporains ont rapporté des récits vivants à la façon dont ils ont théologisé les deux mondes spirituels pour définir le Saint-Esprit dans une foi africaine. Leurs voix, qui ont été introduites dans le domaine universitaire, ont apporté des idées novatrices et des découvertes. Elles ont révélé comment la compréhension africanisée du Saint-Esprit présentée par les théologiens Africains ont été la position de la minorité des croyants, bien qu'elle ait fût représentée comme si elle était une pneumatologie africanisée populaire. À l'inverse, le paradigme bipolarisé sur lequel les théologiens africains articulaient la compréhension africanisée du Saint-Esprit semblait même dépassé. Par conséquent, sur la base des voix du terrain, cette thèse développe des propositions, pour une compréhension africanisée du Saint-Esprit, qui pourraient être pertinentes pour la religiosité urbaine de nos jours. Par les voix inédites à qui elle offre une ouverture, cette thèse appelle à réévaluer l'articulation entre le Christianisme et la religion traditionnelle en Afrique.
The articulation of this thesis derives from a curiosity on how the urban contemporary African believers understand the Holy Spirit. The portrayals African theologians have drawn of the African understanding of the Holy Spirit, seems to be based on a dichotomized theological paradigm: the African traditional religion and the Western Christian tradition, which had created dissonance on the academic stage. This paradigm raises a debate of continuity and discontinuity between the spiritual beings of the two traditions, the traditional spirits and the Holy Spirit. Elochukwu Uzukwu and Matthew Michael, whom this thesis will take a special attention, figure among the few works of the African theologians about the understanding of the Holy Spirit. Uzukwu supports continuity based on the African Independent Churches’ theological orientation, whereas Michael sided with those stating the discontinuity, grounds on the Evangelical theological orientation. These theologians, whom take opposite stances based on their respective theological orientations, represent theologically bipolarized stances on Africanized Pneumatology and the African religiosity. Surprisingly, the ongoing debate among the theologians did not accord much room to the lay believers’ religiosity nor on their empirical studies. Therefore, this thesis has decided to inquire the lay African believers on whom the Holy Spirit is to them hoping that this study could settle the dissonance persisting on the academic field. The voices of the contemporary lay African believers brought vivid accounts on how they have theologized the two spiritual worlds to define the Holy Spirit into an African faith. Their voices that were introduced to the academic field have brought innovative insights and discoveries. It revealed how the Africanized comprehension of the Holy Spirit presented by the African theologians were the stance of the very minority of believers, although it were wrapped as if it was a popular Africanized Pneumatology. Conversely, the bipolarized paradigm on which the African theologians were articulating the Africanized understanding of the Holy Spirit even appeared to be outmoded. Therefore, based on the voices of the ground, this thesis develops proposals for an Africanized understanding of the Holy Spirit that could be relevant and pertinent to an urban contemporary African religiosity. The unheard voices that this thesis brought its attention to call to re-evaluating the articulation between Christianity and Traditional Religion in Africa.

The present study has established a new understanding of Luther’s theological paradigm in his major work. Luther’s comprehensive understanding of the Trinitarian theology of grace, with special emphasis on Pneumatology, alongside the more obvious Christology, and together with a strong link with the theology of creation, is the fundamental thought structure of his magnum opus. The analysis has established an understanding of a three-dimensional structure of Luther’s Trinitarian doctrine of grace. Luther’s emphasis of prevenient grace and his combination of the forensic and participatory aspects of justification were his alternative to the Late Medieval doctrine of grace, which focused on the anthropological conditions for receiving God’s grace. Luther research has seen the participatory aspect (donum) as a term indicating an “effective change” in the believer; the present work shows that participation and forensic imputation (favor) belong together, enabling each other as the two complementary dimensions of the alien justice of Christ; the change, sanctification, comes as a fruit of that. Luther is a passionate defender of a radical doctrine of fully theocentric and monergistic Trinitarian grace; in order to maintain the clear principle of sola gratia, this doctrine must necessarily be Trinitarian. For Luther, this is the core of the Christian truth. The work at hand is the first piece of research revealing the centrality of Pneumatology and of the Trinitarian conception of grace, undermined in the previous research. The chapter includes a concluding encounter with Luther research. The Trinitarian doctrine of grace intensifies the ecumenical potential of Luther’s theology.