bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
T
ownsend,
W
illiam
C
ameron (1896–1982)
Authors: Hartch Todd
Published: January 2012

Cameron Townsend founded the Wycliffe Bible Translators, an evangelical missionary organization. Working with Guatemala's Cakchiquel Indians convinced Townsend that the vernacular scriptures were the key to reaching Latin America's indigenous peoples. In 1933 he focused his attention on Mexico, where dozens of Indian groups had neither written languages nor access to the Bible. Because of an antireligious political climate in Mexico, Townsend made two momentous decisions: he stripped his missionary enterprise down to the sole activity of Bible translation and he sought not just permission of, but a partnership with, the secular Mexican state. Bible translators would be recruited by an overtly Christian organization called the Wycliffe Bible Translators; they would operate in the field under the auspices of a sister organization called the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL).
T
racy,
D
avid (
b
. 1939)
Authors: Ashford Bruce Riley
Published: January 2012

David Tracy is an American Catholic theologian and professor of Theology and Philosophy of Religion at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, who synthesized the insights he gleaned from philosophy, literary criticism, biblical studies, and world religions into an integrated whole. He claims Augustine, New‐man, Kierkegaard, and Lonergan as the major influences on his work, but draws upon Kyoto Mahayana Buddhism, Derrida, Deleuze, Ricoeur, Wittgenstein, Pseudo‐Dionysius, and Eckhart as well. While teaching at Chicago he also served as the chaplain and preached weekly from the lectionary. In 1977 he was elected president of the Catholic Theological Society.
Truth
Authors: Montgomery John Warwick
Published: January 2012

Pontius Pilate's ironic question, “What is truth?” poses the central epistemological question for both philosophy and theology.
Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
Authors: Maclean Iain S.
Published: January 2012

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1998, and the dramatic televised hearings that preceded it, sharply focused that nation's and the world's attention on such commissions. A recent phenomenon in national politics, a truth and reconciliation project offered a more peaceful and constructive route for nations seeking to emerge from civil war. The South African TRC seemed to have found a means to overcome the conflicting demands of victims and perpetrators, between those of justice (and truth and reparations) and amnesty, that had hindered and often marred the hopes of earlier Latin American commissions seeking national reconciliation. Thus truth and reconciliation commissions are national investigative bodies set up to investigate a past period of human rights' abuses in order to ascertain the truth about the nation's past and to create some form of unification within a nation deeply divided by political violence.
T
übingen
S
chool
Authors: Kaplan Grant
Published: January 2012

The Catholic Tübingen School designates the group of theologians who either taught or spent their formative years in the Catholic theological faculty in Tübingen, Germany. The School distinguished itself through a recovery of the church fathers, an engagement with the modern world, a critical embrace of modern philosophical categories (especially German Idealism and Romanticism), and a creative fidelity to the Catholic tradition. Owing to these factors, the School has been regarded as a forerunner to the program of renewal and reform articulated at the Second Vatican Council, especially regarding ecclesiology, ecumenism, and the theology of revelation.
T
urretin,
F
rancis (1623–1687)
Authors: Bruce James E.
Published: January 2012

Francis Turretin was a Reformed minister, theologian, philosopher, and preacher, whose
Institutes of Elenctic Theology
is still read today as a careful, indeed exemplary, exposition of Reformed theology. Born into a prominent family of Italian descent on October 17, 1623, Turretin was educated in Geneva, the Low Countries, and France.
Twentieth Century Christianity
Authors: Braun Mark
Published: January 2012

In many ways, it was “the best of times and the worst of times” for Christianity at the dawn of the 20th century. The proportion of the world's population that attended church had grown smaller than at any time since the Middle Ages. The working classes, flocking to industrialized cities, often abandoned the faith of their youth, while the educated classes were being lost to science and modernism.
U
nitarianism
Authors: Poston Larry
Published: January 2012

Unitarianism, an outgrowth of liberal Protestant Christianity espousing belief in the oneness of God as opposed to trinitarianism, arose during the Reformation period in Poland and Transylvania, and later in England and North America.
U
nitas
F
ratrum
Authors: Welty Kyle
Published: January 2012

The Unitas Fratrum (Unity of the Brethren) is a Christian denomination with origins in 15th century Moravia and Bohemia. The UF is also known in the English‐speaking world as the Moravian Brethren or Moravian Church, while the term
Brüdergemeine
is used in German contexts.
United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
Authors: Olabimtan Kehinde
Published: January 2012

The high church missionary society of the Church of England, the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG), was founded in London in 1701 as “The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts” (SPG) through the influence of Thomas Bray, a commissary of the Church of England for Maryland, North America. Bray had been concerned about the unsatisfactory religious condition of the English planters in North America and had established with four friends in 1699 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), with the aim of providing the colony with books, libraries, and schools to strengthen the work of the church. The need for personnel to effect this purpose led to the formation of the SPG, with the official charter to “conquer, occupy, and possess” lands occupied by “heathens and infidels, in whatsoever part of the world.” The charter tied the society to the established church and gave it the authority to raise funds toward the support and maintenance of orthodox clergies in British colonial holdings abroad, thus stamping it with the high church order of apostolic succession, liturgy, and sacraments. The society therefore agreed from the outset not to send out Bibles to the plantations without accompanying them with Common Prayer Books.
Values, Christian
Authors: Horner David A.
Published: January 2012

By “values,” we refer to what is valued or esteemed as being good or of worth, i.e. worthy of emulation, exemplification, or pursuit. Values are expressed in the ideals, aims, and standards that shape the priorities and practices of individuals, institutions, and civilizations, and they reflect the distinctive assumptions and commitments of the worldviews that underlie those entities. In classical thought, goodness, truth, and beauty constitute the highest and most general exemplifications of value in the moral, cognitive, and aesthetic spheres, respectively. Under these broad categories fall more specific kinds of value, such as spiritual, moral, political, economic, legal, artistic, and intellectual. Christianity is distinguished by characteristic values in each of these areas, many of which have been deeply influential in the shaping of Christian civilization and beyond, in fields such as art, music, law, literacy and literature, commerce, science, and education.
G
oes,
H
ugo
V
an
D
er (
c
.1440–1482)
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

Dutch painter. He was enrolled as a master in the Ghent Guild of Painters in 1467. In 1475 he entered the Monastery of Rode Klooster, near Brussels, as a lay brother but continued to paint. He subsequently suffered from mental illness and delusions.
V
irgin
M
ary
Authors: Leinweber David
Published: January 2012

The Virgin Mary was the Mother of Jesus Christ. Her giving birth to Christ as a virgin — though occasionally the subject of controversy and debate even within the church — manifests a major theological pillar of classical, orthodox Christianity. Mary is still today one of the most well‐loved of the New Testament's
dramatis personae
. As well as being a major figure in the New Testament, and in Christian doctrine and theology, the Virgin Mary is also an iconic figure in western art and culture.
Virtue
Authors: Spiegel James S.
Published: January 2012

In the broad sense of the term, virtue (Latin
virtus
) denotes any specific excellence or perfection. More narrowly, a virtue is any good or admirable character trait and thus is essentially a moral quality. Its conceptual opposite is vice (Latin
vitium
), which denotes a bad or immoral character trait.
Virtue Ethics
Authors: Thompson John
Published: January 2012

Virtue ethics is a form of moral reflection that gives central place to “virtues.” Generally speaking, a virtue is an admirable or desirable trait of character. Virtue ethics is often contrasted with approaches to ethics that emphasize rules, duties, or a general obligation of beneficence.
B
althasar,
H
ans Urs
V
on (1905–1988)
Authors: Johnson Keith L.
Published: January 2012

A Swiss Roman Catholic theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most original Catholic thinkers of the 20th century. Born in Lucerne to an upper middle class family, Balthasar studied in Vienna, Berlin, and Zurich, where he received a doctorate in German literature in 1929. Instead of accepting an academic post after graduation, however, he joined the Society of Jesus and entered a seminary for training. He found the traditional Catholic theological and philosophical program tedious, and instead was drawn to innovative Catholic thinkers like Erich Przywara and Henri de Lubac. Their originality had a lasting influence upon his thought.
F
ischer
v
on
E
rlach,
J
ohann
B
ernhard (1656–1723)
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

Baroque Austrian architect. He studied in Italy under Borromini and Bernini and probably visited England and met with Wren while St. Paul's was being built. Although most of his works were secular he built three major churches, two of them in Salzburg. The Trinity Church was begun in 1694 on an oval plan with two towers and a dome over the central oval. The main element is an ellipse with its long axis that of the entrance‐high altar but the front is concave. The University Church, the large church of the Benedictine University of Salzburg, was built from 1696 to 1707 with a salient curved front between flanking towers and a high dome. The entrance front has a convex facade set between two towers. The very grand and noble interior has, above the high altar, an extraordinary composition of clouds rising up to heaven in between two great columns set on either side of the apse. His third church was the Karlskirche in Vienna dedicated to Borromeo and built in 1715 to commemorate a plague. It borrowed the oval plan of Borromini's Sant' Agnese, the colored marble interior of Bernini's sant'andrea al Quirinale, the colon‐naded portico of the Pantheon, and the twin towers of St. Peter's and twin columns from the Trajan and Antonine columns in Rome. He also erected the high altar of the Franciscan Church in Salzburg. In 1721 he published a history of architecture.
Waldo,Peter (1140–1217)
Authors: Lee Jason K.
Published: January 2012

Peter Waldo is often credited with the founding of the Waldenses, known also as the Poor Men of Lyons. There is great uncertainty regarding his first (Christian) name, with “Peter” probably ascribed to him at least several decades after his death; even his surname “Waldo” was quite possibly “Vaudès” or “Valdès.” Waldo was a successful merchant in Lyons and perhaps one of the city's elite citizens. Eventually, as a part of his spiritual pilgrimage, Waldo renounced his wealth and practiced voluntary poverty. This conversion, perhaps influenced by the legendary tale of St. Alexis' 5th century renunciation of wealth, stems from Waldo's application of Matthew 19, which includes Jesus' warning about the difficulty of the rich entering the Kingdom of God.
W
atts,
I
saac (1674–1748)
Authors: Whytock Jack C.
Published: January 2012

Born in Southampton in 1674, Isaac Watts is often accorded the title of “father of English hymnody.” His father was a schoolmaster, a clothier, and a deacon in a Congregational church. Isaac studied at a nonconformist academy, and it appears that he began writing hymns in 1696. He served as a family tutor before accepting a call to the Independent Mark Lane Church, London in 1702. He lived with the Abneys near Cheshunt, tutored their children, and wrote and preached at Mark Lane when he could.
Welsh Christianity
Authors: Wooding Jonathan M.
Published: January 2012

Wales is a small and geographically distinctive country situated in the west of mainland Britain. It notable both for the diversity of its Christian population and for its distinctive contributions to the Christianity of other nations. In the first millennium the Welsh church had close relations with the Irish church, especially prior to the conversion (from 597) of AngloSaxon England. In the second millennium the Christianity of Wales was notable for the monastic influence on its landscape and economy, as well as for the role of collegiate institutions (of both native and imported style) in pastoral care — these developments were at least in part influenced by the distinctive geography of Wales. Though the Reformation had an at times muted effect in Wales, nonconformism flourished from the 17th century and the further influence of Calvinism and the evangelical movement in the established church led to a proliferation of denominations in the 18th and 19th centuries. The chapel tradition in particular supported the development of a choral tradition that has influenced Christianity worldwide.
W
hitman,
M
arcus (1802–1847), and
N
arcissa
P
rentiss
W
hitman (1808–1847)
Authors: Buss Dietrich Gotthilf
Published: January 2012

The Whitmans were pioneer Protestant missionaries to the Cayuse in Oregon Country from 1836 to 1847. By their example, corres‐pondence, and labors, they encouraged emigration to the far west. Both Marcus Whitman and Narcissa Prentiss were born in New York state, Whitman in Rushville on September 4, 1802, and Prentiss in Prattsburg on March 14, 1808. Both had Puritan English ancestors who landed in Massachusetts before 1640, and both were converted during the Second Great Awakening, became members of Presbyterian churches, and committed their lives to missionary service. Prentiss enrolled in Franklin Academy in Prattsburg, attended the Female Seminary in Troy, and became a teacher. In 1825 Whitman enrolled in the College of Physicians at Fairfield, New York and received his M.D. Thereafter, he practiced medicine in Canada and New York.
W
ilberforce,
W
illiam (1759–1833)
Authors: Schmidt Alvin J.
Published: January 2012

William Wilberforce was born in 1759 in Yorkshire, England. As a young man, he enjoyed life and soon gained the reputation of being a worldly, likeable individual. He was elected as a Member of Parliament in 1780, at age 21, and again in 1784. In 1785, he experienced “a deep conversion to Christianity,” prompted in part by reading Philip Doddridge's book
The Rise and Progress of Religion
and later by reading the New Testament in Greek with his friend Isaac Milner. Previously, he hesitated becoming a serious Christian because he felt he would have to forfeit invitations to elite social gatherings.
W
illard,
F
rances
E
lizabeth (1839–1898)
Authors: Miller John R.
Published: January 2012

Frances E. Willard is prominent for her leadership in the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She propelled the WCTU to its apex, culminating in the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment (United States Constitutional Amendment forbidding the sale or transportation of alcohol) 20 years after her death. She also championed the rights of women and lent her support to the suffrage movement.
W
illiams,
R
oger (1603?–1683)
Authors: Pratt J. Kristian
Published: January 2012

Roger Williams is best known as the founder of Rhode Island colony and an early champion of religious liberty in the American colonies. His date of birth is uncertain, but he was born in London during the early years of King James' reign. Williams received his B.A. from Pembroke College (Cambridge University) in 1627. In 1629 he was ordained into the Church of England, and shortly thereafter joined the Puritan party.
W
ittgenstein,
L
udwig (1889–1951)
Authors: Ashford Bruce Riley
Published: January 2012

Austrian‐born philosopher Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein is known as the leading analytic philosopher of the 20th century, but his influence on 20th century Christian theologians is also pervasive. Wittgenstein entered Manchester University where he studied engineering. His work with airplane propellers brought him into contact with mathematical theory, in particular the work of Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. Wittgenstein was particularly interested in Russell's
Principia Mathematica
and eventually left Manchester to pursue studies in philosophy under Russell's supervision at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Women in Pentecostal Ministries
Authors: Rybarczyk Edmund J.
Published: January 2012

The opportunity for women's ministry in Pentecostalism has a twofold basis. First, Pentecostals believe the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost initiated an eschatological season of empowerment for ministry. Foundational to the Pentecostal worldview is Acts 2:17–18, “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons
and daughters
shall prophesy … yea, and on my menservants and my
maidservants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy” (italics for emphasis). The Lukan text itself thus secures and promotes women's ministry. Second, Pentecostals, having their historical foundations in late 19th century American culture, are consistently very pragmatic. They evince a “whatever it takes” kind of attitude in their service and mission. Everyone is called to participate in Christ's great commission. Indeed, this “get it done” mentality working in concert with an expectation of the imminent return of Christ saw women outnumbering men in Pentecostal foreign missions work in the first several decades of the 20th century. These women missionaries made astounding sacrifices. Many sold all their possessions and forsook the comforts of western civilization to go to countries where they did not speak the local language, all in order to present the gospel in the power of the Spirit.
World Council of Churches
Authors: Gill Theodore A.
Published: January 2012

The World Council of Churches (“WCC”) is a global, interconfessional organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. The traditions represented among its more than 340 member churches include African Initiated churches, Anglicans, Baptists, Independents, Old Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, United and Uniting churches as well as some representatives of Pentecostalism. The total number of communicants claimed by WCC‐affiliated churches is approximately 560 million.
X
iuquan,
H
ong (1814–1864)
Authors: Koh Daniel K. S.
Published: January 2012

Hong Xiuquan (Hung Hsiuch'uan), born January 1, 1814, in Fuyuanshui, near Guangzhou (Canton); died June 1, 1864. The fourth child in a Hakka family of five children, whose father, Hong Jingyang, was a small‐time farmer.
Y
amauchi,
E
dwin
M
asao (b. 1937)
Authors: Morrow Jeffrey L.
Published: January 2012

Edwin Masao Yamauchi was born in Hawaii, USA, in 1937. He was raised nominally Buddhist, and in high school became an evangelical Protestant Christian. He earned a B.A. in Hebrew and Hellenistics from Shelton College (1960) and an M.A. (1962) and Ph.D. (1964) from Brandeis University in Mediterranean Studies. Yamauchi studied 22 languages including Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Egyptian, Italian, Latin, Minoan Linear A, Minoan Linear B, Russian, and Ugaritic. He also participated in archaeological excavations in Israel. Cyrus H. Gordon, the Jewish scholar of the Bible, Mediterranean, and ancient Near East, directed Yamauchi's doctoral work. His doctoral dissertation, “Mandaic Incantation Texts,” considered magic incantation texts written on clay bowls in the Mandaic dialect of Aramaic, which is used by the Mandean Gnostics found in Iran and Iraq. After completing his doctoral work, Yamauchi taught in the History Department of Rutgers University. In 1969 he began teaching in the History Department of Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, from which he eventually retired in 2005. At Miami, Yamauchi directed master's theses and doctoral dissertations examining such diverse topics as Gnosticism, ancient Rome, and Egyptology. He taught courses in ancient languages including Greek, Coptic, and Syriac, and he taught courses spanning the wide field of ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean history, including ancient Egypt and Africa, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. While at both Rutgers and Miami, Yamauchi served as an advisor to Inter‐Varsity Christian Fellowship. At Miami University, Yamauchi cofounded the Oxford Bible Fellowship, where he serves as an elder. In 2006 he served as the president of the Evangelical Theological Society. Yamauchi is one of the more prolific evangelical Bible scholars in the US. He has over 430 publications to his name, including 17 books, and continues to publish more. His scholarly articles have appeared in evangelical venues such as
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
and
Westminster Theological Journal
, but he has also published widely in the mainstream scholarly world, including
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
,
Journal of Biblical Literature
,
Church History
,
Journal of the American Oriental Society
,
Journal of Near Eastern Studies
, and
Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
.
B
onner,
B
ishop
W
illiam Lee (
b
. 1921)
Authors: Stewart Alexander Constantine
Published: January 2012

William Lee Bonner is the senior prelate of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, founded by Bishop Robert Clarence Lawson (1883–1961) in 1919. Bonner, known as chief apostle, is the third leader of the denomination following Bishop Lawson (1919–1961) and Bishop Hubert Spencer (1961–1972). Under his leadership, the denomination has experienced phenomenal growth from 155 churches in 1961 to 506 churches in 2007.
Cistercian Architecture
Authors: Davis Thomas X.
Published: January 2012

Cistercian architecture is a 12th century architectural style arising from the inspiration of St. Stephen Harding, third abbot of Citeaux, and promoted by St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Cistercian monks of this period built their monasteries of smooth, natural‐colored limestone with windows of clear glass and without adornments of color, paintings, or sculpture. The priority of early Cistercians was to build monasteries to provide the community with an environment suited to the monastic way of life as set forth in
The Rule of Saint Benedict.
They translated this
Rule
into spatial terms by the use of architecture.
C
yril
L
ucaris (1572–1638)
Authors: Lizorkin Ilya
Published: January 2012

Born in Crete in 1572, Cyril Lucaris studied in European cities including Venice (1584–1588) and Padua (1589–1593) where he may have been exposed to Protestant theology. At the age of 30, Cyril was elected to the Patriarchal throne of Alexandria, succeeding Meletios Pegas who had earlier ordained him to be a presbyter. He held that post as Cyril III (1601–1620) until he was promoted to become Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as Cyril I (1621). His life was characterized by ceaseless activity and constant concern for the integrity and safety of the Orthodox Church.
F
rescobaldi,
G
irolamo (1583–1643)
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

Italian keyboard composer of the Baroque period. He served as an organist of the Ferrarese Accademia della Morte from 1597. In 1604 he moved to Rome where he became an organist in St. Peter's Cathedral in 1608. He remained in that position for the rest of his life except for a four‐year interlude from 1628–1634 when he was in Florence.
T
ruett,
G
eorge
W
ashington (1867–1944)
Authors: Hopkins Jerry B.
Published: January 2012

George Washington Truett was born on May 6, 1867, at Hayesville in Clay County, North Carolina. Reared in rural North Carolina, he was converted in 1886, joining the Hayesville Baptist Church. He acknowledged a call to preach and was ordained in 1890 by the Whitewright Baptist Church in Texas.
G
loukharev,
M
acarius (1792–1847)
Authors: Gallagher Robert L.
Published: January 2012

Macarius Gloukharev was a Russian Orthodox missionary who served for 14 years in the Altai Mountains, Siberia. At 25 he became a professor of church history and the German language at the Ekaterinoslov seminary in Poltava, positioning himself for a distinguished academic and ecclesiastical career. He then encountered a group of hesychastic monks who were influenced by the teachings of Paisy Velichkovsky, a Russian elder at Mount Athos, Greece, who had translated the
Philokalia
into Russian. This work concerned the spiritual practice of hesychasm: through silence and continual prayer, scriptural meditation, and the observance of the sacraments, the whole being may be united in fellowship with Christ and the Holy Spirit. This teaching caused a missionary renewal in the Russian Orthodox Church in the 19th century.
Gospel Music
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

Protestant music that has been assimilated into popular worship music. The history of gospel music begins in the 19th century when hymnody was introduced into camp meetings. Simple, melodic, and harmonic songs, often in strophic form with the use of refrains, were part of the evangelistic crusades. The revival meetings led by the evangelist Dwight L. Moody and the musician Ira D. Sankey made the term gospel music a part of the lexicon of Christian music. As gospel songs won wider acceptance musicians introduced even more popular elements into revival music. Charlie Alexander was the first to issue a collection of gospel songs. Homer Rodeheaver, an associate of Billy Sunday, established the first successful publishing house for gospel music and his own record company. He also introduced into his revival services large choirs and orchestral instruments, an innovation that was soon picked up by radio evangelists.
H
am,
M
ordecai
F
owler,
Jr
. (1877–1961)
Authors: Hopkins Jerry B.
Published: January 2012

Mordecai Fowler Ham Jr., was born April 2, 1877 in Allen County, Kentucky to Tobias James Ham and Lady Oliver McElray Ham. He was educated in the public schools of that rural Kentucky county and later attended Ogden College in Bowling Green, Kentucky. This school was later absorbed by Western Kentucky State Teachers' College. During this same time period he studied law under Attorney B. F. Proctor of Bowling Green. He was too young to take the state bar examination when he finished studying with Proctor; instead he took a sales position with a grocery chain. After working for a time with that business, Ham quit to join a man in commercial sales. From 1897 to the end of 1900 Ham was employed as a crew manager for a picture‐enlarging business in Chicago. Before he left this business he organized a commercial club for investment. He invested in a business in Chicago, Illinois, which was the primary source of his income in the years closing the nineteenth century. Upon the death of his elderly grandfather, Mordecai Ham Sr., Ham felt called to the ministry. He studied for several months, reading 26 books and the Bible to prepare himself for the ministry to which he was called.
Holy See
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

The Holy See is the supreme ecclesiastical organ of the Roman Catholic Church and it is also used in a juridical and political sense to describe Vatican City. The latter definition dates from the Lateran Treaty of 1929, by which the Holy See is a sovereign state accepted as such by all nations as well as by the United Nations. However, unlike in other nations, citizenship is not a permanent bond between citizen and state acquired through birth or naturalization but rather is a functional tie in which the individual continues to retain his or her nationality. Further, there is no permanent population base.
Eriugena,JohnScottus (c.815–877)
Authors: Duclow Donald F.
Published: January 2012

Irish philosopher, theologian, grammarian, and poet. John's name Eriugena (or Erigena) proclaims that he was born in Ireland, but he emigrated to the court and school of King Charles the Bald in northern France. Here he taught the liberal arts, and composed glosses on Martianus Capella'sMarriage of Mercury and Philology. His poetry in Latin and Greek includes theological poems and several honoring Charles. Commissioned to refute Gottschalk's doctrine of “double predestination” to heaven and hell, John'sOn Predestination(851) was itself condemned as heretical for focusing so intently on God's eternity and goodness that it rejected the notions ofpre‐destination and divine punishment. At a time when few in the west knew Greek, John translated into Latin writings by the Greek Fathers Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo‐Dionysius the Areopagite, and Maximus the Confessor. These translations immersed John in theology of the Eastern Church and transformed his speculative vision. The outcome wasOn Nature(Periphyseon) orOn the Division of Nature(864–866), his vast synthesis of Dionysius and Augustine, East and West. Eriugena also wrote aCommentaryon Dionysius'Celestial Hierarchy, and two works on the Gospel of John: an incompleteCommentaryand a beautifulHomilyon the Gospel's prologue.
K
assatkin of
J
apan,
N
icholas (1836–1912)
Authors: Gallagher Robert L.
Published: January 2012

Nicholas Kassatkin, in keeping with Russian Orthodox tradition, respected the traditional language and culture of the Japanese people among whom he served for 51 years. His work was largely free from Russian political interests as it stressed evangelization of the family, the raising of national workers, and the indigenization of the church.
R
amm,
B
ernard
L
. (1916–1992)
Authors: Gabriel Andrew K.
Published: January 2012

Bernard Ramm was an evangelical Baptist theologian and apologist. Born August 1, 1916, in Butte, Montana, he became a Christian two months before starting his university studies. Ramm studied at the University of Washington, Eastern Baptist Seminary, and the University of Southern California, where he received his PhD in 1950, having written a dissertation in philosophy of science. Ramm later spent a sabbatical year studying in Basel, Switzerland (1957–1958) with Karl Barth, whose influence is evident throughout Ramm's writings. Ramm was a pastor from 1942 to 1944 and began teaching in 1943. The majority of his academic career was as a faculty member of the American Baptist Seminary of the West (1959–1974, 1978–1986).
S
cheidt,
S
amuel (1587–1654)
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

German composer. His musical career was centered on Halle, where he served as a church organist and Kapellmeister to the Elector of Brandenburg.
Areopagus Speech
Authors: Pardigon Flavien
Published: January 2012

The apostle Paul's address before Athens' Areopagus court is the
locus classicus
of the interaction of the Christian faith with the non‐Christian culture and religion. Luke included this episode in his Acts of the Apostles to give his readers an example, indeed an exemplar, of the apostolic apologetic for cultured unbelievers. The speech has been interpreted mostly in ways echoing the apologetical thought of either Justin Martyr (
logos spermatikos
) or Tertullian (“What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”).
Dogma
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

Dogma means a propositional truth that is taught authoritatively through the magisterium of the church as revealed by God and as binding on all believers. In the Greek and Roman worlds dogma was an opinion which people believed in or which they professed in public. In Greek it means an ordinance or edict. In New Testament times, dogma alluded to a particular decision by the community as a whole (Acts 16:14) or to a distinction between a Christian and non‐Christian belief. In the early church, it meant a conciliar decree that had binding force. In the medieval church it meant a tenet. The Council of Trent distinguished between a dogmatic decree pertaining to faith and a reform decree pertaining to morals and practice.
Altarpiece
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

A decoration attached to an altar, also called retable. An altarpiece is an image or images, painted or carved in the round or relief, of a titular saint. It is distinguished from a reredos, which contains elaborate carved figures. An altarpiece may hang on the wall behind the altar or above it, and may range from a single picture to a large polyptych, such as the Ghent altarpiece by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck. A large altarpiece with several panels is called an
ancona
in Italian, while a
pala
is usually a single picture. Altarpieces may also be made of metal, such as the Pala d'Oro of St. Mark's Venice, which is made of gold, silver, and jewels.
Gerson,JeanDeCharlierDe (1363–1429)
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

French churchman, theologian, and spiritual writer, known to his peers as Doctor Christianissimus. Born in the village of Gerson, near Ardennes, Jean rose to become one of the most respected figures in the later Middle Ages. He studied under Pierre d'Ailly at the College of Navarre in Paris, earning a doctorate in theology in 1394 and succeeding d'Ailly as chancellor of Notre Dame in 1395. In 1397 he retired to Bruges as dean of the Church of St. Donatian. While there he wrote his treatise, “On the Manner of Conducting Oneself in a Time of Schism.” He was instrumental in the return of Pope Benedict VIII to the throne of St. Peter. Gerson returned to Paris in 1401 as chancellor of the university and was responsible for bringing back the Dominicans, who had been expelled because of their teachings on the Immaculate Conception. He was one of the leading figures in the Council of Constance (1414–1418), where he represented the university, the archdiocese of Sens, and the kingdom of France, and he shares the blame for the death of John Hus and Jerome of Prague who were burned as heretics. He encouraged the Council to continue its sessions after the flight of John XXIII. He asserted the superiority of the General Council over the pope and called for the doctors of theology to play a greater role in the Council. He helped to draw up the Four Articles of Constance, which later became the charter of Gallicanism. After the accession to the throne of the Duke of Burgundy, the enemy of his patron, the Duke of Orleans, he went into exile in the Benedictine abbey of Melk in Austria where he wrote his famous book, theConsolations of Theology, modeled on Boethius. In 1419 he returned to France on the death of the Duke of Burgundy and spent the last years of his life in seclusion in the Celestine Monastery in Lyons, where he died in 1429.
B
uchman,
F
ranklin
N
athan
D
aniel (1878–1961)
Authors: Hopkins Jerry B.
Published: January 2012

Frank Buchman was born to Franklin and Sarah Buchman in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania on June 4, 1878. He earned his undergraduate degree from Muhlenberg College in 1899, continuing his theological training at Mt. Airy Seminary in 1899 to 1902. After seminary and ordination he served as a Lutheran minister in Overbrook, Pennsylvania from 1902 to 1905. From 1905 to 1909 he served as the founding director of the first Lutheran settlement house in Philadelphia. A disagreement with the governing board led to his resignation and an extended trip to Europe that led to a major change in his life's work.
Healing and Prosperity
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

Christianity is not only a necklace of beliefs, but also a covenantal relationship between God and man signed in blood at Calvary. It posits mutual commitments and obligations. On the part of the believer there is the obligation to believe and to act on that belief within the context of biblical injunctions and commands. On the part of God there are equally binding and irrevocable obligations. Salvation is first and foremost. Among the others, two of the most important are provisions (“bread for the journey”) and health and healing, also called faith healing or divine healing.
Poverty and Social Justice
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

The gospel focuses primarily on personal salvation but there are subtexts that undergird the message. Among the most radical is its concern for the poor. The gospel is good news for the destitute, despised, downtrodden, disadvantaged, and oppressed of the earth. Among those most directly touched by the earthly ministry of Jesus were prostitutes, convicts, thieves, publicans, and other flotsam and jetsam cast aside and disenfranchised by society. Christ's mission included empowerment of the powerless, giving voice to the voiceless, being father to the fatherless, and protecting widows and victims. The poor are the wards of God and exploiting them is a sin. In the New Testament there is also a powerful indictment of the rich as in the parable of Lazarus. “It is harder,” Jesus said, “for a rich man to enter heaven than it is for a camel to enter through the eye of the needle.” The four goals of the kingdom of God are justice, peace, mercy, and truth, known together as the social virtues. Without justice, the other three would be unattainable.
Suffering Church, the
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

For the past 2,000 years, since the martyrdom of St. Stephen who was stoned to death by Jews in
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34, more than 67 million Christians have perished, according to the
World Christian Encyclopedia
, beheaded, hanged, burned at the stake, dismembered, mutilated, disemboweled, drawn and quartered, tortured, speared, shot, flayed alive, bludgeoned, or thrown to the lions. The blood of the martyrs, Tertullian wrote, is the seed of the church. While neither Protestants nor Catholics in Europe have suffered persecution or martyrdom on a large scale, that has not been the case in the Middle East, Russia, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, and the Far East. Suffering church is the term used by church historians to describe Christians and churches that live under the shadow of the sword, their faith constantly tested by fire. The history of the suffering church is written in blood.
Tyrants and Christianity
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

Christianity has always fared badly under tyrants, whether they be Diocletian or Decius, Hitler or Lenin. The church has been an easy target for those who are competing for allegiance from the people. In medieval as well as modern times, the popes were held prisoner by a number of rulers, including most notably Napoleon. From 1375 to 1376, the French kings forced the popes to change residence from the Vatican to Avignon during a period sometimes known as the Babylonian Captivity. The church has also fared badly during times of anarchy and rebellion. The church was almost wiped out during the French Revolution by the Jacobins whose antipathy toward Christianity was so visceral that they were not satisfied with turning cathedrals into stables, but would not rest until they had erased every vestige of Christianity, including the most unerasable of all, the Christian calendar. In Latin America, anticlericalism was an institutionalized ideology in every country for most of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The church had to face hostility from the madding crowds, from ambitious generals, and from intolerant politicians who, ironically, called themselves liberals. In Mexico in the 1930s, as Graham Greene attests in his
Power and the Glory
, it was a crime to say Mass or wear clerical garb.
Pseudepigrapha
Authors: Estes Douglas
Published: January 2012

The Pseudepigrapha, literally “false writings” in the original languages, is a loose‐knit collection of Jewish–Christian documents ranging in origin from about 250
bc
to
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200, with a few works perhaps as late as
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400. The title for this group of documents originates in modern scholarship; historically they never appeared as a group per se, and therefore the list of documents included in the Pseudepigrapha varies. The name is derived from the fact that many, but not all, of the documents are falsely attributed to a biblical person. According to ancient writing practices, false attribution was not typically a form of deception but a reference to traditional authority. Thus, the Pseudepigrapha is as much a category as it is a title.
R
asputin,
G
regory
Y
efimovich (1872–1916)
Authors: Hopkins Jerry B.
Published: January 2012

A Siberian Eastern Orthodox mystic who gained a widespread reputation and influence as a seer and healer. He was born in 1872 as Gregory Efimovich, son of a farmer named Efim, who had been a coachman in the employ of the Imperial Mail. He was born in the village of Pokrovskoe on the Tura River in western Siberia some 250 miles east of the Ural Mountains. This was a primitive, rugged, windswept land where winter temperatures plunged to 40 degrees below zero. In such primitive, demanding regions holy men and outlandish sectarian groups flourished.
B
ruckner,
J
osef
A
nton (1824–1896)
Authors: Howie Crawford
Published: January 2012

Bruckner, born in Ansfelden on September 4, 1824, was from a working‐class background in rural Upper Austria. He received his first music lessons from his father and his talented cousin, Johann Baptist Weiss, and in the mid to late 1830s began to show a modest but unmistakable aptitude for organ playing, sufficient to allow him occasionally to deputize for his father at the local church. When his father died in 1837 the family moved to Ebelsberg, near St. Florian. One of the fortunate consequences was that the young Bruckner was accepted as a choirboy in the great Augustinian monastery at St. Florian, where he received a thorough musical and general education. St. Florian was to become his spiritual home for the rest of his life. After a year's training as a teacher in Linz, the largest town in Upper Austria, and two short periods as an assistant schoolmaster in Windhaag and Kronstorf, Bruckner returned to St. Florian to teach at the local school and to become more involved in the musical life of the monastery, where he became principal organist at the beginning of the 1850s. In December 1855 he left St. Florian to take up an appointment as cathedral organist in Linz, continuing his musical training with lessons in theory from Simon Sechter, and form and orchestration from Otto Kitzler. His ambition to secure a musical post in Vienna was finally realized in 1868 when he succeeded Sechter as harmony and counterpoint teacher at the Conservatory. As well as continuing in this post until 1891, Bruckner held a similar position in Vienna University from 1875 to 1894 and also taught privately. As an organist he played occasionally at services in the court chapel and in other Viennese churches and even briefly considered a career as a concert organist after successes abroad in Nancy and Paris in 1869 and London in 1871.
Newton,Isaac (1642–1727)
Authors: Estes Douglas
Published: January 2012

The most gifted and distinguished natural philosopher in the history of the world. Born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, on December 25, 1642, Newton was the son of a yeoman, Isaac, and his wife, Hannah. Three months before his birth, Newton's father died. His mother remarried when Isaac was two, and subsequently left him with his grandmother, Margery, to start a new family. Extremely interested in mechanical devices and chemicals as a young boy, Newton divided time between school and his family's farm. His uncle, an Anglican pastor, recognized his raw talent and arranged for Isaac to attend Trinity College at Cambridge in 1661, where he appeared to be an average student. Newton graduated from Cambridge in 1665, about the time the plague hit, and so he returned to his family's farm until 1667. These months at home were theannus mirabilisof his scientific career. During this brief period, Newton formulated a theory of gravitation, the three laws of motion, discovered the secret of light, color, and optics, and invented the science of mechanics and the mathematics of calculus (or “fluxions” to Newton) — all of which he very slowly and very reluctantly made public throughout the remainder of his life. In 1667, Newton returned to Trinity under the apprenticeship of Isaac Barrow. Worldwide recognition started in 1668 with his invention of the reflecting telescope. He became the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge in 1669, holding the chair for 33 years, and was elected to the Royal Society in 1672. He published the first edition of his greatest work, thePrincipia, in 1687 and it quickly became the most important work in science ever published until the 20th century. Newton represented Cambridge in Parliament in 1689, and again in 1701–1702. He sought out and was given the per‐functory post of Warden of the Mint in London in 1696, and was made Master of the Mint in 1699; he personally initiated many reforms at the mint. In 1703, Newton became the President of the Royal Society, a post he held for 24 years until his death, on March 20, 1727. Knighted by Queen Anne in 1705, he spent the remainder of his life defending his theories, dabbling in alchemy, and writing theology, having become the most famous living natural philosopher in the western world. He was a lifelong bachelor.
Black Christianity
Authors: Gerloff Roswith
Published: January 2012

Black Christianity is a complex and diverse phenomenon, depending on multifarious historical experiences, linked to the enforced exile of Africans to the “New World,” to western missions to Africa 350 years later, and more recently to voluntary migration of African and Caribbean people to the northern hemisphere. Theirs is a theology, or better theologies, which derive from the experience of being black in Africa, the Americas, and Europe in past and present, i.e. within the transatlantic cycle between the African, Latin American, and North American continents and the Caribbean islands, that demonstrate a different kind of a “globalization” process not guided by Eurocentric views but by blending the Christian message with their own unique cultural and religious roots in specific geographical‐political contexts. As such they address themselves to issues of spiritual, social, and political freedom, theological independence, liberation and social justice — challenging misleading notions of white Christian missions. “In all history, Christian and otherwise, being black has never been a neutral, merely racial characteristic. It has usually been a predicament carrying with it concrete and painful consequences — the common experience of oppression, poverty and exploitation.” (Kalilombe). As a continuance of this human experience, Black Christianity today carries the potential to function as a vehicle for spiritual, racial, and social redemption and as a driving force for a renewed Christian mission.