bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ministry, Five‐Fold
Authors: Shields Candace C.
Published: January 2012

The five‐fold ministry designates a specified ministry that focuses on the building and equipping of the saints of God within the church. The five‐fold ministry derives its title from Ephesians 4:11, which names five specific gifts that God has given to the church for the purpose of working with the saints to edify them and to bring them to perfection. The Apostle Paul wrote in the Book of Ephesians that the five‐fold ministry was divinely appointed by God for the church. There appears to be some controversy surrounding whether it is needed at the present time within the church or whether there ever was a five‐fold ministry. The five‐fold ministry consists of five gifts, designated as apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. Each gift has a specific role by which they are to operate within the church. The five‐fold ministry is often referred to as a hand, because of the power of fingers working together. The same concept is how the five‐fold ministry is to operate within the church. No one gift operates on its own with efficiency; it is when all of them flow together that they are most effective and are at their best for equipping the saints of God.
Miracles
Authors: Cowan Steven B.
Published: January 2012

Though many people in the contemporary world, including those within the movement known as theological liberalism, reject belief in miracles, such belief has always been part of Christian faith. The Christian worldview embraces the notion that the natural order is not a closed system and that God, the Creator, is able to intervene in the course of history by suspending or superseding natural regularities. In fact, biblical writers teach that the truth and significance of the Christian faith hinges on the truth of one miracle, namely, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul made this clear when he wrote, “If Christ has not been raised, then your faith is worthless” (1 Cor. 15:17). If Paul is right, then miracles are indispensable to the Christian faith.
Missional Church
Authors: Baltrip Ryan
Published: January 2012

The missional church represents a distinct spiritual and theological shift in ecclesiology. It describes a movement that emerged from missiology studies during the late 20th century that wanted to recapture the true nature and essence of the church as representing the reign of God in the world. The Kingdom of God is the unifying theological motif for the missional church, and it creates a unique character, focus, and attitude.
Missionary Call
Authors: Rance DeLonn
Published: January 2012

To embark on a missionary career requires a conviction of divine appointment often referred to in Christian contexts as a “missionary call” or a “call to missionary service.” Christians involved in missions activity identify the missionary calling as a unique ministerial vocation for crossing geographical and/or cultural boundaries to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ, one sustained and empowered by God.
Modalism
Authors: Williams D. H.
Published: January 2012

The term “modalism” as a descriptive for a kind of Christian unitarianism, or what the ancients often called “patripassionism,” was not used until the early 20th century when Adolph von Harnack coined it. Because this view advocated the primacy of monotheism in Christianity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were construed as three instances of the one God, as opposed to three different realities within God. The singular Divine substance manifested himself in history sometimes as the Father, sometimes as the Son, and other times as the Holy Spirit. In every instance it is the same God. Following this logic, critics claimed that the Father suffered on the cross, no less than the Son; hence the name “patri‐passion.”
M
öhler,
J
ohann
A
dam (1796–1838)
Authors: Kaplan Grant
Published: January 2012

A professor of Theology and Church History in Tübingen and later Munich, Johann Adam Möhler was the most prominent member of the Catholic Tübingen School, a forerunner of communion ecclesiology, and an inspiration to such influential 20th century theologians as Karl Adam and Yves Congar. Many consider him to be the “grandfather” of modern Catholic ecclesiology. His two most important works,
Unity in the Church
(1825) and
Symbolik
(1832; mistranslated
Symbolism
), greatly impacted Catholic theology. He also wrote a book on Athanasius, an important study of Anselm, and an influential series of articles on celibacy.
M
oltmann,
J
ürgen (
b
. 1926)
Authors: Castelo Daniel
Published: January 2012

Often considered one of the most influential theologians of the latter half of the 20th century, Jürgen Moltmann has been a dominant figure in German Protestant theology through his many published works, especially those undertaken during his tenure as professor of Theology at the University of Tübingen (1967–1994), where he is now emeritus professor of Theology. Born into a secular family in Hamburg and having his interest in theology piqued as a prisoner of war during World War II, Moltmann studied at Göttingen immediately after the war and came to consider himself a Reformed theologian, though many associate him with Lutheran theology because of his work on the theology of the cross, most notably in
The Crucified God
(1972). The work that brought him to early prominence, however, was
Theology of Hope
(1964) where he considers eschatology as a hermeneutical premise for understanding Christian theology as a whole. The work, drawing its impetus largely from the philosophy of Ernst Bloch, created a significant trend in theology, and its influence partially extended to other theological currents, including political and liberation theologies. Moltmann's optimism shifted with a number of developments during the 1960s, leading him to work on
The Crucified God
as a text that interrelated the themes of suffering and God in ways that have been termed a “theology after Auschwitz.” Given that the work focuses on the doctrine of God,
The Crucified God
includes many themes that he would later develop. These first two texts along with
The Church in the Power of the Spirit
(1975) constitute a trilogy of sorts in that each work explored the “whole of theology” under a single focus. Moltmann took a different approach with his subsequent major works, beginning with
The Trinity and the Kingdom
(1980), in which he intended to offer “contributions” to the academic field. Additional themes considered in this way included creation (
God in Creation
, 1985), Christology (
The Way of Jesus Christ
, 1989), pneumatology (
The Spirit of Life
, 1991), eschatology (
The Coming of God
, 1995), and theological methodology (
Experiences in Theology
, 2000).
Monasticism and Asceticism
Authors: McGuckin John Anthony
Published: January 2012

The term “monasticism” derives from the Greek word signifying “aloneness.” Originally it denoted a Christian who dedicated him or herself to withdrawal and radical simplicity, seeking a life lived as a celibate and centered on prayer. The term “asceticism” derives from the Greek word for physical exercise, and describes the sense, much witnessed within the early monastic movement, that the achievement of celibacy and prayerful focus were matters of great struggle, requiring a mental and physical discipline comparable to that undertaken by the ancient athletes. Monasticism is, therefore, a particular (Christian) form of the life of Askesis. The ascetical lifestyle was present beforehand (not least in aspects of the Apocalyptic movement's “resistance” of the world powers, and extensively among Hellenistic philosophical circles) but it came to a precise and recognizable shape in the church of the 3rd century, taking more explicit forms in the 4th, and afterward enduring as a central part of Christian life until the present, especially in the eastern Christian world; although the Reformation much diminished the impact of monasticism in the early modern and more recent west. Even so, allowing for Reformation Christianity's more or less wholesale repudiation of monastic values, monasticism's influence in the formation of the Christian west is monumentally important.
Armenian Monasticism
Authors: Hovhanessian Vahan
Published: January 2012

Forms of ascetic life were essential components of the Christian experience since the earliest centuries of Christianity in Armenia. Historians refer to stories about ascetics who settled in Armenia as early as the 1st century. These stories remain powerful witnesses to the importance that the 5th century hagiographers placed on the role of asceticism in the spread of Christianity in Armenia.
Monergism
Authors: Bigalke Ron J.
Published: January 2012

Monergism is the doctrine that the Holy Spirit is the sole efficient agent in regeneration (new birth). Man has no more efficient agency to accomplish regeneration than Lazarus had ability in raising himself from death to life. By the free agency of the Holy Spirit, the fallen sinner receives a new nature (heart, mind, and will). Unregenerated human nature is dead in sin and completely unable to turn to God (Rom. 3:10–18; 1 Cor. 2:14–15; Eph. 2:1–10), but with God all things are possible (Matt. 19:26; John 3:6; 6:64–65; Rom. 9:16). The necessity of the new birth as a free and sovereign work of the Holy Spirit is due to the fact that the unregenerate are spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1–10), unable to repent (Jer. 13:23; Matt. 19:24; Acts 11:18; Rom. 8:6–8; 2 Pet. 2:13–14, 22), lawless, godless, self‐seekers (Ps. 14:2–3; Isa. 65:1; Rom. 1:21–28; 3:11; 5:6; 10:20), spiritually impotent and undiscerning (John 3:3; 1 Cor. 2:14; 3:20–21), blinded by the power of Satan (Acts 26:17–18; 2 Cor. 4:3–4; 2 Tim. 2:26), lovers of darkness (John 1:4–5; 3:19–20; Rom. 1:18–21, 28), dull and wicked of heart, and spiritually blind and deaf (Gen. 6:5; Prov. 20:9; Isa. 6:9–10; Jer. 17:9; Mark 4:12; 7:20–23; Luke 8:10; John 8:43–44, 47; Rom. 7:18; 14:23; Gal. 5:19–21; 2 Pet. 2:19; Jude 19), and enslaved with a heart of stone (Ezek. 11:19; 36:26; 44:9; Acts 7:51).
Monogamy
Authors: Laing Jacqueline
Published: January 2012

The word monogamy derives from the Greek words μóνoδ meaning one and γάμoδ meaning marriage. When Christianity was founded, polygamy (the marriage of a man to many women) was still recognized by the Jews. The Gospel according to Matthew reports that Christ restored marriage to its original unity and indissolubility (Matt. 19:6). Monogamy is still deeply entrenched in the Christian tradition. It has long been held that polygamy and polyandry undermine the dignity due to man and woman as parties to the marriage contract. The command “What God has joined together let no man put asunder” (Mark 10:9) is still a central part of the marriage ceremony of many denominations notwithstanding widespread changes of attitude and practice.
Monophysitism
Authors: Neal Ryan A.
Published: January 2012

Monophysitism is the belief that in the one person Jesus of Nazareth there is one nature (
monos
, “single”;
physis
, “nature”), as opposed principally to the Chalcedonian formula, the Definition of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon (451), which declares two natures (dyophysitism) coexisting in one person. The Chalcedonian decree, according to the Monophysites, is ontologically speculative and theologically dubious. Monophysitism's principal difficulty is locating the unity of two natures, and resolves any apparent conflict by emphasizing the one divine nature, from the beginning of Jesus' incarnation forward.
Moody,DwightLyman (1837–1899)
Authors: Bruce James E.
Published: January 2012

Dwight Lyman Moody, a famous evangelist, was born on February 5, 1837, in Northfield, Massachusetts, and lived there until 1856, when he moved to Chicago. After a time as a shoe salesman, Moody became a fulltime, albeit unpaid, missionary in Chicago with the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in the early 1860s. Soon well over 1,000 children were attending Sunday school each week. During the American Civil War, Moody, along with the YMCA, ministered to thousands of soldiers from both sides of the conflict, both locally at Camp Douglas and nationally.
Moravian Brethren
Authors: McCall Bradford
Published: January 2012

A Protestant movement founded in 1457 in Bohemia and Moravia, what is now the Czech Republic. In the mid 9th century these countries converted to Christianity through the influence of Greek Orthodox missionaries. In the centuries that followed, churches within this province gradually became subject to the ecclesiastical authority of Rome. Some of the Czech people protested, including John Hus (1369–1415) who was a professor of philosophy and rector of the University in Prague. Hus objected to some of the practices of the Roman Catholic Church and wanted to return the church in Bohemia and Moravia to the practices of early Christianity. In particular Hus sought to provide the liturgy in the language of the people, to eliminate indulgences, and eliminate the notion of purgatory.
M
orrison,
R
obert (1782–1834)
Authors: Bigalke Ron J.
Published: January 2012

Robert Morrison was born the youngest son of eight children to James and Hannah Morrison in Buller's Green, Northumberland, January 5, 1782, and died August 1, 1834 at his home in Guangzhou, China. His family were devout Scottish Presbyterians. His maternal uncle, James Nicholson, provided his elementary instruction, which included the study of biblical languages and multiple disciplines in the natural sciences. His father apprenticed him to manufacture boot‐trees but he still continued his studies. He received catechetical instruction, in a sort of Sunday School, from John Hutton at the High Bridge Chapel. According to one of his relatives, he was able to recite the entirety of Psalm 119 from memory by the age of 13. Although he was raised in the border country, he maintained relationships with the Church of Scotland. At 16, he devoted his life to Christ and became a member of the Presbyterian Church in 1798, and established a praying society in his father's workshop for evening devotions. In 1803, he entered Hoxton Academy in London, an evangelical college for training congregational ministers, where he learned the basics of Latin, in addition to the rudiments of Greek and Hebrew. His mother died in 1804, and in the same year he applied to the London Missionary Society, believing he was called to proclaim the gospel in China. He was able to receive instruction from Yong Sam‐Tak, a Chinese student, to read and write Chinese. To intensify his learning, he invited Sam‐Tak into his house, and was able to master the resources made accessible to him. Morrison obtained a Jesuit translation of the gospels into Chinese from the British Library that he studied daily with Sam‐Tak and labored to transcribe. The Royal Society loaned him a dictionary manuscript of Latin and Chinese which he also worked to transcribe. In 1807, he was ordained at Scots Church and departed for China.
Motet
Authors: Yardley Anne Bagnall
Published: January 2012

The motet is a polyphonic vocal composition that emerged in the Middle Ages in both sacred and secular forms and evolved in the Renaissance as a principal genre of sacred music with Latin text.
T
eresa,
M
other (1910–1997)
Authors: Coulter Michael
Published: January 2012

Mother Teresa, born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, was the third child of an Albanian couple living in Skopje, which is in modern day Macedonia. By the time Agnes turned 12, she felt a distinct vocation, which gradually became a desire to do mission work. Agnes left Skopje at 18 and joined the Irish order of the Sisters of Loreto, who operated schools in India. Upon her entry into the order, Agnes took the name of Sister Teresa in honor of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
A
thos,
M
ount
Authors: Jorgenson Cameron H. J.
Published: January 2012

Mount Athos, or the “Holy Mountain,” refers to the Macedonian peninsula that has long been an important center of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. Named for the imposing mountain (over 6,600 ft) at its seaward end, Athos is known for its beautiful yet rugged terrain, which makes its monasteries accessible only by boat. The earliest Christian presence is difficult to establish, but some monastic activity is likely by the 4th or 5th century. By the 9th century, efforts were underway to organize monastic practice according to the rule of St. Basil. By this time Athonite monks were so respected that delegates were allowed to participate in official conciliar deliberations. From the 11th century onward, Athos enjoyed a great degree of political autonomy, governing itself through a council comprised of the heads of the 20 most prominent monasteries. In the 14th century, the monks appealed to Pope Innocent III to shield them from the harassment of Latin Crusaders following the capture of Constantinople; however, their allegiance returned to Constantinople once political stability was re‐established. During the same period, Mount Athos played a central role in the Hesychastic controversy, a conflict over doctrines and spiritual practices common among its monks.
Mozart,WolfgangAmadeus (1756–1791)
Authors: Hettrick Jane Schatkin
Published: January 2012

Mozart was a believing Catholic, although his faith was intermingled with Enlightenment ideas. He joined the Masonic lodge “Zur Wohlthätigkeit” in 1784. His letters refer to the will of God, submission to God, and belief in heaven. Although he composed in all genres of classical music, he had a special love of church music which, according to his wife Constanze, was his favorite genre. His earliest works include two masterworks of sacred music: the motetExsultate Jubilate, with its brilliant finalAlleluia; and the Mass in C Minor, K139 (Waisenhausmesse, 1768), which, because of its profundity, was until recently believed to be a much later work.
M
urray,
J
ohn
C
ourtney (1904–1967)
Authors: Barre Elizabeth A.
Published: January 2012

American Jesuit theologian, and political theorist, John C. Murray was born and raised in Queens, New York. He attended a Jesuit high school in Manhattan and entered the New York Province of the Society of Jesus when he was 16. Over the next 13 years, he studied at Weston, Boston, and Woodstock Colleges. After he was ordained in 1933, he studied sacred theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and received his doctorate in 1937. He then returned to Woodstock College, where he taught dogmatic theology and edited the popular Jesuit periodical
Theological Studies
for the remainder of his life.
Music
Authors: Leinweber David
Published: January 2012

The history of music as it relates to Christianity closely intersects with the larger history of western music. From the very beginning of the New Testament church, music has played an enormously significant role in worship. Music also provides an important window on the broader culture in which Christianity has flourished during many varied historical and geographical contexts.
Mystery Plays
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

A mystery play is a form of liturgical drama that developed in Byzantium as well as in the west in the 12th to 15th centuries. Originally part of the mass, its presentation was taken over by the guilds and cofraternities and was held in the church, its immediate confines, or in the public square. In Italy, most of the performances were initiated by theLaudesi, a penitential movement centered in Umbria. The standard scenes included paradise, nativity, transfiguration, and Gethsemane. Slowly, professionals were inducted as actors, and costumes and scenery were introduced. By the 14th and 15th centuries permanent settings and stages appeared. Several booths on the stage would be set apart for such scenes as the annunciation or the raising of Lazarus but paradise would hover over the stage while a demon or leviathan with open jaws represented hell below the stage. Another variant was the procession where the stage was on carts with the various booths portraying scenes in the life of Christ. Often these mystery plays were standard repertoire for the Holy Week, or Corpus Christi, Ascension, and the Pentecost. Their enactment was reinforced by the Black Plague, which intensified the traditions of piety among the common people.
Narrative Theology
Authors: Werntz Myles
Published: January 2012

Narrative theology, also referred to as postliberal theology, was a 20th century movement focusing on scripture as a drama to be ecclesially enacted, rather than the material basis for a dogmatic presentation of doctrine. Viewing scripture as an ongoing narrative of God's work in the world, narrative theology sought to place the church — the community of continuing narration by the Spirit — as the locus for theological reflection and social action. Scripture re‐narrates the world, fitting the world into its ongoing story instead of being confined by preconceived categories. First emerging in the 1960s through the “Yale school” in the works of Hans Frei and George Lindbeck, the movement derived much of its theology from Karl Barth, and its understanding of the performative nature of language and communities from Ludwig Wittgenstein and Clifford Geertz. In contrast to the liberal theology preceding it, narrative theology has focused largely on communal formation and communal interpretations of scripture and doctrine, rejecting purely individualist and/or emotivist understandings of doctrine. As Mike Higton has noted, Frei and Lindbeck produced two kinds of narrative approaches. Frei's project, rooted in Christology, has been continued through the work of Stanley Hauerwas, while Lindbeck's project, rooted in cultural linguistic theory, has been carried out most clearly through the work of David Tracy.
Natural Law
Authors: Bruce James E.
Published: January 2012

Natural law has been a primary, but not exclusive, way for Christians to think about the relationship between God and the moral order. Natural law provides answers to questions about moral goodness, obligation, and knowledge. Moral goodness is defined with reference to the nature of the thing under consideration; moral obligation arises from that nature; and knowledge of what is morally good is known naturally. What is good for humanity follows from humanity being made in the image of God, and our obligation to each other — not to murder each other, for example — follows from who we are. We know and recognize this obligation naturally, without the need of special revelation, which is why cultures without a Christian witness, e.g. Ancient Greece, nevertheless recognized that murder was wrong.
G
regory of
N
azianzus,
S
aint (329–389)
Authors: Dawson Connie
Published: January 2012

Gregory of Nazianzus, known as “The Theologian,” was one of the three Cappadocian Fathers of the Eastern Church. His mother, Nonna, was a deeply pious woman who dedicated him to God before his birth in 329. Gregory's father, also named Gregory, was converted to Christianity from Hypsistarianism (a Cappadocian pagan religion which mixed Christian and Jewish beliefs) by his wife. Within a short time of Gregory the elder's conversion, he was ordained into the priesthood and became Bishop of Nazianzus. Gregory was the second of three children; he greatly admired his elder sister, Georgiana, and his younger brother, Caesarius, became a prosperous physician in Constantinople.
N
ee,
W
atchman (1903–1972)
Authors: Anderson Allan
Published: January 2012

Ni Doushen, better known in the west as “Watchman Nee,” is founder of possibly the largest and best known of the Chinese “Old Three‐Self” churches, known in China variously as the Christian Assembly, the Local Church, and the Little Flock. Nee found traditional Christianity unsatisfactory, denounced denominations and resigned his membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1924 he set up a Christian book room in Fuzhou and began writing the first of many devotional books for which he was to achieve international acclaim. The best known of these books might be
The Normal Christian Life
, a popular commentary on Romans. In 1928 he moved to Shanghai, and together with Wang Peizhen (a woman) and Li Yuanru, set up the first “Assembly Hall,” the name given to the church's meeting place. By 1932 there were over 20 Assembly Halls, each one autonomous, and with a total of 4,000 followers. In 1935 Nee had an experience of being filled with the Spirit, and a new emphasis entered his meetings. Although Nee is thought by some commentators to have rejected ecstatic manifestations like speaking in tongues, faith healing, and spiritual dance, others suggest that Nee did speak in tongues and that his movement became Pentecostal. In 1945 Nee invited his friend Li Changshou (“Witness Lee”) to work with him in Shanghai. They began teaching that Christians must “surrender” their personal possessions to the church. A training program was initiated and a strategy for the evangelization of China launched, including “gospel emigration,” when believers left the coastal cities for the unevangelized interior. In 1949, in the face of the Communist invasion, Li and many other believers fled to Taiwan, which resulted in the rapid growth of the church there.
New Technology and Christianity
Authors: Sleasman Michael J.
Published: January 2012

Christianity and the new technologies in the 21st century is a reality marked by technological immersion. Technology, according to theologian Brent Waters, “is the way we live and move and have our being in today's age.” Christians adopt technology on pace with the average cultural demographics, while their engagement with these new and emerging technologies has ranged from thoughtful critical reflections on a number of pressing bioethical issues to unhindered consumption of many information, communication, and cybertechnologies.
N
ew
Z
ealand Christianity
Authors: Lineham Peter
Published: January 2012

It is doubtless the case that Christian services were held on ships that visited New Zealand from the 17th century onwards, but there is no evidence of any service on the dry land of the islands before 1814, when on Christmas Day an Anglican chaplain from the New South Wales prison colony, Samuel Marsden, landed a small group of lay missionaries at the Bay of Islands in the north of the North Island. Marsden had cultivated links with the indigenous Maori people who had visited Australia. However, the sponsor of the missionaries, the chief Ruatara, died shortly after the missionaries arrived, and for several years the missionaries clung on the margins of Maori society, engaging in the supply of arms and struggling with the low reputation of the Europeans who had settled in the country. In 1823, however, a former naval captain, Henry Williams, and his wife Marianne arrived to take charge of the mission, and thereafter it grew rapidly on the basis of sternly evangelical Anglicanism, bible translation, lessons in civilization, and careful catechetical instruction.
Newbigin,Lesslie (1909–1998)
Authors: Williams Will
Published: January 2012

Theologian, missionary, and ecumenist, Lesslie Newbigin was born on December 8, 1909 in Newcastle upon Tyne to Presbyterian parents. He entered Queens' College, Cambridge, in 1928 as an agnostic, but through the influence of the Student Christian Movement and his reading of William James' essay “The Will to Believe” (1896) Newbigin began to explore the Christian faith more seriously. In the summer of 1929, while working at a camp in South Wales that offered aid to unemployed miners, Newbigin had a vision of the cross embracing the whole world, which indelibly affected his theological and spiritual life from that time onward.
Niagara Bible Conferences
Authors: Bigalke Ron J.
Published: January 2012

Niagara Bible Conferences were part of the late 19th century Bible conference movement. In 1868, the conference was organized in New York as the Believers' Meeting for Bible Study. A new name was acquired when the conference location changed to Niagara‐on‐the‐Lake, Ontario. From 1883–1897, virtually every significant premillennial leader attended the conference. These meetings profoundly impacted Christian workers, evangelists, and preachers. James H. Brookes served as the president for many years, and beginning in 1875 (until his death in 1897), he published theTruth, a premillennial, pretribulational periodical. Another influential leader among premillennialists, Adoniram J. Gordon, began publishing theWatchwordin 1878, “an unobtrusive little monthly,” which was covenant premillennial. Controversy was developing at the conference, which was contained based on mutual respect for Brookes; after his death, the differences among leadership became more apparent and the conference no longer convened after 1900. Although he first attended the conferences as a pretribulationist, Robert Cameron later adopted the posttribulational position and became editor of theWatchword and Truthafter the deaths of Brookes and Gordon. In 1894, Arno C. Gaebelein began publishingOur Hope, a magazine that communicated pretribulationism but avoided dogmatizing on disputed points among premillennialists. In the early 1880s at the conference, Cameron influenced Nathaniel West to reconsider the imminency of the rapture. During the early 1890s, West vigorously defended posttribulationism.
Nigerian Christianity
Authors: Ayegboyin Deji Isaac
Published: January 2012

In Nigeria, as in many countries in Africa, three main religions may be encountered: African Traditional Religion, Islam, and Christianity. The majority of Christians in Nigeria are found in the south. There are a good number of mission stations and institutions along with churches serving southern enclaves in the northern cities and larger towns in what is normally referred to as the Muslim north.
N
ightingale,
F
lorence (1820–1910)
Authors: Green Todd
Published: January 2012

Pioneer of the modern nursing profession, Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy, while her English parents were on their honeymoon, and was named after the city of her birth. Nightingale received the first of four calls from God in 1837. This call was an assurance that God had a purpose for her life that went beyond the expectations of a well‐to‐do young woman in Victorian England. While the call was not specific, its influence on her life was enormous as she began to search for ways to devote her life to helping the poor and the sick. The call also influenced her decision not to marry.
Nineteenth Century Christianity
Authors: Carrigan Henry L.
Published: January 2012

The 19th century is one of the richest periods in the history of Christianity. The contentious century was marked by both optimism and pessimism about the future of Christianity, skepticism about the veracity of its sacred texts, and cynicism and suspicion about the Christian religion itself. Battles about the character of the Christian faith raged both inside and outside Christianity during the 19th century, and out of these skirmishes emerged new ways of thinking about Christian doctrine, theology, faith, and biblical studies that would influence deeply the development of theological thinking in the 20th century. Historians of 19th century Christianity generally acknowledge that the period begins with the publication in 1799 of Friedrich Schleiermacher's
On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers
(generally known as
Speeches
) and draws to a close in 1914 when the century's tremendous optimism about the future of humankind died in the trenches of World War I. During this 115‐year span, theologians, churchmen, and philosophers raised questions about the nature of faith, the historical existence of Jesus, the character and authority of Scripture, the truth of revealed religion, the nature of the church, and the future of Christianity. Responding to challenges to Christianity from the 18th century, these thinkers provided new directions for Christianity as it attempted to fashion a fresh self‐definition in the midst of changing times.
New Religious Movements, Nineteenth Century
Authors: Lasater Gayle Ann Spiers
Published: January 2012

Like new religious movements historically, new religious movements during the 19th century took inspiration from larger sociocultural and religious processes, were both the product and the producer of social change, and in some cases led to enduring forms of Christianity and alternative Christianities. The advent of western modernity (which overturned medieval theology and authority), the Renaissance, the age of reason through the Enlightenment, the age of revolutions, romanticism, and western industrialization had all given rise to significant social ferment by the 19th century, for new religious thinking, democratization, and movements. By the mid 1800s, with Darwinism, the sciences had been set forth as a foundation for the hegemonic epistemology of modernity. This is not to say that religion was supplanted by secularism wholesale, but rather that competing modern epistemologies were to provide the impetus for new religious responses, both in terms of Christianity's involvement with modernity and western imperial designs, and in new religious movements.
Northern Baptist Convention
Authors: Bigalke Ron J.
Published: January 2012

The genesis and progress of missions on the part of American Baptists was the result of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Baptists were favorable toward the Revolution, which made their reputation positive. Numerous revivals extended Baptist growth. The Second Great Awakening also augmented Baptist growth. Foreign missions began quickly in America through men such as William Carey. Religious liberty in America also contributed to Baptist growth. However, there were also difficulties due to the lack of attaining theological harmony. Some Baptists became anti‐missionary minded, whereas those who were missionary minded could not agree regarding evangelistic organization. The main events contributing to missional genesis and progress by American Baptists was the formation of “Three Great Societies,” for foreign missions (1814), tracts and publications (1824), and home missions (1832). The Second Great Awakening, which began during the late 1790s and extended until the early 1830s, would greatly enhance the labor of the “Three Great Societies.”
NouvelleThéologie,La
Authors: Allen Michael
Published: January 2012

The so‐called “new theology” overcame the militant defensiveness that had marked Roman Catholic neoscholastic theology during the latter part of the 19th century and the early to mid 20th century. In so doingla nouvelle théologielaid the groundwork for the expansive theological engagement with modernity and history in the deliberations of the Second Vatican Council. This program of reform was led by several major figures who suffered ill repute, censure, and isolation because of the rigorous discipline of the ecclesiastical hierarchy (especially the encyclicalHumani Generis). Associated with the movement were figures such as Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Henri Bouillard, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Marie‐Dominique Chenu, Gaston Fessard, and Jean Daniélou.
Obedience
Authors: Van Neste Ray
Published: January 2012

At the center of Christianity is the idea that God has spoken and people must respond in obedience. To believe God is to obey God, as is shown throughout both Old and New Testaments. Sin entered the world through the disobedience of Adam (Gen. 3; Rom. 5), and the rest of the Bible is the story of God calling people into a right relationship with himself, which includes obedience to his commands. Abraham is blessed because he obeyed God (Gen. 22:18). In the Old Testament obedience is part of the covenant obligations of the people of God. The Lord called on the people to “obey my voice and keep my covenant,” and the people respond by saying, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exod. 19:6–8). Obedience is better than sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22). In the New Testament, Jesus continues the call for obedience: “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:28). Jesus says the wise man is the one who hears the word of God and obeys it (Matt. 7:24–27). The apostles continue this call to obedience, explicitly linking faith and obedience (e.g. Acts 6:7; Rom. 6:17; Heb. 5:9; 1 Pet. 1:22). It is also clear that obedience to God involves submission to the proper authorities (e.g. Rom. 13; Eph. 5–6).
Oberammergau
Authors: Montgomery John Warwick
Published: January 2012

A small village in Bavaria, not far from Munich, Oberammergau is where the most famous of all passion plays takes place every ten years, since 1634, with occasional special anniversary performances (as in 1984). This dramatic production, common in the Middle Ages but rare today, sets forth in words, tableaux, and music the biblical account of our Lord's crucifixion and resurrection. In 1633 the area had been decimated by the plague, and the villagers promised that if they were spared they would perform such a play for perpetuity. A child of the village may appear as one of the Palm Sunday crowd today; later he or she will take an adult part, and finally, perhaps in old age, he or she may play the role of Simeon or Anna.
O
ckeghem,
J
ohannes (
c
.1410–1497)
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

Franco‐Flemish church musician and composer. At around 23 he became a singer in the Church of Notre Dame at Antwerp and 3 years later a member of the chapel of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon. In 1453 he moved to the French court, serving three successive monarchs, Charles VII, Louis XI, and Charles VIII. He was the kings' first chaplain, court composer, and also the treasurer of the church of St. Martin in Tours.
O'Connor, Flannery (1925–1964)
Authors: Veith Gene Edward
Published: January 2012

Born on March 25, 1925, in Savannah, Georgia, Flannery O'Connor was the only child of Regina and Edward O'Connor. She was baptized Mary Flannery. The O'Connors were Roman Catholics in the predominantly fundamentalist Deep South. Flannery O'Connor, with her disturbingly comic and yet profoundly Christian fiction, would become one of the 20th century's most acclaimed short story writers.
O
ecolampadius,
J
ohannes (
c
.1482–1531)
Authors: Whiting Michael
Published: January 2012

Johannes Huszgen (“house light”) was born in Württemberg around the year 1482. He later matriculated at the University of Heidelberg and achieved his M.A. in 1503. Turning down a legal career, he became a tutor until accepting a preachership in his native Weinsberg in 1510 (where he also adopted the humanist rendering “Oecolampadius”). While matriculated at Tübingen, he met Melancthon and the famous Reuchlin, becoming an admirable humanist scholar of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Oecolampadius taught Greek at Heidelberg and developed a friendship with Wolfgang Capito, whom he eventually followed to the city of Basle (recently absorbed into the Swiss Confederation). He preached, assisted in the editing and printing of Erasmus' Greek New Testament (1516), and went on to study for a doctorate of divinity. As a result of his collegial acquaintance with Erasmus, Oecolampadius became enamored with the patristic fathers and collaborated in the publishing of an edition of Jerome. He was especially drawn to the mystical leanings of Greek writers such as Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus.
Old Catholics
Authors: Poston Larry
Published: January 2012

Old Catholicism was begun in 1870 by a group of some 1,400 German, Austrian, and Swiss Catholics who, while holding that the historic councils of the church were infallible, nevertheless rejected the doctrine of papal infallibility that had been established by Vatican I (1870). They believed that this dogma would destroy the church's historic episcopal structure and degrade the status of bishops. New churches were established independently of Rome's ecclesiastical authority with the support of the archbishop of Utrecht who agreed to ordain priests and bishops in the separatist churches. This fellowship became known as the Utrecht Union of Churches.
Openness Theology
Authors: Spiegel James S.
Published: January 2012

Openness theology (also known as “open theism” and “free will theism”) is a theological movement critical of some key aspects of classical theism, including the immutability, impassibility, and timelessness of God. The positive claims of the openness theologians principally regard God's responsiveness to prayer and willingness to adjust providential plans in light of human decisions and actions. There is debate among scholars as to whether openness theology is properly seen as a brand of Arminian theology.
Ordination
Authors: Macy Gary
Published: January 2012

Appointment to different ministries in the Christian community began early as the commissioning by Jesus of the 12 and of the 70 attests (Matt. 10:1–5; Mark 3:13–19; Luke 6:12–16; Luke 10:1).
Ordinatio
(ordination) emerges as the term for such a commissioning in Latin Christianity by the 3rd century. Christians adopted the concept of
ordo
from everyday Roman usage. The Latin
ordinare
meant to organize something, and the noun
ordo
referred to that ordering.
Ordo
(plural
ordines
) also referred to the position, or role, a person played in society. So ordination for the early Christians indicated the appointment and consecration of a person to a particular ministry within the community. To quote Yves Congar (1984), “the words
ordinare
,
ordinari
,
ordinatio
signified the fact of being designated and consecrated to take up a certain place, or better a certain function,
ordo
, in the community and at its service.”
Original Sin
Authors: Cowan Steven B.
Published: January 2012

A clear teaching of the Christian scriptures is the universality of human sin. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) and “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10). Every human being (except for Jesus Christ) is guilty of breaking God's moral law. The scriptures also teach, and the Christian tradition has taught, that the explanation for the universality of sin lies with the notion of
original sin
.
P
achelbel,
J
ohann (1653–1706)
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

German Baroque organist‐composer. A Protestant by birth and training, he nevertheless assimilated Roman Catholic traditions. As a church musician he served at the Lutheran churches at Erfurt (from 1678 to 1690) and in Nuremberg (from 1695 until death). The majority of his organ works were composed for the Lutheran liturgy. They include 70 choral preludes for Erfurt and 95 fugues for use in the
Magnificat
at Nuremberg. The choral preludes are of various types while the fugues are short movements that alternate with sung verses of the
Magnificat
. Pachelbel was responsible for establishing the technical and tonal qualities of the fugue. His nonliturgical organ music consists of toccatas, preludes, fantasias, and chorale variations for use in church settings.
G
regory
P
alamas,
S
aint (1296–1359)
Authors: Foltz Bruce V.
Published: January 2012

St. Gregory Palamas can be understood as having a standing in the Greek East parallel to that of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Latin West. But this is not because his thought is so comprehensive, although it assuredly is, and certainly not due to similarity in their ideas, for the two stand in sharp opposition concerning central concepts, but because like St. Thomas a century earlier, he formulated a version of his own respective tradition so definitive that, at least with regard to essentials, it can nevertheless be called a “summa.” As it is put plainly by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, one of the most distinguished contemporary Greek theologians, “The theology of St. Gregory Palamas is the theology of the Orthodox Church.” But this is not meant to suggest the kind of official status accorded to St. Thomas in the Roman Church as “common doctor,” but rather to affirm that St. Gregory “was not introducing a new system of teaching and knowledge of God, but he lived and then expressed what he met in the Church and on the Holy Mountain, having been trained in the life in Christ” (1997: 357). St. Gregory was born into a noble Byzantine family in Constantinople. In 1316, after the death of his father, a pious Byzantine senator with strong connections to the Imperial Court, he entered the monastic life, along with most of his family. With two of his brothers, he traveled on foot to the Monastery of Vatopedi on Mt. Athos, where he stayed for three years before moving on to the Great Lavra, at the easternmost tip of the Athonite Penninsula, for another three years. Along with many other monks, he left the Holy Mountain in 1325 due to frequent Turkish raids. Still living a contemplative life, he was ordained a priest in Thessalonica in 1326, and returned to Mt. Athos in 1331 where he lived as a hermit at St. Sabbas, high above the Great Lavra, descending the steep path only for liturgical feasts at the Lavra. Beginning in 1335, St. Gregory became increasingly involved in the Hesychast Controversy, the demands of which required him to once again leave Mt. Athos, this time for good. He became the champion of the triumphant Hesychast tradition, affirmed by three Councils in Constantinople in 1341, 1345, and 1351. In 1347, he was consecrated Metropolitan Bishop of Thessalonica, where his sermons placed a special emphasis on care for the poor and needy. In 1354, while traveling by sea, he was taken prisoner by the Turks for a year, and he spent much of this time in earnest theological dialog with his Islamic captors. He was glorified as a saint in 1368, soon after his death in 1359.
P
alestrina,
G
iovanni
P
ierluigi
D
a (1525–1594)
Authors: Kurian George Thomas
Published: January 2012

Acknowledged as the greatest Catholic church musician of all time, Palestrina dominated the world of liturgical music in the time of the Counter‐Reformation. Officially upheld as the model for all Catholic composers, his works make up the gold standard which his contemporaries and others have tried to follow.
P
almer,
P
hoebe (1807–1874)
Authors: Mills D. E. “Gene”
Published: January 2012

Phoebe Worrall Palmer was born in New York on December 18, 1807. She died in New York on November 2, 1874. She was one of the most popular Methodist speakers of the 19th century. She was the daughter of one of John Wesley's converts and spent her life in proclaiming the message of holiness lifted up by John and Charles Wesley and the early Methodists. She spoke in revivals and camp meetings across the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Her writings and teachings became influential in both Methodist and Holiness–Pentecostal circles, becoming a primary influence in the development of the Church of the Nazarene, the Free Methodist Church, the Salvation Army, and the Wesleyan churches, as well as a large influence on the smaller holiness churches and the newer traditional Pentecostals such as the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) and the International Pentecostal Holiness Church.
Pannenberg,Wolfhart (b. 1928)
Authors: Schmidt Alvin J.
Published: January 2012

The well‐known Christian theologian, Wolfhart Pannenberg, was born in 1928 in Stettin, Germany, which has been part of Poland since World War II. Although he was baptized as an infant in a Lutheran church, he was, until the age of 16, a nominal Lutheran. This changed when he unexpectedly became interested in Christian theology. According to him, he became interested in theology on January 6, 1945, when he was “flooded by light and absorbed in a sea of light,” while walking home from his piano lesson. From that day on, he embarked on a theological journey that has attracted the attention of theologians, both conservative and liberal, worldwide.
Papacy, the
Authors: Schirrmacher Thomas
Published: January 2012

“Pope” (from Greek
pappas
, Lat.
papa
, father) is the most common term in everyday language for the head of the Catholic Church. This is currently Benedict XVI, according to the Catholic Church the 270th pope in apostolic succession since the apostle Peter. The term was used originally for abbots and bishops, and from the 5th century onwards for patriarchs only, and gradually became the most common term for the bishop of Rome, even though still today some Eastern Orthodox patriarchs bear the same title. The Bishop of Rome is the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church, which is the oldest institution in the world as well as the largest, with approximately 1 billion members, the majority belonging to the Latin Rite (or Latin Church), the minority to those Eastern Rites Churches which are in full communion with the Roman Pontiff.