Reforms and processes of change have become an increasingly pervasive characteristic of European Protestant churches in the last fifteen to twenty years. Driven by perceptions of crises, such as declining membership rates, dwindling finances, decreasing participation in church rituals, and less support of traditional church doctrine, but also changes of governance of religion more generally, many churches feel compelled to explore new forms of operations, activities, and organizational structures. What is the inner dynamic and nature of these processes? This book explores this question by...
Reforms and processes of change have become an increasingly pervasive characteristic of European Protestant churches in the last fifteen to twenty yea...
Description: What does it mean to believe in the church? What is the relationship between the church we believe in and the church we experience? Is there an invisible church that is different from the visible? This book is an argument for an ecclesiology of the visible. The only church, the real church, is a concrete reality made up of people, just like any other fellowship. What distinguishes it as church is the presence of the triune God among those who gather in the name of Jesus, making it a sign and anticipation of the fellowship of the kingdom of God. From this premise Dr. Hegstad...
Description: What does it mean to believe in the church? What is the relationship between the church we believe in and the church we experience? Is th...
Description: This book brings together a variety of perspectives on how religion can be related to violence and war--both in a destructive and constructive way. Religion can justify and mobilize violence--even terrorism or guerilla wars--just like political ideology. But how is such a link between religion and violent behavior established in the first place? How can we go further in understanding this possible connection between religion and war? Is religious peace work just the flip side of religious support of war? Or can peace work be informed by knowing about how religion promotes...
Description: This book brings together a variety of perspectives on how religion can be related to violence and war--both in a destructive and constru...
Description: From a historical perspective, similarities among the Lutheran churches in Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are easily understood. But these previously homogeneous northern societies, built on a Lutheran tradition with close ties between church and state, are now considered to be among the most secular in the world, as well as being impacted by a growing presence of other religions. These changes present a major challenge to the churches concerning how to relate to the state and how to be a ""folk church."" The goal of this volume is to explore how Lutheran identity presently...
Description: From a historical perspective, similarities among the Lutheran churches in Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden are easily understood. Bu...
Description: The HIV pandemic has caused serious challenges for the Church as well as for theology. The pandemic has brought enormous human suffering to individuals and has affected families and entire societies. In this context, churches need to listen and to learn, and not least to respond, to thereby mold their own actions and futures. In so doing, this book aims to enable churches to become more HIV and AIDS competent. Vulnerability, Churches, and HIV includes two kinds of contributions. First, researchers present their thoughts about theology, the church, and HIV. A pastoral letter from...
Description: The HIV pandemic has caused serious challenges for the Church as well as for theology. The pandemic has brought enormous human suffering ...
Description: In a world where almost all societies are multi-religious and multi-ethnic, we need to study how social cohesion can be achieved in different contexts. In some geographical areas, as in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, people of different religious belonging have, through the ages, lived side by side, sometimes in harmony and sometimes in dissonance. In other geographical regions, as in Scandinavia, societies have been quite religiously homogeneous but only recently challenged by immigration. The implication in both locations is that the relation between religious...
Description: In a world where almost all societies are multi-religious and multi-ethnic, we need to study how social cohesion can be achieved in diffe...
Description: The church exists for the sake of the world. The crucial ecclesiological question that this book raises is How? How does the church exist for sake of the world? One can describe the theological reflections in this book as a form of concrete ecclesiology--critical theological reflections on the way the church is manifested in social and historical contexts as a social body. By using concepts like body, queer, human rights, practices, social process, and space, the manifestations of the concrete church are critically and constructively analyzed from a theological perspective. The...
Description: The church exists for the sake of the world. The crucial ecclesiological question that this book raises is How? How does the church exist...
The field of ecclesiology is rapidly expanding as new material, theories, methods, and approaches are being explored. This raises important and challenging questions concerning ecclesiology as an academic discipline. This book takes the reader into the trenches of ecclesiological research where the actual work of reading, writing, interpreting, and analyzing is being done. The authors reflect on fundamental questions concerning theory and method in ecclesiology in relation to concrete and actual research projects. Ecclesiology is dealt with as a systematic, empirical, historical, and...
The field of ecclesiology is rapidly expanding as new material, theories, methods, and approaches are being explored. This raises important and challe...
All of the member churches of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) are related to Lutheran theology in one way or another. However, that does not mean they act similarly or draw the same conclusions about any particular issue. Rather, Lutheran churches around the globe display great diversity. This book has its background in a study of five Lutheran churches: the ILCO in Costa Rica, the IECLB in Brazil, the ELCI in Iceland, the FLM in Madagascar, and the HKBP in Indonesia. It addresses the questions of how the Lutheran heritage today is expressed in different churches and what is the role of...
All of the member churches of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) are related to Lutheran theology in one way or another. However, that does not mean ...
Lutheran tradition has in various ways influenced attitudes to work, the economy, the state, education, and health care. One reason that Lutheran theology has been interpreted in various ways is that it is always influenced by surrounding social and cultural contexts.
In a society where the church has lost a great deal of its cultural impact and authority, and where there is a plurality of religious convictions, the question of Lutheran identity has never been more urgent. However, this question is also raised in the Global South where Lutheran churches need to find their identity in a...
Lutheran tradition has in various ways influenced attitudes to work, the economy, the state, education, and health care. One reason that Lutheran theo...
