Holy Communion, a Spiritual Agent of Harmonious Diversity in Christ

Holy Communion, a Spiritual Agent of Harmonious Diversity in Christ
Author: Rev. Dr. Kevin Brown
Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
Total Pages: 69
Release: 2024-06-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

Martin King said that the most segregated hour in America is Sunday morning, alluding to the fractured condition of the universal body of Christ's followers, the Church. From 2002 to 2010, I had the privilege of serving as the Executive Director of a nonprofit called Operation Breaking Through, serving the greater Hampton Roads area. The nonprofit was a network of over one hundred local churches. One of my primary responsibilities was to promote racial reconciliation and harmony between the diverse ethnic churches. In most cases, the demographics of these churches failed to reflect their community. Most congregations were monoethnic. Significant progress was evident after several years of pastoral internal and congregational external panel and group discussions. Church pastors were pulpit swapping, and churches were partnering in community outreach. Up to this point, I realized how much blood, sweat, tears, and time I had spent encouraging pastors and congregations to recognize, promote, and practice fellowship and communal service. Though good and somewhat effective, these efforts were all physical with very little thought of spiritual application. It wasn't until I was required to write a paper for a theology class at North Park that God opened my eyes to a deep understanding of the sacrament of Holy Communion. Realizing that all actual Christian denominations and non-dominations mandate practicing this sacrament, I gleaned from my studies the spiritual connectedness all believers share in this one sacred act and the binding blood ties all believers share with the author of this sacrament. In that one epiphany, the dividing wall of ethnicity, culture, and social Christian norms fell. Had Christ, by instituting this faithful act woven into the DNA of our born-again experience, the ability for His divine love and truth to break the chains we would inevitably erect through the weakness of our humanity, selfishness, and pride. What if this one DNA trait of holy communion could activate the true koinonia, which may lay dormant in believers because of historical traditions and practices erected by human-made religion? What if God allowed us to see and experience the depth of spiritual love for our brothers and sisters despite our differences? What if we saw communion as a remembrance of the greatest act of love known to humanity and allowed that remembrance to kindle and rekindle a spiritual intimacy between believers that overcomes our bias, prejudice, privilege, and any barrier to the believer's oneness in Christ? Holy Communion, a Spiritual Agent of Harmonious Diversity in Christ, explores this more profound understanding and revelatory power to breathe new life into the reading believer.

Asian and Pacific Presence

Asian and Pacific Presence
Author: Us Conference of Catholic Bishops
Publisher: USCCB Publishing
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2001
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781574554496

As this moving pastoral statement presents, the rapidly growing Asian and Pacific American communities have helped the Church shine as a sacrament of unity and universality.

The Spirit and the Common Good

The Spirit and the Common Good
Author: Daniela C. Augustine
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2019-09-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467456349

A fresh vision of the common good through pnumatological lenses Daniela C. Augustine, a brilliant emerging scholar, offers a theological ethic for the common good. Augustine develops a public theology from a theological vision of creation as the household of the Triune God, bearing the image of God in a mutual sharing of divine love and justice, and as a sacrament of the divine presence. The Spirit and the Common Good expounds upon the application of this vision not only within the life of the church but also to the realm of politics, economics, and care for creation. The church serves a priestly and prophetic function for society, indeed for all of creation. This renewed vision becomes the foundation for constructing a theological ethic of planetary flourishing in and through commitment to a sustainable communal praxis of a shared future with the other and the different. While emphatically theological in its approach, The Spirit and the Common Good engages readers with insights from political philosophy, sociology of religion, economics, and ecology, as well as forgiveness/reconciliation and peacebuilding studies.

The Image of God in an Image Driven Age

The Image of God in an Image Driven Age
Author: Beth Felker Jones
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2016-03-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 083089960X

Humans are created in the image of God, yet by choosing to rebel against God we become unfaithful bearers of his image. But Jesus, who is the image of God, restores the divine image in us. At the intersection of theology and culture, these essays offer a unified vision of what it means to be truly human and created in the divine image in the world today.

The Solidarity of Others in a Divided World

The Solidarity of Others in a Divided World
Author: Anselm Kyongsuk Min
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2004-02-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780567025708

Using the paradigm of "solidarity of others" as the central theme of theology, this book shows that it is possible to renew the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of solidarity and recapture the potential of the "body of Christ" as embodiment of this solidarity.

What Is Not Sacred?

What Is Not Sacred?
Author: Magesa Laurenti
Publisher: Orbis Books
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2014-04-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1608333213

"It is not for you to call profane what God counts clean."
Did Christianity replace traditional African religion with the arrival of European missionaries in past centuries? Or did sub-Saharan African cultures persist in maintaining their religious worldviews even after accepting the salvific message of Christianity? In this compelling book, Laurenti Magesa argues that despite missionary Christiaity's refusal to acknowledge the worth of traditional African religious culture. the incarnational spirituality of those cultures remains vibrant and visible today, and has much to offer and teach other cultures, both Christian and not.

Engaging Ecclesiology

Engaging Ecclesiology
Author: A. T. B. McGowan
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2023-01-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1666720720

The Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference (EDC) takes place every second year. The Rutherford Centre for Reformed Theology, which runs the conference, has a present interest in studying the doctrine of the church (ecclesiology). After two years of pandemic, when most churches began to take new forms or develop new ways of meeting, many questions are being asked: What is the church, and what is it for? Is it a core element of Christianity, or is it an optional extra? Does the doctrine of the church flow out of our understanding of God and the gospel, or is it to be viewed socially and pragmatically? Are the historic marks of the church still relevant to today's discussions? This volume contains the papers given at the 2021 EDC. Here we have eight significant theologians exploring the nature and function of the church in ways that are challenging and thought-provoking. Continuing the study of ecclesiology, the 2023 EDC will address the subject of the Holy Spirit and the church, and in 2025 the subject will be creeds, confessions, and the church.

Engaging Latino/a/x Theologies

Engaging Latino/a/x Theologies
Author: Sharon E. Heaney
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2024-02-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1666701106

Sharon E. Heaney describes how the life-giving interruption of Latin American poets, novelists, artists, and theologians changed her life in a conflict-ridden Northern Ireland. An outsider, in this study she provides an engagement with a stream of theology in the United States she takes to be exemplary. Latino/a/x theology is teología en conjunto (collaborative theology). It models ways to examine complicated and contested histories and identities, and it resists dominant assumptions about theological points of departure in favor of also valuing the everyday as locus theologicus. Identifying major themes and foundational thinkers, alongside more recent developments, Heaney offers an overview and invites readers to further reading, study, and formation. Modelling what it esteems, each chapter closes in conversation with a Latino/a/x leader in the church. The conclusion is written by practical theologian, Altagracia Pérez-Bullard. She affirms, this “is not just an intellectual exercise, . . . this engagement . . . is the practice of our lives as we journey with God and as we journey with one another. . . . It is an exciting journey. It changes us.”

Welcoming the Stranger Among Us

Welcoming the Stranger Among Us
Author: Catholic Church. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Publisher: USCCB Publishing
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2000
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781574553758

Designed for both ordained and lay ministers at the diocesan and parish levels, this document challenges us to prepare to receive newcomers with a genuine spirit of welcome.