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This article argues that Archbishop Desmond Tutu's submission to the apartheid government's Eloff Commission of Inquiry in 1982 is his most important, most thorough theological achievement. It was foundational for the work of the South African Council of Churches of which he was General Secretary. As such, its contribution to ecumenical theology and the work of ecumenical organizations globally remains invaluable. It also still stands as a singularly important testimony in the areas of political responsibility of churches, Christian organizations, and Christians individually. The issues Tutu raises in his submission, Christian identity, of obedience to God, justice, compassion, and solidarity are crucial matters as powerfully relevant today as they were at the time of the inquiry, and they are of universal import. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important inspiration for T.S. Eliot's Ash-Wednesday is the minstrel comedy of The Two Black Crows. Both puzzling and obscure, this inspiration has not yet received the critical attention it deserves. By reading Eliot's interest in minstrel comedy alongside his concurrent religious conversion and change of citizenship, a fuller understanding of the poet's attempt to transform earlier influences into a new, Christian identity can emerge. In this way, minstrelsy proves to be an essential source of inspiration for both his early, pre-conversion writing, as others have shown, as well as for his later work as a conservative polemicist and religious poet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scholarship on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Jews has focused on two questions: (1) To what extent did the persecution of the Jews drive Bonhoeffer's actions with respect to the Third Reich, and (2) Did Bonhoeffer's theology of Judaism and the Jewish people undergo a change as a result of the Nazi program of persecution and extermination? The work ranges from writers who reject the hagiography of a Bonhoeffer who for the sake of the Jews joined the resistance and paid the ultimate price, to those who argue that the persecution of the Jews was key in the development of Bonhoeffer's theology and his resistance to National Socialism. Bonhoeffer biographer Eberhard Bethge figured large in this second group; Bethge's work in this area coincided with his involvement in Christian post-Holocaust theology, an expression of the intensely philojudaic theology that emerged in the West following World War II. Driven by the desire to atone for millennia of anti-Jewish doctrine and action, post-Holocaust theology has exerted a strong influence on Bonhoeffer scholarship. The argument of this article is that the postwar focus on Christian anti-Judaism has led the church away from confronting the exceptionalism that persists in Christian identity and teaching. In its penitential zeal, the postwar project to renounce church anti-Judaism has instead replaced it with a Judeo-Christian triumphalism and a theological embrace of political Zionism that betray fundamental gospel principles. These run counter to the passionate opposition to the merger of hyper-nationalism and religion that informs Bonhoeffer's radical, humanistic Christology. Fashioning Bonhoeffer as a martyr for the Jews and as a forerunner of post-Holocaust theology does damage to the legacy of his theology and distorts the lessons of his life and witness. This carries implications for the role of the church in confronting the urgent issues of our time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Josephus' Temple ekphrasis in his Jewish War (5.136–247) is a significant literary monument. The description of this quintessential Jewish holy place has a great deal to do with Jewish identity. In the late fourth century, the Latin Christian author Pseudo-Hegesippus, in his work On the Destruction of Jerusalem , rewrote the Temple description to emphasize Christian identity as central to the Temple's construction, not Jewish identity. In the tenth century, the Jewish author of the Hebrew Sefer Yosippon rewrote the Temple description again to emphasize Jewish identity. By reading these Greek, Latin, and Hebrew Temple descriptions comparatively, one may identify an ongoing identity discourse about Jewish and/or Christian identity vis-à-vis the Jerusalem Temple. These three accounts, with each subsequent account based on the one that came before, illustrate a back-and-forth discussion between Jewish and Christian authors across a millennium about what the Temple means and is/was for Jews and Christians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Romanitas: Revista de Estudos Greco-Latinas is the property of Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This qualitative article examines the making of a distinct Christian identity through confessional teaching of Christianity. As there had been very little empirical research on teachers of religious education and none on teaching Christianity in Israel, this pioneering paper investigates the teachers' views on their goals and challenges, while analysing how Christian identity is constructed, reworked and negotiated in their practice. In doing so, the article reflects on the meaning and implications of two moods of being a Christian in Israel: being a member of a Christian minority within the Arab minority in Israel (minority within minority), and being a member of a Christian minority of the Muslim and the Jewish majorities in Israel (minority of two majorities). The article examines how teachers educate for both moods and ponders over the sociopolitical interests served by the teachers in religious education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a wider study on the formation and maintenance of academic identity among lecturing staff at a faith-based university in Papua New Guinea, we explore the perceived influence of an institutional Christian ethos. The wider study treated topics such as values and academia, how interviewees experience and enhance their identity as an academic, what they most and least enjoy about academic work, and possible cultural tensions between Western and local values. Our analysis in this paper focuses on responses to the research question: "What roles does a Christian ethos play in shaping your academic identity at Divine Word University?" The question was designed to elicit responses on how an institutional faith ethos and personal academic identity are viewed as related. Four broad themes were identified from academics' responses to the specific question. These themes suggest that an institutional Christian ethos is seen as shaping academics' role identities in multiple ways across three levels: on a personal level, as reinforcing academic values and academic commitment; at a community level, through contributing to creating a campus academic community; and at a national level, through framing the task of student learning as a contribution to nation building and ethical citizenship, not only to instrumental purposes of employment. We suggest that at this University, a Christian ethos helps to give shape and definition to concepts of academic identity in an environment where longstanding Western ideals of the academic profession are not well-known. Overall, for academics at Divine Word University, the institutional ethos is perceived to contribute positively to academic identity but its continuation cannot be taken for granted. We offer some proposals for improved practices that might apply to the University and to Christian higher education in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to explore how non-Christian deities are described, in comparison to the Christian God, in three Old Norse texts, belonging to different genres: Heimskringla, Barlaams saga og Jósafats, Elíss saga ok Rosamundu. These texts describe the pantheons of the Nordic cultures, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Saracens. The main question that I discuss is whether these texts may be seen as transmitting useful knowledge and information about these religions and pantheons to their Nordic audiences or whether they are meant to mainly serve the mandate of their Christian authors. I interpret my results by deploying cognitive literary theory and the concept of mentalization. To conclude, I discuss whether the way non-Christian deities are described may be seen as a mental guide for Old Norse readers to practise mentalization according to the Christian empathetic scripts, in order to reach a deeper cognitive and religious conviction and thus strengthen their Christian identities and communities during the times of the Crusades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals of Theology / Roczniki Teologiczne is the property of Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL & Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawla II and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although it has long been recognized that treating "born‐again" and "evangelical" as equivalents is problematic, little scholarly effort has been made to assess whether the difference makes a difference. This study seeks to do so, assessing, in part, the extent to which the "born‐again or evangelical Christian" survey question captures evangelical identities and whether the question has merit for capturing evangelical respondents. By analyzing surveys in which respondents were asked separate questions related to a "born‐again" and an evangelical identity, this study addresses several issues related to such identities, including whether "born‐again" and evangelical identities are the same, and, if not, whether the difference makes a difference. In the end, significant political differences emerge between those who identify as evangelicals and those who identify as "born‐again," suggesting that scholars and surveys would be better served to ask separate "born‐again" and evangelical identity questions than to merge the two into one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the rededication of two formerly "Arian" churches, S. Severinus and S. Agata dei Goti, by Gregory I, Bishop of Rome from 590 until 604. These rededications are investigated from three perspectives. Part I sketches the historical and topographical context of the buildings. Part II considers Gregory's motives. Without denying the practical benefits of church restorations, rededication was an inexpensive way for Gregory to display papal authority during a time of diminished resources and an opportunity to publicly perform and reinforce Rome's orthodox Christian identity. The final part of this paper examines the rhetorical strategies employed by Gregory to describe the rededication of S. Agata in the Dialogues. Importantly, the story of S. Agata is part of a series of vignettes illustrating the victory of Christian orthodoxy over heresy, especially Arianism. This narrative took on added significance in the early 590s as the Lombards threatened the city of Rome. The saints chosen by Gregory to rededicate S. Agata and S. Severinus may have been intended to evoke both the Arian past and the orthodox present of these churches. And although the rituals used to make S. Agata fit for Catholic worship were not significantly different from those used to dedicate any church in late antique Rome, Gregory transformed the rededication ceremony into a dramatic story of the triumph of the city's orthodox community, its church, and its bishop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This narrative study investigated the perceived experience and navigation of identity gaps in intrafaith Protestant dating relationships. In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 selfidentified Christians. Guided by the communication theory of identity, the analyses revealed identity-rooted dilemmas that disrupted the ideal Christian relationship trajectory. Under two identity gap motifs, four themes were uncovered: personal identity dissonance via enacted identity, perceived partner identity dissonance, church prescriptions and expectations, and intimacy boundary regulation and synchronization dilemmas. Three communication strategies were identified as attempts to navigate identity gaps: reinforcing faith-based identity awareness, practicing multiple interaction pathways, and tracking and sustaining third-party viewpoints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-semitism, racism, pro-life beliefs, and extreme Christian ideology have long been acknowledged to be a feature in far-right terrorist violence in the United States. However, what has been less acknowledged is the underpinning element of misogyny. This paper aims to reflect on why this is. First, it looks at the chronological trajectory of "common-couple violence" to "patriarchal terrorism" to "misogynistic terrorism." Even though scholarship on this form of terrorism can be traced back to the 1970s, mainstream Terrorism Studies has never fully engaged with the idea. This is echoed in a recent assertion that misogyny and violence against women is not political and therefore not terrorism. Second, this paper aims to demonstrate that this lack of engagement works in tandem with the bare minimum of acknowledgement of misogyny in the far-right. Explicitly, it argues that it is hard to see misogyny in a largely patriarchal and masculinist system. This is even more important today with the rise of Incels and the manosphere, especially in how these support the US's flirtation with Trump's misogynist and racist driven neo-fascism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on three historical examples of a different understanding of Christian identity, the paper seeks to address the role of contemporary concepts of sex and gender in the creation of Christian identity. In the first case study, focused on the literary representations of the Christian martyrdom from the second and third centuries, special emphasis is placed on the demand for the ‘manly’ or ‘masculine’ way of witnessing faith. The second historical example relates to the creation of a wider ascetic movement in the fourth-century Asia Minor, and its specific focus is on Macrina the Younger. In her Vita, Gregory of Nyssa distinguishes between Macrina’s gender identity based on her virginity on the one hand, and her social role as a widow, and ‘mother’ and ‘father’ of her monastic community on the other. Finally, the focus is shifted towards Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor, whose teachings about ecstasy, as a way to transcend oneself in the movement towards the loved one, provide the basis for establishing a theology of marriage and creating a Christian identity based not on sexual or gender roles, but on the uniqueness of human nature.

This article applies the conceptual framework found in Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age“ (2007) to the developments within the field of diaconia (Christian Social Practice) in a Danish context. It explores how the conditions of a secular “age of authenticity” may affect the Christian identity of diaconal work. Modern diaconia, which was closely linked to the mobilization of church and civil society in the 19th century, today finds itself in new situation, where Christianity is no longer the common moral and religious framework. In this new context, some diaconal organizations and institutions seem to downplay their ecclesial anchoring and Christian identity and seem to carry out their professional helping action within an immanent and exclusivist humanist framework. The author takes this as an occasion for a more general discussion about whether or not and how this development represents a challenge to the Christian identity of diaconia. This is done by engaging the diaconal theologies of J. Moltmann, Pope Benedict XVI, Christoph Sigrist and Heinz Rüegger with Taylor’s ideas. The article argues that diaconal work should have a distinctive Christian character to provide an integral helping action. If diaconia is understood as an essential expression of the church, then it must retain a marked Christian identity. Diaconia thereby becomes one of the church’s unique and authentic contributions in a pluralistic society.

The COVID pandemic prompted most parishes to provide resources for worship in the household: service programs, websites with the Daily Office, pre-recorded worship, and livestreamed liturgies. Thus, the pandemic has drawn attention to household worship, a longstanding practice among Christians but one that has been frequently overlooked in seminary education and pastoral practice. This essay considers the sources alive in Anglican and Episcopal communities that support such practices and also considers the unfortunate tendency to create a learned dependency on religious professionals and the need to foster practices that cultivate Christian identity in the household. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Die Frage nach der Identifizierung der Gegner im Galaterbrief spielt in der neutestamentlichen Forschung eine wesentliche Rolle, zumal sowohl die Einschätzung der groben Stoßrichtung als auch diejenige der konkreten Argumentationsführung dieses paulinischen Schreibens von der Beantwortung der Gegnerfrage nicht unwesentlich beeinflusst werden. Trotz aller Schwierigkeiten, die mit dieser Frage verbunden sind, kann eine Mehrheitsmeinung dahingehend konstatiert werden, dass es sich um jüdische oder judenchristliche Missionare handelt, welche die heidnischen Galater zu einer Orientierung am jüdischen Gesetz und zur Übernahme von Tora-Vorschriften bewegen wollten. Der vorliegende Beitrag plädiert auf der Basis textkritischer Beobachtungen gegen diese vorherrschende Meinung und schlägt eine Identifizierung der Gegner als „judaisierende Heidenchristen" vor. Diese Zuschreibung führt zu einer Neubewertung der Argumentationsführung des Galaterbriefs, denn vor dem Hintergrund einer solchen Gegneridentifikation legt sich die Annahme nahe, dass sich Paulus mit einer fehlerhaften Perspektive von Heidenchristen auf das Judentum sowie mit einem damit grundsätzlich zusammenhängenden Kategorienfehler im Blick auf die soteriologische Funktion der Tora auseinanderzusetzen hatte. Der Beitrag verdeutlicht zudem, dass zur Abfassungszeit des Galaterbriefs offenbar noch eine klare Differenzierung zwischen Christen mit jüdischer Identität und solchen mit einem paganen Hintergrund auszumachen ist, eine Differenzierung, die jedoch im Zuge der neutestamentlichen Textüberlieferung mehr und mehr verwischt wurde. The question of the identification of Paul's opponents in Galatians plays an important role in New Testament research, especially since both the assessment of the general message and the concrete argumentation of this Pauline letter are significantly shaped by the answer to the question of the opponents. In spite of all the difficulties connected with this question, the majority view is that the opponents in Galatia are Jewish or Jewish-Christian missionaries who wanted to persuade the Gentile Galatians to orient themselves towards Jewish law and to adopt Torah regulations. Based on text-critical observations, this article argues against this prevailing opinion and proposes an identification of the opponents as "Judaising Gentile Christians". This attribution leads to a re-evaluation of the argumentation of Galatians because, against the background of such an identification of the opponents, there are good reasons to think that Paul had to deal with an erroneous perspective of Gentile Christians on Judaism as well as a related misunderstanding about the soteriological function of the Torah. The article also suggests that at the time of writing, a clear differentiation between Christians with a Jewish identity and those with a pagan background can still be discerned, a differentiation that became more and more blurred in the course of the New Testament textual tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wesley Swift was an American religious minister with a key role in the formation of Christian Identity, an anti-Semitic Christian theo-political paradigm at the service of the post-war far right. This article traces the influences that inspired Swift and his resignifications according to the needs of the extreme right in the specific context of general paranoia during the first decades of the Cold War. Analyzing Swift's theo-politics from his anthropology, soteriology, demonology, and eschatology allows us to understand the process of genesis of a cult like Christian Identity, which seems marginal and exotic, but has a lot to do with the context in which it appeared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on pursuit of Christian holiness and identity in the works of American monk Thomas Merton and head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. Topics include how Merton's writings anticipate the nature of Christian discipleship presented in Pope Francis's magisterial teaching; and non-canonical ‘saints pattern of holiness that evokes the life and writing of the late U.S. Trappist monk reduced to the hagiographic tales of superhuman heroism.

Copyright of Cauriensia: Revista Anual de Ciencias Eclesiásticas is the property of Instituto Teologico San Pedro de Alcantara de Caceres and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Christian Caritas and Diakonie are Germany's largest welfare providers. They currently recruit abroad and in refugee shelters to fill staffing shortages in care. Yet, they also seek to preserve their organisations' Christian identity. Drawing on interviews with facility managers, my research explores how these initiatives shape institutional life in care homes. Specifically, I examine meanings attributed to conversion, notably in relation to Muslim staff. My analysis shows that Christians, nominal ('by heritage') or observant, are seen to 'naturally embody' care ethics and have privileged access to permanent contracts and leadership positions. The churches' politics of identity, I argue, racialises affiliation with Christianity into a category of belonging naturally inhabited by some, and only potentially – and always debatably – attainable for others. The analysis feeds into controversies about conversion in the sociology of race and extends scholarship on identity politics beyond its usual focus on minority or far-right activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay investigates the importance of death in Chanson de Roland for the purposes of enacting and changing borders of cultural identity. It argues that Roland responds to contemporary concerns over Christian superiority vis-à-vis the Islamic world. The representation of communities in Roland is dynamic and changing over the course of the poem: Christian and Saracen communities are initially behaviourally different but with superficial qualities of resemblance that threaten to efface the perceived moral and chivalric superiority of Christendom. Roland's slaying of a specific group of Saracen knights effects a potent clarification and reformulation of communal boundaries between Christians and Saracens, removing any ambiguity or illusion of moral parity between the two camps. Meanwhile, his own death allows for a consolidation of a uniform Frankish Christian identity and a transformation in social and political structures. Finally, the execution of Ganelon functions to qualm unsettling fears over lingering heresy and affirms the non-ethnic basis for Christian identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wesley Swift fue un ministro religioso estadounidense con un rol clave en la formación de Christian Identity, paradigma teo-político cristiano antisemita al servicio de la extrema derecha de la posguerra. Este artículo rastrea las influencias que inspiraron a Swift y sus re-significaciones a la luz de las necesidades de la extrema derecha en el contexto específico de paranoia general durante las primeras décadas de la Guerra Fría. Analizar la construcción de teo-política de Swift a partir de su antropología, soteriología, demonología y escatología permite comprender el proceso de génesis de un culto como Christian Identity, el cual parece marginal y exótico, pero tiene mucho que ver con su coyuntura de surgimiento.

Dialogue within a multi-religious context presupposes the recognition of the many identities that are involved in mutual encounter and exchange. The understanding, shape or interpretation of each identity plays a critical role in the nature of the dialogical process as well as the outcome of the dialogue itself. This article re-assesses the Christian identity in the dialogue between Christians and Muslims, with a focus on how this plays out in the Nigerian context. It explores how a distinctive African worldview can shape the Christian identity towards an increased relationality, solidarity, and interdependence. Furthermore, the article critically investigates fundamentalist tendencies within Nigerian Christianity, and finally addresses how ‘a personalist approach’ could foster better intra- and inter-religious encounters in Nigeria in a manner that preserves identity while remaining open towards the other (Christian or religious).

An exploration of the complex relationship between Christian constructions of identity and the idea of sacrality derived from the ancient Greco-Roman world, this article argues that Christian identity developed uniquely in a specific context, often intertwined with theology and mythology. The complex relationship between the two was crucial in the construction of Christian identity in the lands recently converted, and influenced the authors of world maps from the eleventh century onward. This study investigates how the pagan past and Christian present were incorporated in some world maps, such as the twelfth-century English Sawley map. Thus it offers readers a coherent analysis of early history-writing in northern Europe in the first centuries after conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been various studies on the passage of Philippians 1:15-18 but there have been few studies on a hybrid aspect of Christian identity implicated in the passage. The aim of the study was to reveal a hybrid aspect of the passage. The socio-historical setting for the study was the Greco-Roman period. For this study, I employed rhetorical criticism, a sociolinguistic approach and an anthropological linguistic approach to the passage, as well as the analysis of the socio-historical and cultural background of the passage. As a result, I found that Paul, who retained his Jewish identity but embraced Christian identity, tried to suggest such a new kind of identity for the intended audience and their community. In this article, I argued that Paul as a hybrid personality urged the Christian community in Philippi to have distinguished Christian habitus and field in Philippians 1:15-18. In particular, Paul persuaded his intended audience or readers to acknowledge and accept even those preachers who had questionable intentions into their Christian community. Such an inclusive attitude was to make a clear distinction between the community and their traditional Greco-Roman socio-cultural background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Praktyka Teoretyczna is the property of University of Wroclaw and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The present paper provides a discursive study upon the development of a Christian identity through the liturgical prayers of remembrance of the faithful that are part of the Eucharistic Liturgy attributed to Saint John Chrysostom, the most frequently celebrated in the Orthodox Church, throughout the liturgical year. The discursive analysis focuses on the French text of this sermon, as it was translated by Reverend Archimandrite Placide Deseille, one of the greatest contemporary French Orthodox theologians. This analysis is developed around the lexical and semantic study of phrases such as: “remembering in the Kingdom of God”, “the remembrance of God” and “to commemorate” being supported by a theological reflection, borrowed from another great Contemporary French theologian, secular this time, Jean-Claude Larchet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Religião e Sociedade is the property of Instituto de Estudos da Religiao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Christian growth must not only be considered in terms of the growth of numbers. The growth in the church must also be considered in the level of depth and the quality of Christian conversion within a cultural milieu. The depth of the faith has a lot to do with how the Gospel speaks directly to the minds and hearts of its hearers. Moreover, the Gospel can speak to the hearts and minds of its hearers when the indigenous world views that condition the inner lives of the people are given serious consideration. The study is a review of the major works of Sidney George Williamson on the Christian faith and Akan culture in Ghana. As an early student of the tension between the Christian faith and Akan culture and the challenges of Christian identity, Williamson draws attention to the fact that Christianity can adequately meet Akan Christian needs when it pays attention to the cultural world view of the people it seeks to serve. The study as a qualitative one uses both primary and secondary sources. Interviews and observations were conducted in some Akan communities on the integration of Christian faith and Akan cultural worldview. The study points to the fact that the construction of theology among Akan Christians must be done from the inside to the outside and not from outside to the inside, the approach that Western missionaries adopted. The spiritual needs of Akan Christians will be adequately met when they hear the Gospel in their own cultural understandings rather than theology done in the West offered to the Akan in European worldview. The study further calls attention to the preparedness of the churches in the Akan cultural environment for paradigm shifts in the Christian faith and Akan Cultural engagements in post-missionary African Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few verses have defined Christian identity and informed attitudes to other religions more than John 14.6. But who is the 'I' in 'I am the way and the truth and the life'? After exploring antecedents and considering indicators within the Gospel itself, this article concludes that the Evangelist not only distinguishes between Jesus of Nazareth and the divine Logos, but also identifies the divine Logos incarnated in Jesus as the subject of this and other 'I am' sayings within John. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline of paganism in Late Antiquity contributed to the transformation of culture of the roman society. With the victory of Christianity, which became firstly a dominant and later the only accepted religion, the objects of the classical culture became a problematic heritage. The aim of the paper is to present the Christians’ shifting attitude towards the material remains of the pagan culture and the way in which they influenced and shaped the identity of the Christian community. These processes are analyzed on the example of Rome in the period from the 4th to the 6th century. Special attention is paid to the area of the Roman Forum, which was characterized by exceptional accumulation and density of the monuments which constituted the pagan heritage. Since it was the central and representative space, the symbolical character of the forum was very important for the leaders of the local community and its transformations reflect very well the changing attitude of the Christians towards the pagan heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anglican (Episcopal) churches around the world face a serious problem in discipleship and has called for a season of "intentional discipleship and disciple-making." The Anglican Church of Canada renewed its emphasis on discipleship, providing some helpful resources, but there are no studies of how discipleship may be experienced at a congregational level. This study focuses on an Anglican church, identified as a leader in discipleship ministry. Through in-depth interviews and observations of formative events, I sought to discover how this congregation understood discipleship, engaged its Anglican tradition, lived and nurtured its reality in their context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]