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In this article, the author speaks about how a profession (job) can constitute a road to God and can lead one to a deeper understanding of spirituality as the heart of theology, by investigating the spiritual autobiographies of Teilhard de Chardin and Dag Hammarskjöld. While the former was a Jesuit with important contributions to the historical field, the latter was an important personality in the field of international diplomacy, whose contribution came to light towards the end of the important crises that took place in the 1960s. Both of them left us rich spiritual autobiographies in the form of a last published book (De Chardin) and a manuscript discovered after the author’s death and published posthumously (Dag Hammarskjöld). Contribution: This article brings into attention two important authors of the 20th century with different confessional backgrounds (Teilhard de Chardin was a Catholic Jesuit who worked as an archaeologist and was recognised for his work by being elected as a member of reputed forums such as the French Academy, while Dag Hammarskjöld, one of the holders of the posthumous Nobel Prize, was a diplomat with economical and law studies and deep theological concerns, which left to the posterity not only works from his activity field, but also an extremely useful spiritual autobiography) by investigating their spiritual autobiographies and showing how the profession they exercised led them to God and helped them deepen their spirituality and theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs about rise of confessional private universities in Argentina, with a demand from the Catholic Church or an opportunity for linked perspectives the study of the socio-political context and the dichotomy of secular or confessional education. Topics include different sectors of Catholicism on the creation of private universities and Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; and private initiative can create its own higher-level institutions and fight against school secularism.

Translation of the book “Here we stand. Who are the Lutherans?” by Hermann Sasse appeared twenty years ago and was thought, as follows from its title, to clarify the features of confessional identity for Russian Lutherans. However, the author argues that the title is absolutely misleading and can cause perplexity of a neophyte reader. The translation made by K. Komarov was highly inaccurate and fool of annoying errors and misspellings, while the interpreter itself as well as the editor demonstrated complete ignorance of historical and theological realities. H. Sasse’s book appeared immediately after Nazis coming to power and their attempts to create a unified Protestant church under their leadership. Among Nazis opponents were many Christian denominations — Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists. H. Sasse himself found a middle path lashing both Nazis and Christian-antifascists. This allowed him to speak out openly on issues of the Church conversions, keeping loyalty to the regime and pursuing a career of lecturer. Thus, reading this book without understanding the context of its creation, which is partially reflected in the review, can hardly contribute to the understanding of the features of the Lutheran beliefs. The author gives the brief amount of the historical background and analyses some errors, made by translators.

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In this article, I intend to survey the reception of versions of the Old Testament in the Orthodox churches, focusing on the Greek, Russian and Romanian Church, respectively. While Western biblical scholars gave precedence to the Hebrew text over the Septuagint, in the Orthodox world one can see a tension in the relationship between the two textual witnesses and sometimes, even recently, there are voices which tend to give the Septuagint total authority in the Church. Orthodox scholars in the field of Old Testament studies usually resort to the Hebrew text, but especially scholars from outside this field tend to promote the Septuagint as the Old Testament of the Orthodox Church. I shall use the argument of authority, which is improper for scientific argumentation, but it suits my research, as I try to understand the confessional positions held within Eastern Orthodoxy. Consequently, if a certain saint, acknowledged as such by a national Orthodox Church or by the entire Eastern Orthodox communion, embraces a particular view on this subject, this bears significantly on the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents brief description on the relationship between writing and church fellowship with reference to sola scriptura. Topics discussed include reference of confessional churches in the Bible, reformation churches, theological assessment of church life in Italy, and tensions between Old and New Testament.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a member of the famous military resistance group against the Nazi regime of July, 20th, 1944; he was killed by the SS in KZ Flossenbiirg. He saw the signs of the times, he stood up against racism and oppression, he fought for freedom, justice and peace. At the age of 25 - in 1931 - he delivered his first peace ethic document directed against Nazi ideology in politics and within the protestant church. His theological approach followed a social-oriented „Christian realism" as basis for action: international disarmament, good neighborhood in Europe and reconciliation between the enemies of the Great War. Bonhoeffer acted as youth secretary of the „International Council of Christian Peace Movements" in Geneva. He gave a prominent speech in 1934 in Fan.0 (Denmark) in which he demanded a fundamental concept of global peace to overcome racial, historical and social differences between nations; he urged representatives of politics and churches to make peace („pacem facere"). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The confession of faith in the lordship of Jesus Christ may be considered the originary practice of the Christian life. As such it recommends itself as a primary site at which to investigate the relation between the agency of the Holy Spirit and human activity. Focusing on 1Cor. 12:1-3, which identifies the act of the Spirit as the sine qua non of Christian confession, we examine its importance within the theological setting of Paul's apocalyptic gospel in order to illumine classical Reformed debates about the nature of faith and 'effectual calling' in relation to the act of publicly confessing faith in Christ. Recognition of the Spirit as the present power of God's eschatological reign, militant to shape reality, to win and secure faith, and to move women and men to a free creaturely acknowledgment of the same, proves essential to understanding the act of confessing the faith. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, Thailand has seen the development of new styles of social and political organisation whose effects can be seen across religious and confessional lines. Among them are charismatically led large-scale organisations emulating the style of large-scale businesses. The article ‘triangulates’ this style via brief case studies of the Thai Rak Thai Party (now the Phuea Thai Party), the Wat Phra Dhammakaya Buddhist meditation movement and the Church of the Divine Call (pseudonym), who share some underlying similarities despite their overt differences. The similarities among the groups flow in part from trends associated with economic development and globalisation. Yet, at the same time these groups – and the ways in which they inspired such fervent opposition – express some enduring features of Thai cultural and social organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article proposes a theological-pastoral reading of the results of the most recent Census by the IBGE 2010– Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística – regarding religion in Brazil, published in July 2012, while alsodrawing on a study by the Fundação Getúlio Vargas – O novo mapa das religiões (The new map of religions) –published in 2011, and on the research project sponsored by the Archdiocese of Belo Horizonte regardingValores e religião na região metropolitana (Values and religion in the metropolitan region), which was carriedout in 2012. The reading proposed by this article focuses especially on what the data from these investigationssay about the Catholic Church. After commenting briefly on some elements presented by the research, thetext proposes some interpretative keys. The first is a socio-religious reading, showing that the steep decline inrates of belonging to Catholicism is the result of the shift from an “environmental” and “natal” type of religionto a religion of “conviction,” with a “confessional” nature. Secondly, the article presents some roots of thisway of understanding faith in the New Testament and in the Second Vatican Council’s reading of the nature and mission of the Church. Finally, it concludes with some pastoral considerations, pointing not so much tosolutions regarding the decline in Catholic belonging, but rather to the attitudes that a “confessional” church should have in our time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Protestant Reformation, the beginning of a time full of novelty for Europe and the world, new religious groups like Lutheranism, Calvinism and post tridentine Roman Catholicism, were co-participants in a turbulent process of definition of identities and establishment of frontiers in its religious and political discourses and practices. This process is denominated confessionalization, because of the emphasis in systematized public declarations of faith and doctrine, called confessions. We intend in this article to approach the emergence, in that context, of the Lutheran orthodoxy, which constructed during the XVI and XVII centuries, based on Aristotelian grounds, a kind of protestant scholastic theology that influenced significantly and for many years the Lutheran ways of thinking and acting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features the Barmen Theological Declaration which was adopted in May 1934 by the first Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church in Barmen, Germany. The Barmen Declaration was presented by Hans Asmussen and was unanimously adopted by the synod, which comprises of members from the Lutheran church, Reformed and United Churches, free synods, among others. It explores the significance of the declaration to the new ecumenical century.

The article discusses how the faithful in South Africa has accepted the 1934 Barmen Declaration of the Confessing Church in Germany. It cites the role played by the Declaration in the formulation and adoption by the former Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) of the Confession of Belhar in South Africa. It explores the role played by the declaration in the theological fight of the churches against apartheid.