Episcopacy, Authority, and Gender PDF Download

Author: Jan Wim Buisman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900430312X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
What is the base of religious leadership and how has it changed over the centuries? This volume presents a range of actors, both men and women, who, in a variety of historical contexts, claimed to be the living voices or intermediaries of God. The essays analyse the foundation of their authoritative claims and ask how and how far they succeeded in securing obedience from the Christians to whom they addressed their message. Religious authority is not understood as a monolithic entity but as something derived from many sources and claims. Whatever the national background, whether ordained or supposedly appointed through divine intervention, the histories of the people portrayed underline the long-term manifestations and multifaceted nature of Christian identity.

Author: C. Andrew Doyle
Publisher: Church Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 1640655549
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Top voices highlight important changes in the role of bishop. Compelling essays, written by bishops, other clergy, and academics from across the Episcopal Church, reflect the breadth of thinking on the history, current state, and future of the role of leadership within the denomination and the wider Anglican Communion. Topics include the transformation of the role over the last fifty years, a review of historic documents on the episcopacy, issues of race and gender, and the definition of ministry and leadership. This volume will be of interest to leaders across denominations as well as scholars.

Author: Beth Allison Barr
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1493429639
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
USA Today Bestseller Christianity Today 2022 Book Award Finalist (History & Biography) "A powerful work of skillful research and personal insight."--Publishers Weekly Biblical womanhood--the belief that God designed women to be submissive wives, virtuous mothers, and joyful homemakers--pervades North American Christianity. From choices about careers to roles in local churches to relationship dynamics, this belief shapes the everyday lives of evangelical women. Yet biblical womanhood isn't biblical, says Baylor University historian Beth Allison Barr. It arose from a series of clearly definable historical moments. This book moves the conversation about biblical womanhood beyond Greek grammar and into the realm of church history--ancient, medieval, and modern--to show that this belief is not divinely ordained but a product of human civilization that continues to creep into the church. Barr's historical insights provide context for contemporary teachings about women's roles in the church and help move the conversation forward. Interweaving her story as a Baptist pastor's wife, Barr sheds light on the #ChurchToo movement and abuse scandals in Southern Baptist circles and the broader evangelical world, helping readers understand why biblical womanhood is more about human power structures than the message of Christ.

Author: Donna Trembinski
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487507410
Category : Christian saints
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Illness and Authority is the first monograph-length study to examine a well-known medieval saint from the perspective of disability studies.

Author: Greg Peters
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004305866
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
In A Companion to Priesthood and Holy Orders in the Middle Ages, a select group of scholars explain the rise and function of priests and deacons in the Middle Ages. Though priests were sometimes viewed through the lens of function, the medieval priesthood was also defined ontologically–those marked by God who performed the sacraments and confected the Eucharist. While their role grew in importance, medieval priests continued to fulfil the role of preacher, confessor and provider of pastoral care. As the concept of ordination changed theologically the practices and status of bishops, priests and deacons continued to be refined, with many of these medieval discussions continuing to the present day.

Author: Olivier Hekster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009226754
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
For centuries, Roman emperors ruled a vast empire. Yet, at least officially, the emperor did not exist. No one knew exactly what titles he possessed, how he could be portrayed, what exactly he had to do, or how the succession was organised. Everyone knew, however, that the emperor held ultimate power over the empire. There were also expectations about what he should do and be, although these varied throughout the empire and also evolved over time. How did these expectations develop and change? To what degree could an emperor deviate from prevailing norms? And what role did major developments in Roman society – such as the rise of Christianity or the choice of Constantinople as the new capital – play in the ways in which emperors could exercise their rule? This ambitious and engaging book describes the surprising stability of the Roman Empire over more than six centuries of history.

Author: Almut Höfert
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317182375
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
This book explores a striking common feature of pre-modern ruling systems on a global scale: the participation of childless and celibate men as integral parts of the elites. In bringing court eunuchs and bishops together, this collection shows that the integration of men who were normatively or physically excluded from biological fatherhood offered pre-modern dynasties the potential to use different reproduction patterns. The shared focus on ruling eunuchs and bishops also reveals that these men had a specific position at the intersection of four fields: power, social dynamics, sacredness and gender/masculinities. The thirteen chapters present case studies on clerics in Medieval Europe and court eunuchs in the Middle East, Byzantium, India and China. They analyze how these men in their different frameworks acted as politicians, participated in social networks, provided religious authority, and discuss their masculinities. Taken together, this collection sheds light on the political arena before the modern nation-state excluded these unmarried men from the circles of political power.

Author: Jane Ellen Nickell
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1625644841
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
As Protestant denominations are fracturing over whether to ordain gays and lesbians, this work looks at The United Methodist Church's conversations about the issue, in light of Methodism's historic contests over the leadership of African Americans and women, to see what can be learned from these earlier periods of change. Using the uniform context of the Methodist General Conference, where denominational policy is set, the book analyzes transcripts of floor debates in key years of these struggles, letting those who argued for and against the changes speak for themselves. Those arguments are read through the lens of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, whose theory offers a sophisticated model that goes deeper than simple "resistance to change" in articulating a dialectic between social structures and agents that predisposes both to reproduce existing power relationships. This interdisciplinary, historical study seeks to move beyond conscious motivations for the exclusion of these three groups and uncover deeply embedded, misrecognized social dynamics. In exploring these groups' stories, this book examines who holds power in Methodist churches, how changes in authority structures occur, and why it is such a long and painful process.

Author: Thomas C. Ferguson
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047407830
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
While there has been substantial scholarly work done on the development of Christian doctrine in the fourth and fifth centuries, very little corresponding attention has been paid to the writing of church history during this critical period. This work examines how authors began to construct the historical narrative of the “Arian” controversy and focuses on the interplay between theology and worshipping communities. Major figures such as Eusebius and Athanasius are examined, and important but overlooked figures such as an anonymous non-Nicene chronicler and Philostorgius are also included. In the introduction the book surveys recent developments in the study of “Arianism” and discusses the usefulness of the very category of an “Arian controversy.” Subsequent chapters set forth the thesis that church histories are important sources for understanding the development of doctrine. A chapter is devoted to Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, especially the oft-overlooked Book X. Further chapters explore the role of Rufinus as the first extant author to write a continuation of Eusebius. The work also consciously includes marginalized non-Nicene sources, and there are chapters which examine an anonymous non-Nicene chronicler and the Ecclesiastical History of the Eunomian Philostorgius of Borissus. The book is particularly useful for persons interested in examining the development of doctrine in the fourth century from fresh perspectives. The work approaches church histories as narrative myths of community origins produced by worshipping communities standing in continuity to local schools of thought.

Author: Matthew Wranovix
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498548873
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
This book analyzes the acquisition and use of texts by the parish clergy in the diocese of Eichstätt between 1400 and 1520 to refute the amusing, but misleading, image of the lustful and ignorant cleric so popular in the satirical literature of the period. By the fifteenth-century, more widely available local schooling and increasing university attendance had improved the educational level of the clergy; priests were bureaucrats as well as pastors and both roles required extensive use of the written word. What priests read is a question of fundamental importance to our understanding of the late medieval parish and the role of the clergy as communicators and cultural mediators. Priests were entrusted with saying the Mass, preaching doctrine and repentance, honoring the saints, plumbing the conscience, and protecting the legal rights of the Church. They baptized children, blessed the fields, and prayed for the souls of the dead. What priests read would have informed how they understood and how they performed their social and religious roles. By locating and contextualizing the manuscripts, printed books, and parish records that were once in the hands of priests in the diocese, the author has found evidence for the unexpected: the avid acquisition of books; a theological awareness; and an emerging professional identity. This marks an important revision to the conventional view of a dramatic era marked by both the transition from manuscripts to printed books and the outbreak of the Reformation.