Constantine Revisited PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Constantine Revisited PDF full book. Access full book title Constantine Revisited by John D. Roth. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: John D. Roth
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1610978196
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Get Book
Book Description
This collection of essays continues a long and venerable debate in the history of the Christian church regarding the legacy of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. For some, Constantine's conversion to Christianity early in the fourth century set in motion a process that made the church subservient to the civil authority of the state, brought a definitive end to pacifism as a central teaching of the early church, and redefined the character of Christian catechesis and missions. In 2010, Peter J. Leithart published a widely read polemic, Defending Constantine, that vigorously refuted this interpretation. In its place, Leithart offered a thoroughgoing rehabilitation of Constantine and his legacy, while directing a rhetorical fusillade against the pacifist theology and ethics of the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder. The essays gathered here in response to Leithart reflect the insights of eleven leading theologians, historians, and ethicists from a wide range of theological traditions. They engage one of the most contentious issues in Christian church history in irenic fashion and at the highest level of scholarship. In so doing, they help ensure that the Constantinian Debate will continue to be lively, substantive, and consequential.
Author: John D. Roth
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1610978196
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Get Book
Book Description
This collection of essays continues a long and venerable debate in the history of the Christian church regarding the legacy of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. For some, Constantine's conversion to Christianity early in the fourth century set in motion a process that made the church subservient to the civil authority of the state, brought a definitive end to pacifism as a central teaching of the early church, and redefined the character of Christian catechesis and missions. In 2010, Peter J. Leithart published a widely read polemic, Defending Constantine, that vigorously refuted this interpretation. In its place, Leithart offered a thoroughgoing rehabilitation of Constantine and his legacy, while directing a rhetorical fusillade against the pacifist theology and ethics of the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder. The essays gathered here in response to Leithart reflect the insights of eleven leading theologians, historians, and ethicists from a wide range of theological traditions. They engage one of the most contentious issues in Christian church history in irenic fashion and at the highest level of scholarship. In so doing, they help ensure that the Constantinian Debate will continue to be lively, substantive, and consequential.
Author: Andrew J. Pottenger
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000799867
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275
Get Book
Book Description
This volume closely examines patterns of rhetoric in surviving correspondence by the Roman emperor Constantine on conflicts among Christians that occurred during his reign, primarily the ‘Donatist schism’ and ‘Arian controversy’. Commonly remembered as the ‘first Christian emperor’ of the Roman Empire, Constantine’s rule sealed a momentous alliance between church and state for more than a millennium. His well-known involvement with Christianity led him to engage with two major disputes that divided his Christian subjects: the ‘Donatist schism’ centred from the emperor's perspective on determining the rightful bishop of Carthage, and the so-called ‘Arian controversy’, a theological conflict about the proper understanding of the Son's divine nature in relation to that of the Father. This book examines a number of letters associated with Constantine that directly address both of these disagreements, exploring his point of view and motivations to better understand how and why this emperor applied his power to internal church divisions. Based on close analysis of prominent themes and their functions in the rhetoric of his correspondence, Pottenger argues that three ‘doctrines of power’ served to inform and direct Constantine’s use of power as he engaged with these problems of schism and heresy. Power and Rhetoric in the Ecclesiastical Correspondence of Constantine the Great is of interest to students and scholars of early Christianity and the history of the later Roman Empire.
Author: Kegan A. Chandler
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532689942
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Get Book
Book Description
Constantine's conversion to Christianity marks one of the most significant turning points in the epic of Western civilization. It is also one of history's most controversial and hotly-debated episodes. Why did Constantine join a persecuted sect? When did he convert? And what kind of Christian did he ultimately become? Such questions have perennially challenged historians, but modern scholarship has opened a new door towards understanding the fourth century's most famous and mysterious convert. In Constantine and the Divine Mind, Chandler offers a new portrait of Constantine as a deeply religious man on a quest to restore what he believed was once the original religion of mankind: monotheism. By tracing this theological quest and important historical trends in Roman paganism, Chandler illuminates the process by which Constantine embraced Christianity, and how the reasons for that embrace continued to manifest in his religious policies. In this we discover not only Constantine's personal religious journey, but the reason why Christianity was first developed into a world power.
Author: Peter J. Leithart
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830827226
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 374
Get Book
Book Description
Peter Leithart weighs what we've been taught about Constantine and claims that in focusing on these historical mirages we have failed to notice the true significance of Constantine and Rome baptized. He reveals how beneath the surface of this contested story there lies a deeper narrative--a tectonic shift in the political theology of an empire--with far-reaching implications.
Author: Julius-Kei Kato
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137582154
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Get Book
Book Description
In this book, Julius-Kei Kato lets the theories and experiences of Asian American hybridity converse with and bear upon some aspects of Christian biblical and theological language. Hybridity has become a key feature of today’s globalized world and is, of course, a key concept in postcolonial thought. However, despite its crucial importance, hybridity is rarely used as a paradigm through which to analyze and evaluate the influential concepts and teachings that make up religious language. This book fills a lacuna by discussing what the concept of hybridity challenges and resists, what over-simplifications it has the power to complicate, and what forgotten or overlooked strands in religious tradition it endeavors to recover and reemphasize. Shifting seamlessly between biblical, theological, and modern, real-world case studies, Kato shows how hybridity permeates and can illuminate religious phenomena as lived and believed. The ultimate goal of the move toward an embrace of hybridity is a further dissolution of the thick wall separating ideas of "us" and "them." In this book, Kato suggests the possibility of a world in which what one typically considers the "other" is increasingly recognized within oneself.
Author: Ralph Merrifield
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520049222
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Get Book
Book Description
Author: J. Denny Weaver
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467439258
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Get Book
Book Description
This bold new statement on the nonviolence of God challenges long-standing assumptions of divine violence in theology, the violent God pictured in the Old Testament, and the supposed violence of God in Revelation. In The Nonviolent God J. Denny Weaver argues that since God is revealed in Jesus, the nonviolence of Jesus most truly reflects the character of God. According to Weaver, the way Christians live -- Christian ethics -- is an ongoing expression of theology. Consequently, he suggests positive images of the reign of God made visible in the narrative of Jesus -- nonviolent practice, forgiveness and restorative justice, issues of racism and sexism, and more -- in order that Christians might live more peacefully.
Author: Leo D. Lefebure
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137599901
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Get Book
Book Description
In commemoration of Constantine’s grant of freedom of religion to Christians, this wide-ranging volume examines the ambiguous legacy of this emperor in relation to the present world, discussing the perennial challenges of relations between religions and governments. The authors examine the new global ecumenical movement inspired by Pentecostals, the role of religion in the Irish Easter rebellion against the British, and the relation between religious freedom and government in the United States. Other essays debate the relation of Islam to the violence in Nigeria, the place of the family in church-state relations in the Philippines, the role of confessional identity in the political struggles in the Balkans, and the construction of Slavophile identity in nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox political theology. The volume also investigates the contrast between written constitutions and actual practice in the relations between governments and religions in Australia, Indonesia, and Egypt. The case studies and surveys illuminate both specific contexts and also widespread currents in religion-state relations across the world.
Author: Vince L. Bantu
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830828109
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Get Book
Book Description
Christianity Today Award of Merit Christianity is not becoming a global religion. It has always been a global religion. The early Christian movement spread from Jerusalem in every direction, taking on local cultural expression all around the ancient world. So why do so many people see Christianity as a primarily Western, white religion? In A Multitude of All Peoples, Vince Bantu surveys the geographic range of the early church's history, revealing an alternate, more accurate narrative to that of Christianity as a product of the Western world. He begins by investigating the historical roots of the Western cultural captivity of the church, from the conversion of Constantine to the rise of European Christian empires. He then shifts focus to the too-often-forgotten concurrent development of diverse expressions of Christianity across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. In the process, Bantu removes obstacles to contemporary missiological efforts. Focusing on the necessity for contextualization and indigenous leadership in effective Christian mission, he draws out practical lessons for intercultural communication of the gospel. Healing the wounds of racism, imperialism, and colonialism will be possible only with renewed attention to the marginalized voices of the historic global church. The full story of early Christianity makes clear that, as the apostle Peter said, "God does not show favoritism, but accepts those from every people who fear him and do what is right." Missiological Engagements charts interdisciplinary and innovative trajectories in the history, theology, and practice of Christian mission, featuring contributions by leading thinkers from both the Euro-American West and the majority world whose missiological scholarship bridges church, academy, and society.
Author: J Denny Weaver
Publisher: Lutterworth Press
ISBN: 0718843800
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 535
Get Book
Book Description
'John Howard Yoder: Radical Theologian' shows that for John Howard Yoder both theology (in particular Christology) and ethics are expressions of the meaning of the narrative of Jesus. All such statements are relative to a particular context, so thattheology and ethics are subject to reaching back to the narrative in order to restate the meaning in new and ever-changing contexts. This methodology is visible in Yoder's 'Preface to Theology', which has been little used in most treatments of Yoder's thought. Yoder has been characterised as standing on Nicene orthodoxy, criticised for rejecting Nicene orthodoxy, called heterodox, and designated a postmodern thinker to be interpreted in terms of other such thinkers. None of these characterisations adequately locates the basis of his methodology in the narrative of Jesus. Thus 'John Howard Yoder: Radical Theologian' aims to go beyond or to supersede existing treatments with its demonstration that Yoder is a radical theologian in the historical meaning of radical - that is, as one who returns to the root - but also relates his theology to the personal accusations that clouded his later years. For Christian faith, this root is Christ. Parts II and III of the book explore the sources of Yoder's approach, and its application in several contemporary contexts.
