Who (or What) is an Evangelical? - Part 8

Some trace the roots of modern Evangelicalism, in part, to the work of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) and the community he founded at Herrenhut (in Saxony, Germany).  He established this community in a corner of his estate as a  refuge for Moravians (from Czech lands), Reformed (Protestants), and Catholics, seeking refuge from various persecutions.  He hoped to forge this group into a force to promote renewal in the Church.  He gave them the name "Herrenhut," which means "the Lord's watch," based on a passage from Isaiah (62:1 & 6-7).

However, for 3 years after its founding (in 1724), the factions in the community quarreled as much as the churches they came from, and the community almost dissolved.  In response, Zinzendorf established a round the clock prayer watch for revival of the Church - which wound up lasting for a hundred years.  The community wound up experiencing a "baptism of the Holy Spirit," which fused the community in unity.

Seal of Moravian Church

 Zinzendorf followed this by organizing small groups (cells - prayer bands) where lay people were encouraged to confess their sins to each other, give counsel to each other, and support each other in prayer, which helped to further unite the community.

Soon thereafter, Zinzendorf began to send out missionary teams from the community.  Some were sent out to take the gospel where it had never been heard.  Some even took the gospel to slaves, and became slaves themselves in order to spread the gospel.  However, he sent others to churches to spread the message of regeneration and renewal.  Some of these missionaries reached the Wesley brothers (John & Charles) and deeply impacted them.  The Wesley brothers influenced and participated in the Great Awakenings both in England and America where Christians from different denominations, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, united to spread the gospel among the lost, and to renew the faith among Christians, in ways that transformed  society.

The Herrenhut community eventually became the Moravian Church, whose motto is, "In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty, and in all things love."

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Who (or What) is a Catholic (or a catholic)? - Part 4

In order to better understand the word Catholic (or catholic), it helps to understand the origin of the word (it's etymology).  It's a word that derives from the Latin, and earlier from the Greek, so be ready for some nitpicking language study in this post.

The English word (Catholic) eventually derives from the Latin word "catholicus," which means universal. That word derives from a Greek word, katholikos(καθολικός), which also means universal.  It's derived from two Greek phrases κατά meaning "about" and όλος meaning "whole."  When combined, these two phrases make up another phrase, καθόλου (katholou), meaning "on the whole", "according to the whole" or "in general."

The Greek word began to be used in the 2nd Century (100-199), by Christians to describe the universal scope of the Christian Church.  (It does not appear in the New Testament.)  The first time it appears is in a letter by St. Ignatius of Antioch in 107, by which he means the Church universal in contrast to the particular congregation in Smyrna.

By the latter part of the 2nd Century, the word (Catholic or catholic) took on the additional meaning of the Church grounded in orthodox beliefs in contrast to heretical beliefs.  So later St. Augustine (354-430) used the term Catholic to distinguish the true Church from heretical groups.

Thus many use the term Catholic (or catholic) to describe all the churches in Christianity (especially those that are orthodox in belief).  Other churches, like the Catholic Church (sometimes called the Roman Catholic Church), but others as well (as I mentioned in Part 2), tend to use it in a more exclusive sense to mean the churches in communion with them, in exclusion to other Christians and churches, which they tend to think of as "non-Catholic," or use other terms to describe them.  This is only a short introduction to a subject I will discuss this in more detail in my next post.

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Who (or What) is a Catholic (or a catholic)? - Part 3

Of course when most people hear the word - Catholic Church - they think of the Roman Catholic Church, which is also called the Catholic Church, the largest church in the world with 1.2 billion members worldwide.  So even though the word Catholic Church is used by many in connection with other churches (as I explained in Part 1 and Part 2), most people connect it with the Roman Catholic Church.

What many do not realize is that the Roman Catholic Church is actually made up of 23 churches, or rather 23 autonomous particular churches - what is called in Latin sui iuris churches (which literally means "of one's own right" or "of their own law" - basically self-governing).  They all espouse the same faith and beliefs.  They differ in traditions, disciplines, and Canon law (the law of the church), collectively known as a "Rite." They are all in full communion with the Pope in Rome, the Holy See.

The largest of these 23 churches is called the Latin Church, which has 1 billion members.  It is based on what is called the Latin Rite (also known as the Western Rite).  The Latin Rite itself contains the following Rites: the Roman Rite (which most Catholics observe - the most recent version after Vatican II is known as the Mass of Paul VI), the Ambrosian Rite (followed in and around Milan, Italy), the Aquileian Rite (now largely defunct - Northern Italy), Rite of Braga (Braga, Italy), Mozarabic Rite (Toledo and Salamanca, Spain).  There have been others, but they are now largely defunct.

The other 22 churches, which together have around 17 million members, are collectively known as the Eastern Catholic Churches.  Many of them were once associated with either the Eastern Orthodox Church or Oriental Orthodoxy.  I have listed these churches below, according to the overall liturgical Rite they follow, though each church has its own Rite.

Alexandrian Rite (St. Mark)

• Coptic Catholic Church (Egypt)
• Ethiopian Catholic Church (Ethiopia/Eritrea)

Antiochean Rite (St. James)

• Maronite Catholic Church (Lebanon)
• Syriac Catholic Church (Lebanon/Syria/Iraq/Egypt/Venezuala/Other Countries)
• Syro-Malankara Catholic Church (India)

Armenian Rite (St. Gregory)

• Armenian Catholic Church (Georgia/Ukraine)

East Syrian (Chaldean) Rite

• Chaldean Catholic Church  (Iraq/Iran/Turkey/Syria/Lebanon/Jordan/Israel/and other nations)  
• Syro-Malabar Catholic Church (India)

Byzantine (Constantinople) Rite

• Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church (Albania)
• Belarusian Greek Catholic Church (Belarus)
• Bulgurian Greek Catholic Church (Bulgaria)
• Byzantine Church of Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro (also known as the Croatian Greek Catholic Church) (Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro)
• Greek Byzantine Catholic Church (Greece - Constantinople)
• Hungarian Greek Catholic Church (Hungary)
• Italo-Albanian Catholic Church (Southern Italy - Sicily)
• Macedonia Greek Catholic Church (Macedonia)
• Melkite Greek Catholic Church (Egypt/Israel/Palestine/Jordan/other countries)
• Romanian Church United With Rome, Greek Catholic (Romania)
• Russian Greek Catholic Church (Russia)
• Rutheian Catholic Church (Carpathian Ruthenia/Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
• Slovak Greek Catholic Church (Slovakia/Canada)
• Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (Ukraine) 

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Over to Who (or What) is an Evangelical - Part 1

Who (or What) is a Catholic (or a catholic)? - Part 2

The word, Catholic, or Catholic Church, runs into further problems (beyond the problem I mentioned in Part 1) because many faith traditions, beyond what most consider the Catholic tradition, use those words to describe themselves, even if it is not part of their name (or normally considered part of their name).

So, for example, the Eastern Orthodox Church (also known as the Orthodox Church) identifies itself as the Catholic Church.  In fact, it's official name is the Orthodox Catholic Church (though the other names are more often used).  (The Eastern Orthodox Church is made up of many churches - a complete list goes way beyond the scope of this posting.)

Coptic Icon

In addition, Oriental Orthodox churches (not to be confused with the Eastern Orthodox Church), also called Old Oriental churches, also identify themselves as the Catholic Church.  The Oriental Orthodox communion comprises of six churches: Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (also known as the Indian Orthodox Church), and Armenian Apostolic churches.

The churches above are part of Eastern Christianity.  In addition, two other churches that are part of Eastern Christianity are also described as Catholic Churches:  the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Ancient Church of the East.

Canterbury Cathedral

In Western Christianity, the Anglican Communion is also known as the Catholic Church. The Anglican Communion is an international association of churches of national and regional Anglican (and Episcopal) churches in full communion with its principal primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury. It considers itself both Catholic and Reformed. Those who emphasize its Catholic heritage are known as Anglo-Catholics.  The Holy Catholic Church of Japan is actually an Anglican Church.

In addition, some Lutherans and some Methodists consider themselves "Catholic," especially High Church Lutherans, Lutherans who call themselves Evangelical Catholics, and Neo-Lutheranism.  Some Lutheran churches part of these movements use the name Catholic in their churches.  They tend to emphasize worship practices and doctrines similar to those found in the Roman Catholicism and the Anglo-Catholic portions of the Anglican Communion.

The point here is to examine the many different ways the words "Catholic" or "Catholic Church" is used in many different traditions.

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Who (or What) is an Evangelical? - Part 7

J. I. Packer

Though some (or many) consider Evangelicalism a modern movement, as I have tried to clarify in earlier parts, it has a deep, rich, and long tradition.  A prominent scholar who emphasizes this point is J.I. Packer, an Anglican theologian who taught at Regent College for many years, served as executive editor for Christianity Today, and wrote many books, of which "Knowing God" is best known.  In an essay entitled The Bible in Use: Evangelicals Seeking Truth from Holy Scripture, in a book, Your Word Is Truth, published through the efforts of Evangelicals and Catholics Together, he wrote,

The fundamental claim made for evangelicalism is that it represents the main stream of authentic Christian development over two millennia, . . . (p.60)

Later on he wrote,

Evangelicalism is a convictionally focused point of view that traces its lineage back to the theology and religion of the New Testament via the Fathers, the orthodox scholastics of the West, the medieval teachers of spiritual life, the magisterial reformers and their Puritan and Pietist successors, and the exponents of theological, spiritual, cultural, and missional renewal of both Reformational and Weslyan type from the eighteenth century to the present day.  (p.60)

Packer correctly identifies Evangelicalism as a Christian movement with a tradition that identifies with most of church history going right back to the Church Fathers.

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Who (or What) is a Catholic (or a catholic)? - Part 1

Many automatically link the word Catholic with the Roman Catholic Church (often known as the Catholic Church), or a Roman Catholic (often simply referred to as a Catholic).  However, while such an association is often automatically assumed, it may be problematic at best.  This is because many churches (denominations) have the word "Catholic" in their name, so that a reference to a Catholic may just as easily refer to one of those churches, since its members tend to also use the term Catholic to refer to themselves and their church.  These churches, which are not in full communion with the Holy See, but which view themselves as Catholics, include:

• American Catholic Church in the United States (formed in 1999)
• Apostolic Catholic Church (in the Philippines)
• Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church (founded in 1997)
• Antiochian Catholic Church in America
• Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church (established in 1945)
• The Catholic Charismatic Rite of Canada (founded in 1968)
• Catholic Mariavite Church (begun in 1935)
• Celtic Catholic Church (incorporated in 1974)
• Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (established in 1957)
• Christ Catholic Church (founded in 1937)
• Ecumenical Catholic Church (begun in 1987)
• Free Catholic Church (Registered in 1949)
• Liberal Catholic Church (begun near start of 20th Century.)
• Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation (founded 1989)
• Liberal Catholic Church (begun around the 1920s)
• National Catholic Church of American (established in 1998)
• Old Catholic Church (with many churches in various countries)
• Old Roman Catholic Church (founded in 1910)
• Orthodox Catholic Church of America (established in 1892)
• Palmarian Catholic Church (begun in 1976)
• Philippine Independent Catholic Church (separated in 1902)
• Polish National Catholic Church (founded in 1897)
• Ukrainian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church (established in 2009)

In addition, there are more churches (not listed here) that view themselves as Catholic, though they do not use the word Catholic in the name of their church.

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Who (or What) is a Catholic (or a catholic)? - Intro

 As I continued in my series - Who (or What) is an Evangelical? - I got the feeling that while my Catholic friends were interested (in varying degrees), they might have felt like they were being left out of the discussion.  So I will soon start a series on Who (or What) is a Catholic?  Though this may seem simple to some or many, I have found there can be quite a bit of disagreement about this at times (even among Catholics).  I find the history of the word fascinating.  The way the word is used by diverse peoples also makes for an interesting study.

If you have any preliminary thoughts about this before I begin, please leave it as a comment, or send me an email (which you can find in my profile).

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Who (or What) is an Evangelical? - Part 6

A cartoon view of Evangelicals

I previously focused on the history of the word "evangelical."  I now want to start focusing on some simple (or at least a simple level of) commonly held features and characteristics of Evangelicals (I will later go into more depth). 

To begin with, Evangelicals hold to a deep commitment to spreading the gospel - the good news - that Jesus Christ died to save you from the penalty of your sins - and that you can have eternal life if you believe in Him and his works.  The work of spreading this message belongs to all disciples of Christ - whether clergy or laity.

Next (and closely related to the first point), Evangelicals tend to stress the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the central means of salvation for all mankind.

Third, Evangelicals tend to emphasize both a personal need for inner conversion - as well as an outward expression (works) of saving faith.

Fourth - Evangelicals tend to emphasize both a strong theological, as well as a devotional, emphasis on the Bible.

I will expand on this in a future post.  For now - this is a summary (not an exposition).

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Quadrophenia (The Movie)

I recently finally got around to watching the 2nd film based on a Who album, Quadrophenia, made in 1979 (as well as listening to the more recent comments on the DVD).  The film, directed by BBC documentarian, Franc Roddam, in his first film feature, is only loosely based on the Who's second rock double album made back in 1973.

The album's title was a loose variation of the medical diagnosis of Schizophrenia, which usually identifies a dual dissociative identity disorder - the title (Quadrophenia) loosely referring to a foursome dissociative identity disorder (Jimmy's four personalities) - while also a loose reference to quadraphonic (4 channel) sound - a recent invention (which never quite caught on) back then.

In 2009, Pete Townsend revealed that each personality reflected a member of the Who band as follows:

• Roger Daltry - a tough guy - a helpless dancer (in the song, "Helpless Dancer")
• John Erstwhile - a romantic - is it me for a moment? (in the song, "Is it me?")
• Keith Moon - a bloody lunatic, I'll even carry your bags.  (in the song, "Bell Boy")
• Pete Townsend - a beggar, a hypocrite, love reign o'er m (in the song, "Love, Reign Over Me.")

In the movie (as in the album) the focus is on the character of Jimmy

(Cooper), a mod - played by Phil Daniels.  Though the mods (loosely based on "modernist") started in the 50s, they gained prominence in the 60s.  They rode modified Italian motor scooters (Vespas - often decorated with many lights and mirrors), wore Italian suits, tended to indulge in amphetamines(speed), had to be at the right clubs, and dance the right moves. They were the antithesis of the rockers - whom they considered their arch-enemies - since they drove motorcycles,  wore leather, and tended not to dance at all.  Part of the theme of the movie is the deep mutual antagonism between the mods and the rockers.

Jimmy has a close childhood friend, Kevin, whom he unexpectedly discovers is a rocker.  Kevin (played by Ray Winstone) tells him it's all right because we are all people anyway - basically the same.  Jimmy explains he doesn't want to be like everyone else, and that is why he is a mod - he wants to be different - this is his identity.  Later, after the rockers beat up a mod, the mods set out on revenge - hunt down a rocker and beat him bloody.  To Jimmy's horror, he finds out it is his good friend Kevin.

Jimmy goes with his mod friends to Brighton - where many mods gather for the weekend - parading through town shouting - "We are the mods!"  Jimmy is delighted. When they encounter rockers, a rumble ensues, shop windows are broken, and riot police rush in.  In the midst of the mayhem, Jimmy sneaks off with the girl he has wanted for some time, Steph (played by Leslie Ash - seen above on a scooter with Jimmy just behind him), and they make love.  Jimmy is on top of the world.  As they return and simply walk down the streets, Jimmy is arrested.

Jimmy appears in a courtroom filled with other mods - the judge irate at them for trashing the town.  Jimmy mocks the court in tandem with Ace Face (played by Sting) - the top and coolest of the mods.  Jimmy is in his element as he now sees himself closely aligned with Ace Face - making him just as cool.

When Jimmy returns home from the weekend, his mother is angry with him since she heard the news of the mayhem in Brighton on top of finding Jimmy's stash of speed.  She throws him out of the house.  His boss is angry he took extra time off, and Jimmy reacts angrily and quits.  He finds out that Steph has moved on to a new boyfriend - his close friend Dave.  Jimmy gets angry at Steph, at Dave, and with all his mod friends - they return his anger by rejecting him.  As he drives down the street, he nearly gets killed by a truck which winds up destroying his scooter.  Almost everything Jimmy has built his identification upon seems to been taken away.

Jimmy decides to take the train and return to Brighton, hoping to find his identity there again - where he had

been on top of the world.  As he walks down the street - much to his horror and dismay - he discovers his hero, Ace Face, works as a lowly bell hop at a swank hotel there. Jimmy - now completely disillusioned and enraged - steals Ace Faces' scooter, and goes for a ride hoping to clear his mind.  However, as he drives by the cliff, he contemplates going off them on the scooter and ending what he now views as his miserable life.  By listening to the film commentary on the DVD, you discover the original script called for Jimmy to end his life this way.

However, the director finally decided this ending was too bleak - and so Jimmy only drives AceFaces' scooter off the cliff, smashing it to pieces, jumping off at the last minute.  But this is difficult to tell when you watch the ending.  Others, who watched the film, have told me it was ambiguous (and it was meant to be left that way).  The way you know Jimmy lived and walked away from the cliff is at the beginning of the movie - which opens with Jimmy walking away from the cliffs - and then the rest of the film is a flashback of how he got there.

What is left ambiguous is what happens to Jimmy, how he resolves his identity crises, or how he puts life back together if at all - and this appears to be deliberative.  The film seems to ask us to examine our identities as well what our lives are about.  This aspect of the film is what made it interesting to me, and fits in with many items I have posted in this blog.

Another interesting aspect of the film is the mod revival it inspired.  The mod movement had largely died out before the film was made.  Though a small revival had already started, the film greatly expanded that revival.  There are now many thriving mod subcultures around the world, and apparently many consider this film as a sort of Bible for them.

Who (or What) is an Evangelical? - Part 5

During the late 19th Century, as modern science, which Christianity had developed, moved from understanding the world God created to rejecting the supernatural (and miracles), liberal theology followed with at first a general embarrassment, and then a later rejection of the supernatural (miraculous) aspects of the Gospels.  They undertook an effort to find the "historical Jesus," a Jesus who taught morals, but divorced from any supernatural stories.  Eventually they found they could not completely separate the moral teachings of Jesus contained in the gospels from the supernatural.

But then, around the start of the 20th Century, as existential philosophy took hold, an existential theology

Father of Existentialism

(neo-orthodox) followed.  In existential philosophy, though life is acknowledged to have no objective meaning, man can find meaning in a subjective, existential experience in which he finds authentication (becomes an authentic human being).  In the theology which followed, it didn't matter whether God actually existed, or whether the gospel accounts were historically true.  What mattered was whether the gospel stories (historically true or not) brought about a personal, subjective, existential experience in which you became an authentic human being (through religious language - regardless of whether that language said anything of real truth or real history).

Many Christians reacted against both types of liberal theology.  Since they emphasized "the fundamentals of the faith," those who favored liberal theology labelled them "the fundamentalists" as a term of derision.  As with many movements, some took up this term as a badge of honor, and called themselves "Fundamentalists."  However, many who took up this description rejected intellectual pursuits (believing it only led to false beliefs), focused on separation from the world (believing it only led to compromise or sin), and tended to focus on a set of rules (not found in the Bible) in order to try to guarantee a separation from the world.  In addition, they tended to reject any tradition in the church (believing church traditions had led the church astray), as well as tended to suspect an emphasis on the social aspect of Christianity, often calling it the "social gospel."

Billy Graham

While many Christians who did not feel comfortable with liberal theology (the old type or neo-orthodoxy), they also did not feel comfortable with what was increasingly called Fundamentalism.  They believed in intellectual pursuits, believed in engagement with the world, rejected rules not found in the Bible, and found a richness in the traditions of the church while seeking to spread the gospel in new ways, and emphasizing the significance of the social aspects of the gospel.  As they searched for a term to describe themselves, they settled on the term "evangelical" which had a rich history and tradition in Christianity, especially because it tended to cut across church and denominational lines.  Billy Graham became probably the most famous Evangelical, though many others led the movement including Harold Okenga, who helped found Fuller Theological Seminary as well as the National Association of Evangelicals.  They formed a flagship magazine, Christianity Today, with a noted theologian, Carl F.H. Henry, as its first editor.  The movement grew and cut across denominational lines as well as non-denominational lines, including Catholicism (more about this in a later part).

In a future part, I will try to outline commonly held features and characteristics of Evangelicals.

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