Living in sin? : religion and cohabitation in Britain 1985-2005

Frequency of cohabitation among 13,703 adults from the British Social Attitudes dataset for 1985-2005 peaked at around 26-30 years of age, and increased significantly over the period of study. Cohabitation frequency was compared between those of no religious affiliation and Christian affiliates who (a) attended church at least once a month, (b) attended church, but less than once a month, and (c) never attended church. Active Christians were 3.2 times less likely to cohabit than non-affiliates, and rates of cohabitation have remained stable over time in this group. Christian affiliates who never attended church were 1.2 times less likely to cohabit than non-affiliates, suggesting that even affiliation without attendance may indicate greater affinity to Christian moral attitudes compared with non-affiliates

Toward the Renewal of Christian Initiation in the Parish

(Excerpt) The brochure for this year\u27s Institute contained the arresting sentence: To discuss the question of Christian initiation is, finally, to inquire after the very nature of the church: the issue is of vast ecclesiological significance. The renewed and growing interest in Christian initiation is prompted by a new vision of the church

Did Saint Paul Take Up the Great Commission?: Discipleship Transposed into a Pauline Key (Chapter 7 of Ethics and Ecclesia)

The term \u27discipleship\u27 is pervasive in church language, and for good reason since Jesus had disciples and called them to go out and make more disciples. What is particularly interesting about the ecclesial use of the language of discipleship is how it is used by believers to refer to a kind of general Christian category that would align with what academics call \u27ethics\u27. For many churches, denominations, seminaries, and biblical scholars, discipleship is equivalent to Christian obedience to God.1 A cursory look at denominational vision statements will bear this out. The United Methodist Church, for example, claims, \u27The church calls our response to God Christian discipleship\u27.2 The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America places the following conviction under the heading of \u27discipleship\u27: \u27To live our lives in and for Christ in both church and society\u27, None of this should be that unsettling since discipleship is central to Jesus\u27 own theological programme, and the Gospels certainly inspire their readers to take up the cross and follow Jesus wholeheartedly (Mt. 16.24//Mk 8.34//Lk. 9.23). However, the central question I want to raise, particularly in view of the Church (ecclesia) and \u27ethics; as the focus of this collection of essays, is this: even though a strong case can be made that the term \u27discipleship\u27 should be a central concept for Christian obedience, are we missing something if it becomes the only way we think about Christian obedience? Again, I am not suggesting it is improper to think of Christian obedience in terms of \u27discipleship\u27; however, it maintains a kind of exclusive status as the language of Christian obedience. One might wonder- who cares? Why not allow it to hold this paramount status vis-a-vis ethics? There are, I believe, a number of reasons why this is an important question for the church to address, but I would like to organize the discussion around two historical issues and conclude with a theological one. At the outset here, though, I will simply say that the Christian language of obedience should reflect the language and emphases of Scripture, all of Scripture, and, thus, we would do well to pay attention to how all parts of the Bible talk about ethics and obedience

Salis est: Ecumenical Catalyst or Narrow Reductionism?

(Excerpt) It is also taught among us that one holy Christian church will be and remain focever. This is the assembly of all believers [or saints ] among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel. For it is sufficient [satis est] for the true unity of the Christian church that the Gospel be preached in conformity with a pure understanding of it and that the sacraments be administered in accordance with the divine Word [or, are administered rightly ]. It is not necessary for the true unity of the Christian church that ceremonies, instituted by men, should be observed uniformly in all places. It is as Paul says in Eph. 4:4,5, There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

Understanding Muhammad\u27s Interaction with the Church

My research focuses on understanding Muhammad’s (the Islamic prophet) interaction with what he perceived to be the Christian church to find out why his understanding of Biblical narratives and theology is incorrect. With this information, Christians should reintroduce Christian scripture and theology to Muslims since Muhammad’s rejection of Christian doctrine is based on associating wrong texts as authoritative Christian teaching. The following questions that shape this research are: What possible sources did Muhammad use to learn about biblical narratives and themes? What did the first Muslims think about the canonical gospels of Jesus? How did early Muslims view the teachings of the Christian church? What constitutes orthodox Christian belief? Using the Qur’an, the Síra, and the Hadith, I will examine Muhammad’s interaction with the King of Abyssinia, Bahira the Monk, the town of Najran, the Nestorians, Jacobites, Melkites, Manichaeism, and those from the “Byzantine rite.” I examine likely sources of the Qur’an such as the Diatessaron, the Protoevangelium of James, the Arab Infancy Gospel, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. The key results of this research are (1) Muhammad used apocryphal literature as reliable history and consequently had a misunderstanding of orthodox Christian doctrine; (2) Muhammad had a positive outlook on Christianity while in Mecca, however, at the end of his ministry in Medina where there existed so called Christians his outlook became negative; and, (3) despite the Qur’anic command to read the Gospel of Jesus (referring to it as divine scripture), early Islamic scholars, two centuries after Muhammad, said either the Bible or Christian interpretation of the Bible was corrupted. The results of this research imply that since Muhammad’s various confessions on the Christian church contradict one another, there is a lot of room to doubt the authority and truthfulness of much of his (or Allah’s) statements on the biblical narrative and theology of the Christian church. Thus this work poses several theological, philosophical, and historical problems towards the credibility of the Qur’an and its source(s). Overall, Muhammad is inadequate to be an authority or a direct refuter of orthodox Christianity because he was misinformed. This research implies that early Muslims could have been more open to the Chalcedonian Creed than the false Christian creeds they originally encountered. To explain why the 7th century Arabian church was largely cultic, I suggest a theory that Christian cults from the Byzantine, Syrian, and Persian empires in pre-Islamic times, fleeing persecution, migrated to the Arabian Peninsula. Future work connected with my findings would be to better understand who possessed the pre-Qur’anic sources. Exactly what texts were Arab Christians using? There is an underpinning that this research leans on: the answer to the question, what is the authentic gospel message of Jesus Christ? The answer would help us understand the context of surah 5:46-47, and to test the hypothesis that the Qur’an is divine revelation from God with various philosophical, historical, and theological proofs

Not My Church! (Chapter 5 of Grappling With Faith: Decision Cases for Christians in Social Work)

You\u27re not acting as my church acts! church social worker Sandy Potts exclaimed. In fact, you\u27re not acting as His church would act! Peter Wilson, Senior Executive Director of Creekside Christian Church, and Rita Kimball, an assistant from human resources had just informed Sandy that she was being terminated. They had given the same news to others on the church staff as they met at fifteen minute intervals; another pair of administrators was doing the same in an adjoining room

For the conscientious objector, it is better to die than to kill

Article discussing conscientious objection. References Buddhism, Gandhi, pacifism and the Christian church and both world war

The Dancing Steward: Exploring Christian Stewardship Lifestyles

Reviewed Book: Levan, Christopher. The Dancing Steward: Exploring Christian Stewardship Lifestyles. Toronto: United Church Pub House, 1993