Theologie in laizistischen Zeiten

Theology in laicistic times. The breakdown of Habsburg monarchy and the consequences for protestantic colleges in the region of Danube and the Carpats. The article deals with the fate of protestant colleges in the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy and its descendant states. Protestant teaching was restricted by a laicistic course of policy in Czechoslovakia (under Masaryk) and Austria (Socialist party). In Hungary, Horthy expected help and hope by the churches during the depression after the lost war, and therefore founded ecclesiastical academic institutes on university level. To this day, pastoral training is located in church-directed universities and colleges, whereas the public universities and colleges offer no theological courses. In Austria, the „Großdeutsche“ party supported the „Christlichsoziale“ party and its powerful (clerical) leader Ignaz Seipel under the condition that the 100 year old protestant seminary was incorporated with Vienna University. In Prag and Bratislava, Masaryk’s system of separation of state and church postboned the academic incorporation until 1990.

Early Modern Lutheranism

The early modern Protestant church known as “Evangelical” and eventually as “Evangelical Lutheran,” has from its origin displayed a deep ambivalence about its self-understanding, either as a theological “movement” within the historic Western form of Christianity, or as a separate church. By examining how Lutherans understand God and creation, scripture and exegesis, the church and its sacraments, the debates over the meaning of justification, and the renewal movement known as Pietism, this section of the Handbook provides readers with the basis for probing that question, as well as other issues and consequences of Lutheranism. These additional topics range from continuing debates about the person and importance of Luther himself, to the didactic/teaching legacy of pastoral training, the standing of confessional documents, Lutheranism’s medieval roots and subsequent political history, its relationship to marriage, gender, and sexuality, and its manifestation in a global, extra-European context.

Flowing and framing

Experiential and mediatized, Pentecostal Christianity is one of the most successful cases of contemporary religious globalization. However, it has often grown and expanded transnationally without clear authoritative contours. That is the case in contemporary Ghana, where Pentecostal claims about charismatic empowerment have fed public anxieties concerning the fake and the occult. This article examines how Pentecostalism’s dysfunctional circulation is countered within seminaries, or Bible schools, by specific strategies of pastoral training. First, I revisit recent debates on Protestant language ideology in the anthropology of Christianity, and stress Pentecostalism’s affinity with notions of flow and saturation of speech by divine presence. Second, I move to data collected in the Anagkazo Bible and Ministry Training Center, and investigate this institution’s pedagogical framing of Pentecostalism’s otherwise erratic flow of speech and power according to two normative operations: Biblical figuration and the emic notion of transmission as ‘impartation’. I conclude by stressing how the metapragmatics of figuration and impartation in Anagkazo requires an understanding of religious circulation that exceeds the dominant scholarly focus on religion-as-mediation.

There is Nothing New Under the Sun?: “New Librarianship” and the Theological Library

The entirety of R. David Lankes’s model of “New Librarianship” rests on his expression of its mission: “The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities.” The present essay defines and expand upon the facets of “facilitating,” “knowledge creation,” and “communities,” and explores the shapes these may take in theological libraries in particular. Regarding “community”, the essay considers the challenge of serving both academics and ministers and how it might be possible to foster a less disjointed community. The question of what “knowledge creation” looks like in the fields of religious studies and pastoral training, and what this uniqueness means for the library are also considered. Finally, the author offers some preliminary ideas of what facilitating this knowledge creation might look like in the context of a theological library. Current shifts within academe and its libraries require a shift in the way librarians (particularly theological librarians) think about service, resources, and their role in the education process as a whole.