Portal:Christianity/Selected article/2009
January 2009
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The Azusa Street Revival was an historic Pentecostal revival meeting that took place in Los Angeles, California and was led by William J. Seymour, an African American preacher. It began with a meeting on April 14, 1906 at the African Methodist Episcopal Church and continued until roughly 1915. The revival was characterized by speaking in tongues, dramatic worship services, and inter-racial mingling. The participants received criticism from secular media and Christian theologians for behaviors considered to be outrageous and unorthodox, especially at the time. Today, the revival is considered by historians to be the primary catalyst for the spread of Pentecostalism in the 20th century.
In 1905 William J. Seymour, a 34 year old son of former slaves, was a student of well-known pentecostal preacher Charles Parham and an interim pastor for a small holiness church in Houston, Texas. Neely Terry, an African American woman who attended a small holiness church pastored by Julia Hutchins in Los Angeles, made a trip to visit family in Houston late in 1905. While in Houston, she visited Seymour's church, where he preached that baptism in the Holy Spirit was accompanied with speaking in tongues, and though he had not experienced this personally, Terry was impressed with his character and message. Once home in California, Terry suggested that Seymour be invited to speak at the local church. Seymour received and accepted the invitation in February of 1906, and received financial help and a blessing from Parham for his planned one-month visit.
Seymour arrived in Los Angeles on February 22, 1906, and within two days was preaching at Julia Hutchins' church at the corner of Ninth Street and Santa Fe. During his first sermon, he preached that speaking in tongues was the first Biblical evidence of the inevitable baptism in the Holy Spirit. On the following Sunday, March 4, he returned to the church and found that Hutchins had padlocked the door. Elders of the church rejected Seymour’s teaching, primarily because he had not yet experienced the blessing about which he was preaching. Condemnation of his message also came from the Holiness Church Association of Southern California with which the church had affiliation. However, not all members of Hutchins' church rejected Seymour's preaching. He was invited to stay in the home of congregation member Edward S. Lee, and he began to hold Bible studies and prayer meetings there.
(more)February 2009
Church teaching of the Commandments is largely based on the Old and New Testaments and the writings of the early Church Fathers. In the New Testament, Jesus acknowledged their validity and instructed his disciples to go further, demanding a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. Summarized by Jesus into two "great commandments" that teach love of God and love of neighbor, they instruct individuals on their relationships with both. The first three commandments demand respect for God's name, observation of the Lord's Day and prohibit the worship of other gods. The others deal with the relationships between individuals, such as that between parent and child; they include prohibitions against lying, stealing, murdering, adultery and covetousness.
(more)March 2009
Ecclesiastical heraldry is the tradition of heraldry developed by Christian clergy. Initially used to mark documents, ecclesiastical heraldry evolved as a system for identifying people and dioceses. It is most formalized within the Roman Catholic Church, where most bishops, including the Pope, have a personal coat of arms. Similar customs are followed by clergy in the Anglican Church, the Lutheran Church, the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, and the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Institutions such as schools and dioceses bear arms called impersonal or corporate arms. Ecclesiastical heraldry differs notably from other heraldry in the use of special symbols around the shield to indicate rank in a church or denomination. The most prominent of these symbols is the ecclesiastical hat, commonly the Roman galero or Geneva bonnet. The color and ornamentation of this hat carry a precise meaning. Cardinals are famous for the "red hat", but other offices are assigned a distinctive hat color. The hat is ornamented with tassels in a quantity commensurate with the office. Other symbols include the cross, the mitre and the crozier.
(more)April 2009
The Mormon handcart pioneers were participants in the migration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Salt Lake City, Utah who used handcarts to transport their belongings. The Mormon handcart movement began in 1856 and lasted until 1860. Motivated to join their fellow Church members but lacking funds for full ox or horse teams, nearly 3,000 Mormon pioneers from England, Wales, and Scandinavia made the journey to Utah in 10 handcart companies. Although fewer than ten percent of the 1847–68 Latter-day Saint emigrants made the journey west using handcarts, the handcart pioneers have become an important symbol in LDS culture, representing the faithfulness and sacrifice of the pioneer generation. The handcart pioneers continue to be recognized and honored in events such as Pioneer Day, Church pageants, and similar commemorations. The handcart treks were a familiar theme in 19th century Mormon folk music and have been a theme in LDS fiction, such as Gerald Lund's historical novel, Fire of the Covenant, and Orson Scott Card's science-fiction short story, "West."
(more)May 2009
The Shield of the Trinity or Scutum Fidei is a traditional Christian visual symbol which expresses many aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity, summarizing the first part of the Athanasian Creed in a compact diagram. In medieval England and France, this emblem was considered to be the heraldic arms of God (and of the Trinity). This diagram consists of four nodes (generally circular in shape) interconnected by six links. The three nodes at the edge of the diagram are labelled with the names of the three persons of the Trinity (traditionally the Latin-language names, or scribal abbreviations thereof): The Father ("PATER"), The Son ("FILIUS"), and The Holy Spirit ("SPIRITUS SANCTUS"). The node in the center of the diagram (within the triangle formed by the other three nodes) is labelled God (Latin "DEUS"), while the three links connecting the center node with the outer nodes are labelled "is" (Latin "EST"), and the three links connecting the outer nodes to each other are labelled "is not" (Latin "NON EST").
(more)June 2009
The early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. covers the period from his birth to the end of 1827, when Smith claimed to have located a set of Golden Plates engraved with ancient Christian scriptures, buried in a hill near his home in Manchester, New York. Joseph Smith, Jr. was the principal founder and leader of the Latter Day Saint movement, which includes such denominations as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ. This early period of Smith's life is significant within Mormonism because it represents the time when Smith first claimed to act as a prophet, and when he claimed to obtain the Golden Plates, purportedly the source material for the Book of Mormon. During this period, Smith was influenced by numerous religious and cultural trends in early United States history. Chief among these trends, the nation at the time was undergoing a cultural reaction against the secularism of the Age of Enlightenment, called the Second Great Awakening.
July 2009
The Gregorian mission was the missionary endeavour sent by Pope Gregory the Great to the Anglo-Saxons in 596 AD. Headed by Augustine of Canterbury, its goal was to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. By the death of the last missionary in 653, they had established Christianity in southern Britain. Along with Irish and Frankish missionaries, they converted Britain and helped influence the Hiberno-Scottish missionaries on the Continent.
After the Roman Empire recalled its legions from the province of Britannia in 410, the island was invaded and settled by pagan Germanic tribes. In the late 6th century, Pope Gregory sent a group of missionaries to Kent, to convert Æthelberht, the King of Kent. His wife, Bertha of Kent, was a Frankish princess and practising Christian. As well as the delegation's missionary purpose, Gregory probably hoped it would add to the areas acknowledging papal primacy. Augustine was the prior of Gregory's own monastery in Rome, and Gregory prepared the way for the mission by soliciting aid from the Frankish rulers along Augustine's route.
(more)August 2009
The Diocletianic Persecution (or Great Persecution) was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman empire.[1] In 303, Emperor Diocletian and his colleagues Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding they comply with traditional religious practices. Later edicts targeted the clergy and demanded universal sacrifice, ordering all inhabitants to sacrifice to the gods. The persecution varied in intensity across the empire—weakest in Gaul and Britain, where only the first edict was applied, and strongest in the Eastern provinces. Persecutionary laws were nullified by different emperors at different times, but Constantine and Licinius's Edict of Milan (313) has traditionally marked the end of the persecution. Although the persecution resulted in the deaths of—according to one modern estimate—3,000 Christians, and the torture, imprisonment, or dislocation of many more, most Christians avoided punishment. The persecution did, however, cause many churches to split between those who had complied with imperial authority (the traditores), and those who had remained "pure". Certain schisms, like those of the Donatists in North Africa and the Meliteans in Egypt, persisted long after the persecutions.
(more)September 2009
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song of the Catholic Church, performed in the Mass and the monastic Office. Although popular legend credits Pope St. Gregory the Great with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from a later synthesis of Roman chant and Gallican chant commissioned by Carolingian rulers, especially Charlemagne. Gregorian chant supplanted or marginalized the other indigenous plainchant traditions of the Christian West to become the official music of the Catholic liturgy. Although Gregorian chant is no longer obligatory, the Catholic Church still officially considers it the music most suitable for worship.
(more)October 2009
The badnjak (Cyrillic: бадњак, Serbian pronunciation: [ˈbadɲaːk]), also called veseljak (весељак, [ʋɛˈsɛʎaːk], literally "jovial one" in Serbian), is a log brought into the house and placed on the fire on the evening of Christmas Eve, a central tradition in Serbian Christmas celebrations. The felling, preparation, bringing in, and laying on the fire, are surrounded by elaborate rituals, with many regional variations. The burning of the log is accompanied by prayers that the coming year brings food, happiness, love, luck, and riches. The festive kindling of the log commemorates the fire that—according to folk tradition—the shepherds of Bethlehem built in the cave where Jesus Christ was born, to warm the Baby Jesus and his mother throughout the night. The badnjak may also be seen as a symbol of the cross upon which Christ was crucified, the warmth of its fire symbolizing the salvation which, in the Christian belief, the crucifixion made possible for mankind. Other South Slavic peoples have similar traditions, and the custom that a family brings a log into the house and burns it on Christmas Eve has also been recorded in other parts of Europe. The Serbian badnjak tradition was originally a private affair conducted within the family, but since the early 20th century it has also been celebrated more publicly. Before World War I, soldiers of the Kingdom of Serbia developed the custom of laying a badnjak on a fire in their barracks. Since the early 1990s, the Serbian Orthodox Church has, together with local communities, organized public celebrations on Christmas Eve in which the badnjak plays a central role.
(more)November 2009
Religious debates over the Harry Potter series of books by J. K. Rowling stem largely from assertions that the novels contain occult or Satanic subtexts. This opposition comes from orthodox branches of Abrahamic religions, with some Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians and some Shia and Sunni Muslims arguing against the series. Responses to these claims have come from many corners. Supporters of the series have asserted that the magic in Harry Potter bears little resemblance to occultism, being more in the vein of fairy tales such as Cinderella and Snow White, or to the works of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, both authors known for writing fantasy novels with heavily Christian subtexts. Far from promoting a particular religion, some argue, the Harry Potter novels go out of their way to avoid discussing religion at all. However, the books' author, J. K. Rowling, describes herself as a practising Christian, and many have noted the overtly Christian references she includes in the final Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In the United States, calls for the books to be banned from schools have occasionally led to widely-publicised legal challenges, often on the grounds that witchcraft is a government-recognised religion and that to allow the books to be held in public schools violates the separation of church and state. The Orthodox churches of Greece and Bulgaria have also campaigned against the series, and some members of the Vatican hierarchy have voiced opposition. The books have been banned from private schools in the United Arab Emirates and criticised in the Iranian state-run press. Religious responses to Harry Potter have not been exclusively negative. "At least as much as they've been attacked from a theological point of view", notes Rowling, "[the books] have been lauded and taken into pulpit, and most interesting and satisfying for me, it's been by several different faiths".
(more)December 2009
The restoration of the Sistine Chapel frescoes constitutes one of the most significant art restorations of the 20th century. The Sistine Chapel was built within the Vatican immediately to the north of St. Peter's Basilica by Pope Sixtus IV and completed in about 1481. Its walls were decorated by a number of famous Renaissance painters of the late 15th century, including Ghirlandaio, Perugino and Botticelli. The Chapel was further enhanced under Pope Julius II by the painting of the ceiling by Michelangelo between 1508–1512 and with the painting of the Last Judgement, commissioned by Pope Clement VII and completed in 1541. Together the paintings make up the greatest pictorial scheme of the Renaissance. Individually, some of Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling are among the most famous works of art ever created. The frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, and in particular, the ceiling and accompanying lunettes by Michelangelo have been subject to a number of restorations, the most recent taking place between 1980 and 1994. This most recent restoration had a profound effect on art lovers and historians, as colours and details that had not been seen for centuries were revealed. It has been claimed that "Every book on Michelangelo will have to be rewritten". Others, such as the art historian James Beck, of ArtWatch International, have been extremely critical of the restoration, saying that the restorers have not realised the true intentions of the artist. This is the subject of continuing debate.
(more)- ^ Gaddis, 29.