Encyclopedia of Christianity Online
Get access
Subject: Religious Studies
Editors: Erwin Fahlbusch, Jan Milič Lochman, John Mbiti, Jaroslav Pelikan and Lukas Vischer
The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online describes modern-day Christian beliefs and communities in the context of 2000 years of apostolic tradition and Christian history. Based on the third, revised edition of the critically acclaimed German work Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon. The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online includes all 5 volumes of the print edition of 1999-2008 which has become a standard reference work for the study of Christianity past and present. Comprehensive, reflecting the highest standards in scholarship yet intended for a wide range of readers, the The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online also looks outward beyond Christianity, considering other world religions and philosophies as it paints the overall religious and socio-cultural picture in which the Christianity finds itself.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
| Help us improve our service |
The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online describes modern-day Christian beliefs and communities in the context of 2000 years of apostolic tradition and Christian history. Based on the third, revised edition of the critically acclaimed German work Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon. The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online includes all 5 volumes of the print edition of 1999-2008 which has become a standard reference work for the study of Christianity past and present. Comprehensive, reflecting the highest standards in scholarship yet intended for a wide range of readers, the The Encyclopedia of Christianity Online also looks outward beyond Christianity, considering other world religions and philosophies as it paints the overall religious and socio-cultural picture in which the Christianity finds itself.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
Household Rules
(535 words)
The so-called household rules are NT parenetic lists describing the duties of the members of Christian households (the
oikos, which included wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters). In the strict sense they occur in the NT only in Col. 3:18–4:1 and Eph. 5:22–6:9. Closely related are the passage on socioethical duties in 1 Pet. 2:13–3:9 and various unstructured statements (1 Tim. 2:8–15; 6:1–2; Titus 2:1–10; 3:1–2; 1 John 2:12–14;
1 Clem. 1.3; 21.6–9; Ign.
Pol.
4–6; Pol.
Phil.
4.1–6.1;
Did.
4.9–11;
Barn.
19.5–7). The household rules set Christia…
Huguenots
(659 words)
The name “Huguenots” for French Protestants at home and abroad derives from the transferring of a local story from Tours concerning Hugh Capet (d. 996) to the Protestants who met by night. It does not derive etymologically from
Iguenots (=
Eidgenossen, “confederates,” i.e., part of the Swiss Confederation) but is a diminutive of Hugo. It was used by others from about 1555 and adopted by the Protestants, especially emigrants, as a term for themselves after 1685. The rise of the party name marks the transition from the Protestant movement to a church that, under the inf…
Human Dignity
(2,105 words)
1. Term In the modern period the concept of human dignity has been inseparably related to human and civil rights. Human dignity is generally seen as the inner basis of these rights, and it thus serves as a moral term that legally states and politically ensures the independence and inviolability of the person. It finds constitutional expression in article 1 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948): “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another …
Humanism
(1,992 words)
1. History Several stages of humanism may be distinguished: (1) the Renaissance humanism of the 15th and 16th centuries; (2) the new humanism of German classicism; (3) the “third humanism,” or attempted revival of idealism after 1900; (4) the anti-idealistic humanism of the 19th century; and (5) modern movements that are critical of classical humanism (including existential philosophy, dialectical theology, critical theory, and practical realism).
1.1. In the first instance, humanism is the literary and intellectual movement that arose with the Italian Renaiss…
Humanistic Psychology
(658 words)
1. Source Humanistic psychology was started in the 1960s by A. Maslow, C. Bühler, C. Rogers, R. May, A. Koestler, J. Bugental, and others. Without the pioneering work of K. Goldstein, O. Rank, K. Horney, and V. Frankl in psychology, plus the group methods of K. Lewin and J. Moreno and the “totality psychology” of the Würzburg school, humanistic psychology would not have been conceivable. It has firmly established itself as a possible third alternative to behaviorism (Behavior, Behavioral Psychology) and orthodox psychoanalysis.
2. Theoretical Presuppositions For its theoretical p…
Humanity
(1,515 words)
1. The term “humanity” is used in different ways: (1) in distinction from animality, (2) as a collective term for the human race (humankind), and (3) as a norm of human existence—for example, in distinguishing the person from the animals, as in (1), or relating the individual to humankind, as in (2). In the third sense it relates both to everyday activities and to ethical reflection on human enterprises. Such things change, which makes it always necessary to test them against Christian belief.
2.
Humanitas was a fixed term in the Ciceronian rhetorical tradition. Rhetoricians ref…
Human Sacrifice
(591 words)
1. Almost all religions include reports of people sacrificing the dearest thing they have, even life. Only in rare cases, however, do we find accounts of the regular killing of people as sacrifices, as among the Mayans and Aztecs. Human sacrifice usually took place in times of extraordinary danger such as prolonged drought, with expiation being attempted in the face of serious pestilence, disaster, or other emergencies. Reports of the practice almost always reflect distaste for the horror. In its aims human sacrifice differs in principle from other forms of sacrifice. It …
Humility
(625 words)
1. History of the Term Humility is the virtue of respect and true self-evaluation. Antiquity rejected it but demanded a sense of one’s own limitations in fear of the envy of the gods. The OT finds in it an expression of basic dependence as we realize that existence is a gift of God, not a necessity. Humility arises out of astonishment and unconditional trust and is less a trait of character than a lifestyle (Ps. 51:17; Prov. 15:33; Isa. 57:15). The NT links it to childlikeness and poverty of spirit. Jesus was a model as he humbled himself in self-giving to God’s loving action (Phil. 2:2–8; Matt. 1…
Humor
(591 words)
The idea that humor is laughing in spite of one’s circumstances carries an essential point. Dealing humorously with difficult inner or outer realities is a way of controlling life. As distinct from wit, mockery, or irony, humor deals nonaggressively with circumstances of trouble or conflict. Its affinity to grinning or laughing finds clearest expression where such forms of psychological release are found to relieve tension or bring liberation and where they can be an “infectious” aid to communication. The modern use of the term must be seen against a significant change in…
Hungary
(1,742 words)
1. Historical Survey During their migration in the fifth to the eighth centuries, the Finno-Ugric Magyars came into contact with Byzantine missions (Mission 3). Toward the end of the ninth century they settled in the Carpathians and Alps and by the Danube. After decades of fighting (esp. after the battle of Lechfeld, in 955), St. Stephen I (prince 997–1000, king 1000–1038) established Christianity; he called missionaries from Rome, received a royal crown from Rome, and organized ten dioceses. When the Mongols invaded in the 13th century, King Bél…
Hunger
(1,196 words)
The term “hunger” denotes a shortage of nourishment that, if it lasts, can lead to death. Hunger crises persist in the Third World, even with all the socioeconomic development of the recent decades (of which crises the public seems now generally more aware). Natural causes of hunger like drought are overestimated. In the past, farming structures and systems were better able to cope with cyclic changes in natural conditions. At the beginning of the 21st century, Bread for the World estimates the …
Hus, Jan
(958 words)
Born into poverty in Husinec in southern Bohemia, Jan Hus (ca. 1372–1415) became a significant leader in what has been called the First Reformation. Upon receiving his master of arts degree in 1396, he became professor at Charles University in Prague. In 1402 he began a ten-year pastorate at Bethlehem Chapel, center of the growing reform movement within Bohemia and the symbol of expanding nationalism against the Roman Catholic Church and the Germans, who exerted the major control at Charles University. T…
Hussites
(1,109 words)
1. Background Like the Waldenses, the Hussites were a medieval movement summoning the church back to its original Christian form. The condemnation and burning of Jan Hus (ca. 1372–1415) at the Council of Constance (Reform Councils) on July 6, 1415, provoked a national protest in Bohemia that led to the adoption of reforming ideas and the rise of the Hussites. In 1414 Jacob of Mies, with the approval of Hus, had given the cup to the laity in Prague (Eucharist), a departure from custom that became a symbol of the Hussites. The moderate Hussites of Prague thus came to be known as Utraquists (from La…
Hutterites
(612 words)
The founder of the Hutterites, or the Hutterian Brethren, was Jacob Hutter, an Anabaptist who was burned at the stake as a heretic in Innsbruck in 1536. He had led a group that practiced the community of goods along the lines of Acts 2:44. The Hutterites enjoyed a golden age of development from 1565 to 1592. Every community had a minister of the word, a minister to the needy, and also a kindergarten and school—all of which ¶ continue as features of Hutterite communities. A leader or elder directs the whole community. Plundering by the Turks and by various armies during the Thirty Years…