Encyclopedia of Christianity Online
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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.
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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
Women’s Missions
(673 words)
Women’s work as a calling for unmarried women in the sphere of Protestant world mission developed only in the 19th century. The wives of missionaries had been performing certain tasks alongside their husbands, but it became clear that there was also a need for women to minister to women. For cultural and religious reasons narrow limits were often set for male missionaries in women’s work. But women especially needed to be told about the liberating and life-changing power of the gospel. Education…
Women’s Movement
(2,115 words)
The women’s movement seeks broadly to achieve equality, justice, and self-determination for women. “Feminism,” or the theory and organized activity that promotes the full equality of women, often focuses also on other oppressed groups. The women’s movement within Christianity consists of individuals for whom their Christian faith is central to their identity and the source of their feminist convictions. This position is in contrast to that of secular feminists, who might or might not practice a …
Word of God
(5,104 words)
1. OT
1.1. As Israel began to develop a Word-of-God theology, it had at its disposal important predecessors, especially in Mesopotamia rather than Egypt. Praising the word of the gods was common in Mesopotamia, and it was thought that the divine will was communicated by prophets (§1.2). Yet Egypt proved to be a fruitful starting point for reflections on creation by the Word, which occurred in various cosmogonic systems. The divine Word found personification ¶ in various deities. In literature dealing with death we find divine words, magical words, and oracular words, w…
Word Square
(794 words)
A word square is a set of equal-length words, arranged in the pattern of a square, that read the same horizontally and vertically. The earliest example, which uses the magic formula
sator arepo tenet opera rotas, was found on graffiti in Pompeii, dated a.d. 50–79, and uses
rotas first. In later antiquity it appears on amulets, papyri, ostraca, and inscriptions. In the Middle Ages we find it mostly in Western and Byzantine codices, but also on a pavement mosaic in the Church of Pieve Terzagni at Cremona (ca. 11th cent.). The palindromic structure gives the formula its magical quality,…
Work
(1,113 words)
1. Term In a broad sense, work is “any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstance” (John Paul II,
Laborem exercens [1981], introductory blessing). More narrowly, “work” refers to activity undertaken as a means to some other end and so is distinct from hobbies, which are done for their own sake. The English term “labor” perhaps derives from Lat.
labo, “stumble under a burden.” Western thinkers have proposed a variety of definitions of work. Plato and Aristotle associated work with toil required to provide necessities of li…
Worker-Priests
(1,013 words)
1. The movement of worker-priests
(prêtres-ouvriers) arose in France in 1943 in connection with the process of secularization, which was pushing Christianity into the private sphere, and the development of a working class that, under the influence of Marxism, regarded the church as a capitalistic and bourgeois institution. Paternalistic ideas could not bridge the deep cleft between the proletariat and the church. Based upon a programmatic approach to pastoral care in a social setting (Catholic Action), the Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne (JOC, Young Christian…
World Alliance of Reformed Churches
(971 words)
The World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) first met at a conference in Edinburgh in 1877 as the Alliance of the Reformed Churches throughout the World Holding the Presbyterian System. Previously in London in 1875 representatives of 21 churches had decided to form such an organization. It is the oldest international confessional alliance of churches (Denomination). At first it had Anglo-Saxon ¶ countries at its center, though some European churches were also charter members. After World War II most of the Reformed churches of Europe and many from Afric…
World Association for Christian Communication
(1,642 words)
1. The Early Years The World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) is among the earliest expressions of the ecumenical movement. It is nearly as old as the World Council of Churches (WCC), for its history begins with an informal international conference on religious broadcasting held in Chichester, England, in October 1950. The two world wars had exposed in stark relief the dark side of broadcasting as a tool for propaganda and nationalism. The church leaders and Christian broadcasters who …
World Council of Churches
(3,746 words)
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is an international organization, a fellowship of churches, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. By its own self-identification, it is not a church. In 2007 the WCC’s membership included 348 church bodies in some 120 countries. Many churches in the Pentecostal and evangelical traditions are not members of the WCC. It has been estimated that less than one-half of the non-Orthodox and non-Roman Catholic churches in the world belong to the WCC. The Roman Catholi…
World Evangelical Alliance
(1,812 words)
Overview The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is an association of 128 national evangelical alliances, grouped, for administrative purposes, into seven regional associations (Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, North America, and South Pacific). The North America branch comprises the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and, in the United States, the National Association of Evangelicals. In 2006 the WEA also included 8 affiliate members (independently incorporated organizations that work …
World Methodist Council
(915 words)
1. The World Methodist Council (WMC) is a global council of Methodist and United churches that link their beginnings to the 18th-century awakening in England that was associated with the work of John Wesley (1703–91). The WMC was organized in 1881 with the aim of strengthening members in their faith and love for Jesus Christ, in proclaiming the gospel, and in serving Christ with a catholic spirit in the Wesleyan manner.
2. World Methodists today affirm the primacy and authority of Scripture and join with other Christians in confessing the faith expressed in the cre…
World’s Religions, Parliament of the
(1,747 words)
1. The First World Parliament, 1893 The first World’s Parliament of Religions was convened in Chicago in 1893 in conjunction with the Columbian Exposition, which was celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage to the Americas. By every measure, this parliament was a religious event of unprecedented scope and genuine originality. It was the first convention of its kind, attracting 400 official delegates from around the world, together with 150,000 visitors from the general public. This 17-da…
World Student Christian Federation
(3,865 words)
The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) is a federation of some 100 national Christian student organizations spread over all continents. The member organizations, usually called Student Christian Movements (SCMs), represent a diversity of Christian communities within institutions of higher education, including confessional, interconfessional, and fully integrated ecumenical groups. The WSCF functions today primarily through its six regional units, which are linked together through its inte…
Worldview
(3,629 words)
1. Term The term “worldview” covers many different ways of viewing the world. It is used for views, pictures, images, concepts, and orientations toward the world, as suggested by the various Ger. terms
Weltanschauung, Weltansicht, Weltbeschreibung, Weltbild, and
Weltorientierung. Note also the Fr.
science générale (C. H. Saint-Simon [1760–1825]),
esprit positif (A. Comte [1798–1857]), and
conscience collective (É. Durkheim [1858–1917]), as well as the Eng. “outlooks on life” (J. Dewey [1859–1952]). 1.1.
Model of Interpretation The term “worldview,” or
Weltanschauung, serve…
Worldwide Church of God
(1,215 words)
The Worldwide Church of God (WCG), founded in 1933, is a North American Adventist church that strongly emphasizes biblical prophecy. Although it deviated from Protestant orthodoxy in a number of ways, a major doctrinal and organizational transformation occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s that converted it into an evangelical denomination. Subsequently, a number of schisms resulted in an exodus of half its adherents. The most recent (2004) estimated membership is 63,000 worldwide. 1. Founder and Successors The WCG was virtually the personal extension of its founder,…
Worship
(19,016 words)
1. NT and Early Church 1.1.
Term and Usage The term “worship” (from “worth-ship”) has established itself as a general word for the service that is rendered to God in praise, prayer, proclamation and hearing of the Word, and administration of the sacraments. An older term is “divine service” (cf. the German
Gottesdienst, which M. Luther used as a technical term for gatherings for worship), though along with its specific use this term has a broader reference to Christian life and diakonia. A common phrase today for gatherings for worship is “worshi…
Wrath of God
(4,386 words)
1. OT
1.1. Using anthropomorphic or anthropopathic language, many religions described their gods in human terms; they could thus see them as wrathful. Fear of divine wrath was undoubtedly one of the main motivations behind the development of religion and also of the cult. Israel was close to its neighbors in this regard, as may be seen from an inscription of King Mesha of Moab (mid-9th cent. b.c.), who, speaking of the long-standing oppression of Moab by King Omri of Israel (§1.5), attributes it to the wrath of Chemosh, the Moabite god (KAI 181.5; TUAT 1.647; cf. 2 Kgs. 3:27).
1.2. Mention of …