Religion Past and Present
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Subject: Religious Studies
Edited by: Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning†, Bernd Janowski and Eberhard Jüngel
Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
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Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
Vocatio
(327 words)
[German Version] Basically synonymous with calling,
vocatio has become a technical term for appointment to an ecclesiastical office. A distinction is made between
vocatio interna and
vocatio externa. In Roman Catholicism,
vocatio interna is an inward call initiated by an act of God’s grace; it requires scrutiny and confirmation by the local ordinary to become legally effective (
CIC/1983 cc. 1025, 1029; but cf. c. 203, §1). From the Lutheran perspective, the
vocatio externa is a call to an ecclesiastical ministry by representatives of the congregation obeying God’s c…
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Religion Past and Present
Vocation
(5,411 words)
[German Version]
I. Terminology No term equivalent to
vocation is found in classical Greek and Latin. An
officium was exercised by virtue of a preexisting status, usually by birth. Trades (including medicine) fulfilled the conditions of a regular vocation (τέχνη/
téchnē), but had no self-awareness reflected in terminology. In the New Testament, κλῆσις/
klḗsis mostly refers to the “calling” of a Christian (1 Cor 7:20); in the national church of Late Antiquity, it referred primarily to the call to the religious life (
vocatio) in contrast to lay status. In Middle High German mys…
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Religion Past and Present
Vocational Education
(88 words)
[German Version] The theory of vocational or business education is a subdiscipline of educational theory (Education, Theory of). While its historical roots, for example in the various trades, can be traced to antiquity and above all the Middle Ages, it established itself as a scientific discipline only with the development of the vocational education system in the 20th century. Initially it focused on (trade) schools, but today it is being extended to social and operational settings. Friedrich Schweitzer Bibliography A. Schelten,
Einführung in die Berufspädagogik, 1991.
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Religion Past and Present
Vocational School/Training
(9 words)
[German Version] Education System/Schools, Religious Education
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Religion Past and Present
Vockerodt, Gottfried
(173 words)
[German Version] (Sep 24, 1665, Mühlhausen, Thuringia – Oct 10, 1727, Gotha) began his studies at Jena in 1683, receiving his M.A. in 1685; in 1689 he received calls to both Mühlhausen and Halle. He served as deputy rector in Halle, where he began teaching in 1693. From 1694 to 1727 he served as rector of the Gymnasium in Gotha. His call to Gotha may have involved strategic considerations. There Vockerodt, a highly cultivated educator, played a key role in the early history of the Pietist movement…
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Religion Past and Present
Voegelin, Eric
(238 words)
[German Version] (Jan 3, 1901, Cologne – Jan 19, 1985, Stanford, CA), philosopher and political scientist. Voegelin is considered one of the pioneers of the rebirth of political science after World War II. His approach is often mistakenly called “normative-ontological” political science, but that is misleading: although Voegelin did attempt to apply political science to all realms of existence and even relate it to the experience of transcendence, his understanding of political science had nothing to do with normativity in the sense of Neo-Kantianism. The starting point for his
New …
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Religion Past and Present
Voes, Hendrik
(154 words)
[German Version] (Vos; c. 1500, ’s-Hertogenbosch – Jul 1, 1523, Brussels), Augustinian Hermit in the Antwerp convent of Henry of Zutphen. After Henry’s flight, on Oct 6, 1522, 16 members were arrested on suspicion of heretical views. Three of them refused to recant: Voes and Jan van Esschen were burned at the stake, while Lambert Thorn (died Sep 1528) remained imprisoned for the rest of his life. The fate of the two Dutch martyrs inspired Luther’s “Letter to the Christians in the Netherlands” (WA …
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Religion Past and Present
Voetius, Gisbert
(386 words)
[German Version] (Mar 3, 1589, Heusden, Holland –Nov 1, 1676, Utrecht). Born to a noble family impoverished by war, Voetius began to study theology at Leiden in 1604; as a student of F. Gomarus, he was deeply involved in the debates between the Remonstrants (Arminians) and Contraremonstrants. In 1611 he was appointed pastor in Vlijmen, in 1617 in Heusden, his home town, and in 1629 in ’s-Hertogenbosch. In 1618/1619 he took part in the Synod of Dort, agreeing with the Contraremonstrants’ doctrine o…
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Religion Past and Present
Vogel, Heinrich
(226 words)
[German Version] (Apr 9, 1902, Pröttlin, West Prignitz – Dec 26, 1989, Berlin). In 1927 Vogel became pastor in Oderberg and Dobbrikow (Mark Brandenburg). In 1935 he became a lecturer at the (illegal) seminary of the Confessing Church, which he headed from 1937 to 1941. He was a member of the church’s Council of Brethren, as well as a member of the Confessing Synods of the Reich and of Prussia, and of the provisional governing body of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union. As a leading f…
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Religion Past and Present
Volkening, Johann Heinrich
(264 words)
[German Version] (May 10, 1796, Hille, near Minden – Jul 25, 1877, Holzhausen, near Lübbecke). After studying theology in Jena, Halle, and Münster (1816–1820), from 1822 to 1827 he served as a pastor in Schnathorst (Lübbecke district), from 1827 to 1838 in Gütersloh, and from 1838 to 1869 in Jöllenbeck (Bielefeld district). He rejected theological rationalism and was influenced early on by the spirit of the Herrnhut Moravians (Bohemian and Moravian Brethren: II). Deeply moved above all by the 95 t…
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Religion Past and Present
Volk, Hermann
(249 words)
[German Version] (Dec 27, 1903, Steinheim am Main – Jul 1, 1988, Mainz), cardinal, bishop of Mainz (1962–1982). After studying in Mainz, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1927 and appointed chaplain. He earned his Dr.phil. in Freiburg im Bresgau in 1938 and his Dr.theol. in Münster in 1939. He gained his habilitation in 1943 and was appointed professor of dogmatics in 1946. Familiar with modern Protestant theology through his works on K. Barth and E. Brunner and ecumenically active, in 1945 he became a member of the ¶ Ecumenical Study Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians (…
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Religion Past and Present
Völkische Bewegung
(518 words)
[German Version] (National Movement). The
Völkische Bewegung began to coalesce around 1900 as a loose network of
völkisch organizations; it brought together various groups that differed in their political, social, and cultural goals as well as their organizational structure and membership. The majority were Protestant men, mostly members of the bourgeois middle class. Besides ideological, personal, and institutional ties with the Pan-Germans of Austria, the movement engaged in vigorous interaction with the bourg…
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Religion Past and Present
Volksnomos
(292 words)
[German Version] In his major work
Der christliche Staatsmann (1932, 21932), W. Stapel devised the notion of a
Volksnomos (“national or ethnic law”), arguing that the New Testament (and hence Christian) concept of law is not simply the fulfillment of the Old Testament concept but also the fulfillment of all laws of other nations. He described the wealth of national gods metaphorically as the “crypt” of the “Christian cathedral” of redemption. The
nomos Germanikos, defined on the basis of racist ideology, gives the German nation its character; it is the embodiment of …
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Religion Past and Present
Voltaire
(1,098 words)
[German Version] (real name François-Marie Arouet; Nov 21, 1694, Paris – May 30, 1778, Paris) was the youngest of three children of François Arouet, a prosperous notary at the Paris Palais de Justice, and his wife Marie Catherine, who died in 1701. He received a good education at ¶ the famous Jesuit Louis-le-Grand college. In 1711, at his father’s wish, he became a law student, but soon felt called to be a writer, and to his father’s displeasure fell in with a circle of freethinking aristocrats and writers. Following a love affair, he was put …
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Religion Past and Present
Voluntarism
(950 words)
[German Version]
I. Philosophy of Religion Voluntarism is a descriptive category in the history of ideas and society that came into use in Germany in the 1880s (first by F. Tönnies,
VWPh 7, 1883, 169), and from there spread to the French- and English-speaking worldareas. The term can be applied to very different historical phenomena: to the behavior of individuals or groups, metaphysical views, and psychological models (Psychology). In politics it denotes procedures, attitudes, plans and programs that, regardless of current c…
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Religion Past and Present
Voluntary Associations
(5,190 words)
[German Version]
I. History
1. Terminology. The use of the term “association” to denote the formal union of persons and bodies has been common since the 19th century, especially through its application in the legal area. Associations were and are also called societies, unions, corporations, cooperatives, federations, groups, initiatives, movements etc. Modern unions are defined as the voluntary union of originally separate forces to achieve a common aim. By their structural features of free choice and a common aim, they are essentially different…
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Religion Past and Present
Voluntary Church
(332 words)
[German Version] The concept of church as a “free and voluntary society” dates back to John Locke (1689), and the term “free will church” has been employed especially since the 19th century in the United States. There is a certain tension in relation to traditional ecclesiological and ecclesio-sociological categories. Four meanings can be distinguished, although not sharply demarcated, and with partial overlap: 1. a religious community that is intentionally financed exclusively from voluntary gift…
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Religion Past and Present
Voluntary Social Year
(252 words)
[German Version] In 1954 H. Dietzfelbinger in Neuendettelsau called on individuals in their late teens and early twenties to “venture a year in diaconal service.” In the years that followed, the idea was adopted by the Protestant regional and Free churches in Germany. The “diaconal year,” later called a voluntary social year, supervised by the Diakonisches Werk der EKD and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Evangelischen Jugend, provides an opportunity for young people and the diakonia (VI) of the Christ…
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Religion Past and Present
Voluntary Work and Associations
(4,301 words)
[German Version]
I. Importance in Europe A voluntary association (Ger.
ehrenamtliche Vereinigung)serves the common interest of its members. Voluntarism has to do with the freedom of the will (
voluntas; Free will), and when individuals work together of their own free will in order to accomplish a task, this leads to the creation of a voluntary association. Membership in it is neither compulsory nor acquired by birth, and its activities do not contribute to the livelihood of its members. Since human beings have a natural dis…
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Religion Past and Present