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
Nabatean Kingdom
(898 words)
[German Version] The first historical witness to the Nabateans in 311 bce (Diodorus Siculus
Geographia 2.48f.; 19.94–100) describes them as a nomadic tribe responsible for trade along the Frankincense Road from Dedan in northern Arabia to Gaza. Their origin remains obscure (see Knauf). In the late 3rd century at the earliest, a process began that turned major trading posts into permanent tent settlements, with domestic architecture beginning in the early Roman period (Petra). Possibly it is wrong to speak of a Nabatean kingdom until the late 2nd century bce, when some of the Nabate…
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Religion Past and Present
Nabis
(214 words)
[German Version] A group of artists and an association of friends founded by Paul Sérusier in Paris in 1888. It included, among others, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, and from 1890 Édouard Vuillard, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Paul Valloton, and Aristide Maillol. The term
nabis comes from the Hebrew
nebiʾı̑m, “prophets” or “enlightened ones,” and stressed the group's idealistic and symbolistic artistic claims in contrast to the illusionist imitation aesthetics of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. The object depicted should be subordinate to the means of…
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Religion Past and Present
Nachmanides
(339 words)
[German Version] (Moses ben Nachman, acronym “Ramban”; 1194, Gerona – 1270, Akko) was a rabbi, physician, preacher, exegete, and a great halakhic authority. In the first half of the 13th century, Nachmanides was the spiritual leader of Spanish Jews ¶ (Judaism: II) and the head of the Kabbalistic school (Kabbalah: II) of Gerona, where Rabbi Ezra and Rabbi Azriel were among his teachers. He was a defender of Judaism in disputations with his Christian contemporaries. His exegetical work on the Pentateuch is a landmark in medieval Jewish culture; it combines traditional mi…
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Religion Past and Present
Nadere Reformatie
(232 words)
[German Version] The term
nadere reformatie denotes a movement in the Netherlands Reformed tradition (Reformed churches), under personal (W. Ames) or literary Puritan influence, tending toward a “second Reformation,” “reaching further” and “more closely” into believers' personal way of life. Its aim was to deepen and take further the renewal of doctrine achieved in the “first Reformation,” in the direction of ethically binding devotional practice of ascetic stamp. The term
nadere reformatie occurs in reform proposals of the Utrecht Consistory of 1665, influenced by…
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Religion Past and Present
Nagara, Israel ben Moses
(185 words)
[German Version] (Naǧara; c. 1555, Damascus – c. 1625) is regarded as the great poet of the “golden age” of Jewish culture of the 16th century in Zefat. Following the destruction of the Jewish communities in Spain (1492) this Upper Galilean region, where various kabbalistic schools (Kabbalah) were situated, flourished. Although Nagara is often regarded as a kabbalistic poet, the Kabbalah did not occupy a meaningful place in his work. He served as the rabbi of the Gaza Jewish community for several …
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Religion Past and Present
Nāgārjuna
(319 words)
[German Version] (c. 2nd–3rd cent. ce) is regarded as the founder of the Madhyamaka doctrine (Mādhyamika) and the first philosophical school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. According to legend, Nāgārjuna spent most of his life in South India in the Āndhra kingdom. Accounts of his life and traditional information concerning his literary output are dubious. Nāgārjuna's fundamental opus is a tractate containing 27 chapters: the
Mūlamadhyamakakārikās (
MMK). The greater part of this work is devoted to proof of the ultimate non-existence of the things considered to exist in…
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Religion Past and Present
Nagel, Julius
(206 words)
[German Version] (Sep 17, 1809, Bahn, Pomerania – Jan 17, 1884, Breslau [Wrocław]). From 1835 Nagel was a pastor in Colzow, Wollin Island. Although influenced during his theological studies in Berlin by F.D.E. Schleiermacher, Nagel was very critical of church union. His attitude led in 1847 to his resignation as pastor of Trieglaff, Pomerania province, a post he had held since 1841, and to his withdrawal from the Protestant Church of Prussia. Nagel joined the separate, not officially recognized Lu…
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Religion Past and Present
Nag Hammadi
(2,060 words)
[German Version] I. General – II. The Texts Discovered at Nag Hammadi – III. Significance
I. General Nag Hammadi is an Upper Egyptian industrial town on the west bank of the Nile, about 125 km downstream from Luxor. At nearby Jabal al-Tarif, in December 1945 a peasant accidentally found, in a jug deposited in a cave, twelve codices from the first half of the 4th century ce and the remains of another, with much original evidence of Gnosis, and further texts in the Coptic language. The content of the Nag Hammadi codices (NHC) is related to that of the 5th-cen…
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Religion Past and Present
Nag Hammadi Abbreviations
(1,118 words)
[German Version]
Text editions:
The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, published under the auspices of the Department of Antiquities of the Arab Republic of Egypt in conjunction with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), introduced by J.M. Robinson, 15 vols., Leiden 1972–1984. NHS Nag Hammadi Studies, Leiden 1971ff. From 1991 continued as NHMS Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies NHMS 33, 1995; NHS 2, 1972; NHS 22/23, 1985; NHS 20/21, 1989; NHS 4, 1975; NHMS 27, 1991; NHS 26, 1984; NHS 11, 1979; NHMS 30…
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Religion Past and Present
Nagid
(299 words)
[German Version] (Heb. נָגִיד, pl.
nagidim) is the Hebrew title of the head of the Jewish community in an Arabic-speaking country. It followed the Babylonian title “Rosh ha-Gola” (“exilarch”; Resh Galuta) which developed in the early Middle Ages. In Spain, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and the Yemen there arose several dynasties of nagidim. Many Jewish poets, scholars, philosophers and scientists served in this position, and in several cases it became hereditary for three or four generations. The establis…
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Religion Past and Present
Naǧrān
(274 words)
[German Version] (Najran) is an oasis town situated on the ancient Frankincense Road in the southwestern part of Saudi Arabia. Naǧrān originally designated the oasis, and later became the name of its main settlement, attested as Rgmtm in Old South Arabian inscriptions and as Ragma in Ezek 27:22, where it is mentioned as a trading partner of the Phoenician city of Tyre (LXX ῾Ραγμα, MT רַעְמָה/Raʿmāh). A Christian community was established in Naǧrān in the 5th century and stood under the authority of its own bishops (Arabian Peninsula: I, 1). Late Sabaean inscr…
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Religion Past and Present
Nahman ben Simhah of Bratslav
(306 words)
[German Version] (1771, Medshibosh, Ukraine – 1811, Uman, Ukraine). Rabbi Nahman ben Simhah was one of the most influential leaders of the Hasidic movement (Hasidism). Although he was the great-grandson of Baʾal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, only a small group of adherents gathered around him. On his pilgrimage to the Land of Israel (1798) he was able to escape Napoleon's siege of Akko aboard a Turkish warship. When he returned to Europe he preached a new doctrine according to ¶ which there is only one true Zaddik, who is the redeemer of all the people of Israel. He did …
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Religion Past and Present
Nahuatl
(133 words)
[German Version] is one of a group of languages in the Uto-Aztec linguistic family; also the collective name for the peoples who speak these languages in Central America (Mexico). According to their nominal ending, the languages are divided into those of the Nahuatl and the Nahuat̲ groups. The second group probably included the now extinct Toltecs in the highlands of Mexico, and Pipil in El Salvador, who died out only at the beginning of the 20th century; the first group probably included the language of the Aztecs (Aztec religion). Hans Wißmann Bibliography R. Siméon,
Dictionnaire de la…
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Religion Past and Present
Nahum/Book of Nahum
(1,590 words)
[German Version] I. Place in the Canon – II. Structure –s III. Origin – IV. Influence – V. Name
I. Place in the Canon Nahum is the seventh within the Book of the Twelve Prophets (Prophetic books). In the Hebrew canon, it is preceded by Micah, in the Greek canon by Jonah (probably because of Nineveh). The order in the Masoretic Text is reinforced by keyword links to Nahum in Mic 7:8–20 (Nogalski). Nahum is linked ¶ with Habakkuk not only by the form of the superscription but also by the redactionally created links in Hab 1 to Nah 3. The two books were perhaps once co…
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Religion Past and Present
Nahum, Saint
(232 words)
[German Version] (Nahum of Ochrid; died Dec 23, 910); feast day Dec 23, pupil of Cyril and Methodius, apostles to the Slavs. Nahum presumably belonged to the group around Cyril and Methodius who lived in Rome from 867 to 869, where he may also have been ordained priest. After the destruction of Cyril and Methodius's mission work in Greater Moravia, he fled to Bulgaria in 885 with Clement of Ochrid and Angelarij, and was active in the neighborhood of the capital Pliska. After Clement was consecrate…
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Religion Past and Present
Name
(5,597 words)
[German Version] I. Linguistics – II. Philosophy – III. Religious Studies – IV. Philosophy of Religion – V. Old Testament – VI. New Testament – VII. Church History – VIII. Judaism – IX. Islam
I. Linguistics Linguistically, a name is a proper noun (
nomen proprium) as opposed to a common noun (
nomen appellativum); both function grammatically as substantives. Proper nouns (names) designate individual persons, places, things, and ideas or collectives thought of as individuals; they do not ascribe common attributes to their referents. Outside…
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Religion Past and Present
Name, Belief in the
(332 words)
[German Version] The name of a person or divinity (Names of God) expresses in many cultures an individual and unmistakable mark of that person's essential being. From this the idea grows that anyone who knows that name can have authority over the person in question. Partly bound up with this is the fear that if the name is known, enemies or demons may gain power over the bearer of the name; thus the real name must be kept secret. The revelation of the name by a divinity (cf. Exod 3), the discovery…
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Religion Past and Present
Name Day
(339 words)
[German Version] The name has special significance for human beings, whether or not this means “pre-signification” in the sense of predestiny. In any event, parents generally pay great attention to the choice of their children's names. Therefore, in some predominantly Catholic regions the name day is celebrated rather than the birthday. In early Christianity men and women retained their original names even after baptism. A formal demand for parents to name their children after saints is found c. 288 in John Chrysostom. This may have led in the E…
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Religion Past and Present
Name of Jesus, Festival of the
(173 words)
[German Version] As a consequence of stronger emphasis on Christ's incarnation as a human being (Bernard of Clairvaux), spread by the popular preachers of the mendicant orders (esp. Bernardino of Siena, John of Capistrano), the feast was introduced in 1530 in the Franciscans' own calendar for Jan 14 (now Jan 3), and extended in 1721 to the whole Catholic ¶ Church. In 1913 Pius X set it on the Sunday between Jan 1 and 6 (or Jan 2), thus closer to Christmas and the day of the octave (Jan 1), with the Gospel of the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus (Luke 2:2…
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Religion Past and Present
Names of God
(1,714 words)
[German Version] I. Judaism – II. Christianity – III. Islam
I. Judaism The main biblical names of God are the tetragram YHWH and the expression אֶהְיֶה אֶשֶׁר אֲהְיֶה/
ʾeh eyeh ʾašer ʾeh eyeh (lit. “I am who I am”) or also
ʾeh eyeh alone (Exod 3:14); during the Second Temple period, the tetragram was allowed to be spoken only on the Day of Atonement (Feasts and festivals: II) by the high priest. Biblical attributes and epithets of God are understood as additional names of God. Rabbinic literature knows certain circumlocutions for God …
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Religion Past and Present
Name, Veneration of the
(385 words)
[German Version] (Veneration of the name of Christ, in the East). Within the Hesychast practice of prayer (Hesychasm; see also Prayer X) there grew up the tradition of the continually repeated Jesus prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” According to the
Philocalia (1782) it serves, together with breathing techniques, to implant the name of Jesus in the heart (Prayer of the Heart) in order to attain sight of God and peace of the soul (ἡσυχία/
hēsychia). The Russian
Pilgrim (anonymous, 1884) repeats it daily up to 12,000 times. The so-called Hesychas…
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Religion Past and Present
Namibia
(782 words)
[German Version] I. General – II. Pre-Christian Religious History – III. History of Christianity
I. General With an area of 824,295 km2 and 2,088,669 inhabitants (2008), Namibia today lies on the southwestern edge of Africa, bordered by Angola, Zambia, and Zimbabwe to the north, Botswana to the east, the Republic of South Africa to the south and southwest, and the Atlantic to the west. From 1884 Namibia was a protectorate of Germany. After World War I it was ceded to the League of Nations and came as a mandated t…
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Religion Past and Present
Nānak
(407 words)
[German Version] (1469, Talvaṇḍī (modern Nankānā Sāhib), Pakistan – 1539, Kartārpur, India), Guru, founder of the religious community of the Sikhs (“disciples” of Guru Nānak). Having been established in the northern Indian Punjab, Sikhism remained deeply marked by this cultural region, but also spread beyond India from the 20th century, and especially to Great Britain and North America, from where it is now exerting an influence on its land of origin. Nānak's teaching belongs within the spectrum o…
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Religion Past and Present
Nanotechnology
(408 words)
[German Version] The prefix
nano (from Gk
nános, “dwarf”) placed before a unit of measurement designates the billionth fraction of it. Nanotechnology delineates the handling of things with a dimension ranging from the fraction of a billionth of a meter to several hundred nanometers, i.e. of atoms, small atomic aggregates, biomolecules, and synthetic structures of the most varied materials exhibiting specific chemical, electronic, optical, or mechanical properties. The focus of nanotechnology lies in th…
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Religion Past and Present
Naogeorgus (Kirchmeyer), Thomas
(167 words)
[German Version] (c. 1508, Straubing – Dec 29, 1563, Wiesloch), Regensburg Dominican who joined the Reformation in 1524. From 1535 he was a pastor in Saxony and Thuringia. His neo-Latin works
Pammachius (1538),
Mercator (1540), and
Incendia (1541) made Naogeorgus the outstanding Protestant playwright of his time. On account of his radical and Calvinistic doctrines, he fell out with Lutheranism and from 1546 turned to southern Germany. In 1561 he became superintendent in Esslingen. His support for witch trials led to confrontation …
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Religion Past and Present
Naples
(615 words)
[German Version] In the 9th century bce, merchants from Rhodes founded a trading post named Parthenope near the present site of Naples; in the 7th/6th century, it was settled by colonists from Cumae. In the 4th century, under the influence of Syracuse, the settlement was extended to Neapolis, a center of maritime trade. The economic importance of the city declined under Roman rule, but it remained a focus of Greek culture in Italy. In the Augustan period, it became the favorite tourist destination of …
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Religion Past and Present
Napoleon
(706 words)
[German Version] (Napolione Buonaparte; Aug 15, 1769, Ajaccio, Corsica – May 5, 1821, St. Helena), emperor of the French. Lieutenant of the French artillery since 1785, Napoleon joined the “Montangards” around M. Robespierre in 1793; after the recapture of Toulon in December of 1793, he was promoted to general. After 9 Thermidor (Jul 27, 1794), he was temporarily dismissed from the army. After the defeat of the royalist uprising in Paris (Oct 5, 1795), he was made commander in chief of the Army of…
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Religion Past and Present
Napoleonic Era
(588 words)
[German Version] The Napoleonic era began with the consulate (1799–1804) and ended with the empire (1804–1815) of Napoleon; it was therefore the last phase of the French Revolution (see also France: III, 1.i.j). On the one hand, it preserved the central social and political achievements of the revolution and spread them across Europe. On the other, by restoring the monarchy, the nobility, and the Gregorian calendar, it reintegrated these achievements into the European tradition. The era marks a profound caesura in the history of the European churches, confessions, and piety. The
Code …
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Religion Past and Present
Narcissism
(402 words)
[German Version] generally denotes personality features that primarily concern the image of the self: egocentricity, self-satisfaction, arrogance, megalomania, and liability to take offense. Narcissism refers to the familiar tradition of the Greek myth, popularized especially by Ovid (
Met. III 339–510), of Narkissos (Lat.
Narcissus), who falls in love with his own reflection and scorns the love of the nymph Echo. The notion was extended and made known by the thematic work of S. Freud
Zur Einführung des Narzissmus (1914; ET:
On Narcissism: An Introduction, 1925, 2001). He descr…
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Religion Past and Present
Narrative
(2,178 words)
[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Bible – III. Fundamental Theology and Philosophy of Religion – IV. Literary History – V. Practical Theology
I. Religious Studies Orally transmitted narratives are often the most important sources for the religious views of preliterate peoples. Frequently narratives also provide an aetiological basis for certain cultic actions (Aetiology). Narratives with religious content say important things about the creation of the world and primeval times, the creation and nature of hum…
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Religion Past and Present
Narrative Preaching
(428 words)
[German Version] The expression “narrative preaching” arose in the 1970s as a programmatic concept in the context of various conceptions of narrative theology (Metz, Ritschl). Today, the expression is more often used analytically, to describe particular linguistic achievements of a type of preaching under its homiletical aspects (Homiletics). We may speak of narrative preaching where a whole sermon (or large parts of it) is shaped by the narrative form. This is not only external to a sermon but co…
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Religion Past and Present
Narrative Theology
(417 words)
[German Version] appreciates story-telling and narrative in the light of their anthropological dimension, theological significance, and practical relevance. Both have validity as elementary linguistic-social performances and as essential forms of religious articulation. Story-telling and narrative represent a basic form of biblical literature, Christian church tradition, and the transmission, appropriation, and practice of faith. Starting from this basis, narrative theology contests or relativizes…
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Religion Past and Present
Narsai
(182 words)
[German Version] (of Nisibis; c. 399, Ain Dulbe – c. 502, Nisibis). Narsai was the outstanding theologian of the Antiochene tradition in the foundational phase of the school of Nisibis. His first creative period occurred largely at the school of Edessa, of which he was head from 437. Since he embodied the pro-Antiochene party in the city, he was expelled to Persia in 457 by Nonnus of Edessa, with the deposed Ibas of Edessa. Apologetic writings in support of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Diodore of Tarsu…
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Religion Past and Present
Narthex
(256 words)
[German Version] (νάρϑηξ), before the
naos, a kind of entrance hall on the west side in early Christian, Byzantine, and Orthodox churches. The term, originally denoting a reed-like plant, is used from the 6th century on in the context of church architecture (IV). Where there is a further anteroom before the narthex, a distinction is made between the inner (eso-) and outer (exo-)narthex. From the 9th century on, the narthex is decorated with a special program of images, corresponding to its form and f…
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Religion Past and Present
Nash, Clifford Harris
(198 words)
[German Version] (Dec 16, 1866, London, UK – Sep 27, 1958, Melbourne, Australia), Anglican minister and evangelical leader. After his education at Oundle School and the University of Cambridge, Nash was influenced by the school of B.F. Westcott, Handley Carr Glynn Moule and others, towards a middle-of-the-road conservative evangelicalism. His activities included teaching and preaching in: Musselburgh; Huddersfield, Yorkshire; Sydney (among others Church Hill, Redfern) from 1897; Melbourne (St. Col…
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Religion Past and Present
Nasi
(334 words)
[German Version] Nasi, Hebrew נָשִׂיא, “leader,” “prince.” In Numbers
nasi is the title of a leader or the head of a family or tribe (Num 3:24, 30, 35; also Num 2:3–39 and
passim); in Ezek 34:24 and 37:25 it represents an eschatological enhancement of the king's title. The “
nasi of the whole community” mentioned in the
Damascus Document and elsewhere (CD VII 18–21) plays a special ¶ role in the war of the end time. A similar understanding underlies the coins and documents that name Bar Kosiba (Bar Kokhba Revolt) the “
nasi of Israel.” There is no evidence for the use of
nasi as the title of a rabb…
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Religion Past and Present
Nassau
(511 words)
[German Version] I. Territorial History – II. Church History
I. Territorial History After 1160 the counts of Laurenburg on the lower Lahn took the name Nassau, from the fortress they had built around 1125. The history of Nassau is dominated by the allocation of its extensive territory, which extended westward past the boundaries of the old empire, and its partitioning into numerous subunits. In 1255 the two sons of Count Henry II, Walram II and Otto I, divided the Nassau lands, thus establishing permanent…
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Religion Past and Present
Nathan
(704 words)
[German Version] (Heb. נָתָן/
nātān, “[God/YHWH] has given”). The most important figure named Nathan in the Old Testament was a prophet (נָבִיא/
nābîʾ) at the Jerusalem court of David and a partisan of Solomon. Nothing is known of his origins or family, nor is he clearly delineated. Since he first appears in Jerusalem, he was probably a Jerusalemite, but hardly the “chief spokesman for the Jebusite group” (Jones, 144). He is not in the lists of David’s officials. There is no evidence that he is to be identified wit…
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Religion Past and Present
Nathanael
(229 words)
[German Version] is mentioned only in the Gospel of John where he appears as a key disciple of Jesus (John 1:47–51). He is a witness to his resurrection in Galilee (John 21:2; where he is said to be from Cana in Galilee). Nathanael is a recipient of the promise of an open heaven and of the vision of the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (John 1:51), which alludes most clearly to Jacob’s vision in Gen 28:12. This passage probably lies behind the identification of Nathanael as an I…
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Religion Past and Present
Nathan ben Yehiel
(143 words)
[German Version] (1035–1100) wrote a comprehensive lexicon of the Hebrew-Aramaic vocabulary employed by the two Talmuds and by midrashic literature (Midrash), in the last third of the 11th century. In his detailed analyses of words, he frequently also delves into the real nature of things and draws, among other sources, on the exegesis of the talmudic academies of Babylonia, North Africa, and the Rhineland. His excerpts from the Midrash sometimes contain unique variant readings, or quote from works that are otherwise entirely lost. His lexicon was already widely read in the ¶ Middle Ag…
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Religion Past and Present
Nathan of Gaza
(219 words)
[German Version] (1643, Jerusalem, Israel – Jan 11, 1680, Skopje, Macedonia), the first prophet and main theologian of Shabbetaianism. After a meeting with Shabbetai Tzevi in Gaza in 1665, Nathan, a young scholar of I. Luria’s Kabbalah, declared that he had a revelation which identified Shabbetai Tzevi as the messiah, a claim that the latter had been making for years without any positive response. However, actual Shabbetaianism was only brought to life with Nathan’s prophecy, and Nathan became its…
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Religion Past and Present
Nathusius, Martin Friedrich Engelhard von
(181 words)
[German Version] (Sep 24, 1843, Althaldensleben – Mar 9, 1906, Greifswald). Nathusius spent his childhood, youth, and years of study in an ecclesiastical and theological atmosphere, strongly influenced by J.H. Wichern, F.A.G. Tholuck, and J.T. Beck. He was a pastor from 1873 in Quedlinburg and from 1885 in Barmen, and was then appointed in 1888 to a chair of practical theology in Greifswald. Nathusius wrote influential and widely read publications on the social question, in which he strongly criti…
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Religion Past and Present
Nation
(936 words)
[German Version] The Latin word
natio (from
nasci, “be born”) denotes the place of origin of a person or thing. Natio was the goddess of birth. The Latin word also meant a tribe or people. Since the Middle Ages,
nation (or
natio) has had a wide range of heterogeneous meanings. The medieval
nationes of universities, councils, merchants, clerics, and nobility were not precursors of modern ideas of a nation, although clerics and landed nobility in the late Middle Ages developed notions of a German national consciousness or sense of a German
Reich. Formulas using the word
natio and references …
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Religion Past and Present
National Accounts
(269 words)
[German Version] (Macroeconomic Accounting). Macroeconomic accounting includes several part-calculations that represent the economy of an entire country or individual states of a federal republic for a certain period. At the center stand the calculation of the production, distribution and exploitation of the Gross National Product (GNP) and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and an account of the redistribution ¶ and wealth-creation processes of a past period. The GDP is regarded as an important measure of production, and the GNP of income. National accou…
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Religion Past and Present
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
(169 words)
[German Version] The NAACP was founded in New York City on Feb 12, 1909 (A. Lincoln’s 100th birthday). It was established as a civil rights organization to improve the conditions under which black Americans lived. It sought a single-class citizenship for all American citizens. The organization’s most important victory came in 1954 when it successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The NAACP was chief sponsor to what became th…
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Religion Past and Present
National Association of Evangelicals
(301 words)
[German Version] The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is a voluntary interde ¶ nominational coalition of churches and organizations founded in 1942 under the leadership of H.J. Ockenga and J. Elwin Wright to further the reform of fundamentalism (II, 2) in North America and to return Evangelicalism (I) to a position of cultural and intellectual prominence. The “new evangelical” leaders believed that a national alliance of diverse evangelical groups could mount a powerful front against what they perc…
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Religion Past and Present
National Catholic Welfare Council/Conference
(311 words)
[German Version] The founding of the National Catholic Welfare Council (NCWC) in 1919 was a sign of the influence of progressive movements in United States Catholicism. Reorganized as the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) in 1967, since its founding it has spoken for Catholic bishops and lay leaders on political and social questions. Originally established as a coordinating body for the relief efforts of United States Catholics after World War II, the organization has increasingly become a …
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Religion Past and Present
National Church
(289 words)
[German Version] The term
national church denotes a legally independent church whose membership is defined as comprising the people of a state or nation. In modern territorial states, the territory of the national church is defined by the boundaries of the country. A national church is not necessarily a structural element of the state, but it can be a state church, as has long been true of the Scandinavian churches. Historically national churches developed from resistance to the pope – outstanding ex…
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Religion Past and Present