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
Cologne Declaration
(249 words)
[German Version] The Cologne Declaration was drawn up by an initiator group in Cologne on Jan 5, 1989 and subsequently signed by more than 200 professors of theology in the German-speaking realm; it sparked off fierce and still ongoing controversies within the Catholic Church. Taking up on the dispute caused by the appointment of the new archbishop of Cologne, the declaration expresses disapproval of an ecclesiastical centralism that ignores local situations and …
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Religion Past and Present
Colombia
(1,478 words)
[German Version] The Republic of Colombia, in northwestern South America, gained its independence in 1810/1819, and was named after Christopher Columbus by S. Bolivar. The previous Spanish colony of New Grenada had received the status of a viceroyalty in the 18th century. Its population in 2003 was 44 million. The capital, Santafé de Bogotá, has a population of 6,500,000; other urban centers include Medellín (3,900,000), Cali (3,600,000), and Barranquilla (2,000,000). The ethnic composition of its population is 64% mestizo, 20% Afro-Colombian, 15% Caucasian, and 1% Indian. At the…
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Religion Past and Present
Colonialism and Mission
(4,130 words)
[German Version] I. History – II. Missiology
I. History
1. Preliminary remarks As never before in its history, Christianity has become a “world religion.” Since the middle of the 1980s, the majority of the Christian population of the world no longer lives in the northern, but in the southern hemisphere. This development is the consequence of significant demographic shifts and of the differing growth dynamics of the churches of the North and the South. At the same time, most…
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Religion Past and Present
Colonialism/Neocolonialism
(934 words)
[German Version] I. Forms of Domination and Their Justification – II. The Career of European Colonialism
I. Forms of Domination and Their Justification Colonialism is a form of domination in which peoples are subjected to foreign rule and denied the right of self-determination. Colonies already existed in the ancient world – for example those of the Phoenicians and Greeks around the Mediterranean. It would be wrong to speak of colonialism in this context; the same is true of the modern colonial …
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Religion Past and Present
Colonna, Vittoria
(185 words)
[German Version] (1490, Marino – Feb 25, 1547, Rome), poet, born into the powerful noble Colonna family. In 1509 she married the Marchese di Pescara; her early poems glorify her husband as a heroic Christian warrior. The poems composed after his death in 1525 are dominated by the themes of contempt for the world, longing for heaven, and suffering (her own and that of Christ) as the way to salvation. A few ascetic works exemplify passion mysticism. Wherever she wa…
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Religion Past and Present
Colored Methodist Episcopal Church
(12 words)
[German Version] Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
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Religion Past and Present
Colors
(569 words)
[German Version] I. Comparative Religion – II. Liturgy
I. Comparative Religion Individual cultures perceive colors and assign religious values to them in very different ways. A distinction is often made between colors and “non-colors”: white and black represent non-life (death, transitions in general), and are therefore regarded as the colors of mourning, but also of weddings and feasts, and this not only in Europe. Red is often associated with blood, and accordingly also with…
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Religion Past and Present
Colossians
(1,113 words)
[German Version] I. Introductory Questions – II. Religio-historical Background – III. Theological Significance
I. Introductory Questions Colossians bears the characteristcs of a letter, as the framework shows (prescript 1:1–2, postscript 4:7–18). After a longer
exordium (1:3–23), which concludes with a
partitio announcing the themes to be discussed (1:21–23), the body of the letter takes up these themes in reverse order: A (1:24–2:5), Paul's struggles on behalf of the gospel; B (2:6–23), faithfulness to the gospel he has received; C (3:1–4:6), the holiness of the faithful. Th…
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Religion Past and Present
Colportage,
(209 words)
[German Version] from French
colportage (“peddling”), refers to a particular method of spreading the Bible and other religious texts through the sale of inexpensive Bibles from door to door by (mostly Protestant) colporteurs, often at great personal sacrifice. The first colportage societies were founded in Scotland (Edinburgh Tract Society, 1796) and England (Religious Tract ¶ Society, 1799; British and Foreign Bible Society, 1804), followed by Germany (i.a. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1804; Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1812; Wuppert…
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Religion Past and Present
Coltrane, John
(196 words)
[German Version] (Sep 23, 1926 Hamlet, NC – Jul 17, 1967 Huntington, NY). As a young man, Coltrane was already playing clarinet and saxophone in a band, and he went on to study music with enthusiasm, developing into a top saxophone player in the early free jazz style. After a period working with Miles Davies and Thelonius Monk, among others, in 1960 he formed his internationally famous quartett (LPs:
A Love Supreme, Blue Train; Successful hit: “My Favorite Things”). Coltrane kept faith with his Protestant origins all his life, although many of his music…
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Religion Past and Present
Columbanus (Saint)
(388 words)
[German Version] (
Columba; c. 543, Ireland – Nov 23, 615, or Nov 21, 616, Bobbio), abbot of Luxeuil and Bobbio. As a senior monk in the monastery of Bangor, Columbanus and 12 companions (St. Gall) undertook the
peregrinatio to Gaul, probably in 590/591, where he founded the monasteries of Luxeuil, Annegray, and Fontaine with the permission of King Childebert II. They experienced a great afflux of young Frankish noblemen and soon numbered more than 200 members. Columbanus came into conflict with the bishops of Burgundy…
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Religion Past and Present
Columba, Saint
(309 words)
[German Version] (c. 522 – Jul 9, 597 Iona), or Columcille, was an Irish (Ireland) saint, priest, monk, abbot, and founder of Iona. He was fostered by the priest Cruithnechán and studied as deacon in Leinster, later with the British bishop Uinniau. Columba may have openly prayed for his kindred's victory in a battle in 561, which could be related to his temporary excommunication by the Synod of Tailtiu. He left for northern Britain in 563, fulfilling the Irish ideal that glorified
peregrinatio to a foreign land as the pinnacle of ascetic ¶ renunciation. Columbanus benefited from …
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Religion Past and Present
Columbus, Christopher
(371 words)
[German Version] (1451, in or near Genoa – May 20, 1506, Valladolid) gained his first experiences in seafaring on trading voyages to England, Portugal, and West Africa. Sponsored, among others, by the “Catholic Monarchs” Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, he set sail from Palos, near Seville, on Aug 8, 1492. Trusting in recent insights concerning the spherical shape of the earth, he was attempting to find a westerly route to India and East Asia. On Oct …
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Religion Past and Present
Colwell, Ernest Cadman
(140 words)
[German Version] (Jan 19, 1901, Hallstead, PA – Sep 24, 1974, Deland, FL), New Testament scholar and university administrator; professor at the University of Chicago 1930–1951 (president 1945–1951), dean of faculties at Emory University, Atlanta, GA 1951–1957, president at the School of Theology at Claremont, CA, 1957–1968. Colwell collaborated with Harold R. Willoughby (1890–1962) on the critical edition of NT manuscripts (
The Four Gospels of Karahissar, 1936;
The Elizabeth Day McCormick Apocalypse, 1940). Colwell became known for his contributions to textu…
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Religion Past and Present
Comboni, Daniele
(297 words)
[German Version] (Mar 15, 1831, Limone, Italy – Oct 10, 1881, Khartoum, Sudan) stimulated missionary activity and founded an institute for the evangelization of Black Africa: the Comboni Missionaries. Ordained at Mazza's Institute in Verona in 1854, he spent his first years in Africa among the Dinka (Nuer and Dinka) in the Sudan (1857–1859). From 1862 to 1864 he campaigned in France, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria for the mission in Central Africa, and publish…
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Religion Past and Present
Comboni Missionaries,
(167 words)
[German Version] officially the “Sons of the Sacred Heart of Jesus” (FSCJ). Commonly referred to as the “Verona Fathers” in English-speaking countries, they are known as “Comboni missionaries” elsewhere. Founded by D. Comboni in 1867 as an institute of diocesan priests, it became a religious congregation in 1894, though not without conflicts and under pressure from Rome. Amid the tensions of World War I, the Austrian branch became autonomous, but was reincorporat…
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Religion Past and Present
Comenius, John Amos
(1,068 words)
[German Version] I. Life – II. Work – III. Influence (Jan Ámo Komenský; Mar 28, 1592, Nivnice, Moravia – Nov 15, 1670, Amsterdam).
I. Life After losing his parents at an early age, Comenius attended the grammar school of the Bohemian Brethren in Přerov (1608–1611). In 1618, after studying at the Reformed college in Herborn (1611–1613) and at Heidelberg (1613–1614; Reformed Colleges in Germany), he became warden of the Brethren congregation in Fulnek and headmaster of the local Brethren sch…
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Religion Past and Present
Comic Drama
(1,095 words)
[German Version] I. Antiquity – II. Middle Ages to the Present
I. Antiquity In the so-called Old Attic Comedy of the 5th century bce, as represented by the 11 extant comedies of Aristophanes (c. 450–385; the comedies produced in Sicily and Megara [so-called Megarian farces] are lost), the role of religion is a twofold one. First, dramas (Drama: I, 2) performed in the context of the festivals dedicated to Dionysus were considered to be spiritual offerings to the god and could therefore only be staged once (until 386 bce). Secondly, religion and cult were recurrent themes of…
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Religion Past and Present
Comisión de Estudios de Historia de la Iglesia Latinoamericana
(269 words)
[German Version] (CEHILA: Commission for the Study of Latin American Church History). The CEHILA was founded in 1973 in the Pastoral Institute of the CELAM (Latin American Conference of Bishops). Its first chairman was Enrique Dussel (until 1992). His successors were José Oscar Beozzo and, subsequently, Ana Maria Bidegain. The CEHILA planned and prepared a 10-volume history of the Latin American Church containing the first integrated account of the history of Chr…
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Religion Past and Present
Comisión Evangélica Latinoamericana de Educación Cristiana
(192 words)
[German Version] (CELADEC; Evangelical Latin American Commission for Christian Education). The CELADEC was created in 1962 for the purpose of providing Protestant churches in Latin America with educational resources. One of its main publications is the
Curso Nueva Vida en Cristo (“New Life in Christ Course”), the methodology of which is based on the realities of Latin American life. In the 1970s, CELADEC developed into the main center of popular education in Latin America. The institution underwent a major internal …
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Religion Past and Present
Comity
(186 words)
[German Version] (demarcation and apportionment of missionary territories) began in the early 19th century as a practicable compromise between missionary rivalry (Mission), which appeared irresponsible, and a unity that did not yet exist. The concept was approved by the (Protestant) London Centenary Missions Conference in 1888. From the original makeshift “geographical denominationalism” with predominantly negative emphasis on mutual territorial restrictio…
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Religion Past and Present
Comma Johanneum
(353 words)
[German Version] The Comma Johanneum (“Johannine Comma”) is the short passage 1 John 5:7b–8a: “…in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. [8] And there are three that testify on earth.” It does not appear in Greek texts before the 14th century. Five manuscripts include it in the text (minuscules 61, 629, 918, 2318, 2473); four others add it as a variant (88, 221, 429, 636). It is absent in all the ancient versions (Bible translations), including the oldest texts of the Vetus Latina and Vulgate. It makes its first appearance in ch. 4 of the Latin
Liber apologeti…
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Religion Past and Present
Commandment
(908 words)
[German Version] I. Dogmatics – II. Ethics
I. Dogmatics The renewed interest of the 19th-century – and especially of the theology of Erlangen (Erlangen School: I) – in Luther once more raised the issue of the
tertius usus legis, i.e. of the relevance and consequences of God's “law” for those who are justified in faith. The problem ¶ is twofold: First, how does God's commandment, i.e. the will of God as documented in the formulated commandments, relate to the freedom afforded by the faith in God's sin-redeeming grace and expressed in the…
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Religion Past and Present
Commandments of the Church
(351 words)
[German Version] The commandments of the church are disciplinary precepts and ethical rules that are comparable to those of Judaism and Islam. The are promulgated by the church and originally also arose out of custom. They are subject to change. As statements of the teaching office of the church (
magisterium) intended for pastoral and catechetical use, they appear in catechisms (II) and canon law (II; CIC/¶ 1983, Particular law). Since the Middle Ages, the number of church commandments and their content have varied because of uneven regional …
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Religion Past and Present
Commendam
(350 words)
[German Version] (accusative of
commenda, “trust”, from Lat.
commendare, “to give in trust”), a legal institution of classical canon law that permitted a church official to enjoy the income from an ecclesiastical office without having to fulfill the obligations and duties of a regular benefice. In principle, a benefice could be given
in commendam only as long as it took to fill the vacancy or while the regular incumbent was prevented from carrying out his duties, for example as a result of suspension; cf. also
Decretum Gratiani, cc. 3, 21, q. 1 (
Corpus Iuris Canonici …
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Religion Past and Present
Commendation of the Dying
(182 words)
[German Version] (
Commendatio animae). The earliest Roman evidence of this liturgy is the
Ordo Romanus 49 (7th/8th cent.) with the elements of travel provisions (Viaticum) and passion. Up to the Council of Trent, the commendation of the dying grew massively in scope. Travel provisions and care of the dying are found today in the Catholic
Ordo unctionis infirmorum (1972) (
Instruction on Prayers for Healing). Commendation of the dying (sometimes including the valet blessing) is provided in Lutheran, Anglican, and other Protestant forms. Songs fo…
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Religion Past and Present
Committee on the Christian Approach to the Jews
(171 words)
[German Version] was created in 1929 by the International Missionary Council (IMC) to carry out the recommendations of two 1927 conferences, chaired by J.R. Mott in Budapest and Warsaw with the theme “The Christian Approach to the Jews.” The IMCCAJ thus became the international umbrella organization for those independent and church-related agencies devoted to evangelizing Jews (Jewish missions). Under the direction of Conrad Hoffmann Jr., followed by Göte Heden¶ quist and Anker Gjerding, the Committee functioned through the war years, not only overtly atte…
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Religion Past and Present
Commodianus
(91 words)
[German Version] (3rd [probably not 5th] cent. North Africa?) was the earliest Christian Latin poet. Works: 1.
Instructiones: conversion of Jews and pagans, instructions for the Christian way of life; 2.
Carmen apologeticum: a portrayal of Christianity as the true faith in 1060 hexameters containing chiliastic-eschatological motifs. The works are characterized by the programmatic rejection of classical (because untrue) diction and meter. Karla Pollmann Bibliography CPL, 1470f. CChr.SL 128, 1960 A. Salvatore, ed.,
Instructiones, 1965–1968
idem, Carme apologetico, 1977 E. He…
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Religion Past and Present
Common Affairs of Church and State
(506 words)
[German Version] The frequently employed notion of the “common affairs” of church and state (or of religious or ideological communities) is a heuristic concept, not a legal one. It has become generally accepted as a way of circumscribing a particular form of interaction between state and church, but makes no reference whatsoever to any assessment of the corresponding legal issues. In the relevant literature, the term is used in a variety of senses. In the interest of pr…
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Religion Past and Present
Common Good
(984 words)
[German Version] expresses the purpose of social interaction, either in a general sense or in the specific sense given to it by politics and law. Precision in the use of the concept of common good is of fundamental importance for any type of social ethics (Protestant social ethics), as the normative definition of society and of its subsystems is dependent upon it. The often unnuanced invoking of the common good (“an empty phrase”) brings discredit to this major concern. “Common good” (Lat.
bonum commune) is the translation of the Greek τὸ κοινῇ συμφέρον/
to koinḗ symphéron. Aristotle emp…
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Religion Past and Present
Common Law
(451 words)
[German Version] The development of the concept of common law began in the legal doctrine of the High Middle Ages as a complementary notion to that of statutory law, whereby the medieval jurists could also draw on Roman legal texts. The most significant contributions to the definition of common law in the scholarly jurisprudence of the Middle Ages were made by the canonists. As early as the 12th century, the doctrine establishing the
plenitudo potestatis of the pope had already led the formulation of the principle that the validity of common law rested on the t…
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Religion Past and Present
Common Sense Realism
(764 words)
[German Version] has two histories. The first concerns the effort by Thomas Reid (1710–1796) to refute the skeptical conclusions that D. Hume had drawn from the sensationalist epistemology of J. Locke. Reid's main argument was that sense perceptions, operating under normal conditions disclose the material world as it is.They are not, as Locke had suggested, merely “ideas.” Reid suggested rather that the human mind is structured in such a way that it is impossible to act…
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Religion Past and Present
Commonwealth of Independent States
(147 words)
[German Version] (CIS), a union founded in 1991 of the successor states of the former USSR: Azerbaijan (not 1992–93), Armenia, Georgia (from 1993), Kazakhstan, Kirgistan, Moldavia (beginning 1994), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Belarus (White Russia). A 1995 human rights convention adopted by only some of the states formulated freedom of religion (art. 10) in line with the OSCE, though with a limitation wi…
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Religion Past and Present
Communauté Évangélique d'Action Apostolique
(144 words)
[German Version] (CEVAA; Evangelical Community for Apostolic Action) was founded in Paris on Oct 31, 1971 as the successor organization of the
Société des Missions Évangeliques de Paris (Mission de Paris). Originally conceived as an association of 23 churches (the Protestant churches of France, Switzerland and Italy, as well as the churches that arose from their missionary activities in Africa and ¶ Oceania), the CEVAA currently numbers 47 member churches (now also including churches in Latin America). As a religious organization of the post-…
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Religion Past and Present
Communicatio idiomatum
(498 words)
[German Version] denotes the “mutual interchange of attributes” of the second person of the Deity with the human person Jesus of Nazareth or attributes of humanity with the second person of the Deity in the person of Jesus Christ (Christology). It manifests first in the language of worship (prayer addressed to Jesus; predication of Mary as Theotokos) as well as in the biblical documents and ecclesiastical tradition (1 Cor 2:8b; Mark 2:10). The Chalcedonian Defin…
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Religion Past and Present
Communicatio in sacris
(592 words)
[German Version] In accordance with the Leuenberg Concord (1974), most Lutheran, Reformed, and Union churches in Europe (and beyond) practice ecclesial and liturgical fellowship (
communicatio in sacris), as realized in pulpit and eucharistic fellowship. This has been extended to include the Old Catholic Church (Old Catholics) and the Church of England. By way of “Eucharistic hospitality,” members of other churches are also allowed to partake of the Eucharist, while the members of the former churches …
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Religion Past and Present
Communication
(3,420 words)
[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Religious Studies – III. Fundamental Theology – IV. Ethics – V. Practical Theology
I. Philosophy In the 20th century, philosophical issues were primarily treated as issues of language and communication. While Rorty spoke of a “linguistic turn,” and thereby focused on methodological innovations in theoretical philosophy, Apel and Habermas postulated an objective shift of paradigm from consciousness to communication that is meant to have revolutioni…
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Religion Past and Present
Communications
(1,627 words)
[German Version] I. Theory – II. Ethics – III. Practical Theology
I. Theory “Communications” in the broadest sense encompasses the interdisciplinary study of communication in biological, technological, and social systems, insofar as it manifests itself as a purposeful exchange of information through a system of signs. The subject of study is ultimately the communication process as a whole, including both its mutually interacting components (communicator, medium, recipient) and …
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Religion Past and Present
Communication Theory
(806 words)
[German Version] I. General – II. Recent Theories – III. Religion as Communication
I. General Communication theories are not only developed in the natural sciences (physical information theory, cybernetics, biology) but also in the humanities and social sciences (Philosophy; Psychology; Sociology; Anthropology; Philology and linguistics; Semiotics, etc.), and are accordingly of heterogeneous nature. Where an interdisciplinary exchange does take place in the process of …
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Religion Past and Present
Communicative Action
(322 words)
[German Version] In its current usage, the concept of “communicative action” goes back to J. Habermas's critical theory (I). It had previously only been used occasionally in empiricist sociology and behavioristic communication research (behaviorism). Habermas, however, treats the subject from the perspective of G.H. Mead's pragmatic social behaviorism. He integrates Mead's notion of communicative personality development (socialization) with M. Weber's typo…
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Religion Past and Present
Communio
(2,855 words)
[German Version] I. Dogmatics – II. Liturgy – III. Music – IV. Canon Law
I. Dogmatics In the Vulgate, the Latin term
communio, along with the more frequent translations
communicatio and
societas, renders the New Testament word κοινωνία (
koinōnía). It gained ecclesiological content primarily through the Apostles' Creed, which adopted Augustine's description of the church as the
communio sanctorum including not only the elect, but also the angels. The
communio evidenced in the NT as participation in the benefits of salvation in worship became the startin…
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Religion Past and Present
Communion
(333 words)
[German Version] The original meaning of “communion” (from Lat.
communio) is “community, solidarity, togetherness.” In the Catholic understanding of 1 Cor 10:16ff, communion refers to the community of the Christians with Christ and with each other, as established by the reception of the Eucharist (II): the partaking of the one bread causes us to become members of the one body of Jesus Christ. Thus, communion constitutes and manifests ecclesial community. In antiquity, t…
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Religion Past and Present
Communion for the Sick,
(455 words)
[German Version] like commendation of the dying, traces back to earliest Christianity. According to Just.
1 Apol. (65:5), deacons brought communion to the faithful who could not participate in the congregational celebration of the Eucharist (Communion: II) – probably primarily the elderly, sick, and dying. The Council of Nicea (canon 13) desired that no Christian should die without communion (cf. John 6:54). If possible, it was delivered in both elements (until the discontinuance of the communion cup in the 12th cent.) directly from the celebra¶ tion of the Eucharist, also by th…
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Religion Past and Present
Communion of Churches
(790 words)
[German Version] The term
Kirchengemeinschaft (communion of churches = “full communion, ecclesial fellowship”) was introduced in the 19th century as a self-designation for the German United Churches (Unions, Church) and a term covering the organizational integration of Protestant regional churches in Germany, with frequent reference to
CA 7. It did not acquire a precise terminological meaning, however, until the reorganization of the Old Prussian Union after World War II (Evangelische Kirche der Union ¶ [EKU]), as a consequence of theological understandings reached during the
K…
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Religion Past and Present
Communion of Saints
(1,296 words)
[German Version] I. Catholic Understanding – II. Protestant Understanding
I. Catholic Understanding The expression “communion of saints” (
Communio sanctorum ) is attested in the writings of Nicetas of Remesiana (
Explanatio symboli 10) as an addendum to the Apostles' Creed (DH 19) and signifies an interpretation of the concept of the church. In its very essence, the “Holy Catholic Church” is to be seen in three interwoven ¶ levels of meaning: the common participation of all the baptized in Christ's gifts of salvation; the personal unity of all in faith,…
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Religion Past and Present
Communion Preparation
(189 words)
[German Version] (in the Orthodox Church). In reference to 1 Cor 11:27–29, the Orthodox Church only allows laypersons to receive communion (Eucharist/Communion) after they have been given express pemission to do so, the latter usually (but not necessarily always) being granted in confession. In some places, a week of fasting and frequent attendance at worship are required. The minimum requirement for priests and laypersons, which may only be departed from in situ…
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Religion Past and Present