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[German Version] (1656, Nay, Béarn – Nov 25, 1727, London). Educated in Huguenot academies (Huguenots), Abbadie was an important leader of the refugee community in Berlin from 1680 to 1689. As a field chaplain, he participated in the Ireland campaign of William III of England, and lived thereafter on benefices of the Anglican Church (beginning in 1699, he was …

[German Version] (Quintomonarchists, Fifth Monarchy Men). In republican England (III, 1.d; 1649–1653), the Fifth Monarchists did not form a constituted ecclesiastical organization of their own. Rather, the term refers to the exponents of a radically chiliastic (Millenarianism/Chiliasm) trend operative within various other groups (Congregationalists [Congregationalism], Independents, Particular Baptists [Baptists: II]; see also Dissenters). The return of Jesus Christ (Parousia) to rule for 1000 yea…

[German Version] (Mar 3, 1792, Petershagen, Minden – Jul 8, 1854, Göttingen). Shaped and nurtured at Halle by A.H. Niemeyer and J.A.L. Wegscheider, Gieseler worked from 1812 to 1819, interrupted by the Wars of Liberation, in higher education; in 1819, he became professor at Bonn, in 1831 in Göttingen. He established his academic reputation with a monograph on the synoptic question (1818), proposing that all the synoptics utilized an essentially uniform oral tradition (tradition hypothesis). Active as an editor of journals ( ThStKr) since his time in Bonn, he was also intensel…

[German Version] (1641, Alençon – 1717, London). After his studies Allix made his name as a scholar and preacher and in 1671 became minister in the Huguenot community (Huguenots) in Charenton (Paris). After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes he fled to London, where James II granted him the privilege of founding a French community inside the Anglican Church…

[German Version] (Dec 25, 1686, Stuttgart – Nov 19, 1760, Giessen). After theological education in Württemberg and some travel, Pfaff was made professor of theology by ducal fiat in Tübingen; in 1720 he became chancellor of the university. In 1756 he was obliged to relinquish these offices, and worked in Giessen as professor, chancellor of the university, and general superintendent. An infant prodigy and a brilliant ¶ character, Pfaff was an eclectic polymath, theologically influenced by the Enlightenment and Pietism. His main areas of work were dogmatics/ethic…

[German Version] I. General – II. Church I. General Economic history, simply speaking, is concerned with how over the centuries people have earned their livelihood, have obtained for themselves food, clothing, and shelter, have communicated with each other sometimes across rivers, mountains, and oceans, have met, bartered (Exchange), traded (Trade), developed m…

[German Version] I. History – II. Modern Catholicism I. History Indulgences ( indulgentia as a fixed technical term since the early 13th cent.; previously also remissio, relaxatio, or absolutio generalis) are rooted in the early medieval system of scheduled penances (Repentance: IV), which allowed fixed forms of satisfaction to be replaced by other acts (“commutation”) or payment of a monetary sum (“redemption”), all meant to be equivalent. The new element in indulgences was the discontinuation of this required equivalenc…

[German Version] I. Comparative Religion – II. Biblical – III. Church History I. Comparative Religion The terminology and conception of banishment develop primarily in the context of legal language. Commandments and prohibitions require sanctioning, must become authoritative, and are thus connected with magical incantations (Magi). In popular culture, the verbs “to ban” and “to arrest” …

[German Version] I. Early Church – II. Middle Ages – III. Reformation – IV. Modern Period – V. Present – VI. Practical Theology I. Early Church The church polity projected and in part realized in early Christianity is one of the most significant institutional inventions of Late Antiquity. Since it has survived into the present, with many modifications and variations, it also represents an element of continuity between the ancient world and the modern world. Church polity as used here means all the institutions affecting the external organization of early Ch…

[German Version] I. Dogmatics – II. Ethics – III. Philisophy – V. History – VI. Mission I. Dogmatics Freedom of religion, as generally understood, combines freedom of belief, of conscience, and creed, as well as freedom to practice one's religion (cf. German Basic Law, art. 4, §§1, 2), in one fundamental right. Dogmatics needs to clarify the relationship between religious certainty and freedom. A statement consonant with Reformation belief would run as follows: If Christian certainty, as certainty about the …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Church History – III. Dogmatics – IV. Practical Theology – V. Missiology I. Religious Studies Confession and absolution, expressive of the substantiality of guilt (I) and the impact of the spoken word with its magico-ritual power, are among the “most widespread means of structured confrontation of the ego with itself” (Hahn & Knapp, 7). They appear already in tribal societies (Kikuyu, Nuer, Acholi in East Africa) as part of purificati…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Tolerance and intolerance must be defined in terms of their relationship to respect, coexistence, indifference, acceptance, and prejudice. In the public context, they ¶ correspond to the presence or absence of freedom of religion. They originate in the claim to exclusive religious truth or else collide with it. Tolerance requires insight into the human ability to err and into the limits of human cognition with regard to faith, whereas intolerance rejects this insight. Following Gerlitz,…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Examination of repentance from the perspective of religious studies must confront the problem that the term itself has no culturally neutral meaning. Many of the phenomena in other religions that Christians tend to call repentance appear in a different light when viewed in the context of different anthropological presuppositions, ¶ so that due weight must be given to the religious anthropology in question. Generally speaking, it is true to say that in almost all non-Christian religions the notion of repentance c…

[German Version] I. History of Religions – II. Bible – III. Church History – IV. Systematics – V. Practical Theology – VI. Law – VII. Judaism – VIII. Islam I. History of Religions The term confession refers to various phenomena, including the confession of faith and of sin. A confession of faith can be understood as an officially sanctioned, formulaic summary of the central doctrines of a religious or a confessional community (“denomination”). Recited in cultic procedures and/or in everyday piety, i…