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[German Version] I. The Conference – II. Reception in Asia, Africa, and Latin America – III. Ecumenical Significance I. The Conference The “World Missionary Conference to consider Missionary Problems in relation to the Non-Christian World” met in the assembly hall of the United Free Chur…

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[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Church History – III. Survey of the Christian Confessions – IV. Systematic Theology I. Religious Studies For an overview of Christianity at the end of the second millennium of its development, it is reasonable to give a comparative presentation against the background of the world of religion. It must be remembered, however, that “religion” is not an immutable, ahistorical quantity: it is v…

[German Version] I. Church History The policy of the state toward the church in National Socialist Germany had met with resistance since 1933, on …

[German Version] I. Concept, Presuppositions – II. Development – III. Middle Eastern Church History and Historiography – IV. Religious Education I. Concept, Presuppositions 1. Concept The concept of church history has not yet been studied sufficiently, but it is already clear that since antiquity extraordinarily different conceptions of Christian historiography have been in simultaneous competition over the interpretation of past, present, and future. Often the different methodological option…

[German Version] (Oct 6, 1873, Tillicoultry, Scotland – Jan 27, 1962, London), Scottish educationist, missionary, and ecumenist in southern Asia and western Africa. Fraser was born in India, where his father was a high-ranking colonial official. From 1904 to 1924, he was in the service of the Anglican Church Missionary Society in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) as Principal of Trinity College Kandy, and from 1924 to 1935 in Ghana as the founding rector of Achimota College, where, among others, Kwame Nkrumah wa…

[German Version] Christianity in Sri Lanka can look back over a remarkably long history. After a sporadic presence on the island since the 6th century and a continuous presence since the early 16th, it subsequently went through a development that was sometimes in step with the various stages of European colonial rule and at other times took a significantly different course. The earliest reliable evidence for the existence of Christian communities in Sri Lanka is a comment in the ¶ Christian Topography of the Nestorian merchant and writer Casmas Indicopleustes around the year…

[German Version] (also called Augustine Chong; 1760, Korea – 1801, Korea), Korean theologian and martyr. Yak-jong belonged to the pioneer generation of Confucian scholars around P.I.S. Hun who – long before the first European missionary entered Korea in 1836 – accepted Christianity and established an enduring Christian presence in Korea, then hermetically isolated. They knew of “Western teaching” through Jesuit tracts in Chinese published by M. Ricci and his successors in Beijing. Despite the pers…

[German Version] Non-Christian religions have experienced repeated revivals, particularly after encounters with Christianity. The classic paradigm in the Early Church was the attempt of Julian the Apostate to restore pagan religiosity – an experiment that failed but was noteworthy because in many respects the revived spirit of “Hellenism” was unmistakably modeled on the example of the Christian church Julian opposed – moves to centralize the priesthood, liturgical regulation, and institutionalization of social welfare. In the context of the history of Christianity ou…

[German Version] I. Europe – II. Asia, Africa, Latin America I. Europe 1. Concept The term “religious disputations” (or “[inter-]-religious conversations,” Ger.: Religionsgespräche) encompasses discussions concerning religion, in particular Christianity, both between representatives of different religions and between Christians of different confessions (see also dialogue). They may involve the …

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[German Version] I. General – II. History and Culture – III. Religious History – IV. History of Christianity I. General The designation “India,” Gk ἰνδός/ indós, Latinized as indus, goes back to Sanskrit sindhu (orig. “boundary”?) through the intermediary of Old Persian hindu; it is a designation of the River Sindhu and of the Indus region, from which Persian Hindūstān, “Place/territory of the Hindus,” is derived. The Indians themselves called the land (among other designations) Bhārata, “[Land of the] Descendants of Bhārata” (the l…

[German Version] I. General – II. The West – III. Theology and Practical Theology – IV. Orthodox Churches – V. Asia, Africa, Latin America I. General Churches are built to provide a physical setting for the Christian celebration of the Eucharist, in order to shelter it and also to give it a place of prominence set apart from the outside world. The Bible does not discuss the legitimation and need for churches as distinct structures; historically, church buildings made their…

[German Version] The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) arose in the mid-19th century as the response of the revival ¶ movements (Revival/Revival movements) to changing social conditions in rising industrialization. The associations are interdenominational and offer groups for Bible study and prayer, educational programs and places of social protection. The YMCA was formed in Paris in 1855 as the first world ecumenical movement. The frequently stated purpose of its mem…

[German Version] (Apr 21, 1651, Sancoale, India – Jan 16, 1711, Kandy, Sri Lanka), Christian Brahmin, Goan priest and Oratorian. The spectacular resurgence of Catholicism in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) at the end of the ¶ 17th century is associated with Vaz. Catholicism had practically vanished from the island with the end of Portuguese colonial rule in 1658. Despite strict restrictions by the new Dutch authorities, Vaz made it to Ceylon in 1687. Disguised as a beggar, he initially visited the north (Mannar, Jaffna), then the west (Negomb…

[German Version] (Aug 17, 1874, Vellalanvilai, South India – Jan 1, 1945, Dornakal), Indian church leader and one of the most distinguished representatives of the early Asian mission and ecumenical movements. The son of a village pastor, he came into contact with diverse Christian groups as the traveling secretary of the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) 1895–1901. In 1905 he was among the founders of the National Missionary Society of India. An Indian society under Indian leadership (“Indian men, Indian money, Indian leadership”), this group sought to emancipate themselves from the paternalism of the missionaries (India). As one of the few non-western delegates at the World Missions Conference in Edinburgh in 1910, Azariah caused a stir. In 1912 he was the first Asian consecrated as an Anglican bishop, in the newly founded (and progressively expanded) diocese of Dornakal. In this diocese Indian pastors were given full responsibility for their parishes and afterwards they experienced enormous growth (in 1913 there were 8000 Christians, in 1945 235,000). Co-author of the Tranquebar of 1919, he served the National Christian Council of India from 1923 to 1945 as the first Indian president. At the same time he attended numerous international gatherings and was among the leading persons at the World …

[German Version] I. Geopolitical Considerations, Concept – II. History of Religions – III. Modern Asian Religions outside Asia – IV. Christianity I. Geopolitical Considerations, Concept Culturally, economically, and politically, Asia is extraordinarily heterogeneous. The Islamic states of the Near East with their oil wealth are part of this continent, as are the multireligious societies of South and Southeast Asia, relatively poor in resources, and the countries of East Asia with their extraordinarily dynamic economies (at least through the mid 70s).…

[German Version] I. 1st to 19th Century – II. 20th and 21st Centuries I. 1st to 19th Century 1. Early Church The concerns of the first centuries of the church were less with the establishing of fellowship than with its preservation – focused in the fellowship of the Lord's Supper – among Christians and congregations (Paul, Saint, Apostolic Council, Clement I (Romanus), Ignatius [Ignatian Epistles], Irenaeus of Lyon, Cyprian of Carthage, etc.) and with the exclusion of theologians and groups propounding false doctrine or practice. In this regard, this process of exclusion primarily led to the clarification of the position regarded as the criterion for fellowship. The only ecclesiologically relevant difference was that between the church and the non-church. It was only conceivable that the co-existence of separate fellowships, based primarily in doctrinal differences (“Great Church” in contrast to the Marcionites [Marcion/Marcionites], Gnostic congregations [Gnosis/Gnosticism: II, 2.a; III, 1], Sabellians [Sabellius/Sabellians, etc.]), but also in contrasts in devotional style and the theological assessment of forms of devotion (Montanists [Montanism]) and church practice (Novatian/Novatians), …

[German Version] The modern Western missionary movement led to an encounter with a multitude of non-European societies as well as different models for the resulting cultural contact. These have ranged from the various versions of a tabula rasa theory – which denied non-Christian cultures any intrinsic religious value – to understanding of the need for a culturally authentic interpretation of Christianity. Conceptions such as accommodation (II), indigenization, and contextualization (contextuality: I) display many similarities, but …