Search

Writing Pentecostal history is no easy task, because historiographical narratives are inevitably linked to how Pentecostalism is defined (see Definition). In most of academic discourse, Pentecostalism tends to be seen as either the final outcome of a series of revivals in the beginning of the twentieth century, or as a global discourse in today's world with possibly more recent origins. The latter definition is be…

01. AusgangslageDie Behandlung des Themas ›Religion‹ (= R.) und ›Religionen‹ (= Rn.) hat zu bedenken, dass sich der heutige Gebrauch des Begriffs grundsätzlich von dem in der Nz. unterscheidet und sich erst seit der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jh.s durchgesetzt hat. In der Forschung wird von einer Neukonzeption ›in einer gravierenden Zäsur‹ [28. Bd. 4, 12] oder von einer ›monumentale[n] Transition‹ [33. 58] gesprochen. Über diese geschichtliche Konstellation besteht heute weitgehend Einigkeit. Deshalb wird im Folgenden gefragt, ob – und wenn ja, wie – sich chri…

In a country shaped by many different religious traditions, Indian Christianity accounts for about 2 percent of the population. Nevertheless, in South India, where nearly two thirds of India’s Christians live, Christianity represents a relatively strong minority. Here, the portion of Pentecostalism is also relatively high with a growing trend. Though reliable statistics are not available, pentecostal churches and ministries gained a visible presence within the south Indian church landscape by th…

The question of how the Pentecostal movement is to be adequately defined and delimited has remained unresolved and contested (Anderson et al. 2010). The debate may have ebbed away somewhat in recent years, but increasing scholarly attention to global Pentecostalism makes the problem even more virulent. Current…

1. IntroductionTreatment of the concepts “religion” and “religions” must take into consideration the fact that the present-day use of these words differs profoundly from their use in the early modern period, having only begun to evolve in the second half of the 19th century. Researchers describe this new conception as a “momentous break” …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies In comparative religious studies, veneration of saints generally refers to the posthumous cultic veneration of a holy person more or less identifiable as a historical individual; it is centered at the place that preserves the saint’s mortal remains, thought to have miraculous powers. Occasionally veneration of living individuals i…

[German Version] (1770, Scheidelwitz [Szydlowice], Poland – went missing in 1816). Missionary of the London Missionary Society in South India. From 1806 to 1816, Ringeltaube worked mainly in Mayiladi in the far south of Travancore (now Kanniyakumari district), sometimes living like a sannyāsin in order to support the missionary work started there by an Indian Christian, Vedamanickam, among Nadars (Shanars) in the service of the London Missionary Society. Michael Bergunder Bibliography H. Grafe, A History of Christianity, 1990.

[German Version] I. Name and Titles – II. Jesus Christ in the History of Christianity – III. Jesus Christ in Other Religions – IV. Jesus Christ in Jewish Perspective – V. Jesus Christ in Islamic Perspective – VI. Jesus Christ in Art I. Name and Titles 1. Jesus of Nazareth a. Terminology The appellation Jesus Christ signals a significant tension regarding the figure in question. Although generally u…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies The term personality cult probably became popular in February of 1956, when Nikita Khrushchev’s famous “secret speech” at the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union admitted numerous excesses during the Stalin period and ascribed them to the “cult o…

…

[German Version] I. Church History 1. On Jan 2, 1901, the Bethel Bible School in Topeka, Kansas, headed by C.F. Parham, experienced pneumatic phenomena, which were interpreted as missionary pr…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Judaism – III. New Testament – IV. History of Dogma – V. Dogmatics – VI. Ethics – VII. Ecumenics …

[German Version] (1790, Graudenz [Grudziądz, Poland] – 1838, Palayamkottai, India). After attending J. Jän…

[German Version] Transformation, metamorphosis of a human being into an animal, a plant, a rock, or the like is a common motif in Greek and Latin mythology (II, 2, 3); it also appears in European fairy tales and legends (Tales and legends) as well as many non-European narrative forms. Religious notions also frequently include the motif of transformation and therefore have long attracted the attention of religious studies, which considered transformation a characteristic mark of a “primitive worldview,” in which there are no fixed boundaries between various objects in the ¶ world, so t…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies The phenomenology of religion is the study of manifestations of religious phenomena (Phenomenon, Phenomenology), or their comparative morphology. The prime task is the recording of elements constituting religion, for example sacred objects, sacre…

[German Version] Spiritism (or spiritualism) denotes a movement whose adherents believe in the empirically demonstrable possibility of contact with the dead in the spirit world. It reached its peak in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. The roots of spiritism lie in the penumbra of Mesmerism (F.A. Mesmer, J. Kerner), especially Mesme…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies In the 1960s, religious studies began to discuss the continuing decline of religious commitment in Europe intensively. In particular the writings of Bryan Wilson ( Religion in a Secular Society, 1966) and Peter L. Berger ( …

[English Version] Ringeltaube, Wilhelm Tobias (1770 Scheidelwitz [Szydlowice], Polen – 1816 verschollen), Missionar der London Missionary Society (LMS) in Südindien. Von 1806 bis 1816 wirkte R. hauptsächlich in Mayiladi im äußersten Süden Travancores (heute Kanniyakumari Dt.), zeitweilig wie ein Saṃnyāsin lebend, um die dortige, von dem indischen Christen Vedamanickam initiierte Missionstätigkeit unter Nadars (Shanars) im Dienste der LMS zu unterstützen. Michael Bergunder Bibliography H. Grafe, A History of Christianity, 1990.

[English Version] . S. bez. eine Bewegung, deren Anhänger von einem möglichen und empirisch nachweisbaren Kontakt mit den Toten in der Geisterwelt ausgehen und die ihren Höhepunkt in der 2. Hälfte des 19.Jh. und am Beginn des 20.Jh. erreichte. Die Wurzeln des S. liegen im weiteren Umfeld des Mesmerismus (F.A. Mesmer, J. Kerner), insbes. in der mesmeristischen Versuchspraxis, die »Somnambulen« paranormale Fähigkeiten (wie z.B. Hellsehen, automatisches Schreiben) zuschrieb. Der S. gründet auf zwei parallelen Entwicklungen. In den USA war es der Mesmerist Andrew Jackson …

[English Version] I. Religionswissenschaftlich In den 60er Jahren des 20.Jh. begann in der Religionswiss. eine intensive Diskussion der kontinuierlichen Abnahme rel. Bindungen in eur. Ländern. Es waren dabei v.a. die Entwürfe von Bryan Wilson (Religion in Secular Society, 1966) und Peter L. Berger (The Sacred Canopy, 1967), die, anknüpfend an Konzepte von Max  Weber, É.  Durkheim u.a., zur Formulierung einer sog. Säkularisierungsthese führten. Säkularisierung (S.) beschreibt demnach einen selbstverständlichen Teilaspekt des Modernisierungspr…