Recovery from Modern Amnesia: Ancient Practices for a Faith-full Future

Pneuma Review Editor — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 21:38:03 +0000

Christian History Institute (CHI), publisher of Christian History magazine (CHM), announces its latest issue, titled: Recovery from Modern Amnesia – Ancient Practices for a Faith-full Future. The entire issue explores the story of Christian thinkers in the last half of the twentieth century whose questions about faith were found to be unsatisfactory in the modern era. These thinkers saw mainline Protestants and Catholics straying from earlier commitments to the supernatural origins of Christianity and Biblical truths. Further, they saw evangelicals ignoring devotional practices that nurtured and inspired Christians for centuries.

In response, professors and theologians turned to early Christian church fathers, their doctrinal commitments, devotional practices, and a variety of early ways of worship. In so doing they found their lives transformed in a modern movement of intense intellectual curiosity as well as a questioning scrutiny by traditional believers. Familiar names, writings and stories included in this issue are Tom Oden, Bob Webber, Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Kathleen Norris, Thomas Howard, and William Abraham. (The title of this issue echoes Abraham’s 1995 book Waking from Doctrinal Amnesia, a critique of liberal United Methodist theology.)

“Compiling this issue has reminded me of my own personal revival,” said Jennifer Woodruff Tait, Managing Editor of Christian History magazine. “At seminary, I learned of the riches of early church theology and devotion, and found my spiritual life strengthened by fasting, disciplined scripture study, and frequent Holy Communion. Webber describes people somewhat like me in his most famous book, Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail—that “trail” being a metaphor for a spiritual journey.”

The Christian History Magazine and Website is “a continuing study resource offered to the home, church libraries, homeschoolers, high schools, colleges & universities.”

The issue is an attempt to understand a movement that, over the course of several decades, has sought to combine the best aspects of evangelical and sacramental Christianity, grounded in the Bible and guided by the outcomes of first few Christian centuries. It begins with four writers and thinkers who speak mostly to Protestant evangelicals—Oden, Webber, Willard, and Foster. It then traces to the ancient sources of the faith among Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and mainline Protestant thinkers, and dealing with the difficult question of whether renewal can sometimes revive things better left behind.

CH issue #129, contains 10 feature articles and 4 shorter side-bar articles; a chronology time-line; an archive of rare art-work & photos; a ‘letter to the editor’ section and an extensive reading list compiled by the CHM editorial staff. The magazine is available on-line and can be conveniently read on screen at: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org.

Highlights from the Issue 129 table of contents:

Fulfilling a longing for the early church by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall

An excerpt from Oden’s Ancient Christian Commentary

Acid rain and Christian truth by Jonathan A. Powers

Why do we need to recover from modernity?

“He made no new contribution to theology” by Christopher A. Hall

Tom Oden’s influential return to orthodox faith.

Living a “with-God” life by Tina Fox

The friendship of Richard Foster and Dallas Willard and the birth of Renovaré

Going behind Aquinas by Hans Boersma

Nouvelle théologie and The Catholic retrieval of mystery

Freedom for tradition by Robert Saler

The Lutheran tendency to defy denominational categories has been a strength as they seek renewal

Restless and reforming by D. G. Hart

The Mercersburg Theology presented Reformed Christians with a link to the past—if they chose to use it

“We’re not done with virtue yet” by Jennifer A. Boardman

Many different approaches to recover from modern amnesia

A church of the ages? By Jason Byassee, Chris Armstrong, and Greg Peters

We asked some pastors and professors to reflect on what it means to recover from modern amnesia and how the ancient and medieval faith can inform the church of the future

Christian History Institute
www.ChristianHistoryInstitute.org
Worcester, PA, April 16, 2019

The Emergence of Italian Pentecostalism: Affectivity and Aesthetic Worship Practices

Paul Palma — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 23:05:30 +0000

Editor’s Note: This academic paper by Paul Palma was first presented at the 2013 meeting of the Center for Renewal Studies. Less technical readers may want to start with the more accessible conclusion.

Introduction

The early Pentecostal movement expanded among those seeking a more dynamic and vital religious experience. For some this entailed transition through one or more pre-Pentecostal traditions. The first Italian Pentecostals were Roman Catholic converts who transitioned through Protestant and independent Holiness stages before arriving to the Pentecostal movement. The guiding motivation for their progress from one denomination to the next was dissatisfaction with conventional orthodoxy and the pursuit of an intuitive, affective spirituality.

Italian Americans found in Pentecostalism a middle ground between the excesses of formalism and sectarianism.

This essay examines the spiritual formation of early Italian Pentecostals. First, I provide an overview of the religious journey of Italian Pentecostals, tracing their progress from Roman Catholicism and Protestant denominational churches, to an independent-holiness context, and finally to the Pentecostal movement. Second, I examine the social psychology undergirding their spiritual transformation. In Vision of the Disinherited, Robert M. Anderson referred to this dimension as the desire for “revivalistic holiness”; the attempt to overcome social and economic deprivation through the intensification of religious piety and affectivity.[1] Third, I address the relationship between affective religious experience (orthopathy) and religious practices (orthopraxis). The crisis experience of Spirit baptism initiated renewal and revitalization, sustained through charismatic fellowship and aesthetic practices. In Fire from Heaven Harvey Cox described Italian Pentecostal theology as being rooted in a primal spirituality including a new appreciation for feminine imagery and participation of women in congregational life. Aesthetic practices were conveyed through hymns, prayers, gestures, and literature characterizing the early Italian Pentecostal movement.

Religious Trajectory of the Italian Pentecostals

The Italian Pentecostal movement formed among a community of immigrants in the first decade of the twentieth century. Italians entered America as nominal and devout Catholics. Growing anticlericalism and distrust for American Catholicism, dominated at that time by the Irish Church, forced many Italians to veer from their ethnoreligious roots. Some ventured to Protestant churches. The first Italian Pentecostals were Presbyterians-turned evangelical Holiness believers. The movement of Italians to increasingly revivalistic churches provides the conceptual framework for understanding the spiritual formation of the first Italian Pentecostals.

The creation of the Italian Evangelical Mission in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century redefined Italian ethnoreligious identity. Beginning as a community of independent Holiness believers, this congregation emerged from the spiritual vacancy created by a neglectful American Catholic Church and the rigid demands of mainline Protestantism. Luigi Francescon and Pietro Ottolini assumed the leadership responsibilities of the Evangelical Mission. Francescon emigrated in 1890 and converted among a group of Waldensians before cofounding the First Italian Presbyterian Church of Chicago. Ottolini emigrated in 1891, converted from Catholicism through an independent evangelist, and later joined the First Italian Presbyterian Church.[2]

The Pneuma Review » practices

Recovery from Modern Amnesia: Ancient Practices for a Faith-full Future

The Emergence of Italian Pentecostalism: Affectivity and Aesthetic Worship Practices