Essay on Unifying the Church

The book then addresses the Church and discipleship and looks at some basic questions, baptism, the body of Christ and the visible Church-Community. The book also covers Saints – members called by God. Included in this chapter is sanctification

The Black Death and Great Famine of 14th century Europe were major crises, so when the Church, who was suppose to have an answer to everything, could not stop such occurrences, the people’s relationship with the Church was completely altered. Many scholars of the church died due to wide spread diseases and hunger ravaging Europe, leaving less adequate people behind to run the church. At the same time, those scholars that where alive did not give the people much hope or security because they were unable to give answers as to how to diminish these disasters. In return, the people slowly began to explore elsewhere for such answers, weakening the Church’s monopoly over the people’s every move. This expansion of thought brought about the emergence

For the Life of the World authored by Fr. Alexander Schmemann an Orthodox priest was originally intended as a “study guide” in the 1970’s for students preparing themselves for Missionary work, giving them a “world view”, helping to speak about Christian view points along with an approach to how they coalesce through the eyes of the Orthodox Church. A key theme Fr. Schmemann discussed is Secularism, which he believes developed from our progressive alienation of the Christian culture. Additionally, he presents his interpretation of the transforming biblical themes of creation, fall, and redemption through a sacramental understanding. Fr. Schmemann’s experiences within the Orthodox Church liturgy reveal unity in the meanings of these three themes. It is through these understandings he believes can effectively offset the disastrous effects of secularism while revitalizing the sacramental understanding of the world.

The beginning of church is said to have risen from the resurrection of Jesus. In fact after the Pentecost, the disciples were celebrating the blessing given to Moses at Mount Sinai in which he experienced the presence of God. After this experience, the disciples were believed to be bold, understanding and Courageous. These characteristics till this day are still celebrated on Pentecost Sunday and are used for the sacrament of Confirmation, which is receiving the responsibility of a Christian and accepting the Holy Spirit. Church has been the backbone of people's faith. It has given them a comforting home to pray and be one with God. Today, however, more people are practicing faith outside the church. The majority of followers believe in God and life after death, however, many have lack of interest in the church. Church must be looked as a community of disciples. The book uses a suggestion from a Roman Catholic theologian Avery Dulles. He suggests, "that most appropriate image of the church for our times is the church as a community of disciples"(pp. 157). I totally agree with his suggestion. In order for Christians to find fulfillment in ones faith, one must help others understand their faith. We need to be grounded in grace; by being a Christian community your focus on believing is responding freely to a personal call and

Wheeler and Whaley give regular confusions of evangelism and worship, giving a brief reaction for each. They then give a scriptural model of an evangelism-venerate

Roles of the Catholic Church in Western civilization has been scrambled with the times past and development of Western society. Regardless of the fact that the West is no longer entirely Catholic, the Catholic tradition is still strong in Western countries. The church has been a very important foundation of public facilities like schooling, Western art, culture and philosophy; and influential player in religion. In many ways it has wanted to have an impact on Western approaches to pros and cons in numerous areas. It has over many periods of time, spread the teachings of Jesus within the Western World and remains a foundation of continuousness connecting recent Western culture to old Western culture.-

Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity, Volume I: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. Second Edi. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2010.

Over the past years of my life I have seen many changes, some for the good and others not as good. Change can be demanding and also crucial. The early believers would encounter this. One can see that significant change happened, when reading through the gospels and the book of acts it is obvious to the reader that the believers who followed Jesus would never be the same again.

By the late 1500s, Christian denominations had been popping up all over Europe. This was in response to the reports of indulgences (selling of freedom from purgatory), clerical immorality, abuse of money, along with many other bad actions that were rampant among the Church. It was these problems that Luther and others rebelled and created their own religions. With the rising of these Reformation movements, the Church needed to make some reforms itself. These reforms took the form of educating the clergy, opening monasteries, the Inquisition, and the organizing of councils. In fact, even though Protestant attacks brought these reforms, many of these reforms were needed anyway. The problems in the Church were so bad that the Church would not

The intent of this paper is to evaluate the distinct character and quality of the expressions of the Protestant Reformation. This paper will discuss Lutheran Reformation, The Anabaptist, and The English Puritans as well as the Catholic Reformation also known as the Counter Reformation. It is the hope that after the reader has had the opportunity to view each of the characteristics and the expressions of each of the reformation the reader will have a better understanding of each and will be able to articulate the differences of each.

The Chinese Christian church in the United States often has ethnic characteristics, but different Chinese churches often have special concentration in the composition of the congregation, which reflects the tide of Chinese immigrants in different stages. For example, descendants of early immigrants from southern China usually have their fixed church. International students from the mainland of China have the church which they set up together. And other "informal immigrants" also formed Christian organizations. According to Aihui Lee, she divides American Chinese Christianity into four categories.

Dulles states, “It picks up the biblical theme that God has fashioned for himself a people feely communicating his spirit and his gifts” (50). The Body of Christ as stated in Dulles is, “the main point of mutual union, concern and dependence of the members of the local community upon one another,” (43). The body of Christ will only function is the whole community is willing to work together to reach a personal growth in their relationship with God. Now that we have an idea of what Church as mystical communion consists of I will discuss the strengths and weakness of this model. The strength of this model is that emphasizes a shared life with the community instead of shutting them off. This is a strength because when people come together as a whole everything holds so much more meaning and people can form a stronger bond with God, now that it is much more personal and voluntary. Another strength is that this model improves people spirituality and prayer life now that they feel that personal connection that they formed. A weakness of this model is that it creates unsure relationship between the visible and invisible, since Grace allows people to get closer to God through the invisible such as communion while the visible structure like institutionalism tries to emphasize their power over the whole people. I have discussed what the models mean, their strength and weakness of each so now I will note the difference and

Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Teresa of Ávila, and St. John of the Cross. Many of these groups and people were seen as heretical, and some were not. It often depended upon the mystical experience described and whether or not it became too consumed with secret knowledge and experiences that were laden with emotional ecstasies. Particular to this paper, we must look at the life and works of the Catholic priest and mystic, Miguel de Molinos, referred to as the “founder” of Quietism by the Catholic Encyclopedia, who was initially praised for his work in mysticism before being imprisoned and condemned as a heretic by Pope Innocent

In his hardback titled The Church: Contours of Christian Theology, Edmund P. Clowney writes a systematic presentation about concerning the doctrine of the church. In chapter eight of his book, he describes the Marks of the Church. Clowney writes about the marks of a true church of Christ, which include the true preaching of the Word of God; the proper observation of the sacraments; and the faithful exercise of church discipline.

The four marks of our church are what we believe as Roman Catholics our church to be. We state these beliefs in the Nicene Creed and they are also shown in many other parts of our faith. Only the Roman Catholic Church reflects the fullness of these marks. It is through these marks that salvation can be achieved. These marks include One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostalic.