Theology and Religion

Wie immer man sie bezeichnet, ob als Prädikantinnen, Laienprediger oder Laien mit Predigterlaubnis: Sie predigen und feiern mit der Gemeinde Gottesdienst, gestalten Taufe und Abendmahl, manchmal auch Abdankungen und Trauungen. Sie bringen durch ihren unterschiedlichen beruflichen Hintergrund neue Perspektiven ein und sind auf den Kanzeln zunehmend präsent – auch in den Schweizer reformierten Kirchen. Doch wie gestaltet man einen ganzen Gottesdienst? Wie findet man zum Predigttext, wie entwickelt man daraus eine Predigt? Wie wählt man Lieder aus? Wie deckt man einen Abendmahlstisch?
André M. Stephanys kleine Einführung in den Dienst ehrenamtlicher Verkündigung bietet genau diese praktischen Tipps zur Gestaltung von Predigt und Liturgie, insbesondere für den klassischen Sonntagsgottesdienst und Gottesdienste mit Abendmahl und Taufe. Allen, die an diesem Dienst interessiert oder schon (ehrenamtlich) in der Verkündigung tätig sind, macht sie Lust und Mut: liturgische Präsenz einzuüben und sich «frisch ans Wort» zu wagen.

Liturgische Gesten und Bewegungen gehören ja nicht zum Lieblings- und Kernrepertoire reformierter Pfarrpersonen. Es lohnt sich aber über die theologischen Aussagen hinter so mancher vermeintlich nebensächlichen Entscheidung nachzudenken. So bei der Frage, wo die Pfarrperson/Liturg:in bei Beginn des Eingangsspiel ist und wie sie da hinkommt, wo sie gerne sein möchte. Ein paar Gedanken zum Einzug, halben Prozessionen und – hoffentlich – ein Mutmacher für ganze Sachen.

Church Fathers. Four years later he became a keen priest and minister. In Athens he also made contact with Apostolos Makrakis and he served as a chaplain, as we saw, in the School of Logos, where his spiritual personality and charisma became even more apparent. The years that followed found Father Efsevios in Corfu, 12 where he was quickly asked to work for the evangelization of the local people, and soon became endeared to them and brought about a revival, while he went deeper into his own spiritual experience and faith. Returning to Athens (1882) and cut off from his old fellow-worker Apostolos Makrakis (1884) he continued for many years the work of an itinerant preacher and with his restless pastoral labour throughout Greece created a renewal of faith while by now people saw in him an important spiritual father and the model of a Christian. The first attempt to create an organized movement for ecclesial renewal was made in 1893 together with his uncle Hierotheos Mitropoulos who in that year was appointed bishop of Patra, in north Pelopponese. They drew together around them a group of clergy and laymen and so created in the diocese a centre for missionary work and the training of future clergy. This first organized endeavour came to an end with the death of 41 Maczewski gives the number of 165,000, pp. 46,49. 42 Kacaq5t)YtO, PP-146-9. 43 Karaq5f)Y'O, P-149.

Church Fathers. Four years later he became a keen priest and minister. In Athens he also made contact with Apostolos Makrakis and he served as a chaplain, as we saw, in the School of Logos, where his spiritual personality and charisma became even more apparent. The years that followed found Father Efsevios in Corfu, 12 where he was quickly asked to work for the evangelization of the local people, and soon became endeared to them and brought about a revival, while he went deeper into his own spiritual experience and faith. Returning to Athens (1882) and cut off from his old fellow-worker Apostolos Makrakis (1884) he continued for many years the work of an itinerant preacher and with his restless pastoral labour throughout Greece created a renewal of faith while by now people saw in him an important spiritual father and the model of a Christian. The first attempt to create an organized movement for ecclesial renewal was made in 1893 together with his uncle Hierotheos Mitropoulos who in that year was appointed bishop of Patra, in north Pelopponese. They drew together around them a group of clergy and laymen and so created in the diocese a centre for missionary work and the training of future clergy. This first organized endeavour came to an end with the death of 41 Maczewski gives the number of 165,000, pp. 46,49. 42 Kacaq5t)YtO, PP-146-9. 43 Karaq5f)Y'O, P-149.

By reading Deuteronomy and Joshua in their canonical sequence and applying the framework of a three-stage accession process, the ceremony at Mount Ebal (Josh 8:30–35) emerges as the confirmation of Joshua as Moses’s successor. After describing Joshua’s designation (Josh 1) and demonstration (Josh 3–8), this study argues that his confirmation is specifically as the legitimate interpreter of Moses’s torah.

This paper was presented at the 2016 Institute for Biblical Research annual meeting, in a session on 'Suffering, Evil, and Divine Punishment in the Bible.'  The basic question is if Gen 1-3 conceive of suffering, pain, and danger as an intrinsic part of the created order.

This paper examines the emergence of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo in the Christian tradition in the second century.  It argues, in particular, that the church's commitment to read Genesis 1 in the context of the two-testament Christian canon led to the development of the doctrine.

Read at ETS 2017 in Providence, RI 'Creation Project' section.

The interaction between God and creatures is central to biblical narratives. There are several possible models for understanding the relationship between divine and creaturely agency. This article argues that a ‘non-competitive’ model for the interaction of divine and creaturely agency allows for a coherent interpretation of various features of Genesis 1 where alternative models lead to confusion. Since this ‘non-competitive’ model is historically related to creatio ex nihilo, it raises once again the question of the suitability of creatio ex nihilo for biblical interpretation.

In this article, Joshua 5.13-6.5 is used as a test case for looking at possible models for understanding theophany narratives. First, I argue that Benjamin Sommer’s historical model of divine fluidity draws attention to the prominence of the theme of divine embodiment in the Hebrew Bible but raises unresolved questions about the nature of God. Second, I argue that Augustine’s interpretation of the theophany narratives from within the framework of his trinitarian theology resolves some of these questions while avoiding Christianizing the Hebrew Bible. I conclude by briefly returning to the Joshua narrative, looking at the difference that these models make in reading the text.

In contrast to the contemporary trend of reading Gen. 1.1 as either a heading to the chapter or a subordinate clause, this essay argues that the verse can be responsibly read as the first step in the process of creation. In particular, it is argued that attending to the two senses of ‘heaven’ in biblical Hebrew is a necessary prerequisite for reading Gen. 1.1. Moreover, the final form of Gen. 1 reveals the use of both bipartite and tripartite cosmological formulae. Taking these observations seriously lays the foundation for reading Gen. 1.1 as the first step in the process of creation. In turn, it is argued that this reading of the narrative is theologically suggestive.

We introduce UFO, a modular aerial robotic platform for transforming a rigid object into a multirotor robot. To achieve this, we develop flight modules, in the form of a control module and propelling modules, that can be affixed to an object. The object, or payload, serves as the airframe of the vehicle. The modular design produces a highly versatile platform as it is reconfigurable by the addition or removal of flight modules, adjustment of the modules' arrangement, or change of payloads. To facilitate the flight control, we propose an IMU-based estimation strategy for rapid computation of the robot's configuration. When combined with the adaptive geometric controller for further refinement of uncertain parameters, stable flights are accomplished with minimal manual intervention or tuning required by a user. To this end, we demonstrate hovering and trajectory tracking flights through various robot's configurations with different dummy payloads, weighing ≈ 200 − 800 grams, using four to eight propelling modules. The results reveal that stable flights are attainable thanks to the proposed IMU-based estimation method. The flight performance is markedly improved over time through the adaptive scheme, with the position errors of a few centimeters after the parameter convergence.