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Kansas City Statement Of Faith
The Kansas City Statement of Faith is a 1913 confession of faith adopted by the National Council of the Congregational Churches of the United States at Kansas City, Missouri. This concise statement of Congregational beliefs restates traditional congregational polity and endorses ecumenism, while also displaying the drift away from Reformed theology that had occurred in American Congregationalism. Contents American Congregationalists had adopted earlier confessional statements. The Savoy Declaration, a modified version of the Westminster Confession of Faith, had been in use in America since the 18th century and reflected an earlier commitment to Calvinist theology. The Kansas City Statement of Faith was crafted in 1913 to "affirm traditional congregationalist principles in a form that would meet the needs" of the 20th century. The statement is organized into three sections on "Faith", "Polity", and "Wider Fellowship". The section on faith affirms belief in God the Father, Je ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creed
A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) which summarizes its core tenets. Many Christian denominations use three creeds: the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed. Some Christian denominations do not use any of those creeds. The term ''creed'' is sometimes extended to comparable concepts in non-Christian theologies. The Islamic concept of '' ʿaqīdah'' (literally "bond, tie") is often rendered as "creed". History The earliest known creed in Christianity, " Jesus is Lord", originated in the writings of Paul the Apostle. One of the most significant and widely used Christian creeds is the Nicene Creed, first formulated in AD 325 at the First Council of Nicaea to affirm the deity of Christ and revised at the First Council of Constantinople in AD 381 to affirm the trinity as a whole. The creed was further aff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bible
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. The texts include instructions, stories, poetry, prophecies, and other genres. The collection of materials accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies. The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of the Bible, called the Torah in Hebrew and the Pentateuch (meaning 'five books') in Greek. The second-oldest part was a collection of narrative histories and prophecies (the Nevi'im). The third co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Council Of Congregational Churches
The National Council of Congregational Churches of the United States was a mainline Protestant, Christian denomination in the United States. Its organization as a denomination was delayed by the Civil War. Congregational leaders met again in Boston, Massachusetts in 1865, where they began to hammer out standards of church procedures (polity) and adopted a statement of faith, known as the Burial Hill Declaration. Denominational organization came in 1871 with formation of the National Council of Congregational Churches, which existed until its merger in 1931. In 1928, there were 5,497 Congregational churches in the U.S. with a membership of 939,130. These churches were served by 5,648 ministers. The Congregational churches originated from the Puritans of colonial New England. Congregationalists were traditionally Calvinists strongly committed to congregational polity, from which the denomination took its name. In 1931, the Congregationalists merged with the Christian Connection to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English and early American history, especially in the Protectorate in Great Britain, and the earlier settlement of New England. Puritans were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English Reformation and with the Church of England's religious toleration of certain practices associated with the Catholic Church. They formed and identified with various religious groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and corporate piety. Puritans adopted a covenant theology, and in that sense they were Calvinists (as were many of their earlier opponents). In church polity, Puritans were divided between supporters of episcopal, presbyterian, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Predestination
Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby God's omniscience seems incompatible with human free will. In this usage, predestination can be regarded as a form of religious determinism; and usually predeterminism, also known as theological determinism. History Pre-Christian period Some have argued that the Book of Enoch contains a deterministic worldview that is combined with dualism. The book of Jubilees seems to harmonize or mix together a doctrine of free will and determinism. Ben Sira affirms free will, where God allows a choice of bad or good before the human and thus they can choose which one to follow. New Testament period There is some disagreement among scholars regarding the views on predestination of first-century AD Judaism, out of which Christianity came. Josephus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Original Sin
Original sin () in Christian theology refers to the condition of sinfulness that all humans share, which is inherited from Adam and Eve due to the Fall of man, Fall, involving the loss of original righteousness and the distortion of the Image of God. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Fall of man#Genesis 3, Genesis 3 (the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden), and in texts such as ("I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me") and ("Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned"). The specific doctrine of original sin was developed in the 2nd century struggle against Gnosticism by Irenaeus of Lyons, and was shaped significantly by Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD), who was the first author to use the phrase "original sin". Influenced by Augustine, the Councils of Carthage (411–418 AD) and Council of Orange ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Means Of Grace
The means of grace in Christian theology are those things (the ''means'') through which God gives grace. Just what this grace entails is interpreted in various ways: generally speaking, some see it as God blessing humankind so as to sustain and empower the Christian life; others see it as forgiveness, life, and salvation. Catholic theology According to the Catholic Church, the means of grace that Christ entrusted to the Church are many.Catholic Bishops' Conferences of England & Wales, Ireland and Scotland, ''One Bread One Body'' , p. 7 They include the entirety of revealed truth, the and the hierarchical ministry. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eternal Life (Christianity)
Eternal life traditionally refers to continued afterlife, life after death, as outlined in Christian eschatology. The Apostles' Creed testifies: "I believe... the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting." In this view, eternal life commences after the Second Coming of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ and the Resurrection of the Dead#Christianity, resurrection of the dead, although in the New Testament's Johannine literature there are references to eternal life commencing in the earthly life of the believer, possibly indicating an inaugurated eschatology. According to mainstream Christian theology, after death but before the Second Coming, the saved live with God in an Intermediate state (Christianity), intermediate state, but after the Second Coming, experience the physical resurrection of the dead and the physical recreation of a the New Earth, New Earth. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "By death the soul is separated from the body, but in the resurrectio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Righteousness
Righteousness is the quality or state of "being morally right or justifiable" rooted in religious or divine law with a broader spectrum of moral correctness, justice, and virtuous living as dictated by a higher authority or set of spiritual beliefs. Rectitude, often a synonym for righteousness, is about personal moral values and the internal compass that guides an individual’s decisions and actions. It can be found in Indian, Chinese, and Abrahamic religions and traditions, among others, as a theological concept. For example, from various perspectives in Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, Taoism, and Judaism. It is an attribute that implies that a person's actions are justified, and can have the connotation that the person has been "judged" as living a moral life, relative to the religion’s doctrines. William Tyndale ( translator of the Bible into English in 1526) remodeled the word after an earlier word , which would have yielded mod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of God (Christianity)
The Kingdom of God (and its related form Kingdom of Heaven (Gospel of Matthew), the Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel of Matthew) is one of the key elements of the teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus in the New Testament.''Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels'' by Michael Grant (classicist), Michael Grant (1977). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons pp. 5-191 [I, "Nothing Matters but the Kingdom of God," ch. 1-10]'' The Gospel of Matthew'' by R.T. France (2007) pp. 101–103 Drawing on Old Testament teachings, the Christian characterization of the relationship between God in Christianity, God and humanity inherently involves the notion of the Kingship and kingdom of God, Kingship of God. The Old Testament refers to "God the Judge of all" and the notion that all humans will eventually "Divine judgment, be judged" is an essential element of Christian teachings.''Introducing Christian Doctrine'' (2nd Edition) by Millard J. Erickson (2001) pp. 391–392 Building on a numbe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Gospel
The gospel or good news is a theological concept in several religions. In the historical Roman imperial cult and today in Christianity, the gospel is a message about salvation by a divine figure, a savior, who has brought peace or other benefits to humankind. In Ancient Greek religion, the word designated a type of sacrifice or ritual dedication intended to thank the gods upon receiving good news. The religious concept is found at least as far back as Greece's Classical era and Roman authors are known to have adopted it toward the end of the 1st century BCE. It is a central message of Christianity today, in which written accounts of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ are known as Gospels. Etymology ''Gospel'' () is the Old English translation of Greek , meaning "good news". This may be seen from analysis of ( + + diminutive suffix). The Greek term was Latinized as in the Vulgate, and translated into Latin as . In Old English, it was translated as (, "good" + , "n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Church
In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus Christ. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a synonym for Christianity, despite the fact that it is composed of multiple churches or denominations, many of which hold a doctrinal claim of being the one true church to the exclusion of the others. For many Protestantism, Protestant Christians, the Christian Church has two components: the church visible, institutions in which "the Bible, Word of God purely preached and listened to, and the sacraments administered according to Christ's institution", as well as the church invisible—all "who are truly Salvation in Christianity, saved" (with these beings members of the visible church). In this understanding of the invisible church, "Christian Church" (or Catholic (term), catholic Church) does not refer to a particular Christian denomination, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
