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In this paper I propose a model of disability which synthesizes Amos Yong's disability theology with Elizabeth Barnes's "value-neutral model" of disability and then draws Sarah Coakley's account of ante-mortem/post-mortem bodily fluidity in with both. To construct this model, I first outline Yong's thought and then introduce Barnes's work to it as a pivot point around which its eschatological imagery can turn. I then address Coakley's work on bodily fluidity regarding gender and apply it to disability to reveal the model's capacity to hold theological clarity and mystery in tension successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to plural person theory, a group of close friends can act together not just distributively, as separate individuals all at once, but also corporately, as a nonmetaphorical plural person supervening on the friends. This article proposes that the Spirit is a plural person in precisely this sense. Modeling the Spirit as a plural person not only secures the Spirit's personhood and full divinity; it also provides a new conceptual scheme for interpreting the relationship between divine grace and human agency along non‐competitive lines. What is more, it makes sense of existing Christian practices, including Ignatian contemplation, evangelical quiet time, and Quaker waiting worship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French Catholic theology of the beginning of twentieth century turned to the experience of the masses of working people and had a creative political angle. This invites a closer look as this experience and its condition changes, and new concerns emerge. My inquiry will look at the theological rationale and nature of this engagement with the industrial world with an eye to its contemporary significance. I will begin from the pervading influence the industrial situation had on two theological developments that explicitly refer to it. The appropriation of this sensitivity will help to ask what is unique in their particular theological approach towards the political world. I will identify a notion of spirit, spirituality, and explicitly the Spirit, and will argue that this implicit pneumatological aspect is key. To show its significance, I will focus on this spiritual impulse in a developing trajectory of pneumatology to show its continuing relevance. Once affirmed and distinguished, it will point to a creative theological stance which is even more relevant to contemporary experience and engagement. Such an explicit pneumatological emphasis, then, is key for a creative approach towards the political, which seeks human and cosmic flourishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A multiscale hierarchical structural analysis of the universe employing an Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) methodology reveals that a trinitarian design occurs in nature that is premised upon Romans 1:20 wherein God revealed His nature in the things that He created. The first step in the creationeering® process includes systems engineering design that downscales to the lowest-length scales. We show that the universe can be viewed into multiple length scales of distinctive design volumes in which certain designed volumes illustrate a trinity. In particular, the lowest-length scales defined in nature as subatomic or atomic particles reflect the divine "substance" that makes the Godhead one and the higher-length scale, geometric forms differentiate the hylomorphic structures between the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity. Since God is a trinity, we would expect that He would have revealed it in nature based on Romans 1:20 (NKJV)--For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead. We validate this premise of God being a trinity and that He demonstrated this idea in nature as 57 different trinities are quantified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the foundational importance of the Trinity for the Christian life. Considering the teaching of John Owen, and his context in the seventeenth century, helps us see that the great blessing of the Christian life is that we have fellowship with the one true and living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And, in particular, that we have distinct communion with him as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses a book that explores the relationship between Old and New Testament revelations of God and the development of Trinitarian theology. It examines the nature of God as simple, perfect, and eternal, and the inner processional life of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The article also discusses different perspectives on the nature of God and the Trinity within the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, emphasizing the importance of ecumenism and unity among Christians. The book aims to explore the mystery of God within the context of Thomism, while also acknowledging other theological approaches and promoting dialogue between different traditions. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses Charles Stang's understanding of a Pauline and Pseudo-Dionysian concept of deification prayer, and the role of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer, in light of both Neoplatonic metaphysics of participation and Paul's understanding of the term "spirit". It argues that this can be understood through a concept of divine indwelling, explicated theurgically through the Neoplatonic conception of the One of the soul. While the Christian and non-Christian Neoplatonic traditions diverge on the nature of this indwelling, particularly as it relates to divine revelation, it serves the same function for both. A theurgic perspective helps us not just discover parallels and divergences between Christianity and Pagan Platonism, but also provides us with a language and a metaphysics which helps us explicate the work of the Holy Spirit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyril of Alexandria is best known for his teaching on Christ (Christology). Beginning with the wider soteriological framework for Cyril's teaching on Christ, this study will first establish the core principles and then move to consider contested and controversial aspects of Cyril's Christology. By drawing attention to Cyril's frequent statements that the Incarnate Christ acts both "as man" (as a human being) and "as God", I will offer support for there being two active natures in Cyril's view of Christ and will propose that Cyril's Christ acting "as man" opens the way for recognizing the specific human activity of Christ that is intended as a model for human imitation. The study will conclude with considerations on the wider ecumenical impact of Cyril's Christological doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article essentially historicizes the philosophical claims of Giorgio Agamben in his book, The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government, focusing only on the chapter "Mystery and the Economy," where Agamben deciphers the meaning of economy. Theologically, the Fathers of the Church employed the economic model taken from Greek philosophy to understand the central profession of Christian faith in the Trinity. Using the image of the Father as the King and the Son and the Holy Spirit as representatives, they were able to interpret the relationship between the sender and the sendee and God and the world. However, by historicizing it, the model remains wanting due to the incompatibility between the perfection of the Divine Kingdom and the imperfection of the human kingdom. The history of the economy shows the limitation to capturing the equality of the Trinity in society. We have cited some critical areas where the economic model remains human and fallible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question if it is possible to speak of "Geltungsformen des Rechts" for the period between ca. 1050 and ca. 1150, will usually be answered with 'no', since it was not clear what was generally enforced. The intensive research of the last decades has shown that there was little canonistic activity coordinated from Rome. Instead, both compilers and users of canon law collections pursued their own interests and needs arising from pastoral care. That resulted in various forms of reception and transmission of the normative texts. What was constant throughout the period was the fact that the authority as such of canon law was taken for granted, even if individual texts were at times ignored. This consensus found its expression in the idea that the Holy Spirit was the ultimate author of the sacred canons. The present paper deals with the role of this idea by analyzing four letters of Petrus Damiani and their influence on later thinkers up to ca. 1150. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses Descartes' "Olympica" dream-sequence and its interpretation. Descartes believed that the dreams were inspired by the Spirit of Truth, which he associated with the Holy Spirit. The article argues that Descartes specifically linked the dreams to the Olympian Muses, seeking to Christianize their inspiration. The notes by Descartes also reveal that he considered "Olympian" to be synonymous with "spiritual," referring to objects of intellection rather than material objects. Overall, Descartes' interpretation of "Olympica" suggests a Christian perspective on spiritual matters. [Extracted from the article]

The purpose of this article is to trace the evolution of the concept of missio Dei and examine the implications of each shift for the practice of mission. First, I explore the origin of missio Dei and its development from 1932 under Hitler's regime, and then I suggest Willingen's understanding of missio Dei in 1952 as an ecclesiocentric basis for mission. I then explore two more shifts in the understanding of missio Dei. Through the report on evangelism, The Church for Others and the Church for the World (1967), I assert that the report made a paradigm shift in the understanding of missio Dei as a theocentric mission with its implications for interfaith dialogue. Then, I present missio Dei as a Spirit‐centred mission based on the World Council of Churches' (WCC's) recent policy statement, Together towards Life (2013), and how to practise the concept of missio Dei as it is presented in the document by the WCC and ACT Alliance, Called to Transformation: EcumenicalDiakonia (2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augustine's sermons on the Psalms of Ascent, part of the Enarrationes in Psalmos, are a unique entry in the venerable tradition of those writings that aim to help us ascend to a higher reality. These sermons transform the ascent genre by giving, in the place of the Platonic account of ascent, a Christian ascent narrative with a Trinitarian structure. Not just the individual ascends, but the community that is the church, the body of Christ, also ascends. The ascent is up to God, the Idipsum or the Selfsame, the ultimate reality, confessed by the church as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Through the grace of the Incarnation, God the Son enables us to ascend, making himself the way of ascent from the humility we must imitate at the beginning of the ascent all the way up to Heaven, where he retains his identity as Idipsum. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit works in the ascending church to convert our hearts to the love of God and neighbor. I review the Platonic ascent tradition in Plato's Republic and Plotinus' Enneads; overview ascent in some of Augustine's earlier writings; introduce the narrative setting of the sermons on the Psalms of Ascent; and analyze the Trinitarian structure of their ascent narrative. I close with some reflections on the difference between a preached Trinitarianism that encourages ascent and a more academic effort to understand God such as we find in Augustine's de Trinitate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the resurrection from an Orthodox perspective, based on modern theological approaches, iconographic and patristic sources. It is considered that the resurrection of Christ is the principle and archetype of the resurrection of humanity. The liturgical practice of the Orthodox Church inspires an experience of the "now" of the resurrection. The importance of the relationship between resurrection, glory, transparency, and light is highlighted, as well as the encounter of the hands of Adam and Eve with the hands of Christ in Orthodox iconography. Dumitru Staniloae argues that the resurrection of Christ is a Trinitarian event in which both Christ and the Holy Spirit actively participate. Furthermore, it describes the resurrection as an active manifestation of Christ and emphasizes the participation of individuals in this event. It is also mentioned that the resurrection is a fulfillment of the divine declaration of love towards humanity. Finally, it speaks of the transformation of the world and the resurrection of the dead as part of an infinite and unfathomable love story between God and human beings. [Extracted from the article]

Many modern programmes of preparation of young people for confirmation are based on theological models which are correct in theory but ineffective in practice. They often assume that young people come to know the Holy Spirit through catechesis based on Scripture. This article demonstrates that a much better way of preparing young people for confirmation can be found in the genuine letters of Paul the Apostle. He showed that the presence of the Holy Spirit in a human person is not merely a matter of belief, but it can also be experienced in a reliable way, which is not limited to charismatic phenomena. This way is based on the discovery of a number of virtues in young people's hearts, which are quite unexpected in the context of their human egoism, laziness, etc. For this reason, they must be regarded as the fruit of the Spirit, who broadens human hearts to love and to serve the poor. In this way, young people may also discover Christ - as the one who humbled himself to serve not his social status but people in need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ideas of the Orthodox theologian Bishop John Zizioulas (1931-2023) particularly focus on trinitarian ecclesiology. For him, the Trinity consists of Persons in communion, and the nature of God himself is relational. Trinitarian unity is therefore the prototype, and the Church is its reflection. The essence of the Church is communion, which results from the fact that the Trinity is communion. Zizioulas' view of the Church is steeped in a trinitarian perspective. Zizioulas pointed out that the Church is based on the double divine economy: the work of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. The relationship of the Holy Trinity with the Church also has consequences for the structure of the Church. In this way, the Church becomes hierarchical in the sense in which the Holy Trinity itself is hierarchical: because of the specificity of the relationship. Becoming a person means breaking down the barriers of individualism and entering into communion life. This is realized in the Church through Baptism and Eucharist. The aim of the article is therefore an attempt to present and evaluate John Zizioulas' concept of trinitarian ecclesiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evangelicals living in a democracy are faced with the pressures of constitutionalism and the influence of secularism. These two forces unsettle God from the public spaces and enhance decadent culture. This article addresses the current challenges Evangelicals face in the decadent culture of democracy in South Africa. The essence of the proposal is how South African Evangelicals should maintain their confession, while surrounded by unethical practices of corruption and greed. An interdisciplinary approach is followed, so literature from the disciplines of Church History, Systematic Theology, Ethics, Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, and Political Studies are reviewed to address the problem. The history of the Evangelical faith and the rationale behind Evangelical awakenings open the discussion into the presentation. The Evangelical dogma is highlighted, followed by the definition of democracy with its entrenched decadent culture. Church, government, and the family are identified as places of contestation, where Evangelicals sense the threat to their doctrinal tenets. The challenge faced by Evangelicals can be addressed by remaining evangelically rooted and by holding unswervingly to three major doctrinal tenets, which are the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of human depravity, and in the belief that the Bible is the measure of faith and conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Gospel of John, without having its own liturgical year, is typically assumed to have a supplemental homiletical role in the Revised Common Lectionary, and yet the Fourth Gospel is the designated Gospel reading for the festival Sundays of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and Easter season. As a result, the theological themes of the Fourth Gospel anchor the church's Trinitarian confessions and doctrinal imagination when it comes to preaching. In particular, as the assigned Gospel for the Sundays of Easter, the Gospel of John shapes resurrection proclamation. Resurrection proclamation, therefore, is animated by Jesus' final words to his disciples found in the Farewell Discourse (John 14–17), where Jesus interprets his own ministry, commissions his disciples, testifies to the Paraclete, and prays for his followers. This essay will explore how the viewpoint of Jesus' departing declarations makes a difference for preaching the resurrection. Through the lens of the Farewell Discourse, the promise of the resurrection takes on thematic issues that give important meaning to Jesus' own revelation, "I am the resurrection and the life". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tridentine Latin Mass (TLM) is rapidly growing in popularity. The movement that has formed around it has grown so attached to it as to threaten the unity of the Catholic Church. I attended TLMs in multiple distinct settings, studied the worshippers' ordinary theology, and proceeded hermeneutically using the Circle Method. The most useful insight to emerge from this is that the theological aesthetics of the post-Conciliar Mass could be more deeply symbolic and synergistic with Conciliar intellectual theology. The TLM's aesthetics offer worshippers assurances of certainty, but these assurances are empty. Therefore, parishes should facilitate the self-expression of the faithful, both to foster engagement with mystery and to inspire liturgical aesthetics. From these expressions, contextually meaningful symbols will emerge, which, through communal discernment guided by the Holy Spirit, may prove worthy to the task of enhancing liturgical aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay I explain that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was first developed as a response to Jewish claims of Christian apostasy and polytheism. At the beginning of Christianity, most of its converts were observant Jews. The Jewish authorities took steps to reclaim their lost sheep and to stem the flow of departures. Their primary intellectual ammunition in that effort was the claim that the Christians were polytheists, because they claimed to believe in two Gods–the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. The Christians' apostasy was manifest by simple referring to the Mosaic commandment that righteous Israel should have only one God. This Jewish accusation of polytheism also neatly answered the inflammatory Christian charge that the Jews had crucified God and raised significant doubt about their claims of a special resurrection. The doctrine of the Trinity answered all those criticisms. God and Jesus Christ together were the one true God. But the nature of that oneness took some time to work out, and it is within a process of contending with pagan philosophical arguments and intra-Christian heretical positions, that a Christian doctrine of the Trinity begins to congeal. The work of Ante-Nicene Fathers—Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Novatian, and others—whose voices we allow to be heard below—contain a trajectory of ideas that explain how the tri-unity is expressed in the momentous Creeds of Nicaea (AD 325) and Constantinople (381). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grace may be described as the gratuitous self-communication of God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. The term also refers to the living, actual, and continuous experience humans have of this saving event. In a wholly unmerited way, the Spirit of the risen Christ becomes present in the church and in each believer, who thus shares in divine life expressed in a personal relationship with the Trinity and, in the creating Trinity, with the whole of the created world. The concept of ‘grace’ gives expression to an essential element of the Christian understanding of the human person, and of anthropology as a whole. The first two parts of this article will explain the origin of the term and its development throughout history in the patristic, medieval, modern, and contemporary periods. The following three parts present the key topics within a Roman Catholic theology of grace. The main theme of the first of these parts is God’s saving love, the second is the power of grace to transform those in whom God dwells, and the third is the way in which grace relates to human freedom.

Building on the philosophical groundwork regarding experience, this article examines the meaning of Christian experience from a Catholic perspective. Christian experience of God is here understood as a graced act through which a person becomes affectively aware of the meaning of the event of Christ and of the encounter with him. As participation in the divine life that Christ makes available through the Holy Spirit, Christian experience is also the gradual entering into the mystery of Christ and his mission to glorify the Father by means of the Spirit of both. After examining the biblical terminology for ‘experience’, the entry approaches the meaning of Christian experience by discussing some foundational experiences of God as portrayed in scripture and offers a synthetic account of what could be considered the basic structure of Christian experience. The entry deepens this account in three steps: it first presents the knowledge of God that is available to the transformed human sensorium, the so-called ‘spiritual senses’; it then examines the dynamic aspect of Christian experience through an account of ‘mystical life’ within which basic criteria for assessing ‘mystical experiences’ are offered; finally, it elucidates the knowledge of God available to the baptized within the school of charity one is called to live – the church, the family, and the religious community. The article concludes by describing the reasons for the positive appreciation of experience in the Roman Catholic Church that took place in the last century and presenting some of the most significant theological reflections on it.

Significant attention has been given to the Apocalypse's theology of God and of Christ articulated throughout John's vision. However, less attention has been devoted to the pneumatology of the Apocalypse. The purpose of this article is to further attention to and discussion of the Holy Spirit in Revelation by arguing for a further reference to the Holy Spirit in the final vision of 21:1-22:5. This article argues for a metaphorical reference to the Holy Spirit in the water imagery of 21:6 and 22:1, where the water of life is the Spirit who gives life to the new creation. Though this view has been suggested previously, this article will provide argumentation from Old Testament references, rabbinic background, Johannine parallels, and the structure of Revelation itself. Preliminary considerations are then offered as to how this might contribute to the Trinitarian nature of Revelation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charismatic theology has engaged little with the concept of the imago Dei and has sometimes emphasized eschatology over creation. This article reconsiders views on the imago Dei in light of the concept of divine presence, building on notions of intensification and suggesting the concept of activation. I propose that as God breathes his Spirit into the first humans and pours out his Spirit on all flesh, a primary way in which we image God is by manifesting his divine presence in the world. Through the indwelling Spirit (a structural aspect of the imago Dei that is activated through belief in Christ), we are united with God the Father and one another (relational aspects of the imago Dei) and enabled to exercise responsible dominion over creation (a functional aspect). Thus the Spirit at creation is continuous with the Spirit at Pentecost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the imago Dei, emphasizing the Spirit's role in creation, Pentecost, and spiritual transformation. Warren's essay highlights how the indwelling Spirit activates the image of God within believers, uniting them with God and others, and enabling responsible dominion over creation. Topics discussed include pneumatological approaches to creation, the Spirit's connection to Pentecost, and the theological reflection on the imago Dei .

In this essay, I argue that modern science can function as a source of "sacred reminders" for aspects of Christian theology, like the doctrine of the Trinity, that are not normally engaged with in the empirical world. This approach is an alternative to the usual ways of relating scientific and theological endeavors in terms of conflict, separation, or consonance. I demonstrate this by beginning with the thoughts of two representative physicists (John Archibald Wheeler and Steven Hawking), particularly focusing on a fundamental distinction they make about the underlying ideal of the physical sciences. Noting a striking similarity of this distinction with some of the biblical imagery of God's Word and Spirit, I review biblical texts along these lines to show partial continuity with the groundbreaking ideas of our physicists, and to show how they can be generalized to include (a) levels of organization beyond those of physics; (b) intensive, localized agencies of Word and Spirit as well as the more extensive agencies suggested their ideas; and (c) the commissioning agency of God the Father. A review of the theology of Irenaeus shows that these distinctions in biblical imagery were developed in the early Church and played an important role in early Trinitarian theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many ways, the cascading effects of the age of the Anthropocene have accelerated life as we know it towards a certain kind of reckoning, which has only been exacerbated amidst the global inequities present within the COVID-19 pandemic. Trauma studies, as an interdisciplinary field, has recently been linked to the experience of despair at both personal and collective levels. Yet, trauma scholars are increasingly amenable to diverse forms of spirituality and its perspectives as core to the work of addressing suffering in the world, especially for marginalized communities as ways to access the wisdom of bodies, thoughts, emotions, and cultural/spiritual longings. Moving further in this direction, a practical theology which bridges trauma studies with Christian spirituality (and the emphases on spiritually rooted social action and the centrality of the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete: helper, counsellor, advocate, and comforter) is timely. This paper imagines how contemporary trauma care approaches might be supported by emergent forms of Christian spirituality enabling greater posttraumatic growth and resiliency and subsequently how this can renew the practice and study of Christian spirituality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One insight at the heart of embodiment research is that the particular, material human body is the nexus of two loci: as an integration of sensory apparatuses, the body is the receptive locus of the world; at the same time, the body is the locus of responsive engagement with the world. Working from the framework of embodiment, this essay is a theological exploration of the arts, with particular attention given to the artist. The first half details two controlling ideas about the nature of embodiment and the arts: (i) the arts are necessarily embodied, and (ii) the Christian artist is in Christ's body. Here I examine how the artwork and the artist are necessarily embodied—the body is the horizon on which the arts are possible. With these two controlling ideas in hand, the second half of the essay considers three implications: (i) the artist works in and for the church; (ii) the arts are a gift of the Holy Spirit; and (iii) the arts are a place where the church experiences the Spirit's working. These implications yield, among other insights, the finding that Christ's body is the horizon on which the Christian arts are possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mission of the Triune God--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--is the focus of this paper since the missio Dei perspective is essential to every section. To bring people from all tribes, nations, kingdoms, and languages together in eternal worship of Him, the Father sent the Son, and the Son sent the Holy Spirit. Churches and communities must partake in the mission of God in the world because the gospel of Jesus Christ must be preached. God uses the church as his instrument to proclaim his kingdom to people from all walks of life. Thus, followers of Jesus Christ who engage in the missio Dei--bring love, hope, and peace to a broken and lost world--and should be true to God's calling. God chose people to establish his kingdom and bestows blessings upon them so that they may bless every nation on the earth. God's humanity and God's entire creation are ultimately reconciled and healed by the kingdom. Through Jesus Christ, people can receive the Good News of God through the work of the Holy Spirit. This paper comes from a chapter in a larger PhD study in Missiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The imago Dei, the idea of humanity being God's image, is central to authentic Christian education. This article explores what it means to be God's image and discusses one of the key implications for teachers: student voice. It is argued that many of the student voice and student agency practices promoted across the education sector arise from and/or are in keeping with the biblical revelation. The author proposes that participation with the Holy Spirit in God's redemptive story enables Christian educators to imagine, explain, and enact practices relating to student voice that are uniquely transformative and exclusively available through Jesus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a book review of "Cross and Creation: A Theological Introduction to Origen of Alexandria" by Mark E. Gerrien. The reviewer discusses Gerrien's interpretation of Origen's theology, focusing on key aspects such as divine foreknowledge, Origen's spiritual readings of Scripture, and his insights on prophecy. The reviewer praises Gerrien's analysis and argues that it will inspire further research into early Christian conceptions of knowledge, prophecy, and Christology. The book is recommended for scholars and students of patristic theology. [Extracted from the article]

The article is a book review of "Mission: The 'labour room' of theology" edited by J. Knoetze. The book explores the relationship between mission and theology, focusing on the African context. It provides reflections from contributors working in Africa and offers practical suggestions for how mission should be done in this context. The book emphasizes the need for contextualization, decolonization, and collaboration in mission work. It also addresses topics such as intercultural dialogue, urbanization, youth agency, and ecological justice. Overall, the book is comprehensive and informative, making it a valuable resource for those interested in mission studies. [Extracted from the article]

Pneumatology refers to the study of the Spirit within Pentecostal theology. Similarly, Pentecostals believe that pneumatology has a role to play in ecclesiastical leadership, which results in leadership through the Holy Spirit. In this article, this kind of leadership is theorised as pneumatocracy and is discussed in contrast to other leadership theories such as autocracy and democracy. The article seeks to demonstrate that pneumatocracy in the Pentecostal movement is important. However, it should engage in societal transformation, development of communities, and socio-economic and -political challenges for its relevance in the 21st century. Furthermore, this theory is proposed as an approach relevant to addressing gender parities in ecclesiastical leadership. The practices of pneumatocracy in early Pentecostalism, the early church, and contemporary times are explored in detail. A transformational pneumatocracy is proposed to address current leadership challenges in the African context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

God's call can be surprising and unexpected. This article evaluates theologies of vocation in light of this potential for surprise. Contemporary Protestant theological interpretations of vocation are critiqued as incomplete due to their tendency to present vocation as the expression and utilisation of innate abilities without giving sufficient account of how an individual might be called to something totally new and surprising. It will be suggested that this arises from a focus on creation as the dominant theological lens for interpreting vocation. An alternative focused on eschatology and pneumatology will be proposed in which both natural talents and new abilities are recognised as gifts of the Spirit given for the purpose of anticipatory proleptic participation in the coming Kingdom of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]