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The fourth revolution world turned our comfortable lives into a rollercoaster ride of challenges, changes and choices. Apart from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Fourth Communication Revolution and the Fourth Self-awareness Revolution brought major disruptions to our world to which we were just coming to terms with when coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) struck and brought a firm halt to almost everything, including the way we were used to practice our faith. This confluence of circumstances has provided Christians in South Africa with an opportunity to do introspection and carve a new way forward for being followers of Christ and doing what their faith requires from them to be true to their religion and regain credibility in a time when the institutionalised churches are struggling to survive. The need to redefine what it means to be church, and the role Christians should play in society are on the table since the last decade of the previous century. This article identified four basics and, to a great extent, neglected pillars – two from the New Testament Scriptures and two from the Reformation movements – that could form the foundation for a transformed and alternative way of being ecclesia in the current fast-paced, demanding world. This article serves as an introduction and broad overview to stimulate debate and further development of the ideas presented to contribute towards positive reformation and transformation of South African Christianity. The study was conducted through historical research and document analysis.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: A call to discuss the pillars of faith that could assist the traditional or mainstream institutional churches to do introspection at the current crossroads. Four pillars of faith are identified to assist in carving a new path forward for South African Christianity, drawing from the disciplines of Church History, Practical Theology and Missiology.
The fourth revolution world turned our comfortable lives into a rollercoaster ride of challenges, changes and choices. Apart from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Fourth Communication Revolution and the Fourth Self-awareness Revolution brought major disruptions to our world to which we were just coming to terms with when coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) struck and brought a firm halt to almost everything, including the way we were used to practice our faith. This confluence of circumstances has provided Christians in South Africa with an opportunity to do introspection and carve a new way forward for being followers of Christ and doing what their faith requires from them to be true to their religion and regain credibility in a time when the institutionalised churches are struggling to survive. The need to redefine what it means to be church, and the role Christians should play in society are on the table since the last decade of the previous century. This article identified four basics and, to a great extent, neglected pillars – two from the New Testament Scriptures and two from the Reformation movements – that could form the foundation for a transformed and alternative way of being ecclesia in the current fast-paced, demanding world. This article serves as an introduction and broad overview to stimulate debate and further development of the ideas presented to contribute towards positive reformation and transformation of South African Christianity. The study was conducted through historical research and document analysis.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: A call to discuss the pillars of faith that could assist the traditional or mainstream institutional churches to do introspection at the current crossroads. Four pillars of faith are identified to assist in carving a new path forward for South African Christianity, drawing from the disciplines of Church History, Practical Theology and Missiology.
Evangelism, for various reasons, is once again back on the agenda of the church and theology. As a result of negative experiences and practices of evangelism in the past, it is now necessary to rediscover evangelism in a post-Christendom context to enable the theological recovery of evangelism. This new understanding of evangelism can then contribute to the recovery of authentic practices in spreading the good news. To achieve this, evangelism must be rediscovered as essential to mission (participation in the missio Dei). Further to this, evangelism is rediscovered as an invitation to missional discipleship in the coming of the kingdom of God (missional discipleship as participation in the coming of the kingdom). This research was based on the starting point that evangelism takes place through an integrated missional congregation as the evangelist. This implies that evangelism is not an additional extra practice by a few members but an integral part of congregational ministry. Evangelism is then understood and integrated holistically as martyria by the entire faith community. The gospel of the kingdom is then embodied in their faithful presence (being), loving service (deeds) and words of hope at appropriate times (speaking). This holistic approach will free evangelism from reductionisms and dichotomies that have added to the fact that evangelism has fallen out of favour. These practices of evangelism are determined by the theology (content) and serviceable style of Jesus and contextually discerned in faith as participating in God’s mission. The empirical research was based on 49 questionnaires received from 43 Dutch Reformed (DR) congregations from the Northern Synods and 6 other churches. The qualitative research comprised structured interviews with 10 pastors from participating DR congregations. Simple random sampling was used to select the participants of the study.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This research was conducted from the perspectives of practical theology and missiology. However, it also leaned into systematic theology (dogmatics) about missional ecclesiology and the identity of the church. The understanding of the integrated missional congregation (faith community) made use of systems theory, which is an interdisciplinary approach. The ethics of the practices of evangelism have points of contact with ethics.
This article attends to the theological foundation of the diaconate from the missio trinitatis Dei and its implications, especially for the Afrikaans-speaking Reformed churches. The missio Dei, of the Father, Son, and Spirit is directed at the realities of this life. The new heaven and the new earth are not mutually exclusive. The earth is sanctified anew, man has created anew [recreated], and our bodies are raised anew [revived]. This new earth, a new man, and new life come through the merciful dikaiosune of the Father, the diakonia of the Son, and the koinonia of the Holy Spirit. The diaconate and the missionary ministry of the church are caught in the essence of God and therefore belong to the essence of missionary ecclesiology. From the trinitarian perspective, the purpose of the diaconate is described as well as the relationship between the diaconate, the church, and the kingdom. The last part of the article deals with salvation and diaconate and the implications of a trinitarian understanding of the diaconate for the understanding of salvation.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article makes an interdisciplinary contribution to the theological discussion within the Afrikaans-speaking churches from the perspective of systematic and practical theology.
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