Quakers & Capitalism—The Book | Through the Flaming Sword

Quakers & Capitalism—The Book | Through the Flaming Sword



Quakers & Capitalism—The Book


This page features links to sections I’ve already written of my book on Quakers and Capitalism by that title. Note that since this is still a work in progress, there are notes here and there about content that still needs to be developed. In some of these areas, I have the research but haven’t done the writing yet. In others, I am hoping that some of my readers will be able to contribute. These notes appear in brackets.
Quakers and Capitalism

Introduction

The 1650s: The Lamb’s War and the Social Order

Transition (1661-1695): Persecution & Gospel Order

The Double-culture Period (1695-1895): The Double-Culture Period

Evangelicalism and Political Economy (the 1800s)

Second Transition (1895-1920): The Corporation, the Great War, Liberalism and the Social Order
Appendices

Quaker Contributions to Industrial Capitalism—A Summary

Foundations of a True Social Order

Seebohm Rowntree – A bibliography

Share this:

Email
Reddit
Print
Twitter
Press This
Facebook

§ 12 Responses to Quakers & Capitalism—The Book
Marge Abbott
November 29, 2014 at 2:41 pm

Have you read Frederick Tolles “Meeting House and Counting House”? Another source is a book published decades ago by the Harvard Business School on Isaac Hicks, a NYC merchant who gave up a thriving business to travel as a companion to Elias Hicks.

Marge Abbott
Reply
Steven Davison
November 30, 2014 at 10:30 am

Thank you, Marge. Yes I have read Meeting House and Counting House, but not the book about Hicks. Sounds interesting.
Reply
Stephen McKernon
January 3, 2012 at 8:03 pm

Hi Stephen,

Happy New Year!

I’ve been fascinated by your blog and it has prompted me to do a whole bunch of self-challenging and self-education.

So, the obvious  I”m wondering when you are going to publish your book?

I am very interested in working with others to develop practical guides and resources for businesses. Is this something you are interested in, or do you know of others who share this interest?

Regards

Stephen
Reply
Steven Davison
January 6, 2012 at 1:54 pm

Hi, Stephen

Sorry it’s taken me a while to respond. I’m glad you find my blog useful. As for when I might publish, I don’t really know. I haven’t done much research on the history of Quaker economics in the 20th century and that could take a while. That is one of the reasons I started the blog, to get some of this material out there without having to wait until it was all ready. What I would really like is to find collaborators who have already done this research and include them as co-authors.

I am somewhat interested in practical business guides, though bigger picture macroeconomic issues interest me more. One little bit that I haven’t done with the research I’ve done so far is a more thorough treatment of Quaker innovations in business practice and labor relations during the 18th and 19th centuries. There’s quite a bit of material available, and I’ve even read most of it, but either didn’t take good notes or haven’t yet got to them. Also, George Fox wrote a rather detailed epistle to business people about their practice quite early on; I have the reference somewhere, but would have to did to find it.

There are some good and more contemporary pamphlets on business practice, which I’ve skimmed. And I’ve been communicating with a Friend who is very knowledgeable and personally active in labor relations. She is the person who could probably work with you most closely. Her name is Linda Lotz and her email address is llotz@hotmail.com. I think Linda is right that labor relations deserve more attention in our testimonies’ evolution and they would be a big part of a more enlightened testimony on business practice.

Well, I’ve hinted at a lot and not given you much that is substantive. Let’s keep corresponding and I’ll gather some resource references I think you might find useful.

And thanks again for reading and contacting me.

Steve
Reply
Stephen McKernon
January 8, 2012 at 12:10 am

Hi Steven,

Thanks for your comments and your generosity with information! I will follow through and keep you posted.

I could possibly help as an ‘assistant researcher’ or ‘second head’ on Quaker economics in the 20th century if that is of help. I’m a member of Quakers and Business (http://qandb.org/) and perhaps people there would be of help too?

Don’t worry about Foxe’s comments – I’ve found the most succinct are in letter 200 (e.g. see http://www.hallvworthington.com/Letters/gfsection9.html). And thanks for the referral to Linda.

My thinking at this stage is to focus on a guide and to that extent avoid overlapping with your work. This points to a focus on recent developments among Quakers and also those aligned with Quaker practice.

In the first instance, I will take a leaf from your book and start using a blog to map out ideas etc.

So once again, thanks for your initiative and energy with such a major task – and my best wishes (and possible help if needed) for the future!

Stephen
ernie weeks
November 4, 2012 at 9:11 pm

Stephen,

I’m a business professor at a small Appalachian university and might be interested in working a bit with you and exchanging ideas with you. Friends in the family for quite awhile, though we usually managed to get kicked out of meeting fairly regularly.

I would suggest looking to two early 20th century sources from the US.

First, Fredrick Taylor who was from a Quaker family – though I think adopted. Here you would have to go to the original sources as “Taylor ism” has less than a good name, but the thoughts and indications are clear…..Indeed, there is a direct line from this work to the sustainable economics writers such as Porter from Harvard who are developing value-chain and community models of business.

Another who you should not ignore is Hoover and his work in disaster relief, and policy changes. Again, a bad name so the orig. would serve you better than the historical revision.

For a general history of the NC Friends in the older days, Stephen Weeks = (also, adopted) is a reliable mid-century source for the period when Friends predominated in NC politics, and shortly thereafter. His work is probably available online. There is an excellent History professor at UT Chattanooga who probably has some interesting source material as well. I’m away from my research material so I can’t provide his name, but he did a quite readable history of Fox a few decades ago now.

Also, of course, the Chase family. There is an odd connection to duPont as well, but it is not direct and I’ve never run it down as to where their early management influences came from.

/ernie
Reply
Steven Davison
November 6, 2012 at 4:56 pm

Hi, Ernie

I know you responded to Stephen (at least I think so; because we sort of have the same name, there’s room for confusion), but I am grateful for your comments. I had forgotten that Taylor was a Friend, and I imagine that both he and Hoover (they knew each other didn’t they?) come from the same technocratic emergence within Progressivism.

I would dearly like to add material about both to my book. My problem is time. I’ve already spent years on this book and I’m already 65. I don’t suppose you would be interested in contributing would you? My solution to the time problem is to invite others to collaborate on bringing the work up through the 20th century.

Steven Davison
Stephen McKernon
November 14, 2012 at 11:55 pm

Hi Ernie and Steven,

Thanks for the referrals – I’m happy to scope stuff and pass it through to you, Steven, if this helps?

I’ll be a month or so as I’m completely snowed under at present – and will let you know when I’ve something to share.

And thanks again!

Stephen
KT
August 24, 2011 at 9:17 pm

I really enjoyed what you wrote so far. However, I did kind of lose it when you wrote about the spirit of capitalism. I don’t know if you read the World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. I could swear that he credited Quakers with helping to open up the New World for trading based on the close connections that the Quakers had. But when I have gone back and tried to find the passage to quote it, I can’t find it. It does fit with what you have written.
Reply
Steven Davison
August 25, 2011 at 8:28 am

Thanks for your comment, Karen. I’m glad you’re enjoying my work so far.

I did skimp on the development of Max Weber’s ideas in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism as they relate to Friends and their economic history. He wrote a whole book on the topic and referred often to Quakers to illustrate his argument, and I condensed the whole thing down to a few paragraphs. I feel the subject deserves more attention and maybe I’ll return to it with more effort in the future. In the meantime, I’ll review what I have written and see if I can make it clearer and more compelling. Thanks for the feedback.

As for Quakers and New World trade, this is another area that I’ve not studied yet in depth, but I would not be surprised if your memory of Friedman is correct. Penn’s colony was settled quite early in our history and once it was granted by the king in the 1680s—still quite early—the connections with the mother country quickly became the best in the colonies. And the Quaker transatlantic network was extremely valuable. Most other shipping ventures took a 30% loss for granted: theft, damage, graft, piracy, and of course, shipwreck, all took their toll. But, between Friends, many of these problems were minimized and the reliable profitability of trade helped make Friends rich while creating one of the earliest and biggest and most efficient pipelines for goods and money between England and America.

I think I touch on this in one of my posts, but like everything else, there’s a lot more to say.

Thanks again for your interest.
Reply
Paulette Meier
January 22, 2011 at 10:46 pm

Dear Stephen,

I happened to notice your blog on a Facebook posting and am thrilled to find it. Just read the introduction and first chapter of your proposed book, and I’m appreciating so much what you’re laying out. You’re addressing questions I’ve had since becoming a Quaker, as well as some of my inner longing as a Friend to be more connected with economic justice activists who challenge and critically analyze contemporary capitalism.
I don’t have the time to read a lot or to engage with others around all this much right now, but I’m so glad you’re writing this. Perhaps later this spring I will organize a short term study group at my meeting to read what you’ve written.

In Friendship,

Paulette Meier
Reply
Steven Davison
January 23, 2011 at 9:06 am

Thanks, Paulette. Stay tuned. There’s more to come, albeit slowly.

Steven
Reply

Spirituality vs Religion, Meditation vs Worship ‹ Through the Flaming Sword ‹

Spirituality vs Religion, Meditation vs Worship ‹ Through the Flaming Sword ‹ Reader — WordPress.com


Spirituality vs Religion, Meditation vs Worship
2d ago


One of the signature characteristics of our time is that many people have a spiritual life, or they want one, but fewer and fewer people want a religion. This trend has been working its way into Quaker culture, as well.

Years ago, I was a friendly adult presence at a Quaker high school conference. In one of the exercises, the facilitator designated one end of the room “spirituality” and the other end “religion” and we were invited to place ourselves along the spectrum. There was a crowd at the spirituality end, a sizable group just left of center toward spirituality, stragglers thinned steadily out toward religion—and then there was me. I’ve always had a religious temperament. I have experienced this phenomenon many times among us since.

The result of this trend in liberal Quakerism is that many Friends and attenders treat meeting for worship as group meditation, “an hour in which to find your truth”, as the A-frame placard says which my meeting puts on the sidewalk outside our entrance. This is an invitation to meditate, not an invitation to worship.

Nothing against meditation, mind you. I’ve been trained in several kinds of meditation, and I practice my own mash-up form all the time. And I’ve been in several satsangs that practice group meditation, which are great. But they’re not worship.

Meditation takes you deeper into yourself. Worship takes you out of yourself. Worship is more like listening to music than like listening to the “still, small voice” within. Worship is paying attention to something that transcends self.

Of course, one transcends one’s self in deep meditation, also; and the “something” we attend to in worship is within us, too, yes. That’s why centering is the first stage in worship. The door to worship is within us.

But that something we seek in worship is not just within me; it’s within all of us in the meeting room. And more to the point, it’s within us—as an us, as a collective consciousness. There’s a “that of God” in the collective consciousness of the gathered worshippers, just as there’s a “that of God” (whatever that means) in each one of us.

When we find ourselves in a gathered meeting for worship, we know that this transcendental something I’m referring to is real, and not just a facet or manifestation or dweller in my own individual consciousness. We come out of worship spilling over with joy, and looking around, we see that our fellow worshippers are filled with that same joy themselves. We have shared the joy of gathering in the Spirit.

I think of that gathering spirit as the spirit of Christ. Not necessarily the spirit of the risen Jesus, which traditional Christians infer from their reading of Christian scripture; that seems rather unlikely to me, metaphysically speaking, and certainly not objectively verifiable but only for one’s self alone through personal experience.

Rather, what I call the spirit of Christ is the spirit of anointing, the spirit that Jesus invoked in Luke 4:18–21, quoting Isaiah 61:1–2—the spirit that descended on him at his baptism, the spirit that descended on the apostles at the Pentecost, the spirit that descended on the first gathered “Quaker” meeting at Firbank Fell when George Fox convinced the Seekers, the spirit that Friends have been gathered in as a people of God ever since.

I experience that spirit is an emergent communion of a collective consciousness that is fully focused on the transcendental Mystery that dwells in the midst of the gathered worshipping community (and in the midst of each worshipper’s soul). For sure, it may be more than “emergent”; that spirit may have identity, sentience, and presence independent of the gathered worshipping community. For all I know, it’s the spirit of the risen Jesus.

However, while the worshippers rise from such a meeting knowing that, yes, that was it, that was covered in the Holy Spirit, in none of the gathered meetings I’ve experienced has anyone, let alone the whole gathered body, risen up and said, Ah! Yes, there he was, that was the risen Jesus. So inference as to the Spirit’s preexistence or independence or sovereign identity is, for me, just speculation. I know it’s real; its identity and its other qualities, are yet a mystery; to me at least.

So why call it the spirit of Christ? Because doing so reconnects us with our tradition and at the same time pulls our tradition forward, and because Christ is uniquely and truthfully descriptive. For “Christ” is a title for a consciousness, not the last name of a historical person. “Christ” means “anointed”, anointed of God as Spirit for some work. And, in the gathered meeting, have we not just been anointed by the spirit, just like Isaiah was in chapter 61 verse 1, and just as Jesus was in Luke 4:15–31? “Christ” is the awareness that one has been anointed for some divine work and the consciousness through which one is empowered for the work. For Jesus in Luke 4, the “work” was “good news for the poor”, a ministry of debt relief through radical reliance on the providing spirit of God and radical inter-reliance within the worshipping community for its execution.

And for us? For what work have we been anointed? Or have we, in truth, been anointed in the Spirit in the first place? Do we, in truth, worship? Or are we “just” meditating?

Steven Davison

----------------------------------

Follow Conversation
2 COMMENTS

treegestalt
2d ago


What I intend in Meeting is ‘prayer’, ie to be knowingly present with and interacting with God. ‘Meditating’ can help move me in the right direction for that — but anything else can happen, instead, including riding a long train of thought into senseless (to me, anyway) dreaming.

God communicates _in_ experiences, not necessarily in words (& not necessarily without them.) But what I’m needing to ‘hear’ in Meeting or private prayer tends to be beyond me. Like ‘growing up’, I can’t expect it to arrive at any given moment. Typically, a long period of frustrated bewilderment has to be trudged through before arriving at an “Oh!”

I too am disturbed by the prevalence of Theophobia in contemporary culture, particularly in our Meetings. (But the absence of God, if that were even possible, would be far scarier. People think they’re living perfectly well without God — but only because of confused notions of what God is…) But while that renders Meetings a little bit lame, such Meetings still serve well as bridges to God.
Reply

Bill Samuel
2d ago


Early Friends would have been aghast at that sign outside the so-called “meeting for worship.” They didn’t believe in a different truth for each person.

----

Doug Hamilton Not necessarily, only by typology if inward.
Hide or report this




Like
· Reply
· 19h
· Edited

John Jeremiah Edminster I've been pondering that, too, David, especially since Steven Davison posted his blog post on it. I think it depends on the will of the worshiper and the will of the Lord: of the worshiper, in that if I love my fellow worshipers and want them, too, to experience contact with God, then it's worship. And the will of the Lord, in that if He wills that we "meditators" experience His gathering us together, then it becomes worship as we receive His gift.

Chuck Fager I’ll have to think about it.
     David William McKay  You might even meditate on it.

Jim Fussell Worship is by a community, while meditation is individual, yes?
Hide or report this


Like
· Reply
· 43m

Joe Snyder Interesting question, easily sidetracked by semantics. 

I believe one can engage in worship alone physically, so I'm not convinced the community vs individual works. 

It may be a matter of degree, but my sense is that worship is more about a surrender of self to Christ, God (dare I say Spirit without an article? there are so many out there), either or both individually or corporately. 

Meditation seems more about one's individual state of mind, more about receiving inspiration than surrendering self. 

There is a difference I see between quieting self and surrendering self. But these are not hard and fast distinctions, just how it relates to my experience as one who started out a meditater and am now more of a worshiper.
Hide or report this


Like
· Reply
· 24m

Rich Accetta-Evans Worship can be meditative and meditation can be worshipful, so the distinction can seem subtle.

Less subtle and more important is the distinction between a Meeting for Worship and a group assembled to meditate.

In a Meeting for Worship we seek to be present together in the presence of God and to be gathered together by God's Spirit. 

That is very different than merely sitting together in the same room while everyone seeks his or her own inner quiet or state of mindfulness.

===============
MORE IN THROUGH THE FLAMING SWORD

Religion and SpiritualityI want to make a case for Quakerism as a religion. I suspect that many Friends prefer to think of their Quakerism as a spirituality rather than as a religion. For one thing, “religion” implies belief in God and beliefs in general, and for many of us, “belief in God” isn’t as straightforward as it was a generation or two ago. Also, “religion” implies tradition, a legacy of beliefs and practices that one has had no part in shaping, leaving you to either accept or rebel against them; religion implies an authority in the community that in some ways supersedes one’s own individual preferences. By contrast, “spirituality” implies individualism—personal sovereignty over one’s own ideas, beliefs, and practices.

What is the Religious Society of Friends for? — Spirituality vs Religion
Religion as Corporate Spirituality My one-line answer to the question, What is Quakerism for? is: bringing people to G*d and bringing G*d into the world. “Bringing people to G*d” has two parts: personal spirituality and communal spirituality. The last post’s discussion of worship provides a segue from personal spirituality to communal spirituality—that is, to religion. Several years ago I was a Friendly Adult Presence in a youth conference sponsored by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and in one of the exercises, the young people were asked to sort themselves out by whether they had a spiritual life or not and whether they practiced a religion. The vast majority said yes to spirituality and no to religion. This made me feel bad.

06 Quakers and Capitalism - Steven Dale Davison

Quakers and Capitalism - Steven Dale Davison

Quakers and Capitalism

by Steven Dale Davison on July 1, 2006

At the World Conference of Friends held at Guilford College in North Carolina in 1967, some young Friends crossed over from a concurrently running young Friends conference to raise a concern that became known as Right Sharing of World Resources. The new concern recognized poverty in the world economic system as in part a systemic problem, and as a legacy of colonialism. In doing so, Right Sharing went beyond the venerable concern Quakers have always had for their relationship with money, as individuals and as meetings.

In this way, Right Sharing also echoed the key testimonial innovation of the first Friends World Conference, held in London in 1920—the Foundations of a True Social Order. London Yearly Meeting had brought these eight principles to the Conference from their own landmark sessions of 1918, when the yearly meeting had deliberated over the report of its War and the Social Order Committee. Convened in 1915 to explore the causes of the Great War, the committee had concluded that colonial capitalism was in large part responsible for the horrors they had just been through.

They seem rather mild and general today (and in fact, the original proposal from the committee had been more radical), but the Foundations represented a momentous break with the past 250 years of Quaker testimony on the economy when they were approved. Not since the 1650s had Friends corporately addressed economics as a system so clearly and deliberately. Even in the 1650s, early Friends saw the complete restructuring of the social order as part of the Lamb’s War and what Doug Gwyn has called the “apocalypse of the word”—the feeling that they were witnesses for the Second Coming of Christ. They expected that all social institutions would be transformed along with the church when the “war” had been “won.”

But with the restoration of the monarchy in 1661, the onset of the persecutions shortly after (lasting until the 1690s), and the imprisonment and death of most of their leadership, Friends gave up their apocalyptic expectations of seeing all things (including the social order) made new, and their zeal for shaking things to their roots. George Fox brought Gospel Order to Quaker meetings, remaking Quaker institutional life with an innovative approach to Spirit‐led discipline. And, as Doug Gwyn has described in The Covenant Crucified, Quakers struck a deal with the system: religious toleration from the state, privatization of faith by the Church. The state gave up control over private worship; and religious communities, including Friends, gave up radical claims on the social order.

So began what I like to call the “double culture” period in Quaker history. On the one hand, Friends withdrew from the world into quietism and their “distinctives”; on the other hand, they engaged with the world with incredible energy and creativity as innovators in business, science, and technology. They almost single‐handedly launched the industrial revolution, developing all the key technologies that made it possible, creating whole new industries and the leading companies in those industries, and reshaping the economy to its roots.

They revived the iron industry, invented coke as a fuel, and perfected cast iron; then moved into steel, inventing cast steel; then the railroad, interchangeable parts, household goods as consumer commodities, the department store, English porcelain, hot chocolate, the coffee house, and more. They built whole new industries besides iron, steel, and porcelain: lead, zinc, and silver mining; confections; soap; pharmaceuticals; watch and clock making; canal and rail transport. They dominated the textile industry (woolens, anyway) and became major players in shipping and finance (Barclays, Lloyds, and the Bank of Norwich, to name three banks). The key breakthroughs were high‐quality steel and steel casting, which made it possible to mass‐produce machine parts, the piece necessary for the industrial revolution to take off.

And they did all this with a surprising lack of reflection and theory about the creature to which they were midwives.

Three individual Quakers stand out as notable exceptions—John Bellers in the early 1700s, David Ricardo in the early 1800s, and Seebohm Rowntree at the turn of the 20th century.

In contrast to John Woolman (a true quietist in that he mostly directed his energies in A Plea for the Poor and other writings inward, toward his own community and toward the Christ within his readers), John Bellers (1654–1725) sent his ideas to Parliament. Bellers was the first to propose institutional remedies for the terrible plight of the newly emerging social class of industrial workers: colleges of art and industry. These institutions combined workhouses for the poor with vocational‐technical schools, for‐profit businesses, and industrial research institutes. He is quoted verbatim in Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and was required reading in the Soviet Union, which makes him perhaps the third‐best‐known Friend in history, after William Penn and Herbert Hoover (I’m not counting Richard Nixon).

A hundred years later, David Ricardo (1772–1823) founded the classical school of economics with his landmark 1815 essay On Profits. Born Jewish, Ricardo emigrated to England from Holland and became a Friend when he married his Quaker wife. After making a fortune in the stock market, he retired and turned his extraordinary mind to the problems of governing the emerging new economy. Classical economists like Ricardo, Adam Smith (the first economist), and John Stuart Mill held chairs in moral philosophy, but their approach to political economy was a secular counterweight to the evangelical political economists like Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) and Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847), who dominated the new field until at least the mid‐19th century. Joseph John Gurney wrote a book about Chalmers and helped him lobby against the Poor Laws in Ireland.

As evangelicals, these men saw the economy as one aspect of God’s providential governance of the world. Market downturns and bankruptcies were God’s chastisements for corporate and individual sins. Poverty was the result of moral character and thus the cure for poverty was repentance and conversion. They supported laissez faire (deregulation) because they believed humans had no business interfering with God’s judgment. They opposed state‐sponsored, tax‐based welfare because they thought it encouraged idleness and the other bad moral character traits that were the cause of poverty in the first place, and because it interfered with individual responsibility for one’s own soul, both as giver and receiver of moral exhortation. They believed that voluntary personal philanthropy, not reform of the system, more effectively served the real (spiritual) needs of both the philanthropist and the pauper. Evangelical moral philosophy dominated political economic thinking, public policy, and popular social attitudes in Great Britain until the terrible suffering of the Irish famine of 1846–1852 made people question its assumptions about God’s invisible hand in the economy. Philanthropy remained the characteristic response to the harshness of industrial capitalism throughout the Victorian period.

In the 1890s, Seebohm Rowntree helped to decisively overthrow this conservative evangelical emphasis on individual responsibility and private philanthropy with his book Poverty: A Study of Town Life (1901). A statistical sociological study of his hometown, York, the book proved scientifically that most poor people actually worked—and that low wages, not bad character (that is, sin), were the cause of their poverty. (The irony was that, along with the railroad, his own family’s chocolate company was the only employer of note in the city.) A young Winston Churchill called it “a book which has fairly made my hair stand on end.” David Lloyd George brandished the book before large crowds all over Great Britain campaigning for the New Liberalism that had been inaugurated in 1906. Poverty helped pave the way for Britain’s revolutionary general welfare programs—for the modern welfare state—and, among Friends, for the work of the War and Social Order Committee, the Foundations of a True Social Order, and the social witness theme for the first Friends World Conference. Rowntree himself had a long career in the Liberal government as a protagonist of land reform, and his work reached deep into the 20th century to help shape President Lyndon Johnson’s “war on poverty,” which used his methods to define the poverty line and eligibility for Head Start and other anti‐poverty programs under the newly formed Office of Equal Opportunity.

Kenneth Boulding (1910–1993), who reintegrated economic thinking with ethical, religious, and ecological concerns in the 20th century, should also be mentioned. Anticipating the rise of eco‐economics by decades, Boulding questioned economic assumptions on ecological grounds in 1958. He was one of the first analysts of the knowledge economy, and he worked tirelessly to integrate all the social sciences into one conversation about social betterment. One might also include Herbert Hoover, who botched the response to the crash of 1929, and Jack Powelson, who is an ardent defender of globalization and of economic development on the Western model.

All of these people were political economists. That is, they pondered the relationships between the economy, politics, and public policy, and they proposed policies, government measures, and market innovations that they believed would best serve the public good. And these people were Quakers whose faith informed their practice of the “dismal science.”

So, Friends have quite a rich history of both faith and practice regarding capitalism as a system. With Rowntree and his fellow reformers, including a small but influential group of socialists centered in Manchester, British Friends caught up with Marx (and Bellers), recognizing the structural economic inequities (if not oppression) of capitalism, and responding with government programs. I’ve not yet discovered much political economic thinking among American Friends at the turn of the century. This reflects, I think, the enormous economic power of British Friends going into the 20th century compared to a much smaller minority of U.S. Friends, who had never played a similar role in the development of the U.S. economy.

Then came World War I, and Friends Service Council, American Friends Service Committee, and Friends World Conference. With the Great War as background, the Foundations of a True Social Order articulated a new vision for the capitalist system—what its motivations, goals, and methods should be—and they expressed a yearning for justice, peace, and the relief of suffering. England’s welfare state, Roosevelt’s New Deal, the New Society, and the War on Poverty of the 1960s all continued in the vein of compassionate political economics as defined by Rowntree.

However, beginning with the Reagan administration and intensifying with the George W. Bush administration, the political economics of poverty have retreated again to the conservative evangelical worldview that favors faith‐based programs very like the ones Thomas Chalmers developed in the 1820s, and a moral economic ideology that stresses personal responsibility and the transformation of character as the cure for poverty. And the political economics of business has taken the simple laissez faire philosophy of Ricardo and other early classical economists to a new extreme: radical deregulation of virtually every industry and privatization of even such traditional government functions as public education, incarceration, and warfare.

So where are we as Friends today?

I would like us to build on the legacy of the apocalyptic Friends of the 1650s, and of Bellers, Rowntree, and Boulding. I would have us strive for an integrated social testimony that fuses our religious witness into a coherent, comprehensive vision for complete social transformation.

I am hoping for modern radical Quaker political economists—because the world needs a compassionate counterbalance to the thinking that dominates both corporate practice and government policy. It needs Quakers to get involved because political economics since the 1980s has been a creature, in part, of religion: conservative evangelical Christian theological assumptions, especially about the causes of poverty and its solutions, have become political ideology and public policy. We already know what conservative economics leads to from its history in the 1800s and from the changes visible today: the Corn Laws and Poor Laws of the 1820s, and the initial response to the Irish famine in the 1840s were disastrous for the poor. Today we have the assault on the dispossessed victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as the authors of their own suffering and the gutting of the very programs that would minister to their needs. This calls for engagement by religious people who have a more perceptive and faithful knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus and a more universal understanding of grace and the role of religious community.

Finally, Quakers should become political economists because capitalism—especially industrial capitalism—is itself partly our responsibility. Just as we helped to create the modern prison system with the innovation of the penitentiary, so Quakers were the driving force behind the industries and economic structures that shaped emerging industrial capitalism. Industrial capitalism would have happened without Friends—but it didn’t. Just as we feel called to reform a penal system that has lost its way, so I hope we will be called to reform an economic system we did much to create and which has become carcinomic, an engine of unlimited consumption and growth, not to mention the blood on its hands, from the Western Front in World War I to the streets of Baghdad.

The problem is daunting to the point of paralysis. How do you change an entire economic system the way Quakers and other industrialists did 300 years ago?

First, of course, you pray and seek God’s guidance. We believe that any one of us may be called into ministry—to do something good for the world. Some among us, I pray, will be called into economic ministry, as Kenneth Boulding was. Beyond this, I have three more ideas that meetings might take up.

To begin with, we could start with our comfort zone, the Peace Testimony. Let’s develop a testimony on economic sanctions as a tool of foreign policy. We know how devastating they have been to the people of nations we are punishing, and we know they often fail to meet their political goals. Economic sanctions have been around for quite a while and there is a lot of research to inform our work. Sanctions may be useful in some circumstances, but they desperately require informed and conscience‐led reform.

Second, again inside our comfort zone—but not for long—is the problem of secure retirement. Friends already have a track record of successful innovation with retirement communities, assisted living, hospices, and long‐term care. But our institutions on the model of Medford Leas are beyond the means of most people, including most Quakers. And a lot of people of means will soon be outliving the means that make these places affordable to them now. In the next 20 years, many of us are going to fall into poverty in our old age. Let’s start thinking, planning, experimenting with ways to meet this looming need.

Third, a simple way to restructure the problem, especially for religious communities, is to start by redefining “the good life.” The “American Dream” turns into a nightmare when extrapolated into the future, especially if it’s adopted by China, India, and the rest of the developing world. The planet just cannot support billions of people living as we do. That means we have to live with less. It means radical change and sacrifice.

The question then becomes: are we Quakers like the rich young man in the Gospels who asks Jesus, “What must I do to enter the kingdom of heaven?” Jesus answers with the essentials of the law, stressing the Ten Commandments. The young man says he already does these things. “One thing remains,” says Jesus. “You must sell all that you own and give it to the poor, and come follow me.” And the man went away, very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. Will we walk away, sad, but unable to take the last radical step?

Right now, few of us know the one‐third of U.S. children now living in poverty. But that may be about to change. Friends have gone through three stages of social status. We started out as yeoman farmers and small family tradespeople in the 1650s. By the mid‐1700s, most British Quakers were in the upper and upper middle classes. U.S. Friends were more generally distributed on the social landscape and have remained so ever since, but they were not usually poor. Then, in Great Britain during the 20th century, the great Quaker fortunes dissolved as privately owned companies went public and their Quaker owners became managers. Demographically, we Quakers have converged on the middle‐middle class from both ends throughout the past 100 years. This trend accelerated in the period following World War II, as new, more suburban meetings have sprung up in and near university towns.

Now I believe we may be on the cusp of a fourth stage, one of descent into poverty through the cracks in the floor of the middle class. The knowledge economy will increasingly leave behind those of us who are “stuck” in the service, education, and social service sectors—the so‐called secular church. Our real incomes have been stagnant for two decades already. And many of us are about to retire. Baby boomers (I am one) are very likely to outlive our savings and our safety net is fraying.

This will bring a new challenge to our meetings—a potential for intergenerational conflict. Retiring boomers will leave behind in our meetings younger families struggling to keep afloat with both parents working. As the ranks of the long‐lived elderly swell, these younger people may come to resent our incredible wastefulness, imprudence, selfishness, and our political power as a voting bloc, not to mention the economic burden of supporting both us and the debt we have amassed.

What are we going to do about that? And about all the people who are poor or over‐extended already?

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Print
• More

Steven Dale Davison, a member of Yardley (Pa.) Meeting, is currently working on two books: a new reading of the Gospel with a focus on ecological issues, and an economic history of Friends and a history of Quaker economics, with some thoughts toward a Quaker economic testimony.

Posted in: Features

Business, Economics, History, Money

1907 "Christians in North Korea experience torture and unimaginable hardships"

The planning of microdistricts in post-war North Korea: space, power, and everyday life: Planning Perspectives: Vol 32, No 2

The planning of microdistricts in post-war North Korea: space, power, and everyday life: Planning Perspectives: Vol 32, No 2


The planning of microdistricts in post-war North Korea: space, power, and everyday life
Mina Kim &Inha Jung
Pages 199-223 | Received 08 Jun 2016, Accepted 10 Jun 2016, Published online: 08 Sep 2016

Download citation
https://doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2016.1221769

More Share Options


ABSTRACT


In the 1950s, the Soviet Union and other communist countries developed a unique method for allowing socialist ideology to manifest in urban spaces. 

The theory of the microdistrict was invented to establish self-contained urban units that included both housing and public amenities and resulted in a tremendous change in the planning of communist cities. 

Because microdistricts satisfied the communities’ social requirements and facilitated mass-produced urban housing, the North Korean regime enthusiastically appropriated the microdistrict concept to fit its own reality.

 This theory has been applied to the country’s urban projects since 1955, a time when the urban population grew rapidly and construction boomed. The design and construction of microdistricts reflected North Korea’s power relation and substantially impacted everyday life. Thus, to more thoroughly understand post-war North Korean society and its urban planning principles, the microdistrict theory should be carefully examined. In light of this historical background, this paper analyses urban projects that were designed based on this theory and explores the impact of the microdistrict theory on the structure of large cities in North Korea.

A Brief History of the Moravian Daily Texts | Moravian Church Of North America

A Brief History of the Moravian Daily Texts | Moravian Church Of North America



A Brief History of the Moravian Daily Texts




“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.” Lamentations 3:22,23

The first printed edition of the Daily Texts (Losungen) was published in Herrnhut, Saxony, in 1731. The title page of that edition quoted the passage from Lamentations and promised a daily message from God that would be new every morning. It was an outgrowth of a spiritual renewal of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrum) that dated from August 13, 1727.

In 1722 refugees from Bohemia and Moravia began arriving at the estate of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760), where he gave them a welcome and land on which to establish the settlement of Herrnhut (“Watch of the Lord”).

Visit store.moravian.org to order this year’s Moravian Daily Texts

Each day the settlers came together for morning and evening devotions, consciously placing their lives in the context of God’s Word. On May 3, 1728, during the evening service, Count Zinzendorf gave the congregation a “watchword” for the next day. It was to be a “Losung” (watchword) to accompany them through the whole day.

Thereafter one or more persons of the congregation went daily to each of the 32 houses in Herrnhut to bring them the watchword for the day, and engage the families in pastoral conversations about the text.

From this oral tradition, the Daily Texts soon became fixed in printed form. Zinzendorf compiled 365 watchwords for the year and the first edition of the Losungen was published for 1731.

Even in the first editions there appeared the characteristic coupling of a Bible verse and hymn stanza. Zinzendorf called the hymns “collects” and considered them to be the answer of the congregation to the Word of God. The Daily Texts would be a great deal poorer without the mixture of God’s Word and our human response.

The watchword soon became accompanied by a “doctrinal” text. The idea of an additional text grew out of a number of collections of texts from the Bible that were put together by Zinzendorf. Such additional lists (some of them for children) were used for special study within the groups in the community, and they came to be referred to as doctrinal texts.

For the Daily Texts, as for the whole Moravian Church, Count Zinzendorf’s death (May 9, 1760), was a turning point. His co-workers sensed the uniqueness of Zinzendorf’s watchwords, textbooks, and lessons and had them published at Barby-on-the-Elbe in a four-volume collection 1762.

From then on the watchwords and doctrinal texts are distinguished by the way they are selected each year. The watchwords are chosen from various verse collections and, since 1788, they have been drawn by lot from a collection of around 2,000 suitable Old Testament texts. The doctrinal texts are not chosen by lot but are selected. The difference between the watchwords and doctrinal texts was explained in 1801 as follows: “The watchword is either a promise, an encouragement, an admonition or word of comfort; the doctrinal text contains a point of revealed doctrine.”

By 1812 it was established that all watchwords would be drawn by lot from a selection of Old Testament texts, and the doctrinal texts would be selected from the New Testament. By the end of the nineteenth century, the custom was established to relate the two texts in theme or thought.


North American editions

The printing of the Daily Texts in North America dates back at least to 1767, when the Losungen was printed “at Bethlehem on the Forks of the Delaware by Johan Brandmuller.” The printer’s imprint bears the date of 1767 as well and may have been an extra printing for the German version done at Barby-on-the-Elbe in Germany, where most of the printing was done for the Moravian Church those days.

During the crucial days of the Revolution, the German-language edition was printed in Philadelphia by Heinrich Miller, who had worked for Benjamin Franklin when he first came to America. The daily text for July 4, 1776, was from Isaiah 55:5-“Behold, you shall call nations that you know not, and nations that knew you not shall run to you” (RSV).

English versions were printed in London as early as 1746, and the title page bears the imprint of “James Hutton near the Golden Lion in Fetter Lane.” Hutton was the well-known London printer associated with the Moravian Church who was a friend of John and Charles Wesley in the formative years of their ministry.

The 1850s were crucial years for the Moravian Church in North America as the congregations established in the United States broke away from direct control from the Moravian headquarters in Europe. Both German and English editions of the Daily Texts were regularly printed in Philadelphia or Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and in a few years the custom was established to include the statistics of the provinces and districts of the Moravian Church in North America.

The biblical texts for each day are chosen in Herrnhut, Germany, and then sent around the world to those who prepare the different language editions. Since 1959 the edition published in the United States has included a prayer for each day. For this North American edition, the hymns are chosen or written, and the prayers are written by Moravian clergy and laypersons from the United States and Canada. Each month is prepared by a different individual or couple, of a variety of ages, so that the prayers reflect the great diversity of devotion in the Moravian Church.

Visit store.moravian.org to order this year’s Moravian Daily Texts

The physical form of the Daily Texts varies considerably from country to country. Some, like this North American edition, have a separate page for the verses, hymns, and prayers of each day. Others have several days’ texts printed on one page, which makes a thin, pocket-size volume. Some are beautiful examples of the printing and bookbinding arts. Others are simply mimeographed and stapled together.

These external nonessentials pale beside the fact that this little book is probably the most widely read devotional guide in the world, next to the Bible. It forms an invisible bond between Christians on all continents, transcending barriers of confession, race, language, and politics. In its quiet way it performs a truly ecumenical service for the whole of Christendom.
62 languages and countingToday, the Moravian Daily Texts appear in 62 languages worldwide. In 2017, three new languages were added to the large number of editions of the Moravian Daily Texts: Syriac Aramaic, Tok Pisin (a language spoken in Papua New Guinea) and Vietnamese.Local church groups, often working with partners in Germany, took the initiative to translate, publish and distribute their version of the Moravian Daily Texts. All three projects received a start-up grant from the Moravian Church in Germany. The Vietnamese Daily Text book is published in two biannual installments. The Daily Texts from Papua New Guinea are printed in a print-run of 500 copies under the title: “Givim Mipela Kaikai Bilong Dispela De” (Give Us Today Our Daily Bread). The Syriac Aramaic version is still in translation.

Related Articles:
How to Use The Daily Texts

Moravian Church - Wikipedia

Moravian Church - Wikipedia

Spirit of the Moravian Church[edit]

An account of the ethos of the Moravian Church is given by one of its British bishops, Clarence H. Shawe.^[26] In a lecture series delivered at the Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Shawe described the Spirit of the Moravian Church as having five characteristics: simplicity, happiness, unintrusiveness, fellowship, and the ideal of service.

Simplicity is a focus on the essentials of faith and a lack of interest in the niceties of doctrinal definition. Shawe quotes Zinzendorf's remark that "The Apostles say: 'We believe we have salvation through the grace of Jesus Christ....' If I can only teach a person that catechism I have made him a divinity scholar for all time" (Shawe, 1977, p. 9). From this simplicity flow secondary qualities of genuineness and practicality.

Happiness is the natural and spontaneous response to God's free and gracious gift of salvation. Again Shawe quotes Zinzendorf: "There is a difference between a genuine Pietist and a genuine Moravian. The Pietist has his sin in the foreground and looks at the wounds of Jesus; the Moravian has the wounds in the forefront and looks from them upon his sin. The Pietist in his timidity is comforted by the wounds; the Moravian in his happiness is shamed by his sin" (p. 13).

Unintrusiveness is based on the Moravian belief that God positively wills the existence of a variety of churches to cater for different spiritual needs. There is no need to win converts from other churches. The source of Christian unity is not legal form but everyone's heart-relationship with the Saviour.

Fellowship is based on this heart-relationship. Shawe says: "The Moravian ideal has been to gather together kindred hearts.... Where there are 'Christian hearts in love united', there fellowship is possible in spite of differences of intellect and intelligence, of thought, opinion, taste and outlook. ... Fellowship [in Zinzendorf's time] meant not only a bridging of theological differences but also of social differences; the artisan and aristocrat were brought together as brothers and sat as equal members on the same committee" (pp. 21,22).

The ideal of service entails happily having the attitude of a servant. This shows itself partly in faithful service in various roles within congregations but more importantly in service of the world "by the extension of the Kingdom of God". Historically, this has been evident in educational and especially missionary work. Shawe remarks that "none could give themselves more freely to the spread of the gospel than those Moravian emigrants who, by settling in Herrnhut [i.e., on Zinzendorf's estate], had gained release from suppression and persecution" (p. 26).

Daily Watchwords - Wikipedia

Daily Watchwords - Wikipedia

Daily Watchwords

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

The Daily Watchwords or Losungen is an annual, globally distributed publication of the Moravian Church.

Official stamp issued by German Federal Mail (Deutsche Post) in 1980 commemorating the 250th anniversary of the first Watchwords booklet.

It was started on 3 May 1728, and is now published in 50 languages, making it the oldest and most widely read daily devotional work in the world. The publication is traditionally in the form of a book or booklet, containing a selection of short bible verses, one for each day of a year.

Old Testament texts, the "Watchwords", are chosen by lot annually in Herrnhut from a collection of 1200 verses. New Testament texts, the "Doctrinal Texts", are then selected to comment on the Watchwords. Total annual circulation is over 1.5 million copies.

This is an ecumenical ministry of the worldwide Moravian Unity that transcends confessional, political and racial barriers of all kinds.

The Moravian Daily Texts service of the Moravian Church in North America makes available by email each day's Watchwords.

10 홍주민 - 헤른후트와 본회퍼 그리고 나

헤른후트와 본회퍼 그리고 나




헤른후트와 본회퍼 그리고 나

홍주민 (juminhong@naver.com)
승인 2010.12.18 22:06


헤른후트(Herrnhut), 우리말로 '주님이 보호하시는 곳'을 의미한다. 헤른후트 공동체 운동은 지금으로부터 약 300년 전, 독일의 북동부에 위치한 한 자그마한 마을에서 시작되었다. 이 운동은 니콜라우스 루트비히 폰 친첸도르프(1700-1760)에 의해 시작된 창조적인 디아코니아 공동체 운동이다. 

섬김 공동체였던 초대교회를 이루고자 했던 그는 대학을 졸업하고 드레스덴에서 직장 생활을 하던 중, 그의 일생을 변화시킨 모라비아 교도들을 만난다. 이들은 체코 프라하에서 종교개혁 운동을 하다가 1415년에 화형당한 얀 후스의 후예들이었다. 친첸도르프는 이들에게 자신의 사유지를 제공하여 정착하도록 하는데, 이들은 그곳을 '헤른후트'라 칭하고 1727년경 200여 명의 모라비아 이주자들과 함께 공동체 생활을 시작한다.







▲ 헤른후트 공동체



이들에게 아주 독특한 형식의 말씀 묵상집이 전해 내려오는데, 바로 헤른후트 기도서이다. 이 기도서는 'Die Losungen(로중)'이라고 하는데 그 의미는 군사적인 용어로 '암호'라고 한다. 군인이 싸우러 나갈 때 암호는 적군과 대치 상황에서 아주 생명과 같은 것이다. 만약에 암호를 잘못 외우거나 모르면 생명의 위협을 가져올 수 있다. 이 기도서의 첫 주창자인 친첸도르프는 헤른후트 공동체원들이 매일매일의 삶 속에서 짧은 말씀이지만 생명과도 같은 소중한 말씀으로 영적 투쟁에서 승리할 것을 바라면서 로중 운동을 시작하였다.

필자는 2007년과 2009년 여름, 헤른후트 공동체를 방문한 적이 있다. 첫 방문 때 우연히 이 로중을 만드는 이들을 만날 수 있었는데, 그들은 나에게 지난 300여 년 동안 매일을 위한 구약성서 구절을 제비뽑기하여 뽑아내는 제비 함을 보여 주었다. 그 안에는 1,800개의 번호가 적혀 있는 제비가 있었고 한쪽에는 번호와 성서 구절이 적혀 있는 문건이 있었다. 아주 인상적이었다. 300여 년 전부터 컴퓨터의 도움이 없이 이러한 작업이 진행되었다는 사실과 그 과정 속에서 성서 구절이 반복되지 않는다는 것은 아주 경이로움을 자아냈다. 그들은 말하기를, 1년을 위해 뽑힌 제비는 다음 3년 동안 옆으로 놓이고 이 기간에는 이미 뽑힌 구절은 제외된다고 한다. 그런데 그들은 이 뽑힌 말씀을 주님께서 주신 말씀으로 받아들인다.

필자가 헤른후트 기도서를 접한 것은 십여 년 전 독일에 공부하러 갔던 유학 초년기였다. 독일에서는 서점에 다른 큐티 자료는 별로 없지만 이 기도서는 어디서나 찾아볼 수 있을 정도로 보편화되어 있다. 처음으로 필자가 이 로중을 접한 것은 독일어를 배우는 기간 중 독일 기독학생회에 참여하여 모임에 정기적으로 나가게 되면서였다. 매주 월요일 저녁 시간에 마인츠 구시가지에 있는 모임 장소에서 모였는데, 그 모임에 참여하는 이들은 독일 학생들도 있었지만 외국 학생들이 많았다. 전 세계에서 몰려온 친구들과 어울려 독일어로 인사를 나누고 교제하는 것은 이국땅에서의 외로움과 불안감을 떨치게 하는 데에 중요한 역할을 했다. 그런데 그 가운데 지금도 뚜렷하게 기억으로 남아 있는 것은 매번 모여서 말씀 묵상과 찬양을 하면서 접한 헤른후트 로중과의 만남이었다. 아주 짧은 말씀이지만 그 말씀을 읽고 돌아가면서 떠듬떠듬 자신의 가슴에 부딪힌 것을 독일어로 나누는 시간은 그 어떠한 설교보다도 더 강력한 메시지로 나를 휘감았다. 그때부터 가까이하게 된 로중은 이국땅에서 힘들었던 순간에 나를 무너지게 하는 힘들에 대항하는 '아주 작은 영적 무기'였다.








▲ 특히 행동하는 신학자로 20세기 후반에 개신교의 신학과 실천에 큰 영향을 끼친 디트리히 본회퍼는 헤른후트 기도서의 애독자였다.



이 로중은 슐라이에르마허, 본회퍼, 코트비츠, 비헤른 등 수많은 개신교인들에게 교단과 교파를 초월하여 지대한 영향을 끼쳐 왔다. 특히 행동하는 신학자로 20세기 후반에 개신교의 신학과 실천에 큰 영향을 끼친 디트리히 본회퍼는 헤른후트 기도서의 애독자였다. 본회퍼는 2차 세계대전 중 히틀러 암살 계획에 가담했다가 발각돼 2년 동안 감옥 생활을 하고 전쟁이 끝나기 직전 교수형에 숨진 인물이다. 그는 1933년 히틀러가 국가 사회주의를 주창하며 유대인 600만여 명을 학살하고 수천만 명의 희생자를 낸 2차 세계대전을 일으킨 전쟁광인 히틀러에게 항거한 것이다. 그는 히틀러를 '적그리스도'로 보고 이에 저항하는 '고백교회' 운동을 하면서 신앙을 지켜 나갔다.

1939년 7월 미국 유니언 신학교 초빙교수로 있던 본회퍼는 당시 그의 심경을 그의 책 '공동의 삶(Gemeinsames Leben)'에서 다음과 같이 기록한다. "헤른후트 기도서는 단순한 성경 말씀 구절에 그치지 않는다. 매일 주어지는 말씀은 우리에게 앞으로 나갈 길을 결정할 수 있게 한다." 본회퍼는 1939년 여름, 미국에서 기록한 일기문에 아주 분명한 필치로 자신이 미국에 계속 머물 것인지 아니면 독일로 돌아가야 하는지에 대해 로중 말씀을 읽으며 고민하는 흔적이 나온다. 그러한 고심을 하는 가운데 로중의 한 말씀이 그를 강타한다. "주님은 은을 정련하고 깨끗하게 하신다." 말라기서의 이 한 말씀을 읽고 덧붙여 옆에 기록한다. "나는 나를 더 이상 잘 알 수 없다. 하지만 주님은 나를 잘 알고 있다. 결국 모든 행동과 실천은 분명하게 될 것이다." 이 말씀과의 부딪침 이후, 본회퍼는 지체하지 않고 독일로 돌아온다. 그리고 저항 운동에 가담한 본회퍼는 1943년 4월 5일 체포되고, 1944년 전쟁이 끝나기 바로 직전에 교수형으로 처형된다.

본회퍼에게 헤른후트 기도서가 결정적인 역할을 한 것처럼 필자도 그동안 이 작은 기도서에 많은 빚을 지고 있다. 이 기도서의 매일의 말씀은 하루 동안 얼마 안 되는 말씀이지만 하루의 영의 양식으로 결코 부족하지 않다. 지난 300여 년 전부터 개신교 전통에서 가장 널리 활용되는 이 기도서가 51개 국어로 번역되어 지구상의 많은 이들이 동일한 말씀으로 힘을 얻고 있다. 필자는 헤른후트 기도서 2009년도 판부터 <말씀 그리고 하루>(한국디아코니아연구소)라는 제목으로 번역해 한국에 소개하고 있다. 필자는 이 작은 묵상 집을 통해 한국의 많은 그리스도인들이 좀 더 깊이 있는 말씀에 닻을 내리고 살아가기를 소망해 본다. 더 나아가 한국의 그리스도인들이 '행동하는 말씀'인 디아코니아를 조용히, 섬기면서, 사랑하면서 실천해 나가기를 희망해 본다.

"주님은 올바른 길을 보여 주시고자 당신 앞에 계십니다.

주님은 악한 사람들의 흉계로부터 지켜 주시려고 당신 등 뒤에 계십니다.

주님은 아래로 추락할 때에 궁지에서 벗어나게 하시려고 당신 밑에서 잡아 주십니다.

주님은 축복해 주시기 위해 당신 위에 계십니다(초대교회의 축복문)."






▲ 헤른후트 기도서



이 기도문은 2010년 헤른후트 기도서에 나오는 초대교회의 축복문이다. 어느덧 한 해가 기울고 있다. 이 한 해도 초대교회 그리스도인들의 기도문처럼 주님의 은총 가운데서 늘 강건한 삶을 살게 하신 주님께 감사드리며, 새로운 한 해에도 변함없는 주님의 은총이 늘 함께하기를 소망해 본다.

홍주민 / 한신대학교 외래교수

오순절주의 - 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전

오순절주의 - 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전



오순절주의
위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전.


오순절운동

배경

개신교
개혁교회
감리교
은사 방언
성결 운동
관련 인물

찰스 퍼햄
윌리엄 시모어
베니 힌
오럴 로버츠
마거릿 코트
교리

성령강림주일
간증
성령
사도행전
기적


오순절 운동(五旬節運動, Pentecostalism) 혹은 단일 교단은 없고 오순절 신학에 영향받은 여러 교단을 일괄해 통칭되는 오순절 교회(五旬節敎會)는 

• 기독교에서 성령의 초자연스러운, 능력스러운 은사(헬라어로 카리스, 방언, 병 고침 등)를 강조하는 개신교의 신학상 갈래이고 
• 이들의 첫 단계는 1906년 미국 캘리포니아주 아주사에 있었던 부흥 운동이 그 모체인데 1914년 오순절 교파 태동의 출발점이 되었다. 
• 이들은 승천한 예수 그리스도가 선물로 약속했던 성령이 오순절에 임할 때(성령강림일) 사도들이 성령 충만함을 받고 각 다른 나라의 언어(방언)들로 말했다는 사도행전 제2 장의 사건이 현 시대에도 재현될 수 있다고 주장한다. 
• 덧붙이자면 대한민국에서는 '오순절교회'라고 하면 '순복음교회'를 가리키는 말로 쓰이고 있다. 더불어 대한민국에서 최대 교회인 여의도 순복음교회가 소속된 교단이기도 하다. 
• 신학적인 부분과 감리교와 매우 유사하고 상당히 똑같다. 감리교만큼 제법 진보적인 신학을 추구한다.

역사[편집]

1914년 미국 미주리주(Missouri) 스프링필드(Springfield)에서 조직되었으며, 

대한민국에는 1932년 8월 목사 박성산·배부근이 일본에서 귀국하여 五旬節 신앙 운동을 시작하고 해방과 함께 선교사 체스넛이 내한함으로써 선교가 본격으로 개시되었다.

1953년 4월 8일 제1 회 창립 총회를 함으로써 '기독교대한하나님의성회'가 발족되었다. 교리의 특색은 聖靈論에 중점을 둔다.

• 한국에는 1932년 서빙고교회가 오순절교회의 첫 시작이며, 
• 기독교대한하나님의성회 예수교대한하나님의성회 및 대한예수교복음교회가 오순절교회에 속한다. 
• 종교에 딸린 체험을 강조하여 개신교 선교 특히, 로마가톨릭교의 뿌리가 깊은 중앙아메리카·남아메리카에서의 개신교 선교에 많이 공헌했다는 바람직한 평가도 있지만, 간증의 지나친 강조로 탓해 성서나 신학상 근거가 없는 주관적인 신앙을 가질 수 있다는 비판도 있다. 
• 치료나 기적의 체험이 성서보다 권위 있게 작용할 수도 있는 문제가 있다. 
• 은사적 결과과 주로 기복신앙으로 연결되어 문제점으로 노정한다. 
• 한국 교회의 이런 은사주의의 지나친 강조는 정통 교회가 주장하는 성서 중심의 신앙에서 멀어질 소지가 있기에 비판이 대상이 되기도 한다.