A rediscovery of the priesthood of believers in Ephesians 4:1–16 and its relevance for the Missio Dei and a biblical missional ecumenism

This article is dedicated to Professor Sarel van der Merwe as missiologist and what he had done for the cause of the missio Dei in South Africa. The role of the laity in the missio Dei was one of the most significant developments followed by most church denominations. The priesthood of believers was the reformational perspective rediscovered by Martin Luther. The reformed tradition rediscovered the role of the laity in missions, which the Baptist church tradition has now developed most extensively in terms of missions. The Catholic Church has recognised the apostolicity of the laity in a decree called ‘Apostolicam Actuositatem’ at the Second Vatican Council in response to the crises of the church. The charismatics gave recognition to the role of the laity through the spiritual gifts of each believer. The role of the laity and of the priesthood of believers has its biblical precedent and foundation in 1 Peter 2:5, 9 and Ephesians 4:1–16. The contribution of Ephesians is that it provides the church with a missional mandate for the ordinary believer to participate in the missio Dei –, a mandate that has to be rediscovered in every age. The priesthood of believers provides an orientation for a biblical missional ecumenism.

Religion and Patriotism in German Peace Dramas during the Thirty Years' War

One of the most important analyses of the rise of German nationalism was Koppel Pinson's Pietism as a Factor in the Rise of German Nationalism (1934). This study was one of the first to apply the methodology of Tawney, Dilthey, Troeltsch, and Weber to the analysis of early nationalism. Pinson held that the intellectual and social content of seventeenth–century Lutheran pietism “unknowingly” created many preconditions of the peculiar type of German nationalism that appeared in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Pinson argued that the qualities of pietism which were transferred to later German nationalism were strong emotional fervor, moral purity, the experience of conversion, and the cultivation of the German language. All social classes would be able to cultivate these spiritual aims, producing what Pinson called a general priesthood of believers, or salvation within and through the group. The identification of the qualities of the good German with those of the good Christian was for Pinson the crux of the process.