Congregational authority is less about the meetings and more about the mission. Congregationalism has a bad rap for well-known reasons: inefficient meetings, upstart members, browbeaten ministers. But biblical congregationalism isn’t so much about the meetings. It’s about empowering the whole church to promote and protect the gospel. Pastors lead and equip. Members get to work strengthening one another and pursuing Christ’s mission in the world.
THE SUBTITLE OF THIS VOLUME is “An Era of Expansion, (1878–1919).” It reflects the reality of the Congregation of the Mission under the leadership of Antoine Fiat, the superior general who governed the Community longer than St. Vincent de Paul. Like the founder, Fiat was a man of both prayer and action. Also like the founder, Fiat was often hesitant and delayed final decisions. His confreres spread to new missions, such as the republics of Central America and Argentina, and several missions or provinces had grown large enough to be given more autonomy, such as the two American provinces, the Antilles, Barcelona, Ecuador, Belgium and Holland, Madagascar, and Colombia. China continued to attract many missionaries as well as local Chinese vocations despite war and unrest. This volume, then, relates not only that the Vincentians, members of the Congregation of the Mission, grew in number and influence, but how they exercised their ministry. Persecution was their lot in some regions, but they forged ahead. As always, they sought to align their ministries at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries with the original mission entrusted to them by the Church through Vincent de Paul: to bring the Gospel to the poor.
Sunni Islam has played an ambivalent role in Turkey's Kurdish conflict--both as a conflict resolution tool and as a tool of resistance. Under the Banner of Islam uses Turkey as a case study to understand how religious, ethnic, and national identities converge in ethnic conflicts between co-religionists. Gülay Türkmen asks a question that informs the way we understand religiously homogeneous ethnic conflicts today: Is it possible for religion to act as a resolution tool in these often-violent conflicts? In search for answers to this question, in Under the Banner of Islam, Türkmen journeys into the inner circles of religious elites from different backgrounds: non-state-appointed local Kurdish meles, state-appointed Kurdish and Turkish imams, heads of religious NGOs, and members of religious orders. Blending interview data with a detailed historical analysis that goes back as far as the nineteenth century, she argues that the strength of Turkish and Kurdish nationalisms, the symbiotic relationship between Turkey's religious and political fields, the religious elites' varying conceptualizations of religious and ethnic identities, and the recent political developments in the region (particularly in Syria) all contribute to the complex role religion plays in the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. Under the Banner of Islam is a specific story of religion, ethnicity, and nationalism in Turkey's Kurdish conflict, but it also tracks a broader narrative of how ethnic and religious identities are negotiated when resolving conflicts.
Congregational authority is less about the meetings and more about the mission. Congregationalism has a bad rap for well-known reasons: inefficient meetings, upstart members, browbeaten ministers. But biblical congregationalism isn't so much about the meetings. It's about empowering the whole church to promote and protect the gospel. Pastors lead and equip. Members get to work strengthening one another and pursuing Christ's mission in the world.
The primary objective of this book is to unearth the Mosul Incident, place it in a historical narrative and introduce it to the literature. Despite creating a historical turning point, the incident has not attracted the necessary attention in neither the Ottoman nor Iraqi historiography until now. By interpreting the preferences, policies and practices associated with this particular incident, the book is engaged to analyze the Post-Constitutional power shifts, perceptions of collective violence and the origins of Arab-Kurdish Dispute. The banishment and murder of Sheikh Said Barzanji who was the family head of Sadaat al-Barzanjiyya as the most influential religious organization of region, created a critical threshold in the history of Mosul. As the urban shootout on January 5 turned into a provincial bloodshed, Kurdish Sayyids, tribes and religious orders consolidated and revolted against the Ottoman authorities. Governors who were polarized as Anti Sâdât and Pro Sâdât allegedly misconducted their offices and misguided the authorities of law enforcement and judiciary. By overcoming the historical rupture between Ottoman Mosul and Modern Iraq, the book introduces an analytical framework to associate the origins of collective violence and ethnic fragmentation experienced in today’s Iraq with the past.
Who leads a church? Why is this important to God? God cares about his glory, and he means to display his glory through the church. For this very end, God has established elders and deacons, members, and congregational authority. This primer on church structure connects the different offices of the church to one another and to the glory of God.
With an estimated population of over 30 million, the Kurds are the largest stateless nation in the world. They are becoming increasingly important within regional and international geopolitics, particularly since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring and the war in Syria. This multidisciplinary Handbook provides a definitive overview of a range of themes within Kurdish studies. Topics covered include: Kurdish studies in the United States and Europe Early Kurdish history Kurdish culture, literature and cinema Economic dimensions Religion Geography and travel Kurdish women The Kurdish situation in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran The Kurdish diaspora. With a wide range of contributions from many leading academic experts, this Handbook will be a vital resource for students and scholars of Kurdish studies and Middle Eastern studies.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Turkey relentlessly persecuted any form of Kurdish dissent. This led to the radicalisation of an increasing number of Kurds, the rise of the Kurdish national movement and the PKK's insurgency against Turkey. Political activism by the Kurds or around Kurdish-related political demands continues to be viewed with deep suspicions by Turkey's political establishment and severely restricted. Despite this, the pro-Kurdish democratic movement has emerged, providing Kurds with a channel to represent themselves and articulate their demands. This book is timely contribution to the debate on the Kurds' political representation in Turkey, tracing the different forms it has taken since 1950. The book highlights how the transformations in Kurdish society have affected the types of actors involved in politics and the avenues, organisations and networks Kurds use to challenge the state. Based on survey data obtained from over 350 individuals, this is the first book to provide an in-depth analysis of Kurdish attitudes from across different segments of Kurdish society, including the elite, the business and professional classes, women and youth activists. It is an intimate portrait of how Kurds today are dealing with the challenges and difficulties of political representation.
Based on new oral sources, carefully analyzed, this book explores the relationships between Jewish subjects and their tribal chieftains in Kurdistan, focusing on the patronage and justice provided by the chieftains and the financial support provided by the Jews to endure troubles and caprices of chieftains. New reports and vivid tales unveil the status of Jews in the tribal setting; the slavery of rural Jews; the conversion to Islam and the defense mechanisms adopted by Jewish leaders to annul conversion of abducted women. Other topics are the trade and occupations of the Jews and their financial exploitation by chieftains. The last part explores the experience of Jewish communities in Iraqi Kurdistan between World War I and the mass-migration to Israel (1951-52).
