“Look towards the future not as a disaster but as a challenge, not as a problem, but as an opportunity ... we have a common future: live, work, build together.” – Beyers Naudé A Future Beyond Apartheid

Since the transformative 1960s, concert masses have incorporated a range of political and religious views that mirror their socio-cultural context. Those of the long 1960s (c1958-1975) reflect non-conformism and social activism; those of the 1980s, environmentalism; those of the 1990s, universalism; and those of the 2000s, cultural pluralism. Despite utilizing a format with its roots in the Roman Catholic liturgy, many of these politicized concert masses also reflect the increasing religious diversification of Western societies. By introducing non-Catholic and often non-Christian beliefs into masses that also remain respectful of Christian tradition, composers in the later twentieth century have employed the genre to promote a conciliatory way of being that promotes the value of heterogeneity and reinforces the need to protect the diversity of musics, species and spiritualities that enrich life. In combining the political with the religious, the case studies presented pose challenges for both supporters and detractors of the secularization paradigm. Overarchingly, they demonstrate that any binary division that separates life into either the religious or the secular and promotes one over the other denies the complexity of lived experience and constitutes a diminution of what it is to be human.

Although we should acknowledge the fragility of memory, we should nevertheless affirm the remarkable ability of memory to reform and transform our identity. Our memories and ways of remembering are, however, often marked by trauma and violence. Memory, therefore, not merely reforms; it too is in need of reformation, redemption and transformation. With this emphasis in mind, Reforming Memory grapples with the question what a responsible engagement with the past entails, also for Christians and churches associated with the Reformed tradition. The history of Reformed churches in South Africa is, one can argue, a deeply divided and ambivalent one. The same figures are heroes to some and villains to others; historic events are deeply ambiguous and conflicting views surround different discourses. Yet the histories, and perhaps futures, of these churches and traditions are inextricably interwoven. Reforming Memory fundamentally combines an interest in the notion of "e;memory"e; with an interest in (South African) Reformed theology and history. Central is the question: how should we remember and represent the past responsibly? The essays collected in this book engage in different ways with this question, attending in the process to some episodes in the history of the Dutch Reformed Church, some influential Reformed theologians, and some important Reformed practices and confessional documents.

A child of China missionary parents, Keith Clements looks back on a life rich in diverse experiences in many parts of the world as pastor, theologian, writer, and servant of the ecumenical movement. In so doing he finds hope "for the creation of true community in the world, of people among themselves, with God, and with creation. That is what the gospel of Christ is all about, what the church is about, and indeed what God who lives and loves as three-in-one is all about." He recalls instances of grace in which--even amid conflict and tragedy--people, churches, and communities discover the possibilities of new life together. It is both a very human story of personal faith, and an insider's account of ecumenical Christianity's quest for a more visibly united church and a world of peace and justice. Famous influences like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and present-day leaders such as Desmond Tutu figure prominently; but so do so-called ordinary people he has met over the years, whether in an English village, in communist East Germany, or in a South African squatter camp, who have shown by the way they live that another world--and another kind of church--is possible.

The spirit of the Reformation is often expressed in the well-known slogan that Reformed churches are always being reformed according to God’s Word, ecclesia reformata semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei. Over the last century, the spirit of this slogan motivated someone like Dietrich Bonhoeffer to argue that the visible form and life of the church should reflect the truth and message of the church. Already in his doctoral dissertation called Sanctorum Communio, the communion of the saints, the young Bonhoeffer combined theological claims and traditions with social theory and analysis, in this spirit, in an innovative way, to study the nature and integrity and witness of the church. At the time, this was a radical claim, with major consequences and challenges for Protestant churches. Their life – which meant their order, structure, actions, statements, convictions, public presence and role – was to be measured by their gospel – which meant their message, proclamation, convictions, claims. They could no longer proclaim one truth yet live a different life. It was this spirit which led to the well-known Theological Declaration of Barmen in 1934 and to the formation of the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany. Many called this a moment of truth, a status confessionis. It was this same spirit which later inspired the struggle in South Africa for the integrity and faithfulness of the church and for the credibility of its message, proclamation and witness. The contributions in this volume – 52 papers, essays, sermons, studies – were all produced in this spirit. Most of them have not been published before. They were all occasional pieces, written over several decades, in different contexts and for different purposes and audiences, yet they all breathe this self-critical spirit of the Reformation, considering whether the real church – the concrete, every day, actual, living church that people know and experience and perhaps belong to – truly strives to embody the gospel itself, the message which it claims and proclaims. They all inquire, under different circumstances and in diverse ways, about different social forms of the real church – from worship to congregation, from denomination to ecumenical church, from individual believers to movements and organisations – whether and how they embody the truth of the church, or not. Together, these contributions tell a story – the story of this spirit, in South African circles, over several decades, but also in the ecumenical church in our globalizing world. They offer one small glimpse into different concrete moments in the story of this spirit in the life of this tradition and community of faith. Hopefully, some of these accounts may resonate with others who also shared the same spirit – and still share it today, in new and ongoing ways.

Calvinism s influence and reputation have received ample scholarly attention. But how John Calvin himself his person, character, and deeds was remembered, commemorated, and memorialized, is a question few historians have addressed. Focussing on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this volume aims to open up the subject with chapters on Calvin s monumentalization in statues and museums, his appearance in novels, children s books, and travel writing, his iconic function for Hungarian nationalists and Presbyterian missionaries to China, his reputation among Mormons and freethinkers, and his rivalry with Michael Servetus in French Protestant memory. The result is a fresh contribution to the field of religious memory studies and an invitation to further comparative research.Contributors include: R. Bryan Bademan, Patrick Cabanel, R. Scott Clark, Thomas J. Davis, Stephen S. Francis, Joe B. Fulton, Botond Gaál, Stefan Laube, Johan de Niet, Herman Paul, James Rigney, Michèle Sacquin, Jonathan Seitz, Robert Vosloo, Bart Wallet, and Valentine Zuber.

In this companion volume to A Space for Grace, Johan Cilliers delves into some of the most profound theological underpinnings of preaching. Drawing on his extraordinary depth and breadth of scholarship, Cilliers examines the aesthetic, qualitative, and relational dimensions of sermonic time. Faithful preaching, he argues, is an art of speaking the now of grace, which is inextricably linked to past and future, but is simultaneously a dynamic event filled with the revelatory presence of God. Along with helpful reflections on pieces of visual art, Cilliers provides numerous sample sermons, as well as several detailed sermon analyses.