The structural approach facilitates exposure of the elements of eschatological teaching characteristic of 2 Peter's author with its correct or incorrect interpretation. Narratives drawn from Jewish tradition aim to show two attitudes towards the announcement of destruction: a positive attitude, signifying salvation, and a negative attitude, signifying annihilation. This pattern is transferred to the attitude towards prophetic and apostolic eschatological teaching. Part 1 of the commentary (2 Pet 1-2) focuses on the misinterpretation of this teaching by false teachers and their followers. Their eschatological scepticism is ridiculed and their grim fate described. As the starting point for this description and Peter's whole line of argumentation 2 Pet 2:3b is taken - the thesis is that God's inaction is only apparent, while judgment and punishment are inevitable, although only God knows when they will be executed.Part 2 of the commentary (2 Pet 3) focuses on the proper interpretation of this teaching and on laying out the principles of the letter author's hermeneutics. This hermeneutic construes texts from Jewish tradition as foreshadowing and typologies of eschatological events. In explaining the principles of his hermeneutic, the letter's author drew on the creation story, which Jewish apocalypticism read inversely, to mark that the eschatological hermeneutics is rooted in tradition. The starting point of Peter's line of argumentation was taken to be 2 Pet 3:5.7 with its thesis of God's creative and destructive word and God's sovereign will regarding the preservation of creation and the appointment of the time of judgement. This thesis explains the apparent lack of divine action, which was also a major concern in Part 1 of the commentary (2 Pet 1-2).

The New Testament shows the early Church as having both stable institutions and dynamic growth in charismatic ministries. In the twenty-first century, although many historically-determined inessentials have changed, the Church’s structure remains fundamentally the same. This study looks at New Testament ministries (Eph 4:11-12), Baptism in the Holy Spirit, and the history of the gift of tongues from the Acts of the Apostles through to the charismatics of our time, to see how these elements contribute to the fast-paced, global phenomenon we call the “pentecostalization” of modern Christianity. Our research shows that much of what appears to be novel in current ecclesial movements is the fruit of charisms that have been poured out from the beginning. The disciples of Christ are still bringing “out of his treasure what is new and old.”

The volume focuses on emerging "rooms for manoeuvre" in the socialist societies of Central and Eastern Europe after the Second World War. Unlike in other works, these areas of activity are not viewed as isolated spheres where citizens could act independently from political and societal constraints. They are rather conceptualized here as geographical, social or institutional spaces whose existence was either outside of political control or more or less intentionally allowed by authorities and other decision-makers. The contributions investigate how East Germans, Poles, Romanians, Slovaks and Czechs coped with the limitations of socialist reality. How did they adopt and successfully adapt given norms to their own specific interests? To what extent were the resulting "rooms for manoeuvre" not only essential aspects of the state socialist system, but even necessary to stabilize it?

Dance plays an important role in many religious traditions, in rites of passage, processions, healing rituals or festivals. But it is also controversial, especially in Christianity. Colonial European Christian discourses tend to separate dance from religion(s) and spirituality. This volume explores dance as "Third Space", following Homi Bhabha's postcolonial metaphor. The "Inter-Dance approach" combines interdisciplinary theoretical considerations with case studies. International experts examine dance controversies and discourses from the early church to World Christianity, as well as in Hasidic Judaism, Greek mysteries, Islamic Sufism, West African Togolese religions, and Afro-Brazilian Umbanda. Christian dance theologies are unfolded and the boundary-crossing potential of dance in interreligious and intercultural encounters is explored. The volume breaks new ground in how dance as ephemeral performative art, embodied thought and gendered discourse can transform studies of religion.

Der vorliegende dreisprachige Band konzentriert sich auf Akte des transgressiven Handelns/Schreibens in ausgewählten Texten europäischer Literaturen, deren Autoren sich durch Geschlecht, Nationalität und Zeitrahmen unterscheiden. So berücksichtigen die hier gesammelten Beiträge eine doppelte Fragestellung: nach der Differenz und Überschreitung von Normen. Beide Begriffe werden zueinander in Beziehung gesetzt, um jeglichen Übergang in kulturell-sozial-historische Kontexte einbetten zu können. Die in chronologischer Reihenfolge präsentierten Analysen und Interpretationen von ausgewählten Texten deutscher, französischer, polnischer, russischer sowie antiker Literatur zeigen exemplarische Akte der Transgression in verschiedenen Kulturen und unter sich verändernden Zeitumständen und dokumentieren ästhetische Versuche, die bestehende Ordnung zu revidieren und eine neue zu schaffen. This trilingual volume focuses on acts of transgressive acting/writing in selected texts of European literatures whose authors differ in gender, nationality and time frame. Thus, the contributions collected here consider a double questioning: of difference and transgression of norms. Both concepts are set in relation to each other in order to be able to embed any transition in cultural-social-historical contexts. The analyses and interpretations of selected texts from German, French, Polish, Russian and ancient literature, presented in chronological order, show exemplary acts of transgression in different cultures and under changing time circumstances and document aesthetic attempts to revise the existing order and create a new one.