The Pilgrim Church

The History of the Church or company of those who by faith have received Christ and become His followers, is still in the making, not yet complete. On this account and because of its immense extent, although it is of supreme importance, parts only of it can be written and from time to time. First one, then another, must relate what he has seen or has learned from trustworthy records, and this must be taken up and added to as stage after stage of the long pilgrimage is traversed. The following pages are a contribution to the unfolding story.

"The more I listen to people, the more I lecture, the more I realize how wide is the gap between the people's understanding of the Church and the Church's historical realities." [Introduction] The author seeks to close this gap by critically exploring such areas as: the rich variety of ministries in the early Church; the Crusades; the piety of the Middle Ages; the challenge of the Reformation; the role of the pope; the rise, fall and recent reinstatement of the diaconate; the changing role of women in the Church; and the origins of various liturgies and popular devotions.

2018 Reprint of 1935 Second Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. Edmund Hamer Broadbent (1861-1945) was a Christian missionary and author. His missionary work from 1900 into the 1920s took him to Austria, Belgium, Egypt, Germany, Poland, Russia, Turkey, the Baltic states, North and South America, and Uzbekistan. His book, The Pilgrim Church, first published in 1931, is an alternative history of the church, unrecorded by secular history. It covers the history of many small churches throughout the ages that have attempted to follow the New Testament church pattern, the success of those that followed the pattern laid out by the apostles and the consequences to the churches that fell away from the pattern. He looks broadly at many groups such as the Paulicians, the Bogomils, the Nestorians, the Waldensians, the Anabaptists, the Hutterites, the Methodists, the Russian Mennonites and the Mennonite Brethren. He classified early primitive churches to Anabaptist, and to Moravian Brethren were historical Brethren Movement. Contents: Beginnings -- Christianity in Christendom -- Paulicians and Bogomils -- The east -- Waldenses and Albigenses -- Churches at the close of the Middle Ages -- Lollards, Hussites, the United Brethren -- The Reformation -- The Anabaptists -- France and Switzerland -- English nonconformists -- Labadie, the pietists, Zinzendorf, Philadelphia -- Methodist and missionary movements -- The west -- Russia -- Groves, Muller, Chapman -- Questions of fellowship and of inspiration.

For many people, the name of Archbishop Rembert Weakland brings to mind only connotations of scandal the titillating tale of a prominent priest disgraced. But that whiff of dishonor barely begins to tell the whole story. / In these pages Archbishop Weakland recounts his life from his childhood in rural Pennsylvania to his retirement from the archbishopric in 2002 at the age of 75, all in the context of the Church that he long served. Weakland takes readers with him to Rome, where he discovered the splendor of a whole new intellectual world, and then to New York for his extensive musical study at Julliard and Columbia University. From his early days in the priesthood to his struggles with pontiffs, Weakland details how he learned to become a leader and minister to his people and how his famously liberal beliefs affected his ministry. While he presents an honest account of the scandal he is so often recognized for, the complete picture beyond rumor and accusation may come as a surprise to many readers. / Throughout his memoir Weakland describes with poignant honesty his psychological, spiritual, and sexual growth. Candid and engaging, A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church offers a fascinating inside look at both Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II even as it tells the story of a life fully lived.

In this day when Christians and churches are widely dispersed throughout the world, the ques- tion ‘Who is the church?’ could easily be dismissed as irrelevant. In this publication, Bishop David Zac Niringiye pleads that as Jesus warned, we should not be in haste to conclude that any community with religious titles or forms and who speaks the right language of ‘Lord, Lord . . . ’ is authentic church. Taking his cue from Hebrews 11 and 12 the author addresses the motif of ‘the people of God’, looking first at the ancient people of Israel, beginning with Moses, then the new Israel and the covenant in Christ, born through the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and finally the life of the new community, the church, during the apostolic era. Through this biblical journey it is made clear that as the pilgrim people of God and the new community in Christ we must be marked by faith, love and hope, looking forward to the full consummation of the kingdom of God – justice, peace and joy, fully realized when ‘the new heaven and the new earth where righteousness dwells’ (2 Peter 3:13) is inaugurated.

Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has been the most visible member of the Catholic clergy in the world second only to Pope John Paul II. His status as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made him one of the most discussed churchmen in recent history. On the occasion of Ratzingers's seventy-fifth birthday, his former students selected essays, lectures, letters, and conferences that Ratzinger has written in recent years- writing that they feel best represents his position on issues of theology, the modern world, secularism, non-Christian religious, and other key topics of the Catholic Church. This book, characterized by Ratzinger's concisely reasoned style, is an invaluable resource to those who wish to understand the modern Church and the thinking of Pope Benedict XVI, as well as a treasured volume for those who are students of Ratzinger's theology.

Tilling the Church is a theology for the pilgrim church. In this book, Richard Lennan shows how the ecclesial community looks toward the fullness of God’s reign but lives within the flux of history, the site of its relationship to the trinitarian God. In this way, God’s grace “tills” the church, constantly refreshing the tradition of faith and prompting the discipleship that embodies the gospel. Tilling the Church explores the possibilities for a more faithful, just, and creative church, one responsive to the movement of grace. Fruitful engagement with grace requires the church’s conversion, the ongoing formation of a community whose words and actions reflect the hope that grace engenders.