Åke Talltorp, Sacrament and Growth, A Study in the Sacramental Dimension of Expansion in the Life of the Local Church, as Reflected in the Theology of Roland Allen. Linköping Studies in Religion and Religious Education, No 7. Linköping University Electronic Press. ISSN 1404-4269 (on-line).

Roland Allen (1868–1947) emerged as an independent missionary strategist within the Anglican Mission to China from 1895 to 1904 and within the interdenominational World Dominion Press from 1924 to 1930. He combined a Catholic view of Anglicanism with a deliberate concern for local Christian initiatives and the spontaneous expansion of local Christina communitieswithin their own environment. Basic in the ecclesiology was his view of the Church as a network of local fellowships celebrating the Sacraments. Thus nurtured local Christian fellowships were the proper means of Evangelization. In order to implement this understanding of Mission he encouraged experiments which included a system of voluntary clergy.

In this study Allen’s brand of Sacramental Anglicanism is explored and his functional view of the proper agents of Mission assessed.

Den amerikanska konstitutionen, som är den äldsta ännu i bruk varande konstitutionen, antogs den 17 september 1787. Dess fyra smärre referenser speglade mycket ringa den starka position kristendomen hade i den nybildade nationen. Men det hade en naturlig förklaring: delstaternas konstitutioner fick klara av den saken. The Declaration of Independence från den 4 juli 1776, även det ett ”levande” politiskt dokument i modernt politiskt liv, hade fyra referenser till Gud, alla i tydlig tidsanda. Till konstitutionen har sammantaget tjugosju tillägg fastställts, varav de första tio tidigt fick den klassiska benämningen ”The Bill of Rights.” Det första tillägget innehåller lydelsen: ”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Att man på federal nivå separerade kyrka och stat innebar inte att man samtidigt gjorde det på delstatsnivå. Inte heller innebar det att man separerade mellan religion och politik. Frågor om religionens betydelse för såväl några av ”the founding fathers” som i nutida politisk debatt tas upp och exemplifieras i denna artikel.

The Religious Dimension of George H.W. Bush has often been overlooked by his biographers. However, the entries in Bush’s The China Diary along with his official comments on his experiences in China as President of the U.S., show clearly that Bush stands not only in a tradition which stresses the importance of Christian faith, Christian liturgy and Christian hymns, but also in a sort of Evangelical tradition, in which you openly both speak about and act on your faith. The imprint of the China experience is evident, both politically and spiritually, and the entries are congenial with, for example, the very clear religious dimension in the politics of Bush Sr. as President of the United States.

When Jessica Olausson visited Malawi in 1996 within the newly created link between the departments of theology and religious studies at the University of Malawi and at Linköpings universitet, she almost by chance got the opportunity to study the ideas behind and the implementation of the Malawian curriculum project on Religious Education in primary education. She got interested in this project, and so did we who shared her material and her thoughts, when she came back to Sweden. And as we continued to reflect, we got troubled about those images of ourselves and our Religious Education which we discerned when we used this project as a mirror.

In this book Jessica Olausson describes and analyses the thoughts behind the new Malawian syllabus in Religious Education and the way textbooks and teachers' guides deal with what in Religious Education is thought of as the three religions of Malawi. She also compares what is taught about Malawian Traditional Religion in Religious Education with what is taught about Malawian culture in Social Studies, and she asks how to deal with distinctively Malawian Muslim practices and efforts towards inculturation in Malawian Christian churches within this educational approach.

In Melanchthon’s house in Wittenberg visitors of our days can read the following lines on a sign: “Without a knowledge of history human life is really no more than a remaining childhood, it could also be said that it is no more than a continuos darkness and blindness”.

What happened in Wittenberg almost 500 years ago is definitely history. Does it concern us at all?The history of the Reformation is certainly important for us to know about, as it had such big after-effects, not least for Sweden and the Church of Sweden. It is not the only cause for entering deeply into this part of our heritage, though. Our heritage of belief is rich and may contain unused possibilities for the Church of today, such as may be of help in the basic task of interpreting the Gospel for our time.

This book is an attempt to emphasize the most central part of the evangelical movement – its very core. It refers how this movement was inspired by Luther, how it was expressed in the congregations, and how it made markings in the confession that was read out to the emperor at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530.

The publication is based upon the first English translation of some essential parts of Professor Anders Nygren’s dissertation Religiöst Apriori. Dess filosofiska förutsättningar och teologiska konsekvenser [Religious Apriori: Its Philosophical Presuppositions and Theological

Consequences], 1921. In this work, Nygren established the foundation for his subsequent philosophical and theological thinking. Important theoretical and methodological perspectives that laid the groundwork in the thinking of Anders Nygren have hereby been made accessible for the English-speaking world.

A short biographical introduction to Anders Nygren is given, followed by an comprehensive introduction to the Religious Apriori, including an assessment of Nygren’s achievement.

The extensive bibliography includes works in English by relevant Swedish theologians.

As in most European countries the schools in Sweden historically have had close relations to the church. That was true to the medieval cathedral schools and to the first Swedish university, that of Uppsala founded in the 15th Century. That was also true when the 'gymnasia' were established in the 17th Century in the cities with cathedrals as a part of organising the Swedish 'empire' of that time preparing not only clergymen but also judges and officers for the new civil service. The lecturers of the gymnasia got their living as prebendaries of parishes around the cathedrals from that time into the 20th Century and formed the Protestant chapters of the dioceses of the Church of Sweden until the 1930s. The bishop was eforus (a kind of inspector) of the gymnasium until 1957.

The Alexander I. Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St. Ptersburg, was asked by the Russian Ministry of Education to prepare for a non-confessional religious education within Russian post-perestroika schools, and its scholars asked colleagues from University of Wales, Lampeter, and Linköpings universitet for assistance. Within the Tempus Tacis Pre-JEP project PETER (Promoting and Establishing a Teacher Education programme on non-confessional Religious studies) they 1995/96 gave their contributions the form of PPIs (Presentations and Problem Inventories) in which they not only described non-confessional religious education in Britain and Sweden but also clarified those problems this education is supposed to solve and the historico-cultural background of these problems. In relation to these PPIs the Russian contributors described those problems in the contemporary Russian situation which a new Russian non-confessional re-ligious education should address.

The main contributors to the PPIs are Dr William K Kay, Dr Edgar Almén, and Dr Vladislav Arzhanoukhin. These PPIs are commented by Professor Ninian Smart, then at University of California, Santa Barbara, and by Professor Berit Askling, then at Linköpings universitet. Mutual comments between the PPI-groups complete this book.