Browsing by Author "Harold, Godfrey"

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A study on the lived experience of koinōnia in a post-apartheid, post-Armstrong congregation: A transition from power-imbalance to koinōnia
(South African Theological Seminary Johannesburg, 2022) Millar, Candida 1977–; Harold, Godfrey
This research is an exploration of koinōnia in practice, from an evangelical, trinitarian perspective, in a congregation of Grace Communion International (GCI), in Johannesburg, South Africa. It considers the past effects of apartheid and Armstrongism in the study. Researching within the context of evangelicalism considers the four-fold quadrilateral of Bebbington (1993) namely biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism and activism, with careful inclusion of Packer’s (1978) sixth essential, in his six-fold definition of evangelicalism, namely fellowship, folded into Bebbington’s “activism”. Koinōnia may be best considered first from a macro perspective, existing within the Triune God, that also finds its expression in the relationship between Christ and his Bride, into the micro family of believers. This research thus considers social/relational koinōnia as it exists in a Triune God, within a congregation that is situated within evangelicalism. The researcher recognizes the Church (the Bride of Christ) as a dynamic organism that is ever-evolving (Harper and Metzger 2009:16) but enters into a moment of time in search for meaning, and observes the apparent practice of koinōnia, from a post-Armstrong, post-apartheid context. Through the method of hermeneutic phenomenology (Swinton and Mowat 2016), the research explores the lived experience of the congregants regarding the phenomena of koinōnia. While chapter one is an overview of the research’s proposed activities, hopes and interests, chapter two offers a perspective of social trinity and koinōnia with added insight from the exploration of the research topic. Chapter three explores the history of Grace Communion International from Worldwide Church of God era through its name change with emphasis on its model of practicing koinōnia. Further to this, the chapter delves into an explanation of apartheid, and its influence on the Worldwide Church of God’s pre-1994 practices as well as the researcher’s impression, in dialogue with the views of multi-racial authors of peer reviewed academia, of the context into which the research is situated.
Conspectus Volume 25
(South African Theological Seminary, 2018-03) Aryeh, Daniel Nii Aboagye; Harold, Godfrey; Joubert, Callie; Maartens, Nick; Lioy, Dan T.; Manyika, Batanayi I.; Smith, Kevin G.; Woodbridge, Noel B.; Falconer, Robert D.; Atterbury, Vincent E.; Brodie, Robert; Domeris, William R.; Erdey, Zoltan L.; Jabini, Frank; Kunhiyop, Samuel W.; Lessing, Pelham; Lioy, Dan T.; Mahlangu, Elijah; Malherbe, Johannes S.; Maré, Leonard; Peppler, Christopher; Pretorius, Mark; Smith, Kevin G.; Song, Arthur; Woodbridge, Noel B.; du Toit, Philip; Erdey, Zoltan L.
Polity of the New Apostolic Movement in light of Biblical and Historical Precedents in the Christian Church.
(South African Theological Seminary Johannesburg, 2022) Adams, Mark Allen; Harold, Godfrey
The New Apostolic Movement (NAM), also and originally known as the New Apostolic Reformation, is marked by two tenets: the legitimacy of the ministry of modern-day apostles and ‘theocratic single-headship’ of churches by apostolic leaders. While much has been written debating the legitimacy of a modern charismatic apostolate, there is a lack of specialized research regarding the polity of NAM networks and NAM churches. What is the polity of the New Apostolic Movement and how can that polity be evaluated in the light of biblical and historical precedents? In the identification of biblical and historical polity precedents of the Christian church, the simpler, more encompassing and less partisan categories of autocratic plurocratic and democratic have been favoured over the traditional categories of episcopal, presbyterian and congregational. Identification of polity precedents, exegesis of key texts and an examination of the ‘question of normativeness’ mark the New Testament survey. A fresh and comprehensive review of the major churches, movements and denominations—and their founders—is presented in the chapter regarding polity precedents in the historical Christian church. New research concerning New Apostolic Movement churches found that local-church polity in NAM churches is consistently autocratic but with enough plurocratic function to provide a measure of accountability and that there is little to no democratic function in NAM churches. Study of the largest and most influential trans-local apostolic networks found an absence of autocratic governance, contradicting previous assumptions in the literature. Biblical exegesis concluded that the primacy of apostolic ministry is given for building the church not for governing it, and that the governing role of New Testament apostles was conducted collegially, not autocratically.