Becker Bible Teacher Resources

Those who "fall" away from the church in times of persecution.

Those holding the ideal that the church is an instrument of salvation as a kind of hospital for sick souls. Conversely, Rigorists hold the belief that the Church is a congregation of saved people seperated from sin.¹

1971 term coined for the politicization of  the insignificant, marginalized, unimportant, needy, despised, and defenseless believers by some Roman Catholic priests in conflict with their Church. Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutierrez wrote one of the movement's defining books, A Theology of Liberation, which stressed the utilization of Christian based communities to take up the sword of Christ to fight social injustice, and basically ignoring the love of Christ motif. The movement was branded as Marxism by the United States government, as well as the Orthodox Church hierarchy, including Pope Francis long before he assumed the role as shepherd of the Church.  While the idea of God holding a preferential option toward the poor is a noble idea represented in Scripture, the politicization of the impoverished led them away from the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

An ancient method of singing religious music which involves a leader chanting each line of text and then the congregation singing in unison without hymnals or psalters. The American colonists brought this form of
music from the British churches around the 1700's. The Old Regular Baptist Churches is one denomination that expresses songs only in this manner.

Hermeneutical interpretation that is interested in the text as a unit.  The approaches are varied and include examining the narrative through plots, themes, characters, and nuances of text, rhetorical approaches with an examination of arguments within the text, or other specialty criticism based upon specific interests like feminism, third-world, non-American, or structure variances. (See Hermeneutics)