Vocab test 25/6/24

Question 1

Barmen declaration

Answer 1

This set out the basic belief of the “Confessing Church” in opposition to the German Christian movement (Deutsche Christen), who were strongly influenced by Nazism. The declaration was largely composed by Karl Barth (1934)

Question 2

Cheap grace

Answer 2

Grace that is offered freely but received without changing the recipient

Question 3

Consequential ethics

Answer 3

Any ethical system that considers the consequence produced by the action i.e. the rightness or wrongness of an act is judge by its outcomes

Question 4

Costly grace

Answer 4

Grace that is followed by obedience to God’s command and discipleship (change)

Question 5

Discipleship

Answer 5

Following the life, examples and teaching of Jesus

Question 6

Liberal societies

Answer 6

Societies that develop laws based on the idea that humans flourish when given maximum freedoms and minimum control by governments

Question 7

Moral relativism

Answer 7

There are no moral absolutes or values are relative to very general human values such as love or happiness

Question 8

No rusty swords

Answer 8

Bonhoeffer’s metaphor to describe the outworn ethical attitudes which the Church has used and so have no use today

Question 9

Passion

Answer 9

Jesus’ suffering

Question 10

Post Christian society

Answer 10

A society which still employs Christians moral values as part of its culture but does not believe or practise Christianity

Question 11

Religionless Christianity

Answer 11

Bonhoeffer’s phrase used to describe Christianity without the baggage of the past and contamination of ideological beliefs of the present

Question 12

Secular pacificism

Answer 12

Secular means “of this world” and pacifism is the belief that the use of violence and especially war is morally wrong. Bonhoeffer invented the phrase to mean a false non-religious belief that society can achieve a state of non-violence

Question 13

Solidarity

Answer 13

The altruistic commitment to stand alongside and be with the less fortunate, oppressed and those who suffer

Question 14

The Western Void

Answer 14

His description of the state of Western secular world without Christianity. The void leads to dangerous beliefs/ideas

Question 15

Theology of crisis

Answer 15

Teaches that the crisis of human sinfulness can only be overcome by God’s judgement and faith in his grace and redemption through Jesus Christ

Question 16

Tyrannicide

Answer 16

The deliberate killing of a ruthless leader who governs without restraint (tyrant) for the common good

Question 17

Utopia

Answer 17

Literally means a “no place” or “good place”. It refers to an ideal state where everything is perfect so often used to describe an unrealistic view of the world

Question 18

World come of age

Answer 18

Used by Bonhoeffer to describe how western culture has grown and embraced a rational view of the world meaning superstitious view of religion had been discarded