Neo-revelationism
Encyclopedia
- To be distinguished from the "new revelationism" of Barth, which does not postulate new revelations, but a new theory on the mechanism of revelation itself.
- "New Revelation" redirects here, a term that may also refer to the writings of Jakob LorberJakob LorberJakob Lorber was a Styrian Christian mystic and visionary who promoted liberal Universalism. He referred to himself as "God's scribe". He wrote that on 15 March 1840 he began hearing an 'inner voice' from the region of his heart and thereafter transcribed what it said...
in particular. - "New Revelation" is the title of a 2007 album by Astral DoorsAstral DoorsAstral Doors is a Swedish heavy metal band formed in 2002. They have released five studio albums and an EP. Their latest work is Requiem Of Time, released in February 2010...
.
Neo-Revelationism is a term for religious groups, especially Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
or Christianity-derived who claim direct revelation
Revelation
In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...
beyond claims of divine inspiration
Biblical inspiration
Biblical inspiration is the doctrine in Christian theology that the authors and editors of the Bible were led or influenced by God with the result that their writings many be designated in some sense the word of God.- Etymology :...
associated with the Christian Bible proper, but the term is also applicable relative to movements like Bahai and Ahmadiyya
Ahmadiyya
Ahmadiyya is an Islamic religious revivalist movement founded in India near the end of the 19th century, originating with the life and teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad , who claimed to have fulfilled the prophecies about the world reformer of the end times, who was to herald the Eschaton as...
relative to mainstream Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, and to Messiah claimants
Jewish Messiah claimants
The Messiah in Judaism has a number of interpretations, including any king chosen by God; a holy king who will lead Israel; and someone who will usher in an idyllic age of peace and justice...
in a context of Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
.
The English term is a translation of the German Neuoffenbarung.
Within the Christian church
The Roman Catholic ChurchRoman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
in principle accepts the possibility of "private revelation
Private revelation
In the teaching of the Catholic Church, a private revelation refers to visions and revelations from God to a specific Christian which have taken place since the completion of the New Testament...
s", and recognizes certain instances (in practice mostly Marian apparitions) in the sense of nihil obstat, i.e. the Church proclaims the possibility of a revelation being genuinely of divine origin without placing any positive claim to the effect. Within Evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
Christianity, prophecy
Prophecy
Prophecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...
is also widely accepted, but only where it is tested against the overall message of the bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
and not found to be contradicting. Especially the Charismatic Movement
Charismatic movement
The term charismatic movement is used in varying senses to describe 20th century developments in various Christian denominations. It describes an ongoing international, cross-denominational/non-denominational Christian movement in which individual, historically mainstream congregations adopt...
emphasizes the claim that prophecy
Prophecy
Prophecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...
is available to contemporary believers. By contrast, dispensationalism
Dispensationalism
Dispensationalism is a nineteenth-century evangelical development based on a futurist biblical hermeneutic that sees a series of chronologically successive "dispensations" or periods in history in which God relates to human beings in different ways under different Biblical covenants.As a system,...
teaches that no further revelation is to be expected before the Second Coming
Second Coming
In Christian doctrine, the Second Coming of Christ, the Second Advent, or the Parousia, is the anticipated return of Jesus Christ from Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God, to Earth. This prophecy is found in the canonical gospels and in most Christian and Islamic eschatologies...
and the end times
End times
The end time, end times, or end of days is a time period described in the eschatological writings in the three Abrahamic religions and in doomsday scenarios in various other non-Abrahamic religions...
.
Visions of Jesus and Mary
Visions of Jesus and Mary
Since the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Calvary until today, a number of people have claimed to have had visions of Christ and personal conversations with him. Some people make similar claims regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary. Discussions about the authenticity of these visions have often invited...
have been common throughout the history of Christianity. The technical term of receiving revelations verbally, as opposed to in visions, is interior locution
Interior locution
An interior locution is a mystical concept used by various religions, including the Roman Catholic Church. In an interior locution, a person reportedly receives a set of ideas, thoughts, or imaginations from an outside spiritual source. Interior locutions are most often reported during prayers...
. For example, Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa , born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu , was a Roman Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, in 1950...
stated that she had been experiencing interior locutions, but that she preferred to remain private as to their contents.
There are numerous examples of such instances in Christian mysticism
Christian mysticism
Christian mysticism refers to the development of mystical practices and theory within Christianity. It has often been connected to mystical theology, especially in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions...
, during the medieval period and in the modern era e.g. Jacob Boehme and Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg
was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, and theologian. He has been termed a Christian mystic by some sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica online version, and the Encyclopedia of Religion , which starts its article with the description that he was a "Swedish scientist and mystic." Others...
, and later Jakob Lorber
Jakob Lorber
Jakob Lorber was a Styrian Christian mystic and visionary who promoted liberal Universalism. He referred to himself as "God's scribe". He wrote that on 15 March 1840 he began hearing an 'inner voice' from the region of his heart and thereafter transcribed what it said...
(1800-1864), Gottfried Mayerhofer (1807-1877), Bertha Dudde (1891-1965) and others. Proponents of neo-revelationism point to John 16:12-14, taking "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now" as an announcement of continued revelation outside of the biblical canon. 12th-century mystic Joachim of Fiore
Joachim of Fiore
Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim of Flora and in Italian Gioacchino da Fiore , was the founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore . He was a mystic, a theologian and an esoterist...
also pointed to Revelations 14:6 which presages an "everlasting gospel" yet to be taught in the future. Opponents, on the other hand, tend to point to the warning against false prophet
False prophet
In religion, a false prophet is one who falsely claims the gift of prophecy, or who uses that gift for evil ends. Often, someone who is considered a "true prophet" by some people is simultaneously considered a "false prophet" by others....
s in Matthew 24.
New religious movements
Outside mainstream Christianity, there have also been numerous new religious movements led by people either claiming to be directly inspired by Jesus, or indeed to be Jesus returned.Other examples of notable neo-revelationist movements are the Unification Church
Unification Church
The Unification Church is a new religious movement founded by Korean religious leader Sun Myung Moon. In 1954, the Unification Church was formally and legally established in Seoul, South Korea, as The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity . In 1994, Moon gave the church...
, Universal Life
Universal Life
Universal Life is the name of a controversial new religious movement based in Würzburg, Germany, which is described by members as a part of the new revelation movement, and by critics as a cult...
, Church of the Last Testament
Vissarion
Sergey Anatolyevitch Torop , known by his followers as Vissarion , is a Russian mystic. He founded and heads a religious movement known as the Church of the Last Testament with its head church in the Siberian Taiga in the Minusinsk Depression east of Abakan, in the southern Siberia Kuraginsk...
and Fiat Lux
Uriella
Uriella is the spiritual leader and founder of the neo-revelationist religious movement known as Fiat Lux .- Fiat Lux :...
. A number of movements of Spiritual Christianity
Spiritual Christianity
Spiritual Christianity is a type of religious thought among the sectarianism of Russian Orthodoxy, with followers called spiritual Christians ....
in tsarist Russia also fall under this category.
See also
- I Am Your Jesus of MercyI Am Your Jesus of MercyI am Your Jesus of Mercy is the title of a series of books written by Gianna Talone. Currently there are 6 volumes in the series. The books are based on messages that Talone attributes to Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. The visions of Jesus and Mary that lead to the books were reported between...
- Jerusalem syndromeJerusalem syndromeThe Jerusalem syndrome is a group of mental phenomena involving the presence of either religiously themed obsessive ideas, delusions or other psychosis-like experiences that are triggered by a visit to the city of Jerusalem...
- List of people who have claimed to be Jesus
- ProphecyProphecyProphecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...
- Unverified personal gnosisUnverified personal gnosisUnverified personal gnosis is the phenomenological concept that an individual's spiritual insights may be valid for them without being generalizable to the experience of others...