Edification

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The expression edification (from Greek oikodomé / oikodoméin , from which Latin: aedificatio, exstructio ) describes the process of building the church as a community in the Christian tradition . Although the concept of edification has been subject to permanent erosion and inflation at all times, its content remains an essential feature of the relationship between church and community .

Edification is therefore defined as that which strengthens the church in its relationship to Christ, promotes its charismatic and diaconal strength and thereby increases its missionary charisma. Individual construction and personal spirituality have meaning and limits in view of this supra-individual, ultimately eschatological goal.

The metaphor of building encounters in Pauline literature as an image of the church as a house (of God or Christ) , the living stones of which are the Christians. The edifying event therefore takes place in worship and preaching, as well as in the public witness of each individual.

Therefore admonish one another and edify one another, just as you do. 1 Thess 5.11  EU

This sense of the word can be found in Melanchthon :

All this together is the necessary church teaching from the beginning of creation to the building of the churches according to the apostles. Establishment of the Latin school. Bonn 1543, quoted in b. Grimm DWB

The previously described facets of the term "edification" are now often covered by the term " community development ". Because since the 16th century, the meaning of the term edification began to change.

Internal edification concept

In the 16th and 17th centuries the content of the concept of edification changed into an individual - mystical one : the word became a central concept of Pietism and was given an inward emphasis there. It was no longer the structure of the church, but the strengthening of the faith of pious communities and their individual members. Beyond that, however, the steps of edification were directed

In addition to the pietistic self-edification and the personal experience of awakening, also to the instruction of others and the enlivening of their religious feelings, they referred to the promotion and strengthening of the certainty of faith by warming the heart. Their field of activity was basically not limited to the church, but here they were considered to be particularly necessary for all those who had not yet gained the right education of heart and mind. (Hölscher 116)

The concept of edification advocated by Spener and Francke was formative: a moral value and an aesthetic feeling . The Enlightenment consistently described edifying as raising one's mind, awakening (grasping) pious thoughts and encouraging good (being encouraged and strengthened) . ( Campe , dictionary of the German language)

if one looks for a meaning appropriate to this expression, it is probably not to be stated otherwise than that it is understood to mean the moral consequence of devotion to the subject. Kant 6, 385 cit. b. Grimm DWB;

The metaphorical sense faded over time and is now practically forgotten.

With the criticism of the 19th century, which continues to this day, the term suspiciously dismissed as bigotry . The philosopher Kierkegaard in particular turned decisively to the term.

See also

literature