Abstract

This article looks to the logic of grace and gratitude in the Heidelberg Catechism (HC) in order to examine a disposing pattern of sensibility and affection as well as four lessons for a contemporary Protestant theological ethic. It also suggests a revision of the catechism’s basic theology in light of the current ecological crisis and in conjunction with a theocentric strand in Reformed theologies of creation.

Highlights

  • Introduction to The commentary of DrZacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg catechism

  • It will be ready to subject all persons, communities, practices, and institutions to persistent criticism. Just because this particular strand of piety undercuts self-righteousness, it supports an ethic that appreciates the moral importance of love as forgiveness, or what Niebuhr called “the demand that the evil in the other shall be borne without vindictiveness because the evil in the self is known” – a point whose relevance has been renewed by recent discussions of reconciliation, truth, and justice following protracted civil conflicts in South Africa, Northern Ireland, Latin America, and elsewhere (Niebuhr 1979:137; Biggar 2003)

  • Consider Question 64: Does the teaching that good works merit nothing “make people indifferent and wicked?” This echoes a Reformation-era criticism of grace-alone Protestants, and if the only engine for moral seriousness were our commitment to our own self-realization and fulfilment, the answer would surely be “yes.” The catechism, answers, “No,” because “it is impossible for those engrafted into Christ through true faith not to produce fruits of gratitude.”

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Summary

A PIETY AND MANNER OF LIVING RATHER THAN “MERE DOCTRINE”

My sin binds me to feverish attempts at banishing anxiety, insecurity, and death by taking control and / or growing numb, by trying to be like God and / or trying to throw life away This is the devil’s dominion, the corrupting rule of a faithless and false interpretation of the human situation – a faithless and false deification and / or abdication that brings with it a train of bad consequences. My Saviour has delivered me into another frame of reference and self-understanding For this reason, I am no longer defined by the false (and defeating) assumption that I belong to myself and must secure my life against innumerable and insuperable threats. In Christ and the Spirit, it is (and irrepressibly) hopeful because it knows that we belong to the God of grace

REALISM AND REMORSE
CALLED TO A COMMUNITY AND MISSION OF RECONCILIATION
A CRITICISM AND A CONCLUSION
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