Magisterial Reformers Research Articles

The Sign of Jonah

Abstract The dialectical-theological origins of the politically- and ethically-charged concept of alterity are well-known within the philosophy of religion. Intellectual histories of this concept tie it too exclusively to the notion of distance or διάστασις in Karl Barth’s early Römerbrief, however, and so miss Barth’s Trinitarian reinterpretation of God’s otherness in his later work. Taking as my hermeneutical key a cipher, the ‘sign of Jonah,’ that emerges in Church Dogmatics IV/1, I show that Barth’s mature doctrines of temporality and filiation understand alterity as a moment of divine life. Jesus’ agony in the garden of Gethsemane marks the climax of Barth’s self-reinterpretation: world history inheres within the Christological situation of paternal abandonment. The political-theological conclusions Barth draws from the ‘sign of Jonah’ dovetail with alterity discourses’ antitotalitarian aspirations but suggest that these aspirations’ structural coherence rest on the magisterial Reformers’ Christological and ecclesiological commitments.

Heresy as Treason: English ‘Ecclesiastical Diplomacy’ in the United Provinces, 1610–19

ABSTRACT This article characterises the influence of English ‘Ecclesiastical Diplomacy’ on notions of heresy and treason in the United Provinces of the Dutch Republic. It works backwards from the stage of the Globe Theatre in London to the trial of Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and finally the Synod of Dort in order to explore how cross-channel diplomatic networks were leveraged to reconcile theological and ecclesiastical transnationalism with the formation of a state church. This creates an unlikely but intriguing dialogue between high politics, predestinarian thought, pamphlet culture, mercantilism and even foreign intelligence gathering. The dialogue exposes interconnection between the courts of James I and Maurice of Orange and the English and Dutch churches, which leads to a reassessment of the significance of Synod of Dort in early modern diplomatic history and the magisterial reformation.

Reformation und kalkulierte Medialität by Hannah M. Kress

Reviewed by: Reformation und kalkulierte Medialität by Hannah M. Kress Martin Berntson Reformation und kalkulierte Medialität. By Hannah M. Kress. Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 200. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 2021. 475 pp. Hannah M. Kress has written a doctoral thesis, defended at the University of Marburg, on Olaus Petri, the foremost theologian in [End Page 238] Sweden during the early Reformation. Through a medial perspective, the author treats Olaus Petri's texts in a new way, with a focus on the Reformation as a communication process, where the transmission of knowledge concerns messages that take concrete and practical expression. Kress hereby seeks to determine how the printing medium was used in a calculated way to spread the Reformation during its earliest phase in Sweden. By analyzing title pages, images, and printing fonts, she makes inferences and through the marginal notes she gets a glimpse of how the books were received. Wisely, however, Kress does not only study the books, but places them in the larger political context, investigating how they were both influenced by and supported royal policy. The book is very carefully structured. Each writing attributed to Olaus Petri (sometimes he was not the actual author, sometimes he can only be considered a translator) is examined with a focus on structure and content, as well as possible original sources and graphics. Among the most interesting analyses is that of the books' title pages. In the sixteenth century, Olaus Petri's books were divided into three series (two in quarto format and one in octavo format). One series focused on classical Reformation topoi, and another more in-depth on classical theological topics, while the octavo format series was focused on personal edification. The format and cover allowed the reader (or buyer) to see immediately what kind of book it was. Kress continually addresses the question of whether it is appropriate to speak of a magisterial reformation (Königsreformation) in Sweden. Kress argues that the oft-recurring—but in my opinion not the predominant—view of the Swedish Reformation as solely a magisterial reformation is reductive, especially when it comes to the introduction of the Reformation in the kingdom during the mid-1520s and mid-1530s, where one should instead be open to a more differentiated interpretation. Based on previous definitions of a magisterial reformation, especially by Wilhelm-Ernst Winterhager and Eike Wolgast, Kress argues that the introduction of the Reformation in the Swedish kingdom cannot generally be described as such, but rather was a matter of both idealistic and material forces working together. [End Page 239] At times, it would have been desirable for the author to refer more often to literature written after 1945. It is, for example, questionable to label a handbook by Professor Hjalmar Holmquist from 1933 as a prevalent standard work for Swedish Reformation history (3). Through the use of older literature, the author transmits the view that the spread of late medieval relic veneration, Marian veneration, pilgrimages, and the trade in indulgences were due to poorly educated Swedish priests, as well as to the fact that the practices took non-Christian or pagan forms. These dubious statements also include the claim that belief in the pagan gods Thor and Odin would have been "widespread" at the time of the Reformation and that the population outside Stockholm was largely not even Christian (38). The occasional limited connection to recent research is, however, richly compensated by the author's skill in working both close to the sources and in a source-critical way. The often very detailed summaries of the contents of Olaus Petri's books would perhaps have been superfluous if the book had been written in Swedish, but as it is primarily aimed at a German readership, her summaries will serve as an excellent introduction to someone who is completely unknown to most English- and German-speaking Reformation scholars, namely, the versatile theologian Olaus Petri. Martin Berntson University of Gothenburg Gothenburg, Sweden Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.

Magisterial Reformers and Postliberalism

Magisterial Reformers and Postliberalism

Reformations-Atlas. Die Reformation in Mitteldeutschland ed. by Markus Hein and Armin Kohnle

Reviewed by: Reformations-Atlas. Die Reformation in Mitteldeutschland ed. by Markus Hein and Armin Kohnle Jeffrey Jaynes Reformations-Atlas. Die Reformation in Mitteldeutschland. Edited by Markus Hein and Armin Kohnle. Wettin-Löbejün: Verlag Janos Stekovics, 2018. 212 pp. The 500-year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation prompted several aids for studying this important period. Reformations-Atlas is one of the best. It features seventy-six maps ranging from local city plans to world maps that depict the current scope of Lutheran and Reformed influence respectively. It concentrates, however, on numerous regional maps that sketch Saxony's Reformation heartland. This coffee-table-style book is a more than an atlas as it features images, timelines, and short introductory essays that elevate its scholarly contribution. The book is organized into eight chapters, beginning with the religious and political landscape that shaped the Reformation in "middle Germany." A helpful map of principal German highways shows how Leipzig, more than Wittenberg, stood at the crossroads of trade networks, fueling its book trade and the influence of its university. Other maps depict the church patrons honored across the breadth of Saxony (the customary saints, Mary, and the Trinity) and popular pilgrimage sites. The chapter concludes with maps and essays that focus on the two Wettin princes, Elector Frederick and Duke George, heirs of the Leipzig Partition (1485), and their commitments to the traditional faith. The next two chapters attend more biographically to Martin Luther, addressing his background (chapter 2) and the early stages of the Reformation (chapter 3). An excellent city plan and description of Luther's academic home at Erfurt highlights this section. Several itinerary maps are included, notably Luther's route to and from Rome, his journey to the Diet of Worms, and then to the Wartburg. Chapter 3 also addresses the Wittenberg Reformation broadly, with attention to Philip Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, and even Thomas Müntzer. A fascinating map chronicles the introduction of evangelical preachers and pastors into the towns of Saxony and adjacent communities, followed by an up-close analysis of the evangelical movement in Leisnig. This chapter concludes with the critical year [End Page 92] of 1525 featuring maps of Müntzer's career, the "Peasants' War," and the plundering of regional monasteries. Programmatic dimensions of reform appear in the next three chapters: Ernestine Saxony (chapter 4), Albertine Saxony (chapter 5), and the German Empire (chapter 6). This section opens with a detailed map of the "magisterial Reformation" by identifying when various German cities and territories adopted their first church ordinances (Kirchenordnungen). Specific phases and visitors are depicted on a map that chronicles the first visitations under Elector John (Ernestine Saxony) to later efforts under Duke Maurice (Albertine Saxony). These evangelical visitations differed significantly from earlier diocesan visitations, described for the bishoprics of Meissen (1522) and Merseburg (1524). In addition, chapters 4 and 5 include more local expressions of reform like the first visitations in Zwickau, or the efforts of Elisabeth von Rochlitz (1537). Visitations in the 1530s also targeted Anabaptist communities, and their presence across Saxony is represented. Chapter 6 redirects the focus to wider aspects of imperial politics, tracing the various leagues and alliances created to secure particular positions. This chapter concludes with representations of the Saxon theaters of conflict during the Schmalkaldic War, and the realignment of Wettin lands in the Wittenberg Capitulation. The final two chapters gauge the influence of the Reformation in middle Germany. The print culture that shaped the Reformation is on full display (chapter 7), featuring an array of images. One helpful map illustrates the translations of Luther's Small Catechism across most of Europe before 1600. Music receives good exposure in this chapter, with maps that note the distribution of hymnals and the creation of numerous Kantoreien. The final chapter shifts to the spread of the Lutheran Reformation to Scandinavia and across the Atlantic. Movements inside of Germany are also featured in maps of various Pietist traditions, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. One could hope for similar detailed atlases of other German regions and beyond. Encountering a stimulating book like this one generates ideas about additional things to include, such as the [End Page 93] influence of the...

Nancy is a Thinker of Radical Emancipation

Nancy has been criticised for rejecting the politics of emancipation that characterises the thought of some of his more militant contemporaries. To be sure, he does distance himself from the rhetoric of emancipation. He considers that the grand modern emancipation narrative of the Enlightenment, and of the revolutions of the late eighteenth century, expired with the end of the Cold War, and that the ideal of emancipation carried by this narrative is dangerous insofar as it imposes “ultimate sense” on history and assumes an “essence of humanity” that is to be liberated. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that Nancy’s rejection of the modern, linear account of emancipatory politics is a refusal of emancipation per se. Indeed, his reason for rejecting modernity’s simple narrative of emancipatory progress is that this framing of history is by a long chalk not emancipatory enough, and that it has far too much in common with the identitarian politics against which it seeks to set itself. So it should come as no surprise that Nancy uses emancipatory language in his very rejection of the politics of emancipation, arguing for example that we need “emancipation from a certain thinking of emancipation.” This article makes the case for Nancy as a rich and radical thinker of emancipation whose thought, far from being apolitical when it comes to liberation, offers us a broad, robust and practical account of the emancipatory. This case is made by weaving together two important strands of Nancy’s thought. First, his deconstruction of Christianity is examined in the light of the claim that Christianity is “in itself and by itself in a state of surpassing” and that Christianity’s self-surpassing is “perhaps its deepest tradition.” This leads, secondly, to a consideration of Nancy’s frequent meditations on Pascal’s statement that “man infinitely exceeds/surpasses man.” When they are taken together, what emerges from these two strands of Nancy’s thought is a pattern of emancipation that goes beyond simple historical ruptures to operate across multiple temporalities at once, each populated by plural vectors of continuity and change. Nancy seeks emancipation from a double slavery: the slavery of absolutising a continuity with the past, and that born of the ideological fantasy of a simple rupture with the past. Instead, he offers us an account of emancipation that is capable of navigating a subtler course through multiple dynamics of continuity and change. The article concludes by briefly examining Nancy’s use of the term ressourcement to characterise this radical account of emancipation, evoking the importance of the gesture described by this term for the biblical prophets, for the magisterial reformers and for Vatican II. Far from being weak in its emancipatory potential, Nancy’s thought takes the modern emancipatory imperative and returns it to us with greater depth, breadth and potency.

The Bohemian Brethren and the Protestant Reformation

The smallest, but in some ways the most influential, church to emerge from the Hussite Reformation was the Unity of the Brethren founded by Gregory the Patriarch in 1457. The Unity was a voluntary church that separated entirely from the established churches, and chose its own priests, published the first Protestant hymnal and catechism, and operated several schools. Soon after Martin Luther broke with Rome, the Brethren established cordial relations with Wittenberg and introduced their irenic and ecumenical theology to the Protestant Reformation. Over time, they gravitated more toward the Reformed tradition, and influenced Martin Bucer’s views on confirmation, church discipline, and the Eucharist. In many ways, the pacifist Brethren offered a middle way between the Magisterial Reformation and the Radical Reformation. Study of the Brethren complicates and enhances our understanding of the Protestant Reformation and the rise of religious toleration in Europe.

The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience by Simeon Zahl

Reviewed by: The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience by Simeon Zahl Sarah Hinlicky Wilson The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience. By Simeon Zahl. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 272 pp. In this much-needed corrective, Zahl challenges the silence in mainstream Protestant theology surrounding “experience,” both as method and as data. In the process he invokes the unlikeliest of allies—Luther and Melanchthon. The irony is not lost on Zahl. Although Luther’s initial reform was rooted in his spiritual experience, he got spooked first by Karlstadt and later by other spiritualists, who pitted direct experience of the Spirit against scripture. Inherited Lutheran anxiety about experience got a fresh boost in Karl Barth’s tirade against it for equally understandable reasons. Zahl demonstrates in detail how mainstream Protestant articulations of the “ontological” change in believers continue to dodge the issue, hiding a refusal to describe “experienced” effects of faith under the cover of, for example, “participation.” “Perhaps the chief contemporary theological target in this book is a certain kind of complacency with theological abstraction that is often apparent in discussions of the Spirit” (70). The vacuum left in Protestant theology has been filled, in part, by neo-Thomist accounts of cooperation and habituation. While Zahl appreciates their willingness to speak of experience at all, the underlying soteriology and its religious optimism leave him unconvinced. Indeed, the very Reformation Protestants who reject Roman Catholic accounts of soteriology and sanctification often do so on experiential grounds! Experience, Zahl insists, shapes the very kind of theologians we become. What this suggests, at a minimum, is that Protestant theology in the tradition of the magisterial Reformation can continue no longer in its refusal to engage the topic of experience. Zahl further exposes this methodological lacuna as both a missional and a pneumatological deficit. After deftly diagnosing the issue, Zahl spends the remainder of his work sketching out a theological account of experience in keeping with Reformation doctrines of grace, faith, and sin. [End Page 466] One of the tools he invokes to this end is affect theory, which examines the interplay of reason, emotion, and bodiliness, with particular interest in “intransigence”—the ways in which our minds and bodies do not feel as we would like them to, and the ways in which human bodily experiences and problems persist over time apart from cultural change or verbal analysis. Zahl observes that affect theory can be described as an “unknowing rearticulation of the Lutheran doctrine of the bondage of the will under the guise of critique of the post-Enlightenment ‘fantasy of sovereignty’ ” (153). The other tool is cognitive psychology, which Zahl wields against accusations that, for instance, forensic justification as an external “legal fiction” has no impact on believers whatsoever. To the contrary, there is broad consensus that the ideas people hold bear very directly on their emotions. On the strength of this insight, Zahl gives the warmest appraisal in recent memory of Melanchthon’s Apology and its profound appreciation of the interplay between what is held to be true about God (angry judge or forgiving mediator) and the corresponding emotions (terror or consolation). For Melanchthon, true ideas about God actually transform the believer’s affections toward God. And this is a real-time, historical, individual change. If anyone is talking legal fiction, it is those who claim ontological change in the believer but refuse to see any practically recognizable effects. Well aware of the dangers of overspecification, Zahl nevertheless challenges theologians to speak of the “practical recognizability” of the believer’s experience of God the Spirit. Such elements will be temporally specific, embodied, affective, and recognized by believers themselves. Zahl explores these with Luther’s law-gospel distinction and a range of Augustinian insights into desire, the limits of self-knowledge, and spiritual “mediocrity.” Zahl’s constructive account is particularly refreshing in its insistence on taking religious failure and non-transformation as seriously as spiritual success stories. Zahl’s achievement is not only to demonstrate beyond any question of a doubt the urgency of reconsidering experience in theology but also to chart out a path in deepest fidelity to the Lutheran Reformation’s doctrine of grace. [End Page 467] Sarah Hinlicky Wilson Tokyo...

The Influence of Humanism on the Main Magisterial Reformers

In light of the wide acknowledgement that humanism influenced the Protestant Reformation, one must ask the question about how much of what Protestantism maintains owes a debt to this modern ideology often juxtaposed in contrast to Christianity. Given the remarkable role of such a controversial ideology during a seminal period of the modern church, this study seeks an answer to the following question: how did the humanism movement of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries impact the lives and work of the main Magisterial Reformers? This research is important and necessary because discovering the answer to this question leads to an understanding of the larger question of how humanism impacts the Protestant tradition. Understanding the nature of this impact sheds light on what Protestantism means and may induce some Christians to contemplate why they call or do not call themselves “Protestants” or “humanists.” This present study progressed through four phases. First, the study sought to describe the humanism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Second, it sought to describe the impact this humanism had on society. Third, the study analyzed how the social impacts of the humanism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries served to advance or hinder the causes of the main Magisterial Reformers. Finally, it synthesized the findings. This paper argues and concludes that the humanism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries impacted the lives and work of the main Magisterial Reformers by facilitating their desire to include the common people in a religious world previously dominated by the elite.

Die Sinode van Emden: Bakermat van die Nederduitse Kerke in Suid-Afrika

The Synod of Emden: Cradle of the Netherdutch churches of South Africa. The Synod of Emden, which took place from 04 to 13 October 1571 in the city of Emden, is of great importance to the reformed churches in South Africa. In this contribution the importance of the Synod is highlighted from three distinct perspectives: Firstly, from a historical perspective, the establishment and growth of Calvinism in the Netherlands up to the Synod of Emden is described. Secondly, from the perspective of church polity, some principles of church governance, which the Synod of Emden has formulated, are discussed. Thirdly, from the perspective of language history, some remarks are made on the use of Netherdutch by the Synod of Emden and the continued use of Nederduits in the name of the Dutch Reformed churches in South Africa. The early phase of Dutch reformation was characterised by great diversity. It was a time of fluid and changing reformation movements. Not only did the magisterial reformers such as Luther, Bullinger, Calvin, Beza and Zwingli influenced ecclesial transformation in the Netherlands, but the Humanism of Erasmus was well-known and influential; the work of the Brothers of Common Life and Geert Groote had much influence through the education of children; the Devotio Moderna and Imitatio Christi of a Kempis influenced a new type of spirituality; the older proto-reformation movements of Cornelis Hoen and Hinne Rode still had some influence; the Anabaptist movements of Melchior Hoffmann, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt and Menno Simmons were active in many towns and communities. Despite this diversity, it is quite remarkable how the Dutch reformation was influenced fundamentally from the French-speaking south, especially by the theology of John Calvin. The unity between the Dutch and French churches was formalised by the Synod of Emden. The unity in confession and organisation was articulated expressis verbis in the second resolution of the Synod. The reformed churches in the Netherlands were persecuted and disorganised. War broke out between Spain and the Netherlands. There existed a great need for direction and structure. One of the remarkable features of the Reformation was its ability to rethink, reorganise and restructure the church. Instruments used in this process of reformation was not only the establishment of the sana doctrina , but also the use of assemblies such as synods and the publication of church orders which articulated the basic principles of reformed church governance. The importance of church orders as instruments of change is often under-valued. It was no different with the Synod of Emden. The Synod and the principles of church governance laid the foundation of the Dutch Reformed Church and gave direction to the reformation movement in the Netherlands, also in terms of language and the use of Nederduitsch , a term which is still used in the names of some reformed churches in South Africa.

’Lest I Make You a Tertullian’: Early Anabaptist Baptismal Narratives and Patristics

Abstract Anabaptists have long been thought to have been ‘biblicists’ and shunned reading patristic literature. But a close analysis of the debates Anabaptists had with Magisterial Reformers shows that the Anabaptists developed an extensive history of baptism using church fathers. They attempted to show that adult baptism was the norm in the earliest centuries of the church and that infant baptism was the innovation away from the Bible. This debate was about who had inherited the biblical faith around baptism.

Natural Law and Protestant Reform: Lessons from the Forgotten Reformer

Despite Protestants’ suspicion of natural law ethics in their recent history, there are signs that in some Protestant circles a re-awakening to the importance of natural law is occurring. This is as it should be, given the fact that the magisterial reformers of the 16th century all affirmed without equivocation the natural law. Foremost among these champions was the forgotten reformer, Phillip Melanchthon, whose remarkable output and influence during the 16th century were unparalleled and whose emphasis on natural law reasoning was notable.

Cicero in Heaven: The Roman Rhetor and Luther's Reformation by Carl P.E. Springer

Reviewed by: Cicero in Heaven: The Roman Rhetor and Luther's Reformationby Carl P.E. Springer Neil Leroux Cicero in Heaven: The Roman Rhetor and Luther's Reformation. By Carl P.E. Springer. St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History. Leiden: Brill, 2018. 291 pp. Students of Luther today (and long before) have appreciated Tertullian's famous question, "What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?" Springer's latest monograph engages the question, "What does Athens have to do with Wittenberg?" As "the most significant and influential of all of the ancient Roman prose authors" (xviii), Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) made such an impact on Martin Luther that more than once he expressed concern about Cicero's fate in the next life. Readers hungry for more on Luther's relationship to the pagan classics, and informed by the author's previous work, including Luther's Aesop(2011), will not be disappointed by this new volume. Luther's reputation includes: "father of the German language" and "the real German Cicero." Accordingly, Springer shows readers that Luther's contributions to the Reformation and to German culture and education often came through his writings and teachings in Latin, the language of his early schooling and university training. Springer argues for the crucial role that the Latin language—and Cicero's prominence in classical Latin prose—played in Luther's career and the development of the magisterial reformation, in early modernity and far beyond. In his first chapter Springer succinctly narrates Cicero's prominence in Latin rhetoric and Christianity's relationship to Latin [End Page 231]eloquence. While familiar to historians of European rhetoric—the outline follows Cicero's dominance, Augustine's adaptation ("spoiling the Egyptians"), scholastic marginalizing, humanism's recovery, and the magisterial reformers' employment—this "art of speaking," in all its five canons, is not that well known. The following chapter explores many of Luther's citations of Cicero, paying particular attention to "how deeply … he appreciated the intensely civic-minded ancient orator" (57). Now and then Springer offers brief and careful stylistic analyses of Luther's prose, which, in De servo arbitrioand Tractatus de libertate Christiana, displays ample evidence of familiarity with the elocutio(the third of the five canons, and the most prominent feature) of Renaissance rhetoric. While Luther's style was not slavishly "ciceronian," neither does it comport with his self-deprecating remark in reference to Melanchthon, Erasmus, and Karlstadt: res sine verbis Lutherus("Luther [has] substance without words" WATR 3:460). A significant hallmark of Luther's respect for Cicero lay in his example of parrhesia—candid, bold speech, which Luther saw in many Christian martyrs (e.g., Stephen and Paul) and in Cicero, and adopted himself in theological context as confessio. Chapter three, on Cicero and Wittenberg education, not only covers the familiar ground of Luther's embrace of a humanist motto of ad fontesfor purposes of studying scripture (necessitating mastery of Greek and Hebrew), but also explicates efforts he and Melanchthon undertook to establish schools founded on the pedagogy of the liberal arts, beginning with the trivium(grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric). This chapter bolsters a growing consensus today acknowledging not only Luther's (and Melanchthon's) pedagogical programs but also Luther's kinship with humanism, which tailored liberal learning in the Latin schools and the universities for preparing young people for useful professions of all sorts, as well as in developing capable preachers of the gospel. In chapter four, "Cicero Refused to Die," Springer reveals the depth of immersion in Latin that Johann Sturm's academy in Strasbourg maintained and the degree of influence Sturm's curriculum had in the second half of the sixteenth century. Springer discusses some of the requirements students had to meet in studying Cicero's [End Page 232]works. Springer also explains Johann Sebastian Bach's training in Latin and employment of rhetorical techniques in his music. The chapter concludes by surveying how Cicero's shadow fell upon Colonial America, including some of the Founding Fathers, and migrated there via German Lutheran homileticians such as Johann Michael Reu. The fifth chapter investigates Luther's criticisms of Cicero, also providing important narration and analysis on reactions against Ciceronianism...

The reformation of space for public worship: Past and present – Continuing the discussion

In the light of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, this article will explore a neglected area of Reformation studies namely the reformation of space for public worship in the past and the present. The article has three parts: first, a general survey of worship space at the eve of the Reformation; second, the response of the Magisterial Reformers (with a focus upon those who would be classified as reformed) to the space for public worship by principle and actuality; and third, the ongoing use of space for public worship chiefly in the evangelical and reformed tradition. On this final point specific examples will be included concerning public worship space in the contemporary context. The article is an introduction in what is really a broad interdisciplinary approach raising matters related to church history, theology, liturgics, aesthetics, stewardship and architectural design in a general manner and will make suggestions for further ongoing discussion. This article endeavours to help by providing an historical context for further discussion of the subject matter of the use of space in public worship and it is hoped that further articles will follow from this introduction to the subject.

COMMENDING SOLA SCRIPTURA: THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE CHURCH, AND DOCTRINE

In post-Reformation dogmatics, the role of the Holy Spirit in relation to the doctrine of Scripture has often received insufficient attention. Contemporary treatments have erred in different directions, subjugating the doctrine of Scripture to communal hermeneutics or individual experience. By contrast, the magisterial Reformers offer a vital doctrine of the Holy Spirit for the doctrine of Holy Scripture in conjunction with the stewardship of that Scripture by the Spirit-birthed, confessing church. Drawing upon certain reformational insights, this paper will present a high doctrine of Scripture, in a manner that integrates the ministry of the Holy Spirit for illumination with the essential role of the Spirit within the confessing church for handling doctrine—particularly the doctrine of Scripture.

Beyond Reformation: An Essay on William Langland's Piers Plowman and the End of Constantinian Christianity

<i>Beyond Reformation: An Essay on William Langland's</i> Piers Plowman <i>and the End of Constantinian Christianity</i>

Reflection of Sola Scriptura in the Classical and Radical Reformation: Western European and Eastern European Contexts

The article examines the need for Sola Scriptura at the first stage of the reformation movement as the main tool for solving epistemological problems in order to find a reliable source of knowledge of God, bypassing the mediating role of the Catholic Church. Then the reformers tried to apply this principle to the practice, they faced the hermeneutical difficulties and the article shows the ways how they are solving these problems. Author demonstrated how the representatives of the Magisterial Reformation (the Lutheranism, Calvinism and others) limited hermeneutical highhandedness with the introduction of catechisms and confessions of faith, and representatives of the Radical Reformation (Anabaptists, Mennonites, etc.) mainly used the principle of congregational hermeneutics and hermeneutics of obedience. In the Eastern European context, the idea of Sola Scriptura appeared several centuries later and was widely spread in the movements of religious dissidence, and later in various groups of evangelical Christianity. The use of the Sola Scriptura’ principle in these groups for a long time was based on the “common sense” approach, preserving the Anabaptist hermeneutic trajectory of naive realism, obedience and congregational control. At the early 90’s of the XX century, after the arrival in this part of the world of the historicalcritical approach, which gained popularity in evangelical schools, the principle of Sola Scriptura became more a slogan than a real program of actions. The article raises questions about the search for new hermeneutical strategy of biblical interpretation, which returns the researcher directly to the text, rather than to historical and cultural reconstructions.

Book Review: The Mission of the Church: Five Views in Conversation

The Mission of the Church: Five Views in Conversation. Edited by Craig Ott. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2016. 224 pp. $22.99 (paper).The missionary nature of the church has become increasingly recognized and affirmed within recent years by scholars and church leaders from across the ecumenical spectrum. Yet when it comes to construing precisely what this entails, significant differences remain. This volume convenes a conversation among five leading missiologists who reflect a range of ecclesial traditions to provide a rich and concise window onto that broader debate.Editor Craig Ott, a missiologist at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, frames the book with an introductory essay that traces the evolution of missiological thinking about the church over the past hundred years, highlighting the mid-twentieth century consensus that emerged around refocusing mission theology within the triune Gods life (missio Dei). That consensus diverged into competing trajectories in the 1960s within Western churches between those who looked to God's activity primarily within movements for justice and liberation in the broader world, and those who stressed personal conversion and discipleship. These bifurcations, shaped by modernity's fact/ value split, continue to haunt Western Christians to this day. They show up within the pages of this book, alongside attempts to chart out a holistic missiology that embraces the full range of dimensions of Christian mission.Roman Catholic scholar Stephen Bevans recapitulates the approach that he and Roger Schroeder first proposed in their monumental Constants in Context (2004). Mission must affirm Gods activity in creation and human culture generally. In dialogue with the worlds cultures and faiths, Christians offer a prophetic witness that confronts injustice in the name of Jesus.Presbyterian missiologist Darrell Guder, editor of the seminal volume Missional Church (1998), offers a multicultural and translational approach that builds on Lamin Sannehs work on the translatability of the gospel. Guder notes how Christendom overly identified Christianity with Western culture. Reclaiming the church's apostolic character invites vital new engagements in contextualization. Somewhat ironically, however, Guder then turns to the solas of the European magisterial Reformation as the key criteria for contextualization without noting how contextual those confessions are. …

Thomas Müntzer and John Knox: Radical and Magisterial Reformers?

A distinction is often made between magisterial and radical reformers in the early modern period, Luther and Thomas Müntzer being frequently taken as representatives of two quite different reformations, especially in regard to the understanding of Scripture and of the political realm. It can, however, be argued that the Reformation as a whole was radical, and that it is misleading to characterise one aspect of it as mainstream, another peripheral. The comparison between Müntzer and the Scottish reformer, John Knox, appears to support the contention that the chasm between the two camps is not unbridgeable.

Reforming the Monastery: Protestant Theologies of the Religious Life by Greg Peters, and: Mysticism and the Spiritual Quest: A Crosscultural Anthology ed. by Phyllis Zagano

Reviewed by: Reforming the Monastery: Protestant Theologies of the Religious Life by Greg Peters, and: Mysticism and the Spiritual Quest: A Crosscultural Anthology ed. by Phyllis Zagano minlib dallh Greg Peters, Reforming the Monastery: Protestant Theologies of the Religious Life. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014. Pp. 178. $22.00, paper. Mysticism and the Spiritual Quest: A Crosscultural Anthology. Edited by Phyllis Zagano. New York and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2013. Pp. 448. $27.95, paper. The suppression of monastic orders during the sixteenth-century Reformation gives the impression that monasticism disappeared in Protestant and Reformed churches. There is no doubt that the foremost Reformers, such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli, severely criticized medieval monasticism and rejected monastic vows, particularly chastity. In his book, however, Peters contends that magisterial Reformers did not advocate a total abolition of monastic orders, and a good number of Protestant theologians have argued for a reformed monastic life. Peters offers a survey of the thought of major Reformers in support of a monastic life congruent with the gospel. The book has the merit of keeping track of the debates in Reformed churches from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. The author includes the Anglican tradition, Lutherans, the American Evangelical churches, and other Reformed churches. Even William Carey, a pioneering Baptist missionary to India, is mentioned. Readers will appreciate the theological and pastoral acumen of the sixteenth-century Reformers, as well as the insights of such modern theologians as Karl Barth (arguably the most important Protestant theologian since Schleiermacher), the Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Henry Newman and Edward Pusey (the leading voices of Tractarianism or the Oxford Movement), and American Evangelical Donald Bloesch. Unfortunately, Protestant theologies of monasticism examined in this book make little or no reference to mysticism (not even included in the index). Thus, the book fails to account for the connection between mysticism and monasticism and subsequently does not deal with the essence, nature, development, [End Page 344] and fundamental characteristics of Christian mysticism. Historically, in both the Eastern and Western churches, the monastic orders were the nursery of Christian mystical traditions. Unlike Peters's book, Zagano edited and contributed a chapter to a volume that is devoted entirely to the mystical traditions of major religions in both West and East. The book offers a basic introduction that is useful to beginners interested in the mystical traditions of Hinduism, Chinese religions, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Instructors of world religions will find the book helpful in teaching courses such as Mysticism and Spirituality, or Spirituality: East and West. In addition, readers are offered a selected number of primary texts, encouraging comparative reading of scriptures, mystical poems, and treatises. Zagano's book could be a textbook or recommended volume for undergraduatestudentsandreaderswhoarelookingforaquickandgeneralcross-cultural introduction to mysticism in Eastern and Western faith traditions. Zagano recognizes that the book is not "a text in comparative religions or in comparative theologies, but rather one that demonstrates the means by which various religions come to an understanding of the spiritual quest and of mysticism within their respective traditions." Experts in various traditions write the introduction to each mystical tradition and to the selected primary texts and mystics, helping to situate mystical authors and their works in their respective historical and cultural milieus. Nonetheless, seasoned scholars of comparative mysticism might find the book lacking in depth and rigor. It is impossible to do an in-depth cross-cultural survey of six major mystical traditions in one book. E.g., the mystical tradition of Christianity that Zagano penned fails to mention a single mystic from the early Eastern churches, who were the first Christian mystical theologians and who wrote important mystical treatises of the Christian tradition. Also, the absence of a serious analysis of the development of each mystical tradition deprives readers of the riches and crises of these traditions. Both books, despite their shortcomings, will be welcomed by readers interested in the survival of monasticism in Reformed and Protestant theologies, as students of the mystical and spiritual traditions of major world religions are given a quick survey of six traditions. Finally, Peters's book is a valuable contribution to the debate in Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches with...