Protestant Orthodoxy Research Articles

The Roots and Routes of African Religious Beliefs in the Atlantic World

This article analyzes how historians have framed and studied the relationship between slavery and religion in the Atlantic world from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. In surveying the historiography, it becomes readily apparent that historians are far more interested in writing about Christianity among the enslaved than the religious histories of African-descended peoples' diverse belief systems. It has been more common for historians to study how cosmologies in Africa became religions in the Americas because of the basic ideas that structure history as a discipline. Historical scholarship with a thematic focus on religion has a long tradition of examining how various heterogenous religious systems became incorporated into Catholic and Protestant orthodoxy. By contrast, African religions that display parallel belief systems, eclectic incorporation of multiple cosmologies, religious authority not tied to a text, secret and undocumented initiation ceremonies, and a stubborn disregard for time as a linear process have made it difficult to analyze their customs, traditions, and belief systems through a historical framework. Consequently, African and neo-African religions in the Americas such as Santeria, Candomblé, and Vodun continue to draw the attention largely of anthropologists, whereas historians are more comfortable working within the change-over-time model and a narrative structure of Christian creolization.

“A Man of Intrigue but of No Virtue”

Abstract This chapter reconstructs the life of Jean-Baptiste Stouppe (1623–1692), a Huguenot of Italian origin who in the 1650s moved to England and was employed by Oliver Cromwell in important diplomatic / espionage missions. Passing into the service of Louis XIV as a soldier, he published some pro-French propaganda works aimed at Protestants, including a famous description of Dutch religious life, published in 1673, notorious for its negative portrayal of Spinoza’s philosophy. While presenting himself as a defender of Protestant orthodoxy, Stouppe was in fact a libertine with magical-alchemical interests. An unscrupulous and ambiguous figure, his intellectual trajectory is clearly inserted in what has been defined as the crisis of the European conscience.

The Sufficiency of Scripture: A Critical and Constructive Account

One of the traditional perfections of Scripture according to historic Protestant orthodoxy, alongside inspiration, authority, and clarity, is sufficiency. Biblicists have taken this ball and run with it, insisting that everything we need to know, not only for salvation but for much else, is in the Bible. This essay attempts to clarify the concept of Scripture’s sufficiency by reviewing its history and by specifying how, and for what, it is “enough.” This involves distinguishing between formal and material sufficiency, and drawing distinctions between sources, resources, and norms. The paper argues that the sufficiency of Scripture must be understood alongside the principle of sola scriptura, and that the Bible alone is enough for ruling the church’s social imaginary, especially as this concerns the story of what God is doing in creation and redemption. Scripture is sufficient for understanding extra-biblical knowledge in the framework of biblical narrative and for perceiving reality as sustained and directed by the triune God. The essay concludes by offering recommendations for understanding the sufficiency of Scripture both in its proper domain (saving knowledge) and in areas outside its proper domain, such as the natural and social sciences, including psychology.

Anhypostasis and enhypostasis: Barth’s Christological method in view of Chalcedon – its nuance and complexity

Karl Barth departs from historical Protestant orthodoxy in his unique adoption of the dual formula anhypostasis and enhypostasis to explain the union of divine and human natures in the person of Jesus Christ. For Barth, these concepts help explain why the person of Jesus Christ must not be viewed statically in his being as the God-man, but dynamically in the event of God’s movement of grace towards humanity. As such, Barth applies these concepts in his analysis of the Chalcedon definition of the Jesus Christ who exists as one person with two natures. In so doing, Barth further develops Chalcedon’s definition of the two natures of Christ based upon the hypostatica unio. Not only must Chalcedon be interpreted through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as event, but also event in the union of this human essence as the Son of Man as it participates in the divine essence. For Barth, the emphasis is not the combining of divine and human essence into one being, but that the eternal Christ has taken to himself human essence as the one Reconciler.

The Role and Significance of Karl Barth`s Works for the Protestant Theology of the Twentieth Century.

Annotation: The article contains the research concerning the possible impact of Karl Barth`s figure and theological issues on the theology of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st century. There is a comparative analysis of how powerful and significant was the level of impact of Barth`s scientific experience on the theologians of his era, in comparison with the most prominent representatives of Christian thought from the earlier centuries, beginning with the times of ancient church, the Middle Ages, the 16th century protestant Reformation, as well as his contemporaries. As it was clarified, Karl Barth made a striking impulse for the further radical deconstruction of what is considered to be the achievements of 19th`s century liberal protestant theology (which made him a lot of detractors among his colleagues), made a loud accent on the necessity of the Christocentric approach to all the spheres of theology, newly updated, actualized and convincingly demonstrated the importance of ancient church creeds and dogmas in the field of Triadology and Christology, as well as in an unusual way he intensified and revived the intellectual search in the protestant universities and academies by his reshaping and changing the paradigms of the whole western theology in a radical way. In the article were taken into account some reviews on Barth`s “Epistle to the Romans” (second edition, 1922), which caused lively discussions and prolonged controversy because of specific and non-standard hermeneutical approaches to the biblical text, which Barth demonstrated in this one of the most eminent theological works of the 20th century. The article reveals not only the attitude towards Barth`s theological heritage that was showed by his protestant colleagues, but also reveals the sincere admiration for his theology from some Orthodox researchers, in particular, the honored professor of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, John Karavidopulos, and the world famous specialist in the history of Christianity and medieval intellectual history, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Jr., who converted to Orthodoxy in 1998. In the article`s conclusion there`s a piece of information concerning the fact that the impact of Barth`s dogmatics and hermeneutics on the modern departments of theology is not so noticeable as one might expect. In particular, we can make such a conclusion because of (1) the absence of true consolidation and common vision about the methods of theologizing between the western universities and church seminaries, (2) the popularity of so called “natural theology” which nowadays often seems to be regarded as an important prerequisite for all further theological researches, while Barth himself was a categorical opponent of this discourse, (3) the domination of binary opposition between conservatives and liberals in context of some modern theological discussions, while Karl Barth always tried to organically combine his devotion to the protestant orthodoxy with his efforts to be relevant and adequate to the requirements of his time.

Biblical Theology

Biblical Theology Gerald A. Klingbeil, Fred W. Guyette, John Thomas Willis, and David A. Bosworth 1635. [Pentateuch: P] Michael Emmendörffer, Gottesnähe: Zur Rede von der Präsenz JHWHs in der Priesterschrift und verwandten Texten (WMANT 155; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019). Pp. x + 307. $75. ISBN 978-3-7887-3338-4. This is a revised version of E.'s Habilitationsschrift submitted in the summer of 2017 to the Augustana, the theological university of the Evangelical-Lutheran church in Bavaria. Its five chapters and three excursuses focus on God's nearness or presence in the P writings (Priesterschrift/Pg) as a response to the foundational human need of seeking to understand God's relationship to humanity in moments of crisis. Chaps. 1 and 2 focus on the discussion regarding the limits of the Priesterschrift, including also the questions of its textual unity, possible redactions, and theology. E. includes two excursuses here: excursus 1 reviews the idea of the near God from a comparative Mesopotamian and Egyptian [End Page 571] perspective, while excursus 2 discusses the question of whether Israel's religion was truly devoid of cult images. Based on some textual and archaeological data, E. is skeptical about the matter. Chap. 3 is the central part of the study; it discusses God's nearness in eight key texts considered as undoubtedly belonging to the Priesterschrift, i.e. Gen 1:1–2:3; 6:9–9:29; 17; Exod 6:2-8; 24:15–25:1; 29:43-46; 40:1, 2, 17, 33-38; and Lev 9:1-14. This chapter is followed by excursus 3, which reviews the role of high priest and priests in the Priestly writings in relation to the divine presence in Israel. Chap. 4 studies two prophetic conceptions of God's presence during the exile, i.e. Ezekiel and Isaiah 40–55. A concise summary and several indexes follow. E. concludes that for the Priestly authors, humanity, made in God's image, has the task of representing God as his cult image on earth. For these authors, the temple becomes an "image in the mind" as the tent sanctuary intersects with God's salvation history at Sinai, while Israel's relationship to the larger surrounding world should be understood in terms of the divine presence in that larger world (not just Israel) based on P's creation theology (see p. 238) 1636. [Gen 3:15; 3:21] Meik Gerhards, Protevangelium. Zur Frage der kanonischen Geltung des Alten Testaments und seiner christologischen Auslegung (SBS 237; Stuttgart: KBW, 2019). Pp. 208. Paper €28. ISBN 978-3-460-03374-0. G.'s study deals with the meaning and relevance of the "Old Testament" for the Church. He starts with fundamental reflections on the canonicity of the OT and its christo-logical interpretation, e.g., the relationship between the Church and Judaism and between the "Old Testament" and the "Hebrew Bible," as well as the difference between a Christian and a Jewish reading of the Hebrew Bible. Here, G. aims at a combination of modern, historical-critical scholarly exegesis with the "pre-critical" interpretation of the Bible in the early Church. Then G. focuses on Genesis 3 in search of a text that might function as a first biblical hint of Jesus Christ, the so-called "Protevangelium." Traditionally, Gen 3:15 is regarded as such a key text (Martin Luther and the Protestant Orthodoxy); however, G. questions this suggestion (following modern scholarship). Applying a typological interpretation, G. rather points to Gen 3:21 as a typos of the salvation in Jesus Christ. Belief in Christ brings the realization of the new way of life that Gen 3:21 hints at. In his conclusion, G. reflects on the unity of the Christian Bible as Holy Scripture with Jesus Christ at its center. 1637. [Canonical Reading] Mark S. Gignilliat, Reading Scripture Canonically: Theological Instincts for Old Testament Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2019). Pp. xvi + 125. Paper $21.95. ISBN 978-0-80010-4911-8. Question: What is the difference between canon and Scripture? Answer: It is possible to approach a "canon" as just a list of the books that are in the...

Hamlet and the Soul-Sleepers

ABSTRACTThe article argues that the soliloquy, ‘To be, or not to be,’ in Shakespeare’s Hamlet is informed by soul-sleeping: the belief that on its separation from the body at death, the soul enters an unconscious state typically described as sleep or a sleep-like stupor, in which it remains until wakened and joined with the resurrected body, and then assessed at the Last Judgment. The doctrine was advocated in some of Luther’s works of the 1520s and 1530s and found acceptance among some early English Protestants, but was destined to be repudiated by later Protestant orthodoxy, and was universally condemned by mainstream Protestant thinking of Shakespeare’s day. The article surveys the history of this heterodoxy in England, demonstrates its continuing significance in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century, elucidates the references to the doctrine in Hamlet’s soliloquy, and discusses their relevance to the broader understanding of the religious subtext of the play.

Specification of "dialectic-theological" reception of the proteastant orthodoxia ideas

The article examines the world view and religiously-philosophical grounds of the interest of dialectical theology representatives to the ideas of Reformation, first of all, about absolute meaningfulness of faith, leading role of Christ and priority of Holy Bible, about the necessity of unity of "internal man" with God, replacement of the authority of church by the authority of Bible. At the same time it is underlined, that within the framework of dialectical theology, unlike the protestant orthodoxy, there is a differentiation of Bible and Divine Word. Bible is not here static, and becomes the Divine Word during an event, and a meeting with God takes place in Jesus Christ as a Word Divine.

Karl Barth’s interpretative construal of the anhypostasis and enhypostasis of Christ’s human nature in relation to historical Protestant Orthodoxy

While it is generally agreed that the anhypostasis and enhypostasis of Christ’s human nature have a place in Karl Barth’s Christology, there is little agreement over Barth’s interpretative construal of these concepts, particularly in relation to historical Protestant Orthodoxy. In this article I argue that Karl Barth adopts both anhypostasis and enhypostasis as a dual formula to explain how the human nature of Christ exists in union with the Logos. In this way Barth moves beyond Protestant orthodox tradition wherein the patristic Fathers, Lutheran and Reformed Scholastics, and the post-Scholastic dogmatics of Heinrich Schmid (Lutheran) and Heinrich Heppe (Reformed) consistently interpret anhypostasis and enhypostasis as autonomous concepts to explain how the human nature of Christ exists in union with the Logos. What Protestant orthodoxy understood as mutually exclusive concepts to explain the human nature of Christ, Karl Barth uniquely adopts as an ontological formula to explain how the human nature of Christ exists in union with the Logos.

A Companion to German Pietism: 1660–1800 ed. by Douglas H. Schantz

Reviewed by: A Companion to German Pietism: 1660–1800 ed. by Douglas H. Schantz Walter Sundberg A Companion to German Pietism: 1660–1800. Edited by Douglas H. Schantz. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015. 571 pp. This handsomely produced volume on the German Pietist movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries brings together essays by sixteen contemporary North American and European scholars, organized under four general categories: theology, devotional practice, culture, and social/political influence. The editor, Douglas H. Schantz, author of An Introduction to German Pietism (Johns Hopkins, 2013), is a major scholar in the field, with a wide network of colleagues who have taken up the subject of Pietism, both Lutheran and Reformed, considering it in a wide variety of movements such as Puritanism, Methodism, Quakers, Catholic spirituality, and even Judaism. The general thesis that these scholars share and promote is that Pietism is both a precursor of and participant in the emergence of western modernity as it is characterized by “a mentality which demanded experiential verification of the claims of faith” (18). This general characteristic brings to mind Descartes and his intellectual descendants in philosophy; Bacon and modern scientific method; and in religion, popular movements of revival that renewed western Christendom after a century of religious warfare and fueled Protestant global missions. This thesis of the connection to modernity is a direct counter to the common argument, made famous by Albrecht Ritschl that Pietism is a moralistic, world-denying child of late medieval piety, un-Lutheran in its demand for conversion, making of faith a “work of the Law.” Out of this school of interpretation comes the tired argument of some confessionalists that Pietism is an enemy of orthodox Christianity which properly asserts the unconditionality of grace. This confessionalist argument has its merits, but also its dangers; among them the reduction of Christian faith to the formalism of sacramental incorporation (see Kierkegaard) and the “cheap grace” of the state church (see Bonhoeffer). Instead, the scholars in this volume follow in the train of Weber and Troeltsch who asserted a connection between sectarian Christianity and the type of society that emerged in Europe and America after 1700 where Christianity can no longer rely on the establishment of “throne and altar,” but [End Page 351] depends on voluntary allegiance, personal commitment, and freedom from government control. These observations are somewhat countered or at least modified by the first essay, “Pietism and Protestant Orthodoxy” by Markus Mathias of the Protestant University of Theology in Amsterdam. Mathias argues that “Orthodox theologians” (I prefer the term Scholastic) of the 1600s were troubled by the failure of the church, especially under conditions shaped by decades of warfare and privation, to nurture the faith and practical discipline of ordinary Christians and made what he calls “church-political attempts” (20) to do such things as limit the effects of theological controversies and enhance pastoral visitation, compulsory religious education, catechization, and the teaching of faith in public worship. Upon these efforts the Pietists would build. A fine article on “Pietism and Music” by Tanya Kervorkian of Millersville University examines, among other things, the distinction between hymns and art music, such as cantatas, organ preludes, postludes, and the like, and instrumental music meant to inspire the faithful in worship settings. Among the finds is a provocative essay by Ulrike Gleixner, “Pietism and Gender.” Experiential verification of faith as the motive force of the movement means that women as well as men had to think about their relation to God as “reborn” and assess their role in family and society anew. Also notable is an essay on Pietism and the Jews by Peter Vogt which asserts that Pietists saw themselves as companions to Jewish spiritual traditions and partners in God’s eschatological plan for his people. Riches and surprises abound in this substantial volume. All essays are of the highest quality. Walter Sundberg Luther Seminary Saint Paul, Minnesota Copyright © 2016 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc.

From abolitionists to fundamentalists: the transformation of the Wesleyan Methodists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

This article analyzes the cultural trajectory of a small, but influential denomination that formed in 1843. Wesleyan Methodism first emerged as an abolitionist protest against the Methodist compromise with slavery. The new church drew in members who championed a range of antebellum social reforms, including abolitionism, pacifism, women's rights, and temperance. By the early twentieth century, Wesleyans would become closely identified with fundamentalism, waging war against modernism, championing personal holiness, and maintaining a militant brand of protestant orthodoxy. This article places Wesleyans within a larger religious and cultural context of the Civil War era and the late nineteenth-century disenchantment of the Gilded Age and Progressive Eras. It also traces the reasons for the Wesleyans shifting focus away from social reform and toward matters of personal holiness.

Projection of Humanistic and Reformational reception in Protestant Ortodoxy

L. Stasyuk «Projection of Humanistic and Reformational reception in Protestant Ortodoxy». There is performed a philosophical and theological reflection of the process in which main subjects of Renaissance and Reformation changes adhere to the principle of getting back to sources such as appeal, thorough rethinking, borrowing of the antique heritage within which a foundation of the Humanism philosophy is laid, as well as to the Holy Scriptures and to the teachings of spiritual and religious leaders of Christianity. There is made a comparative analysis of the attitude to the antique philosophical and medieval scholastic achievements and to the philosophy as a way of thinking generally by representatives of Humanism and Protestant Orthodoxy which typify the spiritual paradigm of European history.

Henry VIII, Shakespeare, and the Jacobean Royal Court

Early Stuart history plays by William Shakespeare and Samuel Rowley join an ongoing debate over the continued cultural relevance of Henry VIII to the Stuart Court. In anachronistic representations of the Tudor king, both playwrights lodge typological arguments designed to flatter the perceived interests and agendas of their respective patrons, King James and Prince Henry Frederick. This evidence raises larger implications concerning the potential of Shakespearean-era plays to offer royal counsel and shape opinion. At stake are competing narratives of the Henrician Reformation that could legitimate differing ideological commitments concerning history and English Protestant orthodoxy.

"Ecclesia semper reformanda": Metamorphosen einer altehrwürdigen Formel

The purpose of this essay is to examine the history of the old formula ecclesia semper reformanda that is the church is always in need of reform. This phrase is constantly attributed to the Reformers, but in fact can be found throughout the bimillenial history of Christianity, from the early monastic movement to the medieval forms of dissent, in the documents of the Council of Trent and in the treaties of the Protestant Orthodoxy, in the decree on ecumenism of the II Vatican Council and in the Constitution of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. However, Reform of the church is not mere change, and certainly not »modernization«. Reform of the church comes, as the Reformers understood it and Karl Barth in the mid 20th century reiterated it, from the leading of God’s word, made present in the power of the Spirit. After rewiewing recent deliberations of ecumenical bodies the paper concludes that ecclesia semper reformanda is much more than a confessional slogan. To be really universal the church is always to be refocused on Christ the Saviour as he is presented to us in the Scriptures.

The theological function of the doctrine of the divine attributes and the divine glory, with special reference to Karl Barth and his reading of the Protestant Orthodox

AbstractTheological discourse on the doctrine of the attributes of God has lacked a clear sense of its purpose within the doctrine of God. It has far too often led one into an abstract realm in which an incipient naturalism is present concerning who God is and what God is like: the attributes resemble those of a supreme being rather than the triune God of the gospel. If the doctrine is to perform the salutary theological work for which it is capable, it would be to its advantage to describe, as does Barth, God's attributes in terms of a series of short-hand descriptions which agree with God's enacted identity in the history of Israel as fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In doing so, Barth offers a tremendously creative re-inhabitation of the doctrine. It is creative precisely because Barth avoids many of the shortcomings of the historical shape of the doctrine, as exemplified for him in Protestant Orthodoxy's tendency toward semi-nominalism, by attending anew to the declarative and communicative character of the glory of the Lord, a glory which is inclusive of a multiplicity of perfections. The result is a rearticulation of the doctrine of the divine attributes that is truly concrete, inasmuch as it eschews not only a false apophaticism, which would deflect attention away from the resplendent contours of God's saving self-display in the economy of salvation, but also attests the extent of God's propensity to ever give of himself as he is and to evoke a form of creaturely life commensurate with his self-giving.

The evolutionists: American thinkers confront Charles Darwin, 1860-1920

Chapter 1: Along the Way to Darwin Chapter 2: Darwin's Dangerous Idea Chapter 3: The Scientific Reception: Louis Agassiz and Asa Gray Chapter 4: Protestant Orthodoxy: Charles Hodge and James McCosh Chapter 5: Protestant Liberalism: Henry Ward Beecher and John Bascom Chapter 6: Sociology: William Graham Summer and Lester Frank Ward Chapter 7: Feminism: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Eliza Burt Gamble Chapter 8: Methodologies: Thorstein Veblen and Oliver Wendell Homes, Jr. Chapter 9: Philosophy: William James and John Dewey

A Bombshell of a Book: Gaussen’s Theopneustia and its Influence on Subsequent Evangelical Theology

Louis Gaussen (1790-1863), Reformed pastor at Geneva, was a cultured upholder of Protestant orthodoxy in an age of decline and a supporter of the evangelical awakening in Geneva after the Napoleonic wars. From 1834, he taught in a shadow faculty of evangelical theology in the Swiss city. No work of Gaussen’s has had a wider influence than Theopneustia: The Bible Its Divine Origin and Entire Inspiration (Paris, 1840; Edinburgh and London 1841). This work was continuously in print for at least 130 years, with the latest American edition being issued in 1971. Yet this work rankled some reviewers from the start. Francophone reviewers questioned its theological method. Those in the United Kingdom resented his criticisms of three native evangelical theologians: Daniel Wilson, John Dick, and J. Pye Smith, who argued that only varying degrees of a plenary inspiration had been required to produce the Bible. Impatient with this (it seemed to him concessive view), Gaussen contended that inspiration had been uniformly oracular – i.e. prophetic in manner. USA reviews lionized the volume by judging it to represent historic orthodoxy. By the turn of the century, Gaussen and portions of his argument had entered the evangelical mainstream and Theopneustia had become the handbook of a rising Fundamentalist movement. But was it perhaps a Trojan horse? And has recent evangelical theology eliminated some questionable emphases it introduced?

Hoe dink vandag se mense oor die Bybel?

How do people from our day and age view the Bible? Not all members of the Dutch Reformed Church cherish the same view about Scripture. The letters in the Afrikaans newspapers on religious issues clearly reflect this. There are two groups of scholars in the church whose views on Scripture impact on church members’ views. They are (1) systematic theologians and (2) biblical scholars. A large number of systematic theologians adhere to the view which was formulated during the heydays of Protestant Orthodoxy, i.e. that the Bible reflects a double authorship. They prefer to use the Latin words “auctor primaries” and “auctores secundarii” when writing about Scripture. A large number of biblical scholars, however, work with the idea that the Bible reflects single authorship. God did not write. Humans wrote the books of the Bible. It goes without saying that ordinary church members do not always understand the differences and are often perplexed by these differences. It is of utmost importance to discuss these differences and to try and find some middle ground in the church.

Richard Hooker's Theory of Natural Law in the Context of Reformation Theology

For many years critical scholarship has been inclined to view Richard Hooker's account of natural law as compelling evidence of his tendency towards an Erasmian humanism at odds with the basic teaching of magisterial Protestant reformers. In addition, features of his argument which reflect the explicit influence of Aquinas and Aristotle have been cited in support of the theory that Hooker represents a theological middle way between Rome and continental Protestantism. Based upon recognition that Hooker's main apologetic intent was to demonstrate the consistency of the Elizabethan Settlement with Protestant orthodoxy, a revision of the received interpretation of Hooker's theory of natural law is proposed. This essay seeks to demonstrate that Hooker's appeal to the authority of natural law is consistent with similar appeals made by such magisterial reformers as Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and Bullinger.

ANHYPOSTATOS-ENHYPOSTATOS: CHURCH FATHERS, PROTESTANT ORTHODOXY AND KARL BARTH

Journal Article ANHYPOSTATOS-ENHYPOSTATOS: CHURCH FATHERS, PROTESTANT ORTHODOXY AND KARL BARTH Get access U. M. LANG U. M. LANG Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 49, Issue 2, October 1998, Pages 630–657, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/49.2.630 Published: 01 October 1998