This volume is a collection of five satires from the Reformation period, written between 1517 and 1526. In her Introduction to the work, Rummel explains that the battle between reformers and champions of the old faith was waged on many fronts, "not only by preachers thundering from the pulpits, theologians facing each other in acrimonious disputations, and church authorities issuing censures and condemnations." This collection focuses on the impact and importance of a supporting cast of satirists whose ad hoc productions reached a wider audience, in a more visceral manner, than the rational approach which typified scholarly theological arguments. Rummel explains: "Satire, a genre that requires finely honed language skills, was the preferred weapon of the humanists, who by and large sympathizes with the reformers." The humanists and reformers were often so closely associated in the reading publicas mind that the earliest phase of the Reformation was sometimes interpreted as a quarrel between philogists and theologians, a manifestation of professional jealousies. Thus Erasmus claimed that the debates of his time were the result of antagonism between the faculties of Arts and Theology. Three of the selections contained in the volume represent the Reformers, and two support the Catholics, the "Papists" of the title. These satirical essays, circulated widely among educated laypersons, use wit and biting humor to ridicule and discredit their adversaries and belong to a genre which was part of a larger body of sixteenth-century satire. The proliferation of satires became a concern of authorities who moved to suppress what they called "hate-mongering." Officials banned the publication ofanonymously authored writings, effectively ending the publication of the satires, which were largely published either anonymously or carried only the name of the publisher. As a result, many of the pieces did not survive to the present day, many more are only known to us through obscure references in other literature. This volume brings to light five of these satiric pieces, written in the pivotal period when the Reformation ceased to be a protest and organized itself as a full-fledged movement. The topical issues featured in each satire are brought into historical context by a headnote explaining the circumstances surrounding its publication and giving bibliographical information about the satireas author. The witty style makes this collection entertaining reading and the impact of these writings sheds new light on the history of the Reformation.

During the sixteenth century, England underwent a religious revolution. This book examines the reverberations of this Protestant Reformation, which continued to be felt until at least the end of the seventeenth century. Brings together twelve essays by Nicholas Tyacke about English Protestantism, which range from the Reformation itself, and the new market-place of ideas opened up, to the establishment of freedom of worship for Protestant nonconformists in 1689. For this collection the author has written a substantial introduction, and updated the essays by incorporating new research. -- .

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Religious conciliators have always faced resistance and critique as they mediate between groups devoted to ideological agendas that leave little room for maneuver and negotiation. From the conciliar to the confessional age the normal challenges that peacemakers perennially faced were magnified. The church was divided, and there did not appear to be any obvious solution to the crisis that began in the late fourteenth century with the Great Western Schism (1378-1415). This volume investigates the activities of those who worked for the restoration of ecclesial unity, first in the conciliar era, then in the early years of the Protestant reformations, and finally during the "confessional age" when theological and cultural distinctives of competing religious groups began to emerge more clearly. Throughout, special attention is paid to the religiously diverse communities of central and eastern Europe, an area that has often been overlooked by scholars who have focused more exclusively on Protestant/Catholic relations in the western half of the continent.Contributors to this volume argue that the significance of conciliation efforts has been neglected by scholars, in part because it has been absorbed into discussions of toleration, and in part because of the tendency to project contemporary confessional perspectives on the past. More moderate voices of those working to bridge confessional divides were frequently drowned out by the strident cries of their orthodox critics. Confessional accommodation, widely viewed as a mere pragmatic solution to religious conflict, was often a conscious intellectual commitment to theological rapprochement.The essays in this collection examine conciliarists during the early years of the Great Schism, reunion efforts during the critical years of the Reformation, irenic activities in Bohemia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Hungary in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This book brings new insights to the religious history of late medieval and early modern Europe.

Kierkegaard has always enjoyed a rich reception in the fields of theology and religious studies. This reception might seem obvious given that he is one of the most important Christian writers of the nineteenth century, but Kierkegaard was by no means a straightforward theologian in any traditional sense. He had no enduring interest in some of the main fields of theology such as church history or biblical studies, and he was strikingly silent on many key Christian dogmas. Moreover, he harbored a degree of animosity towards the university theologians and churchmen of his own day. Despite this, he has been a source of inspiration for numerous religious writers from different denominations and traditions. Tome I is dedicated to the reception of Kierkegaard among German Protestant theologians and religious thinkers. The writings of some of these figures turned out to be instrumental for Kierkegaard's breakthrough internationally shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. Leading figures of the movement of 'dialectical theology' such as Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann spawned a steadily growing awareness of and interest in Kierkegaard's thought among generations of German theology students. Emanuel Hirsch was greatly influenced by Kierkegaard and proved instrumental in disseminating his thought by producing the first complete German edition of Kierkegaard's published works. Both Barth and Hirsch established unique ways of reading and appropriating Kierkegaard, which to a certain degree determined the direction and course of Kierkegaard studies right up to our own times.

The Protestant Reformation, begun with Martin Luther's posting of The Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, rapidly escalated into an evangelical reform movement that transformed European Christianity. Less than a decade later, a massive rebellion of German commoners challenged the social and political order in what would prove to be the greatest popular rebellion in European history until the French Revolution. In this volume, Michael Baylor explores the relationship between these two momentous upheavals - one enduring, the other fleeting - and the centuries-long debate over whether and how they might be connected. A collection of period documents offer first-hand accounts from the reformers, rebels, and the institutions they sought to topple.

Focusing on the impact of continental religious warfare on the society, politics and culture of English, Scottish and Irish Protestantism, this study is concerned with the way in which British identity developed in the early Stuart period.

The Reformation: A Brief History is a succinct and engaging introduction to the origins and history of the Protestant Reformation. * A rich overview of the Reformation, skillfully blending social, political, religious and theological dimensions * A clearly and engagingly written narrative which draws on the latest and best scholarship * Includes the history of the Reformation in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, areas that are rarely covered in any detail * The Reformation is placed in the context of the entire history of Christianity to draw out its origins, impetus, and legacy

From William Langland's Piers Plowman, through the highly polemicized literary culture of fifteenth-century Lollardy, to major Reformation writers such as Simon Fish, William Tyndale and John Bale, and into the 1590s, this book argues for a vital reassessment of our understanding of the literary and cultural modes of the Reformation. It argues that the ostensibly revolutionary character of early Protestant literary culture was deeply indebted to medieval satirical writing and, indeed, can be viewed as a remarkable crystallization of the textual movements and polemical personae of a rich, combative tradition of medieval writing which is still at play on the London stage in the age of Marlowe and Shakespeare. Beginning with a detailed analysis of Piers Plowman, this book traces the continued vivacity of combative satirical personae and self-fashionings that took place in an appropriative movement centred on the figure of the medieval labourer. The remarkable era of Protestant 'plowman polemics' has too often been dismissed as conventional or ephemeral writing too stylistically separate to be linked to Piers Plowman, or held under the purview of historians who have viewed such texts as sources of theological or documentary information, rather than as vital literary-cultural works in their own right. Radical Pastoral, 1381-1594 makes a vigorous case for the existence of a highly politicised tradition of 'polemical pastoral' which stretched across the whole of the sixteenth century, a tradition that has been largely marginalised by both medievalists and early modernists.

Heinrich Heshusius (1556-97) became a leading church superintendent and polemicist during the early age of Lutheran orthodoxy, and played a major role in the reform and administration of several German cities during the late Reformation. As well as offering an introduction to Heshusius's writings and ideas, this volume explores the wider world of late-sixteenth-century German Lutheranism in which he lived and worked. In particular, it looks at the important but inadequately understood network of Lutheran clergymen in North Germany centred around universities such as Rostock, Jena, KAnigsberg, and Helmstedt, and territories such as Braunschweig-WolfenbA1/4ttel, in the years after the promulgation of the Formula of Concord (1577). In 1579, Heshusius followed his father Tilemann to the newly founded University of Helmstedt, where Heinrich served as a professor on the philosophy faculty and established lasting connections within the Gnesio-Lutheran party. In the 1590s, Heshusius completed his doctoral degree in theology and worked as a pastor and superintendent in Tonna and Hildesheim, publishing over seventy sermons as well as a popular catechism based on the Psalms and Luther's Small Catechism. As confessional tensions mounted in Hildesheim, Heshusius worked as a polemicist for the Lutheran cause, pressing for the conversion or expulsion of local Jews. At the same time, Heshusius began to argue aggressively for the expulsion of Jesuits, who had been increasing in number due to the activities of the local bishop and administrator, Ernst II of Bavaria. By discussing the connection between these two expulsion efforts, and the practical activities Heshusius undertook as a preacher, catechist, and administrator, this study portrays Heshusius as a zealous protector of Lutheran traditions in the face of confessional rivals. Understanding this zeal, and the policies, piety, and propaganda that came as a result, is an important factor in relating how Lutheran orthodoxy gained momentum within Germany in the last decades of the sixteenth century. In all this book will reveal the complex characteristics of an important (but virtually unknown) Lutheran superintendent and theologian active during the era of confessionalization, providing a useful resource for the ongoing efforts of scholars hoping to understand the nature of orthodoxy and its importance for early modern Europeans.f

Alan Sell explores the lives and ideas of four unjustly neglected Anglican philosophers: W. G. De Burgh (1866-1943); W. R. Matthews (1881-1973); O. C. Quick (1885-1944); H. A. Hodges (1905-1976). This study fills an important gap in the history of twentieth-century philosophical and theological thought. Sell argues that these writers covered a wide range of philosophical topics in an illuminating way, and that a comparison of their respective standpoints and methods is instructive from the point of view of the viability or otherwise of Christian philosophizing. Exploring the challenges these four philosophical Anglicans issued to certain important trends in the philosophy and theology of their day, Sell argues that they have important continuing significance today.

This is the story of how the Protestants in the GDR struggled to survive while striving to put their theology into practice and remaining true to their vision of what the role of the church should be - a 'church for others' as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it. Having taken the reader from the foundation of the GDR, through the peaceful revolution, to the unification of Germany, the story ends with some reflections on the church's past as well as on the challenges it faces in present-day Europe. Protestants in Communist East Germany makes a unique contribution to existing literature by drawing not only on written sources but on a series of first-hand interviews with theologians, pastors and lay people of different ages whose experiences, views and analyses bring the story to life. The East German church's relationship to the state will probably always remain controversial and the vision for a different socialism in the GDR espoused by those involved in the peaceful revolution may now be considered illusory. Nevertheless, many of the issues raised by the Protestants in the GDR remain as vital challenges to the churches in Europe today. Foreword by Paul Oestreicher.

Originally published between 1930 and 1988 many of the volumes in this set are based upon years of painstaking archival research in private and published papers. They provide many insights into the Puritan world of the early 17th Century and: Analyse the economic depression in the mid-1600s and the resultant unemployment and poverty which caused social upheaval. Discuss the importance of the divisions among the Puritans for political processes within both the church and wider society. Examine the motivation of the Puritans who emigrated. Discuss the impact the Puritan family had on the spiritual development of the Anglo-American world.

Catholics and Protestants have, since the earliest days of the Reformation, held markedly different views about the Virgin Mary. Beth Kreitzer examines the development of Lutheran views on this subject as expressed in 16th century Lutheran published sermons, starting with the earliest of Luther's own Reformation sermons. She shows that from the beginning Lutherans rejected much of the theology and piety that surrounded Mary in Catholicism, especially her status as heavenly queen and intercessor with Christ.

Based on unprecedented access to the Order's internal documents, this book provides the first systematic social history of the Orange Order - the Protestant association dedicated to maintaining the British connection in Northern Ireland.
Kaufmann charts the Order's path from the peak of its influence, in the early 1960s, to its present-day crisis. Along the way, he sketches a portrait of many of Orangeism's leading figures, from ex-Prime Minister John Andrews to Ulster Unionist Party politicians like Martin Smyth, James Molyneaux, and David McNarry. Kaufmann also includes the highly revealing correspondence with adversaries such as Ian Paisley and David Trimble.
Packed with analyses of mass-membership trends and attitudes, the book also takes care to tell the story of the Order from 'below' as well as from above. In the process, it argues that the traditional Unionism of West Ulster is giving way to the more militant Unionism of Antrim and Belfast which is winning the hearts of the younger generation in cities and towns throughout the province.

This book analyses the most sung contemporary congregational songs (CCS) as a global music genre. Utilising a three-part music semiology, this research engages with producers, musical texts, and audiences/congregations to better understand contemporary worship for the modern church and individual Christians. Christian Copyright Licensing International data plays a key role in identifying the most sung CCS, while YouTube mediations of these songs and their associated data provide the primary texts for analysis. Producers and the production milieu are explored through interviews with some of the highest profile worship leaders/songwriters including Ben Fielding, Darlene Zschech, Matt Redman, and Tim Hughes, as well as other music industry veterans. Finally, National Church Life Survey data and a specialized survey provide insight into individual Christians' engagement with CCS. Daniel Thornton shows how these perspectives taken together provide unique insight into the current global CCS genre, and into its possible futures.

'The Fifteen Confederates' was published anonymously in the fall of 1521, shortly after Martin Luther's hearing at the Diet of Worms and subsequent disappearance. The fifteen pamphlets that make up the book address religious, social, economic, and political challenges facing the German people. Their author, Johann Eberlin von Gunzburg, subsequently became one of the most prolific and popular pamphleteers of the German Reformation. As an important contribution to the pamphlet war that accompanied the beginnings of the Reformation in Germany, 'The Fifteen Confederates' provides us a valuable window on the aspirations and dreams that accompanied Luther's initial calls for reform of the church and society.

This work synthesizes work previously published in leading journals in the field into a coherent narrative that has a distinctive focus on Germany while also being aware of a broader European dimension. It argues that the German Lutheran Christoph August Heumann (1681-1764) marginalized the biographical approach to past philosophy and paved the way for the German Lutheran Johann Jacob Brucker's (1696-1770) influential method for the writing of past philosophy, centred on depersonalised and abstract systems of philosophy. The work offers an authoritative and engaging account of how late ancient Platonism, Plotinus in particular, was interpreted in eighteenth-century Germany according to these new precepts. Moreover, it reveals the Lutheran religious assumptions of this new approach to past philosophy, which underpinned the works of Heumann and Brucker, but also influential reviews that rejected the English Plato translator Thomas Taylor (1758-1835) and his understanding and evaluation of late ancient Platonism.

Fat Religion: Protestant Christianity and the Construction of the Fat Body explores how Protestant Christianity contributes to the moralization of fat bodies and the proliferation of practices to conform fat bodies to thin ideals. Focusing primarily on Protestant Christianity and evangelicalism, this book brings together essays that emphasize the role of religion in the ways that we imagine, talk about, and moralize fat bodies. Contributors explore how ideas about indulgence and restraint, sin and obedience are used to create and maintain fear of, and animosity towards, fat bodies. They also examine how religious ideology and language shape attitudes towards bodily control that not only permeate Christian weight-loss programs, but are fundamental to secular diet culture as well. Furthermore, the contributors investigate how religious institutions themselves attempt to define and control the proper religious body. This volume contributes to the burgeoning field of critical fat studies by underscoring the significance of religion in the formation of historical and contemporary meanings and perceptions of fat bodies, including its moralizing role in justifying weight bias, prejudice, and privilege. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society.

One of the major challenges faced by the emergent Protestant faith was how to establish itself in a hitherto Catholic world. A key way it found to achieve this was to create a common identity through the fashioning of history, emphasising Protestantism's legitimacy and authority. In this study, the life and works of one of the earliest and most influential Protestant historians, Johann Sleidan (1506-1556) are explored to reveal how history could be used to consolidate the new confession and the states which adopted it. Sleidan was commissioned by leading intellectuals from the Schmalkadic League to write the official history of the German Protestant movement, resulting in the publication in 1555 of De statu religionis et reipublicae, Carolo Quinto, Caesare, Commentarii. Overnight his work became the standard account of the early Reformation, referenced by Catholics and Protestants alike in subsequent histories and polemical debates for the next three centuries. Providing the first comprehensive account of Sleidan's life, based almost entirely on primary sources, this book offers a convincing background and context for his writings. It also shows how Sleidan's political role as a diplomat impacted on his work as a historian, and how in turn his monumental work influenced political debate in France and Germany. As a moderate who sought to promote accommodation between the rival confessions, Sleidan provides a fascinating subject of study for modern historians seeking to better understand the complex and multi-faceted nature of the early Reformation.

Highlights Watergate as a critical turning point in Christian engagement in US politics The Watergate scandal was one of the most infamous events in American democratic history. Faith in the government plummeted, leaving the nation feeling betrayed and unsure who could be trusted anymore. In Evil Deeds in High Places, David E. Settje examines how Christian institutions reacted to this moral and ethical collapse, and the ways in which they chose to assert their moral authority. Settje argues that Watergate was a turning point for spurring Christian engagement with politics. While American Christians had certainly already been active in the public sphere, these events motivated a more urgent engagement in response, and served to pave the way for conservatives to push more fully into political power. Historians have carefully analyzed the judicial, media, congressional, and presidential actions surrounding Watergate, but there has been very little consideration of popular reactions of Americans across the political spectrum. Though this book does not aspire to offer a comprehensive picture of America's citizenry, by examining the variety of Protestant Christian experiences-those more conservative, those more liberal, and those in between-and by incorporating analyses of both white and black Christian reactions, it captures a significant swath of the American population at the time, providing one of the only studies to examine how everyday Americans viewed the events of Watergate. Grasping the dynamics of Christian responses to Watergate enables us to comprehend more completely that volatile moment in US history, and provides important context to make sense of reactions to our more recent political turmoil.

For most of our history, American religious life has been dominated by a view of church history in which we appear as mere deposits of European religious culture. In fact, however, the freedom of Americans to choose without penalty to join any religious body or none at all is new in human history. This book is an effort to understand and interpret how we arrived at our present situation and, in doing so, to clarify many cultural, social and political issues.

How will American Protestants respond to the historical shift from Protestant dominance to more fluid conditions, in which Catholicism and Judaism also have great force and influence? By the anxiety expressed in anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism? By reaffirming "the American tradition"?

In answer, the author explores the very categories that have shaped our study of American church history. Without false ideals of the past, he can perceive the uniqueness of the situation today. The true Golden Age, he argues, lies, if anywhere, in the years just ahead; and through his realistic analysis he encourages that honest "consciousness of calling" that will determine whether religion in America is to be vital or effete.

This "Companion" brings together new contributions from internationally renowned scholars in order to examine the past, present and future of Protestantism.
Co-edited by leading Protestant theologians Alister E. McGrath and Darren C. Marks, with contributions from internationally renowned scholars.
Opens with an investigation into the formation of Protestant identity across Europe, North America, Asia, Australasia and Africa.
Includes coverage of leading Protestant thinkers, such as Luther, Calvin, Schleiermacher and Barth.
Considers the interaction of Protestantism with different areas of modern life, including the arts, politics, the law and science.
Debates the future of Protestantism in both Western and non-Western settings.