The 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 focuses the mind on the history and significance of Protestant forms of Christianity. It also prompts the question of how the Reformation has been commemorated on past anniversary occasions. In an effort to examine various meanings attributed to Protestantism, this book recounts and analyzes major commemorative occasions, including the famous posting of the 95 Theses in 1517 or the birth and death dates of Martin Luther, respectively 1483 and 1546. Beginning with the first centennial jubilee in 1617, Remembering the Reformation: An Inquiry into the Meanings of Protestantism makes its way to the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's birth, internationally marked in 1983. While the book focuses on German-speaking lands, Thomas Albert Howard also looks at Reformation commemorations in other countries, notably in the United States. The central argument is that past commemorations have been heavily shaped by their historical moment, exhibiting confessional, liberal, nationalist, militaristic, Marxist, and ecumenical motifs, among others.

Helmut Thielicke was one of the most read and most listened to theologians of the twentieth century. Like few others, he repeatedly came down from the ivory tower of academic religion in order to build bridges between the church and the world. In his autobiography, written in 1983, Thielicke sets forth his memoirs from a long and full life. His narrative is filled with deeply thoughtful reflections about the poignancy of life, told with a delightful humour that invites us into every story and encounter. Thielicke also introduces us to the figures he counted among his friends and acquaintances: Karl Barth, Konrad Adenauer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dwight Eisenhower, Helmut Kohl and Jimmy Carter. Thielicke was a witness to many of the most significant events of our century; his life history is interwoven with the imperial era, the Weimar Republic, the rise of the Third Reich, a divided Germany, and the tumultuous 1960s. From the perspective of this single life we are afforded a broad and clear vision of the moments that have shaped the generation leading us into the twenty-first century.

The world stands before a landmark date: October 31, 2017, the quincentennial of the Protestant Reformation. Countries, social movements, churches, universities, seminaries, and other institutions shaped by Protestantism face a daunting question: how should the Reformation be commemorated 500 years after the fact? Protestantism has been credited for restoring essential Christian truth, blamed for disastrous church divisions, and invoked as the cause of modern liberalism, capitalism, democracy, individualism, modern science, secularism, and so much else. In this volume, scholars from a variety of disciplines come together to answer the question of commemoration and put some of the Reformation's larger themes and trajectories of influence into historical and theological perspective. Protestantism after 500 Years? examines the historical significance of the Reformation and considers how we might expand and enrich the ongoing conversation about Protestantism's impact. The contributors to this volume conclude that we must remember the Reformation not only because of the enduring, sometimes painful religious divisions that emerged from this era, but also because a historical understanding of the Reformation has been a key factor towards promoting ecumenical progress through communication and mutual understanding.

Der beruhmte Vortrag Die Bedeutung des Protestantismus fur die Entstehung der modernen Welt (1906/1911) sowie weitere Texte zur Kulturbedeutung von Luthertum und Calvinismus aus der gleichen Zeit werden hier in einer textkritischen Edition vorgelegt. In die Auseinandersetzung um die Bedeutung des Protestantismus fur die Entstehung der Moderne hat Troeltsch zusammen mit Max Weber im ersten Jahrzehnt des vorigen Jahrhunderts nachdrucklich eingegriffen. Die in diesem Band vereinigten Beitrage haben eine intensive Diskussion ausgeloest, von der die konfessions- und kulturgeschichtliche Forschung bis heute bestimmt ist.

As celebrations of the five-hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther's initiation of the most dramatic reform movement in the history of Christianity approach, 47 essays by historians and theologians from 15 countries provide insight into the background and context, the content, and the impact of his way of thought. Nineteenth-century Chinese educational reformers, twentieth-century African and Indian social reformers, German philosophers and Christians of many traditions on every continent have found in Luther's writings stimulation and provocation for addressing modern problems. This volume offers studies of the late medieval intellectual milieus in which his thought was formed, the hermeneutical principles that guided his reading and application of the Bible, the content of his formulations of Christian teaching on specific topics, his social and ethic thought, the ways in which his contemporaries, both supporters and opponents, helped shape his ideas, the role of specific genre in developing his positions on issues of the day, and the influences he has exercised in the past and continues to exercise today in various parts of the world and the Christian church. Authors synthesize the scholarly debates and analysis of Luther's thinking and point to future areas of research and exploration of his thought.

The Literature of the Arminian Controversy highlights the importance of the Arminian Controversy (1609-1619) for the understanding of the literary and intellectual culture of the Dutch Golden Age. Taking into account a wide array of sources, ranging from theological and juridical treatises, to pamphlets, plays and and libel poetry, it offers not only a deeper contextualisation of some of the most canonical works of the period, such as the works of Dirck Volckertz. Coornhert, Hugo Grotius and Joost van den Vondel, but also invites the reader to rethink the way we view the relation between literature and theology in early modern culture. The book argues how the controversy over divine predestination acted as a catalyst for literary and cultural change, tracing the impact of disputed ideas on grace and will, religious toleration and the rights of the civil magistrate in satirical literature, poetry and plays. Conversely, it reads the theological and political works as literature, by examining the rhetoric and tropes of religious controversy. Analysing the way in which literature shapes the political and religious imaginary, it allows us to look beyond the history of doctrine, or the history of political rights, to include the emotive and imaginative power of such narrative, myth and metaphor.

Karl Barth (1886-1968) studierte Theologie in Bern, Berlin, Tubingen, Marburg und war von 1909 bis 1921 Pfarrer in Genf und Safenwil. Mit seiner Auslegung des Romerbriefes (1919, 1922) begann eine neue Epoche der evangelischen Theologie. Dieses radikale Buch trug ihm einen Ruf als Honorarprofessor nach Gottingen ein, spater wurde er Ordinarius in Munster und Bonn. Er war Mitherausgeber von Zwischen den Zeiten (1923-1933), der Zeitschrift der Dialektischen Theologie. Karl Barth war der Autor der Barmer Theologischen Erklarung und Kopf des Widerstands gegen die Gleichschaltung der Kirchen durch den Nationalsozialismus. 1935 wurde Barth von der Bonner Universitat wegen Verweigerung des bedingungslosen Fuhrereids entlassen. Er bekam sofort eine Professur in Basel, blieb aber mit der Bekennenden Kirche in enger Verbindung. Sein Hauptwerk, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik, ist die bedeutendste systematisch-theologische Leistung des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Through his ethnographic study of the fishermen and their religious beliefs, Webster speaks to larger debates about religious radicalism, materiality, economy, language, and the symbolic. These debates also call into question assumptions about the decline of religion in modern industrial societies.

This innovative volume provides an interdisciplinary, theoretically innovative answer to an enduring question for Pentecostal/charismatic Christianities: how do women lead churches? This study fills this lacuna by examining the leadership and legacy of two architects of the Pentecostal movement - Maria Woodworth-Etter and Aimee Semple McPherson.

This book opens up histories of childhood and youth in South African historiography. It looks at how childhoods changed during South Africa's industrialisation, and traces the ways in which institutions, first the Dutch Reformed Church and then the Cape government, attempted to shape white childhood to the future benefit of the colony.

This book explores the Society of Friend's Atlantic presence through its creation and use of networks, including intellectual and theological exchange, and through the movement of people. It focuses on the establishment of trans-Atlantic Quaker networks and the crucial role London played in the creation of a Quaker community in the North Atlantic.

Twelve scholars from the biblical, historical, theological, and philosophical disciplines engage in a conversation on the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life. The essays are held together by an enduring focus and concern to explore the relationship between the work of the Holy Spirit and Christian formation, discipleship, personal and social transformation. The book points toward the integration of theory and practice, theology and spirituality, and the mutual interest in fostering dialogue across disciplines and ecclesial traditions.

This book does not only deal with the history, but also with the effects of the Reformation over the mentality, education and scientifical research among Hungarians during the last five centuries. The spirit of the Reformation has not only been a church-forming factor, but also a force of nation-building and salvation. This volume includes 17 studies of Hungarian Reformed theologians presented at a conference in November 2016. The main goal was to give an overview of the most recent research results in history and theology regarding Reformation and its effects over society and mentality among Hungarians. The contributors come from various Hungarian theological universities from the Carpathian basin, thus the book is an overview of their research topics and results. The City Cluj-Napoca was, became and remained an important center of the Reformation, as significant events took place in its surroundings as well. The Faculty of Reformed Theology of the Babes-Bolyai University and the Protestant Theological Institute has always functioned in an environment, where the challenges of multi-confessionalism and multiethnicity are also present beside interdisciplinarity.

The Labour Church was an organisation fundamental to the British socialist movement during the formative years of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and Labour Party between 1891 and 1914. It was founded by the Unitarian Minister John Trevor in Manchester in 1891 and grew rapidly thereafter. Its political credentials were on display at the inaugural conference of the ILP in 1893, and the Labour Church proved a formative influence on many pioneers of British socialism. This book provides an analysis of the Labour Church, its religious doctrine, its socio-political function and its role in the cultural development of the early socialist arm of the labour movement. It includes a detailed examination of the Victorian morality and spirituality upon which the life of the Labour Church was built. Jacqui Turner challenges previously held assumptions that the Labour Church was irreligious and merely a political tool. She provides a new cultural picture of a diverse and inclusive organisation, committed to individualism and an individual relationship with God. As such, this book brings together two major controversies of late-Victorian Britain: the emergence of independent working-class politics and the decline of traditional religion in a work which will be essential reading for all those interested in the history of the labour movement.

New England Puritan sermon culture was primarily an oral phenomenon, and yet its literary production has been understood mainly through a print legacy. In Jeremiah's Scribes, Meredith Marie Neuman turns to the notes taken by Puritan auditors in the meetinghouse in order to fill out our sense of the lived experience of the sermon. By reconstructing the aural culture of sermons, Neuman shifts our attention from the pulpit to the pew to demonstrate the many ways in which sermon auditors helped to shape this dominant genre of Puritan New England. Tracing the material transmission of sermon texts by readers and writers, hearers and notetakers, Jeremiah's Scribes challenges the notion of stable authorship by individual ministers. Instead, Neuman illuminates a mode of textual production that pervaded communities and occurred in the overlapping media of print, manuscript, and speech. Even printed sermons, she demonstrates, bore the traces of their roots in the oral culture of the meetinghouse. Bringing material considerations to bear on anxieties over the perceived relationship between divine and human language, Jeremiah's Scribes broadens our understanding of all Puritan literature. Neuman examines the controlling logic of the sermon in relation to nonsermonic writing-such as conversion narrative-ultimately suggesting the fundamental permeability among disparate genres of Puritan writing.

In The Reformation of Feeling, Susan Karant-Nunn looks beyond and beneath the formal doctrinal and moral demands of the Reformation in Germany to examine the emotional tenor of the programs that the emerging creeds-revised Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism/Reformed theology-developed for their members. As revealed by the surviving sermons from this period, preaching clergy of each faith both explicitly and implicitly provided their listeners with distinct models of a mood to be cultivated. To encourage their parishioners to make an emotional investment in their faith, all three drew upon rhetorical elements that were already present in late medieval Catholicism and elevated them into confessional touchstones. Looking at archival materials containing direct references to feeling, Karant-Nunn focuses on treatments of death and sermons on the Passion. She amplifies these sources with considerations of the decorative, liturgical, musical, and disciplinary changes that ecclesiastical leaders introduced during the period from the late fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. Within individual sermons, Karant-Nunn also examines topical elements-including Jews at the crucifixion, the Virgin Mary's voluminous weeping below the Cross, and struggles against competing denominations-that were intended to arouse particular kinds of sentiment. Finally, she discusses surviving testimony from the laity in order to assess at least some Christians' reception of these lessons on proper devotional feeling. This book is exceptional in its presentation of a cultural rather than theological or behavioral study of the broader movement to remake Christianity. As Karant-Nunn conclusively demonstrates, in the eyes of the Reformation's formative personalities strict adherence to doctrine and upright demeanor did not constitute an adequate piety. The truly devout had to engage their hearts in their faith.

While there are a growing number of researchers who are exploring the political and social aspects of the global Renewal movement, few have provided sustained socio-economic analyses of this phenomenon. The editors and contributors to this volume offer perspectivesin light of the growth of the Renewal movement in the two-thirds world.

Based on interview material with a wide range of Protestant clergy in Northern Ireland, this book examines how Protestant identity impacts on the possibility of peace and stability and argues for greater involvement by the Protestant churches in the transition from conflict to a 'post-conflict' Northern Ireland.