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Examines the pursuit of orthodoxy, and its consequences for the
history of Christianity. Christianity is a hugely diverse and
quarrelsome family of faiths, but most Christians have nevertheless
set great store by orthodoxy - literally, 'right opinion' - even if
they cannot agree what that orthodoxy should be. The notion that
there is a 'catholic', or universal, Christian faith - that which,
according to the famous fifth-century formula, has been believed
everywhere, at all times and by all people - is itself an act of
faith: to reconcile it with the historical fact of persistent
division and plurality requires a constant effort. It also requires
a variety of strategies, from confrontation and exclusion, through
deliberate choices as to what is forgotten or ignored, to creative
or even indulgent inclusion. In this volume, seventeen leading
historians of Christianity ask how the ideal of unity has clashed,
negotiated, reconciled or coexisted with the historical reality of
diversity, in a range of historical settings from the early Church
through the Reformation era to the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries. These essays hold the huge variety of the Christian
experience together with the ideal of orthodoxy, which Christians
have never (yet) fully attained but for which they have always
striven; and they trace some of the consequences of the pursuit of
that ideal for the history of Christianity.
The first extensive examination of Robert Barnes, his career,
misconstrued theology and wide-ranging influence beyond England. By
the time of his death at the stake in 1540, Robert Barnes was
recognized as one of the most influential evangelical reformers in
Henrician England. Friend and foe alike judged him the most popular
and persuasive preacher of the'new learning'. He enjoyed the
patronage of King, Archbishop, and Vicegerent at home, and the
praise of evangelical princes and theologians abroad. He wrote what
would be the closest the Henrician reformers came to a systematic
theology, as well as the first Protestant history of the papacy.
Then his dramatic, and not entirely explicable, execution quickly
ensured his lasting place in the century's popular propaganda. In
this first extensive examination of Robert Barnes and his
reformation significance the author provides a comprehensive survey
of the reformer's stormy career, a clear and convincing analysis of
his often misconstrued theology, and a persuasive argument that the
influence of Barnes and his novel polemical programme extended not
only into the century following his death, but was as prominent on
the continent as it was in his native England. KOREY MAAS is
Associate Professor of Church History, Concordia University,
Irvine, California
This collaborative volume of 26 essays explores the doctrine of
justification from the lenses of history, the Bible, theology, and
pastoral practice-revealing the enduring significance of this
pillar of Protestant theology.
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