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In Beyond Reformation? An Essay on William Langland’s Piers Plowman and the End of Constantinian Christianity, David Aers presents a sustained and profound close reading of the final version of William Langland’s Piers Plowman, the most searching Christian poem of the Middle Ages in English. His reading, most unusually, seeks to explore the relations of Langland's poem to both medieval and early modern reformations together with the ending of Constantinian Christianity. Aers concentrates on Langland’s extraordinarily rich ecclesiastic politics and on his account of Christian virtues and the struggles of Conscience to discern how to go on in his often baffling culture. The poem’s complex allegory engages with most institutions and forms of life. In doing so, it explores moral languages and their relations to current practices and social tendencies. Langland’s vision conveys a strange sense that in his historical moment some moral concepts were being transformed and some traditions the author cherished were becoming unintelligible. Beyond Reformation? seeks to show how Langland grasped subtle shifts that were difficult to discern in the fourteenth century but were to become forces with a powerful future in shaping Western Christianity. The essay form that Aers has chosen for his book contributes to the effectiveness of the argument he develops in tandem with the structure of Langland’s poem: he sustains and tests his argument in a series of steps or “passus,” a Langlandian mode of proceeding. His essay unfolds an argument about medieval and early modern forms of Constantinian Christianity and reformation, and the way in which Langland's own vision of a secularizing, de-Christianizing late medieval church draws him toward the idea of a church of “fools,” beyond papacy, priesthood, hierarchy, and institutions. For Aers, Langland opens up serious diachronic issues concerning Christianity and culture. His essay includes a brief summary of the poem and modern translations alongside the original medieval English. It will challenge specialists on Langland's poem and supply valuable resources of thought for anyone who continues to struggle with the church of today.
Beyond Expulsion is a history of Jewish-Christian interactions in early modern Strasbourg, a city from which the Jews had been expelled and banned from residence in the late fourteenth century. This study shows that the Jews who remained in the Alsatian countryside continued to maintain relationships with the city and its residents in the ensuing period. During most of the sixteenth century, Jews entered Strasbourg on a daily basis, where they participated in the city's markets, litigated in its courts, and shared their knowledge of Hebrew and Judaica with Protestant Reformers. By the end of the sixteenth century, Strasbourg became an increasingly orthodox Lutheran city, and city magistrates and religious leaders sought to curtail contact between Jews and Christians. This book unearths the active Jewish participation in early modern society, traces the impact of the Reformation on local Jews, discusses the meaning of tolerance, and describes the shifting boundaries that divided Jewish and Christian communities.
Beyond the Reformation? sheds fresh light on divisive issues of authority in the Christian Church and puts them in a new historical and ecumenical perspective. Against the background of the perennial tension between the mystical and the institutional dynamics in the life of the Church, it goes beyond the tragic divisions of the Reformation era in two major ways. First, it examines the power struggles of the medieval period, the largely abortive attempts at reform, and the theological solutions to apparently intractable divisions that were proposed by the Conciliar Movement and enacted by the reforming councils of the fifteenth century. It shows how the legacy of conciliar theology was both continued and modified by the Continental and Anglican Reformers and how this has shaped the churches in the modern world. It examines the question of continuity and discontinuity in the Reformation, seeing that event as an unresolved argument within the family of the Western Church. But this book also seeks to move beyond the Reformation in a second way. Drawing on Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican theology, the book explores the theme of conciliar and primatial authority in relation to the ecumenical quest for reconciliation and unity in the fragmented Church of today. In this major, ground-breaking work, Anglican theologian and ecumenist Paul Avis adds to his repertoire of studies of authority in the Christian Church, brings together historical, confessional and ecumenical aspects of ecclesiology, and charts a course for convergence between the major traditions on the thorny questions of authority, primacy and unity.
In recent years, a doctrinal shift has taken place among believers so great that even the secular press has taken notice. Christians across denominational lines are laying hold of the biblical truth of God's electing love and saving grace in Christ, commonly called 'Calvinism.' For many, this marks the beginning of a deeper study into the whole counsel of God in Scripture. A thirst to be thoroughly biblical in all areas of life is driving a more comprehensive present-day reformation beyond the famous 'five points.' This book captures the voices of seasoned Reformed pastors graciously guiding and encouraging Christ's beloved sheep to press on and to seek the 'old paths, where the good way is' (Jer. 6:16). In this anthology you will be instructed concerning the abiding relevance of the Ten Commandments, God-centered worship, the masterful unfolding of God's great plan of redemption through divine covenants, the identity, nature, and work of the church, and the help that confessions of faith lend to our grasp of God's glorious Word.
The essay form that Aers has chosen for his book contributes to the effectiveness of the argument he develops in tandem with the structure of Langland's poem: he sustains and tests his argument in a series of steps or "passus," a Langlandian mode of proceeding. His essay unfolds an argument about medieval and early modern forms of Constantinian Christianity and reformation, and the way in which Langland's own vision of a secularizing, de-Christianizing late medieval church draws him toward the idea of a church of "fools," beyond papacy, priesthood, hierarchy, and institutions. For Aers, Langland opens up serious diachronic issues concerning Christianity and culture. His essay includes a brief summary of the poem and modern translations alongside the original medieval English. It will challenge specialists on Langland's poem and supply valuable resources of thought for anyone who continues to struggle with the church of today.
The so-called extra Calvinisticum-the doctrine that the incarnate Son of God continued to exist beyond the flesh-was not invented by John Calvin or Reformed theologians. If this is true, as is almost universally acknowledged today, then why do scholars continue to fixate almost exclusively on Calvin when they discuss this doctrine? The answer to the “why” of this scholarly trend, however, is not as important as correcting the trend. This volume expands our vision of the historical functions and christological significance of this doctrine by expounding its uses in Cyril of Alexandria, Thomas Aquinas, Zacharias Ursinus, and in theologians from the Reformation to the present. Despite its relative obscurity, the doctrine that came to be known as the “Calvinist extra” is a possession of the church catholic and a feature of Christology that ought to be carefully appropriated in contemporary reflection on the Incarnation.
An international community of Reformed churches emerged during the sixteenth century. Although attempts were made by Calvinists to reach agreement over key beliefs, and to establish uniformity in patterns of worship and church government, there were continuing divisions over some ideas and differences between local practices of moral discipline and religious life. However, Reformed intellectuals developed common ideas about rights of resistance against tyrants, communities prayed, fasted and donated money to aid brethren in distress, and many Calvinists across the Continent developed a strong sense of collective identity. Beyond Calvin considers the Reformed churches of Europe in an international and comparative context from around 1540 to 1620. Graeme Murdock: - Discusses how Calvinism operated as an international movement by looking at links between Reformed churches, communities and states - Explains what Reformed churches across the Continent stood for - Focuses on how Calvinists sought to purify the practice of Christian religion, and to renew European politics, society and culture - Examines both the strengths and limits of the international Reformed community
What was the early Christian church like? What brought on the changes through the centuries? Ben Blank, the author of this book, found many interesting topics while searching for the roots of the Christian church. Learning about the historical context of religious developments will deepen your understanding of the church today Backed by extensive research and insight, Ben's captivating storytelling style will easily be recognized to those who have read his other books.