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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 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.
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.
The common stereotype is that the Reformers separated public and private morality and were indifferent to the ethical import of social structures and institutions. Beyond Charity calls this understanding into question by providing an analysis of the historical situation and translations of primary documents. The medieval point of view, formed by piety of achievement, idealized poverty -- either as voluntary renunciation or as almsgiving. In either case the material effects on actual poverty were slight, and the religious endorsement of poverty precluded urban efforts to address this growing problem. The Reformers impelled by their theology, developed and passed new legislative structures for addressing social welfare needs. The key to their undertakings was the conviction that social ethics is the continuation of community worship. In the first half, this book sets forth the medieval context, details Luther's critique of the profit economy of his day, and analyzes the actual social welfare programs that issued from his theology. The second half provides translations of selected legislative programs from the church orders of the Reformation
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.
Exactly 450 years after the solemn closure of the Council of Trent on 4 December 1563, scholars from diverse regional, disciplinary and confessional backgrounds convened in Leuven to reflect upon the impact of this Council, not only in Europe but also beyond. Their conclusions are to be found in these three impressive volumes. Bridging different generations of scholarship, the authors reassess in a first volume Tridentine views on the Bible, theology and liturgy, as well as their reception by Protestants, deconstructing many myths surviving in scholarship and society alike. They also deal with the mechanisms 'Rome' developed to hold a grip on the Council's implementation. The second volume analyzes the changes in local ecclesiastical life, initiated by bishops, orders and congregations, and the political strife and confessionalisation accompanying this reform process. The third and final volume examines the afterlife of Trent in arts and music, as well as in the global impact of Trent through missions.
Does it really matter? Does it matter if we have free will? Does it matter if Calvinism is true? And does what you think about it matter? No and yes. No, it doesn't matter because God is who he is and does what he does regardless of what we think of him, just as the solar system keeps spinning around the sun even if we're convinced it spins around the earth. Our opinions about God will not change God, but they can change us. And so yes, it does matter because the conversations about free will and Calvinism confront us with perhaps the only question that really matters: who is God? This is a book about that question--a book about the Bible, black holes, love, sovereignty, hell, Romans 9, Jonathan Edwards, John Piper, C. S. Lewis, Karl Barth, and a little girl in a red coat. You've heard arguments, but here's a story--Austin Fischer's story, and his journey in and out of Calvinism on a trip to the center of the universe.
The Observant Movement was a widespread effort to reform religious life across Europe. It took root around 1400, and for a century and more thereafter it inspired or shaped much that became central to European religion and culture. The Observants produced many of the leading religious figures of the later Middle Ages—Catherine of Siena, Bernardino of Siena and Savonarola in Italy, Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros in Spain, and in Germany Martin Luther himself. This volume provides scholars with a current, synthetic introduction to the Observant Movement. Its essays also seek collectively to expand the horizons of our study of Observant reform, and to open new avenues for future scholarship. Contributors are Michael D. Bailey, Pietro Delcorno, Tamar Herzig, Anne Huijbers, James D. Mixson, Alison More, Carolyn Muessig, Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, Bert Roest, Timothy Schmitz, and Gabriella Zarri.
The investigation of union with Christ and justification has been dominated by the figure of John Calvin. Calvin's influence, however, has been exaggerated in our own day. Theologians within the Early Modern Reformed tradition contributed to the development of these doctrines and did not view Calvin as the normative theologian of the tradition. John V. Fesko, therefore, goes beyond Calvin and explores union with Christ and justification in the Reformation, Early Orthodox, and High Orthodox periods of the Reformed tradition and covers lesser known but equally important figures such as Juan de Valdes, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Girolamo Zanchi, William Perkins, John Owen, Francis Turretin, and Herman Witsius. The study also covers theologians that either lie outside or transgress the Reformed tradition, such as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Faustus Socinus, Jacob Arminius, and Richard Baxter. By treating this diverse body of figures the study reveals areas of agreement and diversity on these two doctrines. The author demonstrates that among the diverse formulations, all surveyed Reformed theologians accord justification priority over sanctification within the broader rubric of union with Christ. Fesko shows that Reformed theologians affirm both union with Christ and the golden chain of salvation, ideas that moderns find incompatible. In sum, rather than reading an individual theologian isolated from his context, this study provides a contextual reading of union with Christ and justification in the Early Modern Reformed context.