Protestant Reformation
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Apocalyptic Groups and Socially Disadvantaged Contexts
Acta Theologica 2016 Suppl 23: 238-262 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/actat.v23i1S.12 ISSN 1015-8758 (Print) / ISSN 2309-9089 (Online) © UV/UFS P.G.R. de Villiers APOCALYPTIC GROUPS AND SOCIALLY DISADVANTAGED CONTEXTS ABSTRACT This study investigates the theory that apocalyptic texts originated in, and reflect the convictions and activities of socially disadvantaged groups on the margins of society. After a brief introduction to the nature of this understanding of apocalyptic groups, the article investigates the issue in more depth by analysing an essay on Revelation written by D.H. Lawrence as concrete example of this theory from a non- scholarly perspective, followed by various scholarly readings of apocalyptic groups. In a following section, it analyses various formal, literary, hermeneutical and topical themes questioning the validity of this approach as well as research insights that revealed major weaknesses in this understanding. The article then concludes with an investigation of material that, ironically, indicates that apocalypses generally reflect a learned hermeneutical movement wishing to discover the ongoing relevance of sacred traditions in new situations. 1. INTRODUCTION Apocalyptic literature as the literary outcomes of apocalypticism as social discourse was, and often still is not an attractive subject in scholarly research and, for that matter, also in religious discourse in general. One reason why these texts are being ignored, neglected or maligned is because they are often associated with marginal groups on the fringes of society producing and nurturing such inaccessible, vengeful and agonistic Prof. Pieter G.R. de Villiers, Professor Extraordinaire, Department of New Testament, Faculty of Theology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein. -
The Communist Use of Jan Hus
283 Not Preaching from the Pulpit, but Marching in the Streets: The communist use of Jan Hus Peter Morée (Prague) This article focuses on the way Hus and the Bohemian Reformation, or more specifically its first phase, the Hussite Revolution, were evaluated in the period of communism in Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1989. Most attention will be paid to the initial phase of the communist dictatorship and its image and use of the Bohemian reformer and his followers. Communist ideology developed the image of a proto-communist movement with a founder who was essentially not a religious leader but a social protester. However, this historical design was nothing new to the period after the Second World War, but, rather, had its roots in the nineteenth century. In the writings of František Palacký, Marxist historians could find arguments that were of great importance to them. Socialist intellectuals of the second half of the nineteenth century were another source as they also searched for revolutionary predecessors in Bohemian history. And finally, leftist intellectuals prepared the way for the communist interpretation of history during the inter-war period. Zdeněk Nejedlý, an academic played the main role in this and, not surprisingly, became the Minister of Education in the first communist government after the coup of February 1948. Nejedlý managed to combine František Palacký, Tomáš G. Masaryk and Marxism into one system of historical interpretation which would be the basis of the official ideological concept of Czech history between 1948 and 1989. We will be able to conclude that there was no disparity between the historiography of the First (democratic) Czechoslovak Republic and that of the communist dictatorship. -
The Migration of Protestant Music in European Culture
The Migration of Protestant Music in European Culture Cristian Caraman ABSTRACT: The migration of musical art forms, from one nation to another, from one century to another and from one cultural context to another was a historical panacea of humanity. Through music, the Christian faith has managed to keep the dialogue open amongst the main Christian orientations—Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant/Evangelical. This article links the beginnings of protestant music, during the XIV and XVI centuries, to the spiritual manifestations that shaped the protestant music throughout history. A very important piece of the reformation is the Protestant chorale. The chorale brought forth the ideology of the reformation and gave life to the esthetic ideas of the humanists. The invention of the printing press in Krakow in 1475 helped spreading the teachings of Protestantism. KEY WORDS: Reformation, Protestant music, humanism, Chorale, Protestant, Christian faith. The Spread of Protestantism in Europe ach branch of the Reformation was deeply affected by Humanism. EMartin Luther used the Greek New Testament edited by Erasmus, perfecting the understanding of Pauline theology, and Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, Philipp Melanchthon and Théodore Bèze were initiated in the humanist studies prior to embracing Protestantism. The Reformation, regarded as a transitional period between the late Middle Ages and the Modern Era, is characterized by the development 267 268 HARVARD SQUARE SYMPOSIUM 2/2016 | THE PHENOMENON OF MIGRATION of a new type of culture, which has struggled to survive, while the old model was equally struggling not to perish. The Reformation is a religious movement initiated by Martin Luther, which led to the emergence of a new Christian community independent of the Roman Catholic Church, and a new type of religiosity, Protestantism. -
The Hussite Movement: a Forerunner of the Reformation Or Its First Phase?
PRZEGLĄD ZACHODNI 2018 JAROSŁAW NIKODEM Poznań THE HUSSITE MOVEMENT: A FORERUNNER OF THE REFORMATION OR ITS FIRST PHASE? In memory of Professor Stanisław Bylina In historiography, attempts at comparing or providing a common perspective on various distant events are undoubtedly needed. Often they provide valuable insights even if they evoke dispute;1 however, they should be approached with much caution. Most commonly, they are undertaken by authors who are not knowledgeable enough to competently discuss issues concerning different historical periods. This reservation also applies, perhaps in a particular way, to the author of this paper. This means that my observations are solely meant to draw attention to certain issues and to the exist- ence of hasty and sometimes unjustified historiographic judgements. The aforementioned pitfalls concern not only different historical periods, but also historians’ own interests. I fully share the reservations expressed by the late Jiří Kejř, a renowned expert on the life and work of Jan Hus and the history of the Hussite movement. He wrote that he could never understand why some historians writing about Hussitism referred to the crisis of feudalism and viewed Hussitism as the first phase of the bourgeois revolution or as a historical anomaly. Attempts to justify such claims, he argued, were doomed to failure, because primary sources would not sup- port them and far-reaching generalisations are typically unsafe. In this case, that par- ticularly applies to feudalism, which is difficult to define and had a number of forms.2 The question of what the relevance of the Hussite movement was to Protestantism3 1 Cf., e.g., A. -
The Correspondence Between Wycliffe, Hus and the Early Quakers
CONVERGENT PATHS: THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN WYCLIFFE, HUS AND THE EARLY QUAKERS BY DANIEL STALEY ZEMAITIS A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham For the degree of DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY Department of Theology and Religion College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham February 2012 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This dissertation examines the correspondence in theology, practice and social views between Early Quakers and John Wycliffe and John Hus (QWH), founders of the late- medieval heretical sects the Lollards and Hussites. It discusses the diversity of religious experience that characterized the first generation of ‘Early Quakers,’ and argues the end of early Quakerism as 1678, when the Quaker establishment completed enforcement of greater conformity in belief and practice. The dissertation examines Wycliffe and the Lollards and Hus and the Hussites, placing them in an experiential religious tradition and exploring their belief in the need to return to -
The Waldensians, the Hussites and the Bohemian Brethren
Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 1976 Restitution and Dissent in the Late Medieval Renewal Movements: the Waldensians, the Hussites and the Bohemian Brethren Zeman, J K DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/xliv.1.7 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-155206 Journal Article Published Version Originally published at: Zeman, J K (1976). Restitution and Dissent in the Late Medieval Renewal Movements: the Waldensians, the Hussites and the Bohemian Brethren. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, XLIV(1):7-28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/xliv.1.7 Restitution and Dissent in the Late Medieval Renewal Movements: the Waldensians, the Hussites and the Bohemian Brethren J. K. ZEMAN HE history of the Christian Church and its impact upon Western civilization has often been interpreted as an alternation between periods of 1L recession and resurgence. The motif of renewal thus serves as the organizing principle of the chronological unfolding of the story of the Church.1 When expressed in theological terms, it can become a rallying point for advocates of reform, whether in the history of Protestantism, or in the current Catholic aggiornamento: "Insofar as the Church is deformed, she has to be reformed: ecclesia [reformata atque semper] reformanda."2 However, the real dynamic of Christian renewal, whether individual, ecclesiastical or societal, cannot be generated by a mere awareness of the sequence of decay and revival. Rather, it consists in the ever-present tension between those who seek to attain an ideal and those who are willing to compromise. -
LE GOFF / Middle Ages and the Birth of Europe Final 5.10.2004 10:24Am Page I
LE GOFF / Middle Ages and the Birth of Europe Final 5.10.2004 10:24am page i The Birth of Europe LE GOFF / Middle Ages and the Birth of Europe Final 5.10.2004 10:24am page ii The Making of Europe Series Editor: Jacques Le Goff The Making of Europe series is the result of a unique collaboration between five European publishers – Beck in Germany, Blackwell in Great Britain and the United States, Critica in Spain, Laterza in Italy and le Seuil in France. Each book will be published in all five languages. The scope of the series is broad, encompassing the history of ideas as well as of societies, nations, and states to produce informative, readable, and provocative treatments of central themes in the history of the European peoples and their cultures. Also published in this series The European City* The Population of Europe Leonardo Benevolo Massimo Livi Bacci Women in European History Europe and the Sea* Gisela Bock Michel Mollat du Jourdin The Rise of Western Christendom: The Culture of Food* Triumph and Diversity 200–1000 ad Massimo Montanari Second edition The First European Revolution, Peter Brown 900–1200 The European Renaissance R. I. Moore Peter Burke Religion and Society in Modern Europe Europe and Islam Rene´ Re´mond Franco Cardini The Peasantry of Europe* The Search for the Perfect Language Werner Ro¨ sener Umberto Eco The Birth of Modern Science The Distorted Past: A Reinterpretation of Paolo Rossi Europe States, Nations and Nationalism Josep Fontana Hagen Schulze The European Family European Revolutions 1492–1992 Jack Goody Charles -
Blind Courage: Jan Zizka Companion Guide
Zizka A Companion Guide to the Film Blind Courage, with Scriptural References and Questions for Discussion. Gateway Films/Vision Video P.O. Box 540 Worcester, PA 19490 Phone: (610) 584-3500 Fax: (610) 584-6643 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.visionvideo.com Introduction When you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, so that you may be remembered before the Lord your God and be saved from your enemies. (Numbers 10:9) This is a film about a warrior and a war, but a warrior who fought on the side of an oppressed people—the Hussites of Bohemia—against the forces of Pope and Emperor. It is also a film about ordinary people who, in defense of their reli- gious beliefs were able to defend themselves against their enemies because of their determination and great leadership. Jan Hus (c.1372-1415) was well known for his sermons in the Bethlehem Chapel Prague, in what is now the Czech Republic. Impressed with writings of the Englishman John Wycliffe, Hus became a staunch supporter of reform in the Church. He was even- tually burned at the stake for his beliefs. His followers, known as Hussites, were persecuted by the forces of both the Pope and the Emperor Sigismund. The latter fought hard to defend the Catholic church and felt it justified violently suppressing all opposing views. When the Emperor began a march to take Prague, the capital of Bohemia, the Hussites resolved to defend their city. They met on September 29, 1419, on a large plain outside of the city. -
CYCLOPEDIA of BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE Lollards - Lyttleton, Sir George by James Strong & John Mcclintock
THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY REFERENCE CYCLOPEDIA of BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE Lollards - Lyttleton, Sir George by James Strong & John McClintock To the Students of the Words, Works and Ways of God: Welcome to the AGES Digital Library. We trust your experience with this and other volumes in the Library fulfills our motto and vision which is our commitment to you: MAKING THE WORDS OF THE WISE AVAILABLE TO ALL — INEXPENSIVELY. AGES Software Rio, WI USA Version 1.0 © 2000 2 Lollards Or Lol(l)hards originally the name of a monastic society which arose at Antwerp about 1300, and the members of which devoted themselves to the care of the sick and dying with pestilential disorders, SEE CELLITES, was afterwards applied to those who, during the closing part of the 14th and a large part of the succeeding century, were credited with adhering to the religious views maintained by Wickliffe (q.v.). Origins of the Name. — Great diversity of opinion exists among scholars on the origin of the name Lollard. Some have supposed that there existed a person of such a name in Germany, who, differing in many points from the Church of Reme, made converts to his peculiar doctrines, and thus originated an independent sect about 1315 (see Genesis Biog. Dict. art. Lollard, Walter), and for this heretical step was burned alive at Cologne in 1322. It is more than probable, however, that this leader received his name from the sect than gave a name to it, just as in the Prognosticatio of Johannes Lychtenberger (a work very popular in Germany towards the close of the 15th century) great weight is attached to the predictions of one Reynard Lollard (Reynhardus Lolhardus), who was, no doubt, so called from the sect to which he belonged. -
Natural Law, Liberalism and Christianity
An edited version of this paper appeared in the Journal of Libertarian Studies , XV, n°3, Summer 2001, p.1-36. It is reproduced here with permission of the Publisher of the Journal of Libertarian Studies. Natural Law, Liberalism and Christianity Frank van Dun* Introduction Classical liberalism arose at a time when Christian orthodoxy was still vibrant. Both went into sharp decline from the later nineteenth century onwards. 1 The thrust of my argu- ment is that this is no coincidence. Liberalism and Christian orthodoxy presuppose the same moral ontology of natural law. They share a number of fundamental ideas about the nature of man and of interpersonal relations. The high tide of the Christian ortho- doxy and classical liberalism belongs to the era when natural law was the fundamental concept of all serious thought about the human world. By the beginning of the twentieth century that concept was rapidly losing its hold on the intellectual imagination. Today it is no longer part of the standard intellectual equipment. Among intellectuals the philosophy of natural law has been superseded in the course of the last century by a the progressivist belief in the more or less imminent approach of a ‘new age’ in a national or global ‘social Utopia’ (or, more recently, ‘Ecotopia’). Progres- sivism, as I understand it, is not simply the recognition of the ‘wealth explosion’ that be- gan in the nineteenth century and that has been and is the basis of very real progress in science, technology and the standard of living. It is a religion that combines millenarian and gnostic themes and presuppositions to justify the compulsory sacrifice of the limited natural rights of individuals on the altar of an unlimited ‘right to everything’—a right to the total liberation from the natural and social constraints of the human condition. -
The Waldensians, the Hussites and the Bohemian Brethren
Restitution and Dissent in the Late Medieval Renewal Movements: the Waldensians, the Hussites and the Bohemian Brethren J. K. ZEMAN HE history of the Christian Church and its impact upon Western civilization has often been interpreted as an alternation between periods of 1L recession and resurgence. The motif of renewal thus serves as the organizing principle of the chronological unfolding of the story of the Church.1 When expressed in theological terms, it can become a rallying point for advocates of reform, whether in the history of Protestantism, or in the current Catholic aggiornamento: "Insofar as the Church is deformed, she has to be reformed: ecclesia [reformata atque semper] reformanda."2 However, the real dynamic of Christian renewal, whether individual, ecclesiastical or societal, cannot be generated by a mere awareness of the sequence of decay and revival. Rather, it consists in the ever-present tension between those who seek to attain an ideal and those who are willing to compromise. Upon completion of his monumental survey of The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches, Ernst Troeltsch summed up his analysis with the tripartite typology of church, sect and mysticism, and in keeping with his theological orientation, stated: It [the Kingdom of God] is an ideal which cannot be realized within this world apart from compromise. Therefore the history of the Christian Ethos becomes the story of a constantly renewed search for this compromise, and of fresh opposition to the spirit of compromise 3 The Church, as a popular institution, is forced to compromise. The sect, in its desire "to realize the ideal of the Sermon on the Mount in all its purity,"4 opposes 'See, for example, Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity (New York Harper and Bros., 1953) 2Hans Kung, The Council, Reform and Reunion (New York- Sheed and Ward, 1961), p. -
On the Eve of the Reformation
Part I On the Eve of the Reformation One Dissent and Heresy Euan Cameron “There was hardly a period in the second millennium of ecclesiastical history which accepted with less resistance the Catholic Church’s absolutist claims in matters of dogma” (Moeller, “Religious Life,” p. 15). Moeller’s verdict, however applicable to Germany, does not apply equally to the rest of Europe. Dissent there certainly was: however, it was generally localized, diverse, and uncoordinated. Few would now argue that the Reformation followed upon a crescendo of rising protest against the spiritual and dogmatic claims of the Catholic Church. Many of the strongest move- ments of medieval religious protest had died down considerably from their previous intensity; the Cathars, in western Europe at least, had died out (Lambert, Cathars, pp. 291–6; Cameron, Waldenses, pp. 172–3). One might even ask whether, in most of Europe, the remaining flickering embers of dissent represented the barest residual level of discontent and disobedience, which no system of religious harmonization or repression could be expected to stamp out entirely. Nevertheless, the perennial question of “medieval heresy and the Reformation” cannot be answered so simply. In various parts of Europe medieval dissent and early modern Protestantism over- lapped, met, conversed, and mingled with each other. These encounters repay study and comparison. Many, though not all, movements of religious dissent originated with an intellec- tual founder or “heresiarch,” who possessed both the learning and the confidence to raise his voice in protest against the received pieties, and inspired the less articulate to follow in his footsteps.