This movement led to the start of many new Christian churches that broke away from the Catholic Church. Introduction The Reformation began in the early 1500s and lasted into the 1600s. Until then, all Christians in western Europe were Catholics. But even before the Reformation, the Church’s religious and moral authority was starting to weaken.[…]
The Protestant churches that emerged from the Reformation movements of the 12th to the 16th centuries arrived late, following the Catholic Church, to efforts to spread Christianity. By Dr. Andreas Feldtkeller / 10.26.2017 Professor of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Abstract The Protestant churches that emerged from the Reformation movements of the[…]
The Inquisition by Francisco Goya / Wikimedia Commons The inter-cultural communication and the exchanges and transfers regarding Christian doctrine (catechism) – and regarding art and science – after the Reformation. By Dr. Michael Sievernich / 07.14.2011 Professor of Theology Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz Abstract This article provides an overview of the Catholic Mission in the modern era,[…]
Wittenberg was the most important source of inspiration for the Reformation in both of the Scandinavian kingdoms. By Dr. Simo Heininen (left) and Dr. Otfried Czaika (right) / 08.01.2012 Heininen: Professor of Theology, University of Helsinki Czaika: Professor of Church History, Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society Introduction Wittenberg was the most important source of[…]
Saint Matthew’s Catholic Church in Mobile, Alabama / Photo by Altairisfar, Wikimedia Commons The Catholic Church in America began in a southern context, and Catholicism was the first form of Christianity to take root in the American South. By Dr. Maura Jane Farrelly Associate Professor of American Studies Brandeis University Introduction The Catholic Church in[…]
A bishop granting indulgences in a fresco by Lorenzo Lotto, c. 1524 (Wikimedia Commons) To understand the rapid spread of Luther’s ideas, a brief account of the role that the Church played in Medieval society is necessary. By Jay Gundacker Graduate Student, Institute for Comparative Literature and Society Columbia University Martin Luther To understand the[…]
The Scholar with His Student, Anonymous Flemish painter (circle of Gerard Thomas and Balthasar van den Bossche) / Wikimedia Commons The Enlightenment advocated reason as a means to establishing an authoritative system of aesthetics, ethics, government, and even religion, which would allow human beings to obtain objective truth about the whole of reality. Edited by[…]
By Dr. Bruce Gordon / 10.27.2017 Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History Yale Divinity School Yale University Perhaps the most well-known aspect of the Reformation was how it made the Bible available in the languages of lay people, an achievement iconically represented by Luther’s full translation that appeared in 1534. In 1950, the Yale historian[…]
William Tyndale / Wikimedia Commons By Dr. David Lyle Jeffrey / 10.14.2017 Distinguished Professor of Literature and the Humanities Director of Manuscript Research in Scripture and Tradition Baylor University The extraordinary popular excitement produced by the first printed vernacular translations of the Bible can seem rather a distant imagination for us today. It has, however,[…]
Jews in the Syngagoue by Rembrandt / Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Lars Fischer / 10.27.2017 Honorary Research Associate, Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies University College London “The Reformation” is really an umbrella term that covers a whole range of partly distinct, partly overlapping reformations that emerged and unfolded (even narrowly conceived) over the best[…]
Martin Luther nailing his ’95 These’ to the door By Dr. Brian Cummings / 02.16.2018 Anniversary Professor of English and Related Literature University of York Images of Martin Luther abound in his anniversary year, and they tend to conform to a type. Deutsche Bahn, the German railway company, has gone for the bronze statue that[…]
By Dr. Marcel Nieden / 07.27.2012 Professor of Protestant and Historical Theology Universität Duisburg-Essen Introduction Based on publishing statistics, this article traces the complexity of early Reformation processes of communication and depicts the most significant literary and nonliterary media with which the Wittenberg Reformation found its “public” (“Öffentlichkeit”) (pamphlets, illustrated handbills, Bible translations, sermons, performative[…]
Illustration of a small crowd gathered to watch as Martin Luther directs the posting of his 95 theses, protesting the practice of the sale of indulgences, to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. Dated 1517. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images) By (left-to-right) Dr. Gregory A. Smith, Dr. Jessica Martinez, Dr. Becka[…]
Lives and Afterlives By Dr. Ceri Law AHRC Postdoctoral Research Associate University of Cambridge We explore the historical and literary afterlives of individuals and groups caught up in the Reformation, as well as the manner in which religious change stimulated the emergence and effected the transformation of types of life-writing. Subjects of investigation include figures omitted from official written histories of[…]
Eight reformers (Hieronymus Bock, Johann Buchenhagen, Johann Calvin, Johannes Hus, Martin Luther, Philipp M. / Österreichische Nationalbibliothek By Dr. Stephen M. Feldman Jerry H. Housel/Carl F. Arnold Distinguished Professor of Law Adjunct Professor of Political Science University of Wyoming The Renaissance A first century AD bust of Cicero / Capitoline Museums, Rome Toward the end of[…]
An exhibition for the Luther monument in Worms. AP Photo/Jens Meyer By Dr. Richard Gunderman Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis This year marks the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s famous 95 Theses, which helped spark the founding of the Reformation and the division of Christianity into Protestantism[…]