This is a period that I knew very little about, both theologically and politically. However, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, in Late Medieval Italy, proved to be extremely helpful in approaching the complexity of the events of the Reformation. From keeping Dante’s epic poem in mind, I approached this period with a knowledge of how the political element can cohere with the theological element, and with some knowledge of the continent’s deep concern with Purgatory, even though that concern was ‘not uniform within Europe.’
Key learnings from the lectures:
Lecture 1: A number of contributory factors, both political and economic, make the Reformation possible. As the need for education increases, schooling starts to divorce from the Church. …show more content…
Notable event in both Luther’s Theology and the Reformation movement is Luther’s translation of the Sermon of indulgences and grace to German in 1518, in which his critique of indulgences is made accessible.
Lecture 3: A theological difference between Zwingli and Luther brings a schism in the Reformation movement. Luther supports the physical presence of blood and body in the Eucharist and finds no scriptural evidence of substance, while Zwingli defends a symbolic presence of the Christ.
Lecture 4: Among the continental Reformation movement, a remarkable case is that of Spain, which dismantles incoming Lutheran ideas or other ideas that pose a threat to its Catholicism through the inquisition. The 1521 list of prohibited Lutheran books is one of the inquisition’s mechanisms. Lecture 5: Central to Calvinist Reformation and its growth is Calvin’s systematic and coherent Theology in Institutio Christianae Religionis, in which he asserts God’s sovereignty. Calvinist Geneva becomes a haven for fleeting Protestants, but also assists the expansion to countries like …show more content…
It is a question that was hinted in the lectures and then expanded in my own reading. In A History of Christianity, MacCulloch suggests God’s important role in driving the Reformation by saying that ‘at the end of the fifteenth century, it was easy to believe that God had some new and decisive purpose for his creation.’ On a surface level, that suspicion comes, as MacCulloch argues, from the symbolic year of 1500, which marks ‘a millennium and a half’ from Jesus’ birth, and its unspoken implication that a change was at hand. However, God’s role is more intricate than that. The study of some Reformation figures, like Luther and Calvin, affirms that deep in their Theology is a concern to revive God’s word and sovereignty. Luther states that ‘with God’s help [he] intends to expose the wiles’ and implicates that only through God can the Reform happen. An omission to understand the momentum that God provides for the Reformation will produce an inadequate
Key learnings from the lectures:
Lecture 1: A number of contributory factors, both political and economic, make the Reformation possible. As the need for education increases, schooling starts to divorce from the Church. …show more content…
Notable event in both Luther’s Theology and the Reformation movement is Luther’s translation of the Sermon of indulgences and grace to German in 1518, in which his critique of indulgences is made accessible.
Lecture 3: A theological difference between Zwingli and Luther brings a schism in the Reformation movement. Luther supports the physical presence of blood and body in the Eucharist and finds no scriptural evidence of substance, while Zwingli defends a symbolic presence of the Christ.
Lecture 4: Among the continental Reformation movement, a remarkable case is that of Spain, which dismantles incoming Lutheran ideas or other ideas that pose a threat to its Catholicism through the inquisition. The 1521 list of prohibited Lutheran books is one of the inquisition’s mechanisms. Lecture 5: Central to Calvinist Reformation and its growth is Calvin’s systematic and coherent Theology in Institutio Christianae Religionis, in which he asserts God’s sovereignty. Calvinist Geneva becomes a haven for fleeting Protestants, but also assists the expansion to countries like …show more content…
It is a question that was hinted in the lectures and then expanded in my own reading. In A History of Christianity, MacCulloch suggests God’s important role in driving the Reformation by saying that ‘at the end of the fifteenth century, it was easy to believe that God had some new and decisive purpose for his creation.’ On a surface level, that suspicion comes, as MacCulloch argues, from the symbolic year of 1500, which marks ‘a millennium and a half’ from Jesus’ birth, and its unspoken implication that a change was at hand. However, God’s role is more intricate than that. The study of some Reformation figures, like Luther and Calvin, affirms that deep in their Theology is a concern to revive God’s word and sovereignty. Luther states that ‘with God’s help [he] intends to expose the wiles’ and implicates that only through God can the Reform happen. An omission to understand the momentum that God provides for the Reformation will produce an inadequate