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The study of Christian theology in the last half century has seen a major renaissance in Trinitarian thought which has attempted to connect Trinitarian theology to all aspects of Christian faith and practice. This revival has often addressed the unfortunate split which has haunted much modern theological endeavour between theology and both prayer and practice, the disjunction between thought about God and the movement of the heart toward God in transformed lives. Drawn from papers given at a Pusey House conference in 2015, the contributors to this collection explore what it means to know and love the Triune God, and how the knowledge of God can be a transforming and saving knowledge.
Economics of Faith addresses the multiple ways that leaders of the European Reformation sought to inspire new attitudes toward poverty and wealth, to reform the institutions of poor relief, and to create new organizations for aiding religious refugees. Guided by biblical ideals and values, religious reformers became some of the major contributors in the effort to address poverty, one of the most vexing social problem in early modern Europe. By examining the connections between religion, politics, and community, it highlights the crucial role that religion had in the promotion of social responsibility and the development of social welfare systems.
In popular thought, Christianity is often figured as being opposed to dance. Conventional scholarship traces this controversy back to the Middle Ages. Throughout the medieval era, the Latin Church denounced and prohibited dancing in religious and secular realms, often aligning it with demonic intervention, lust, pride, and sacrilege. Historical sources, however, suggest that medieval dance was a complex and ambivalent phenomenon. During the High and Late Middle Ages, Western theologians, liturgists, and mystics not only tolerated dance; they transformed it into a dynamic component of religious thought and practice. This book investigates how dance became a legitimate form of devotion in Chri...
The Flesh of the Word explores how disputes between Ulrich Zwingli and Martin Luther over the nature of Christ's body crystalized into a lasting distinction between the Lutheran and Reformed branches of Protestantism. Reformed theologians articulated a view, called the extra Calvinisticum, that the eternal Son maintains his existence beyond the flesh during his earthly ministry and perpetually. The book investigates how this doctrine that Christ exist both wholly within and wholly beyond his human flesh developed from its first articulation by Zwingli to the end of the sixteenth century and how this affected the Reformed understanding of Christ.
The doctrine of "the covenant of works" arose to prominence in the late sixteenth century and quickly became a regular feature in Reformed thought. Theologians believed that when God first created man he made a covenant with him: all Adam had to do was obey God's command to not eat from the tree of knowledge and obey God's command to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth. The reward for Adam's obedience was profound: eternal life for him and his offspring. The consequences of his disobedience were dire: God would visit death upon Adam and his descendants. In the covenant of works, Adam was not merely an individual but served as a public person, the federal head of the human race. The C...
This book examines the contentious relationship between oath-taking, confessional subscription, and the binding of the conscience in reforms led by John Calvin. Calvin and his closest Reformed colleagues routinely distinguished what they believed were impious rules and constitutions in the Roman Church--human traditions claiming to bind the consciences of the faithful by putting them in fear of losing their salvation--and legitimate church observances, such as oaths and formal subscription to Reformed confessional standards. Doctrinal and moral reform in the cities became difficult, however, when friends and foes alike accused Calvin and his partners of burdening consciences with extra-Scrip...
The Reformed Conformity that flourished within the Early Stuart English Church was a rich, vibrant, and distinctive theological tradition that has never before been studied in its own right. While scholars have observed how Reformed Conformists clashed with Laudians and Puritans alike, no sustained academic study of their teaching on grace and their attitude to the Church has yet been undertaken, despite the centrality of these topics to Early Stuart theological controversy. This ground-breaking monograph recovers this essential strand of Early Stuart Christian identity. It examines and analyses the teachings and writings of ten prominent theologians, all of whom made significant contributio...
History has long viewed French Protestants as Calvinists. Refusing to Kiss the Slipper re-examines the Reformation in francophone Europe, presenting for the first time the perspective of John Calvin's evangelical enemies and revealing that the French Reformation was more complex and colorful than previously recognized. Michael Bruening brings together a cast of Calvin's opponents from various French-speaking territories to show that opposition to Calvinism was stronger and better organized than has been recognized. He examines individual opponents, such as Pierre Caroli, Jerome Bolsec, Sebastian Castellio, Charles Du Moulin, and Jean Morély, but more importantly, he explores the anti-Calvin...
Redemptive Peace The church in Rome was split into differing groups and in their zeal to advocate for their viewpoints had gone over the line of gospel mission to controlling ambition. In trying to unify a congregation he’d never met, the Apostle Paul starts the first half of his letter reminding the believers of their redemption in Jesus, anticipating the unity for their life together. Paul ends with a call for peace; a redemptive peace that speaks to how to live in relation to our state, our work, our church, and our households. Romans is the most influential document in the New Testament for the formation of what Christians believe today. But it also has importance for how to live that ...
Unleashing God’s Kingdom Every paragraph in Luke’s gospel is about Jesus. Luke showcases Jesus’ character by recounting all the significant events of his life, recalling his major teachings, and recommending his character as the truest way to live. The Jesus in Luke’s biography doesn’t wait for these events to happen to him, instead Jesus powerfully moves and unleashes the kingdom of God, proclaiming—and demonstrating—holistic redemption. This redemption cannot be reduced to ethics, morality, or even what we call social justice. Its foundation is a Person, and in that Person holistic redemption explodes into living realities. Those who follow this Person suddenly realize they a...