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Reformation

Books, Links, and Ramblings

17/11/2012
Books and Reading, Reformation, Story, Theology
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My reading has taken on a historical theme recently, with Pelikan’s The Growth of Medieval Theology and MacCulloch’s The Reformation currently occupying any free time I can find.

Next up, Gordon’s biography of Calvin.

Also of note, I just finished Jamie Smith’s The Fall of Interpretation (which was brilliant), and am adding a couple volumes by Barth and Torrance to the top of my reading list.

This morning I stumbled across the blog The Evangelical Calvinist. So far I’ve only read a couple posts – Thomas Torrance’s View of Scripture as ‘Human’ and Calvin: Right and Wrong on Predestination, Election – but it looks promising and ties into my other reading well at the moment.

I couldn’t be happier that the election is over, but I continue to find the apocalyptic language of both the Religious Right and the Religious Left incredibly disheartening. If Jesus is Lord means anything, it ought to mean the Church participates in a different sort of politics. As Augustine argued, Christians are part of a different polis, and that should determine how we approach the polis of the world – which one would hope leaves little room for uncritical partisan loyalties.

Speaking of Augustine (and Barth, Torrence, Smith, Calvin, the Reformation, etc.), might there be way of being [faithfully] “Reformed” that looks quite different from the way Piper and Co. have defined that term?

I believe so, but I am still wrestling with what that might look like.

On a tangentially related note – it seems I’m not the only one tentatively exploring a more traditioned stream of the faith these days. I have only anecdotal evidence for this, but it seems many who were engaged with emgerent have slowly and quietly begun moving towards something else. Of course, there is a significant difference between taking your next step in a journey and recanting your previous step.

John Calvin – Catholic Theologian?

13/10/2012
Calvinism, Creeds, Reformation, Theology
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From Jamie Smith’s essay “Lift Up Your Hearts”: John Calvin’s Catholic Faith.

 “Are you Catholic or Protestant?” I sometimes get this question from evangelical folks who don’t know me very well, but have heard me talk about liturgy or St. Augustine or spiritual formation or Graham Greene, or what have you. I usually simply answer, “Yes.”

As you might imagine, this engenders furrowed brows of consternation: “Is this guy out to lunch?, they must ask themselves. I asked an either/or question. You can’t answer, ‘Yes.’ You have to choose.” But do I? Can’t I refuse this as a false dichotomy? Is it possible to reject this disjunctive or?

What if we don’t have to choose between being Protestant and Catholic? Indeed, what if being a (magisterial) Protestant is a way to be Catholic? Would that somehow denigrate the Reformation? Would this be a kind of cathedral-envy, making me a Protestant with a bad conscience, sort of a wannabe papist wolf who lurks about Calvin College in Kuyperian sheep’s clothing?

…for me, becoming Reformed was a way of becoming Catholic, because in my pilgrimage to the Reformed confessional tradition I was inducted into a communion self-consciously in continuity with the ancient creeds. To be a member of a church that says the Creed—and whose catechism expounds the Creed—is to be Catholic.

Smith goes on to make a case for a deeply “Catholic” reading of John Calvin and the broader project of the Reformation. You can read the rest here.

the Reformation and the Theologian

02/07/2012
Reformation, Theology
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How do we envision the task of the theologian? A lonely scholar huddled in a cold office surrounded by stacks of books, a student of antiquity who shatters the traditions built up over centuries by the church, a sole voice speaking (or writing) against ignorance and outdated doctrines?

Particularly for those of us who in some way identify as heirs of the Reformation, I think these are all pictures of the theological task that we sort of naturally fall into. The story of Luther’s cry of “here I stand” has ingrained itself into our social consciousness – and being the lone hero standing against corrupted traditionalism or theological error becomes something to strive for.

Except, as Timothy George argues in his recent interview with Christianity Today, that’s not really the entire story for Luther, or for the Reformation as a whole. In fact, the theology of the early Reformers was inextricably intertwined with the life of the Church, with its liturgy, and with the preaching of the Word.

This, as George states, is part of what separates the early Reformers from the modernist task of “critical scholarship.” Not because the two are necessary incompatible in their results, but because they have very different ways of understanding the relationship of the theologian to the Church.

“Unlike post-critical exegesis, pre-critical exegesis is done in the context of and for the sake of the community of faith. It’s churchly exegesis that puts us in touch with the life of prayer, the great doctrines of the faith, the catechetical tradition of the church, and the liturgy of the church, and it helps us to see Scripture as part of that whole.”

George’s article, the Reformers’ Postmodern Movement, suggests that in our postmodern context there is much of value to the Church and the theologian that can be gained from studying Luther, Calvin, the Anabaptists, and other Reformation figures. And I though I’ve been witness to many unhelpful ways of reappropriating the writings of that era, if it is done well I think he has a point worth hearing out.

Martin Luther on The Cult of Personality

05/12/2011
Quotes, Reformation
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In the early days of the Reformation even reformers in England and France were being referred to as “Lutherans,” and Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible was such a runaway success that Nietzsche would later call it “The best German book,” and “our only real book so far, compared with which nearly everything else is merely ‘literature.’”

The German reformer was no stranger to the cult of personality, and the lust and pride that can accompany seeing ones name in print. But at his best he also realized how destructive both those temptations could be to individuals and communities that are trying to follow Christ.

“If, however, you feel inclined to think you have made it, flattering yourself with your own little books, teaching, or writing, because you have done it beautifully and preached excellently; if you are highly pleased when someone praises you in the presence of others; if you perhaps look for praise, and would sulk or quit what you were doing if you did not get it –

if you are of that stripe, dear friend, then take yourself by the ears, and if you do this in the right way you will find a beautiful pair of big, long, shaggy, donkey ears. Then don’t spare any expense! Decorate them with golden bells, so that people will be able to hear you wherever you go, point their fingers at you, and say, ‘See, see! There goes that clever beast, who can write such clever books and preach so remarkably well.’ That very moment you will be blessed and blessed beyond measure in the kingdom of heaven, that is the ‘heaven’ where hell fire is prepared for the devil and his angels.”

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