The Calvinist International
One of the dangers inherent in “complementarianism” is the perception that ordination to ecclesiastical office is a matter of semi-arbitrary positive law and private zones of jurisdiction, that male leadership in church is only a question of ordination or specific church polity and only because a few bible verses command it. Worse yet, it might […]
In working through the text of Luther’s disputation against scholastic theology, I ran across an intriguing series of claims. It appears in the introduction of the text as it appears in the English edition of Luther’s Works. The introduction is attempting to set up the context for Luther’s engagement with “scholastic” theology, and proceeds to […]
At the Diet of Worms in 1521, Martin Luther famously didn’t say: “Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir! Amen.” (“Here I stand. I can do no other. So help me God! Amen.“) Though he didn’t use precisely these words, they quickly came to be associated with him, and now everyone “knows” he […]
I’ve mentioned Luther’s last written words here before. In this post, I’d like to turn to his close friend and associate, Philip Melanchthon. He, too, has left us a fragment from just before his death on 19 April 1560 (it seems to have been written sometime around the 16th, perhaps, or shortly thereafter–it is not […]
In a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Latin, Irena Backus notes Martin Luther’s generic versatility in the composition of poetry (pp. 331-2, unfortunately not available in the preview). He was capable of satirical extremes that make many modern readers uncomfortable: for instance, a professor he fired from the University of Wittenberg (“for dedicating his first published […]
Below is the second section (“On Baptism”) of the Wittenberg Concord, the first part of which treats the Lord’s Supper and which I translated here. It is a strong affirmation of the propriety and necessity of infant baptism and was subscribed by all those listed in the previous post, though some of its particulars would not […]
Next month marks the 480th anniversary of the Wittenberg Concord, a document that resulted from discussions about the sacraments between German Lutherans and the Reformed of southwestern Germany and western Switzerland. It is the result, in other words, of the search for consensus among various parts of the Protestant world, intended to be an affirmation […]
This was supposed to be an update to the post on Luther, Cicero, and Vergil shared yesterday, but for some reason the software will not let me change the post, so I have to do it here. A colleague has pointed out to me, correctly, that Luther’s reference to the “divine Aeneid” is a reference to […]
In his Commentary on the 26th Question of the Heidelberg Catechism, Ursinus gives a brief explanation of differing views among the Reformers concerning the age of the Earth. He claims a “common reckoning” of Biblical chronology which allows a conclusion that the world was 5,534 years old. He writes: Lastly, God created the world, not […]
Derek Rishmawy shares an excerpt from the ancient Christian work, and notes how similar it sounds to the fathers of the Reformed faith.