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Baptist Boys and Girls: Gender Roles in Southern Baptist Children’s Magazines, 1953–1957 Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-12-18 Melody Maxwell
This paper will analyze the publications for children of Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU), auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention, from 1953 to 1957. These include Tell, a monthly magazine for girls, and Ambassador Life, a monthly magazine for boys. The paper will argue that these magazines urged girls to develop social graces while challenging boys to physical activity. In addition, both Ambassador
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Dutch Lutheran Women on the Pulpit: The History of Women’s Ordained Ministry in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Netherlands Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-12-18 Sabine Hiebsch
In the course of the Twentieth century, the roles for women in Protestant churches in Europe expanded to include the possibility of participating in the church office of minister. For the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the year 2022 marked the centenary of women in the ordained ministry. On June 12, 1922, the Lutheran synod decided that, according to the existing regulations
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From Spiritual Guide to Church Mother: The Performative and Printed Preaching of Two Strasbourg Women Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-12-18 Katherine Goodwin Lindgren
This article compares late medieval and early modern patterns of women’s preaching in Strasbourg. Medieval women circumvented gendered restrictions against female preaching through performative acts of embodied devotion. This article compares the embodied sermons of Gertrude Rickeldey of Ortenburg and the printed sermons of Katharina Schütz Zell to discuss the change and continuity in late medieval
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Nurturing and Caring?: Francis de Sales’s Views of Women, Family, and Spirituality Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-12-18 Jill Fehleison
This essay examines Francis de Sales’s Introduction to the Devout Life through the framework of caregiving. It also uses de Sales’s correspondence with two elite women, Jeanne de Chantal and Marie Brûlart, to demonstrate how de Sales’s guidance for laity was put into practice. Exploring women that yearned for a richer spiritual yet also had extensive caregiving obligations that did not allow for complete
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Relying on Runaways: Women and the Moravian Church in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-12-18 Kelly Kaelin
In her 1772 memoir, Sarah Chapman relays an exciting tale of daring escape from her parent’s home in December 1752. She was seventeen, single, and determined to join the Moravian Church, a new group originating in eastern Saxony. Women like Sarah—usually young and single—saw in the Moravians an alternative to settled life. This article explores the place of the Moravian Church as a disruptive organization
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‘Thy Servant Forever’: Girlhood and Religious Authority in Antebellum America Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-12-18 K. Elise Leal
This article expands scholarly definitions of female religious authority—conversations that typically focus on women—by situating girlhood as an equally important site of receiving, developing, and performing religious agency. Using a biographical case study approach, the article examines the life of Mary Chrystie, a deeply pious American girl who lived from 1825–1841 in the mid-Atlantic region and
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Touching the Ark or Carrying It?: Women and 16th- and 17th-Century Polish-Lithuanian Calvinism Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-12-18 Kazimierz Bem
The story of the Reformation in the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania has been told primarily through the actions of men who purged churches, settled ministers, expelled Catholic priests, and defended the freedom of worship at the local and national level. This article challenges that androcentric perspective, drawing on synodical acts and surviving church visitations to reexamine the religious
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Women, Sex, and Privative Violence in the Council of Elvira Canons Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-12-18 Tara Baldrick-Morrone
This article analyzes forms of ecclesiastical punishments found in the fourth-century Council of Elvira canons. Previous work on the council and canons has rightly argued that the regional bishops were concerned with policing the boundaries of their communities, especially when it comes to marriage, women, and sexual behavior. Yet rather than see the punishments and preoccupation with women as representing
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Augustine and the Jews Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-09-21 Johannes van Oort
The essay discusses the main topics of ‘Augustine and the Jews.’ It opens with the question where, according to Augustine, the name ‘Jew’ comes from. It then proceeds to his use of the designations ‘Hebrew’ and ‘Israelite’ parallel (and partly in contrast) to ‘Jew.’ Mainly according to The City of God a brief biblical history of the Jews is outlined. Augustine’s theological valuation of the Jews turns
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A Method to the Madness? Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-09-21 Jacob Randolph
This article assesses the 1534–1535 Anabaptist kingdom of Münster and how its leader, Jan of Leiden, asserted the legitimacy of his divinely anointed kingship. Rather than dismiss Jan of Leiden’s displays of supremacy as arbitrary, radical, or mere delusions of grandeur, I seek to contextualize the spectacle of Münster through an appeal to the power of cultural memory and chivalry. At least three applications
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Religious Diversity in the Early Medieval Middle East through the Lens of the Syriac Chronicle of Zuqnin Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-09-21 Reyhan Durmaz
The medieval Middle East is often described as a multiconfessional place inhabited by Christians, Muslims, Jews, Manichaeans, Zoroastrians, pagans, and others. These groups, scholars demonstrate, manifested complex modes of cohabitation, exchange, negotiations with law, conflict, and resilience under Islamic governance. The ways this religious diversity was perceived by non-Muslim communities, however
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A Diagnosis of Cartesian Atheism Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Kuni Sakamoto, Yoshi Kato
The present paper analyzes Petrus van Maistricht’s (1630–1706) critique of Baruch Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise found in his Novitatum cartesianarum gangraena (1677). The paper shows, first, that Mastricht regarded Spinoza’s atheism as the inevitable outcome of the Cartesians’ denial of philosophy’s subordination to theology. Second, Mastricht, in refuting Spinoza, revised his earlier critique
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Luther vs. the Lutherans (and Catholics) Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Nicholas A. Cumming
This article examines the reception and authority of Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon in Francis Turretin’s (1623–1687) Institutio Theologiae Elencticae (1679–1685). Scholarship on the reception of the Reformers in seventeenth-century Calvinism has continued to grow and I argue that Turretin utilized both Luther and Melanchthon in fluid and diverse ways. In particular, Luther and Melanchthon, alongside
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Monnica’s Bishop and the “filius istarum lacrimarum” (conf. 3,21) Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Johannes van Oort
Augustine is known as “the son of tears.” This essay searches for the meaning of this expression. Based on conf. 3,21, first the background of the African bishop who spoke the winged words is analysed. Not only had he once been handed over to the Manichaeans as an oblate, but he had also become acquainted with their writings. Especially from this experience he gives his advice to Monnica: her son will
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Reform the Pope, Reform the Papacy Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Christopher M. Bellitto
Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) was not an uncritical supporter of papal authority. This essay recounts a nuanced understanding of his development by looking at a number of treatises and sermons focused on the reform of the pope as person and therefore of the reform of the papacy as institution. Cusanus believed the pope’s authority was grounded in the faith and office of Peter and not personally in Peter’s
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The Role of Mission Schools in the Development of Football in Nigeria, 1904–1994 Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2023-06-23 Adolphus Ekedimma Amaefule
The development of football in Nigeria owes a lot to the pioneering Christian missions in the country, especially, the schools they founded. This article examines the particular role that selected Catholic Mission Boys’ Secondary Schools played in this regard from 1904 when the first recorded football match was played in Nigeria, to 1994, when Nigeria’s national football team, the Super Eagles, qualified
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‘The Comfort for the Sick’ as ars moriendi Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Erik de Boer
During the Protestant Reformation of the Churches in the Low Countries the sacrament of extreme unction and rituals surrounding burial were eliminated. The ever-present reality of illness and approaching death, however, kept demanding pastoral care and comfort for the dying. In the 1570s a text was published, Den Siecken Troost (Comfort for the Sick), which found its way into the Reformed books of
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Dynamics in Reformed Liturgy Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Klaas-Willem de Jong
This article introduces five contributions written by participants in the project “The Dynamics of the Classical Reformed Liturgy in the Netherlands: its Texts and their History.” After an overview of research on the Classical Reformed Liturgy in the past 125 years, this introduction offers an overview of the research taking place as part of this project. It gives a brief description of each of the
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The Form for the Solemnisation of Marriage’s Social and Historical Context Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Anne E. Lorein
In this article, the historical and social context of Petrus Dathenus’s Form for the Solemnisation of Marriage at the end of the sixteenth century and the early seventeenth century in the province of Holland is examined, in order to grasp the meaning of this Marriage Form of the Dutch Reformed Church. In order to do so, the Dutch Classical Reformed Form is related to information of primary and secondary
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The Making of the Dutch Form for Adult Baptism Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Wim Moehn
The Liturgy of the Dutch Reformed Church came about in several steps from Petrus Dathenus’s 1566 edition of the Psalms to the National Synod of Dordt (1618–1619). During the Post-Acta sessions of Dordt in 1619, it was finally decided to draw up a form for baptism of adults (“de bejaerde”), in addition to the already existing form for infant baptism. This essay shows that the church in the Netherlands
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Meaning-Making in an Imperial and Papal Context Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Mariëtte Verhoeven
From a diachronic perspective, and considering both textual and visual evidence, this article traces the relic cult of SS Gregory Nazianzen and John Chrysostom. It focuses on two historical contexts, hitherto not compared with each other, in which both the relics and the architectural frame in which they were placed acquired significant additional meaning and value: tenth-century Constantinople and
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Preaching before a Manly King Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Bert Roest
This article analyses a peculiar misogynist sermon held in 1702 by an unknown, probably Franciscan preacher at the court of Friedrich August, alias August ‘der Starke’, prince-elector of Saxony (r. 1694–1733) and king of Poland (r. 1697–1704/6 & 1709–1733). This sermon, held in the year that Poland faced a Swedish military invasion, laments the many problems of the Polish king and the kingdom of Poland
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Remembering Jerusalem Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Barbara Pitkin
This article analyzes John Calvin’s 1562–1563 lectures on Lamentations as a case study for exploring the role of biblical exegesis in creating and shaping what scholars such as Judith Pollmann have demonstrated to be early modern memory practices. Lamentations is not one of the better-known books of the Christian canon, and although it was central to Catholic Holy Week liturgies, it appears to have
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Scribal Collaboration and Gender in a Middle Dutch Song Manuscript and a Rapiarium of the Devotio Moderna Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Cécile de Morrée
This article discusses two important representatives of the manuscript culture of the Devotio Moderna in the late medieval eastern Low Countries (c. 1500): a vernacular devout song manuscript (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz mgo 185) and a Middle Dutch rapiarium or collection of various short religious texts (Zwolle, Historisch Centrum Overijssel, Collectie Emmanuelshuizen
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Theological Dependencies of the Palatinate Church Order (1563) Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Wouter Kroese
The Reformed Dutch baptismal form in the Dathenus Psalter (1566) is a translated adaption of the form in the Palatinate Church Order (1563). In the Palatinate Church Order (1563), this baptismal form is accompanied by a text “On holy baptism.” The present article researches the sources of the baptismal texts in the Palatinate Church Order (1563), with a special focus on the phrase “children having
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Who Shaped the Dutch Liturgy? Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-12-26 Klaas-Willem de Jong
About 125 years ago, the question of whether a synod established the handed-down classical Reformed Liturgy, and if so, which one, was hotly debated. The answer to this question was important in determining which text should be considered authoritative in the church. It is now clear that the answer has only limited relevance. On the one hand, the text of the Liturgy has certainly been handed down in
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Among Catalogues, Bindings, and Sacred Economies Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-07-27 Mauricio Oviedo Salazar
This article centres on the emblem book Jesus en de Ziel, Een Geestelycke Spiegel voor ’t Gemoed, first published in Amsterdam in 1678, with texts and images composed by Jan Luyken. From the time of its first publication, the book was part of the literary devotional life of the Dutch Republic, undergoing numerous editions and reprints, at least until the final decades of the eighteenth century. Using
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Fidei christianae delineatio brevis by Conradus Vorstius (1620) Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-07-27 Johannes Tromp
“A Brief Sketch of the Christian Faith,” published in 1632, was written by Conradus Vorstius in 1620, at the request of Johannes Uytenbogaert. Uytenbogaert needed a Confession for the Remonstrant Society he had just founded, and asked Vorstius to assist the committee that was established for its production. Vorstius, who at the time lived in difficult conditions, was unable to deliver a full text,
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The Living Sense of Scripture Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-07-27 Douglas FitzHenry Jones
Everard appears frequently in studies of English antinomianism. His sermons, printed posthumously in 1653, reveal a startling array of influences, from Maimonides to Nicholas of Cusa, and a propensity for extravagant glosses on scripture. Notably, Everard saw the gospel as an allegory for the spiritual regeneration of the reader. The literal or ‘living’ sense of scripture played out in the annihilation
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Magdalena’s gulden letanien Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-07-27 Bram Rossano
In contrast to the other works of the fifteenth-century mystic Magdalena of Freiburg, her Golden Litany was heavily copied in Germany and the Low Countries in the late Middle Ages. Despite its popularity, this meditative prayer on the Passion has not yet been studied. This article attempts to fill this gap. It offers a full survey of the transmitted manuscripts of the text and aims to provide insight
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The Role of Missionaries from the Nederlandsche Zendingsvereeniging (NZV) in the Development of Public Health in Cirebon Residency 1864–1899 Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-07-27 Amos Sukamto
In the second half of the 19th century, there was an outbreak of Malaria and Cholera in the Nederlandsch Indie region, including the Cirebon Residency. As a result, during epidemics, people died like rats. This was the situation faced by NZV missionaries. How did the NZV missionaries respond to this problem? By using the historical method, I found several facts that the NZV missionaries, especially
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The Charism of Care of the Order of St John and Female Monasticism: The Convent of Bargota (Kingdom of Navarre) in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-03-21 Anna Katarzyna Dulska
The charism of care inspired the foundation of various medieval religious orders, the Order of St John of Jerusalem being the most renowned of these. This article uses a case study of a female Hospitaller convent in Bargota in the kingdom of Navarre, to examine to what extent the charism of hospitality influenced the Order’s decision-making. By identifying the factors lying behind the foundation of
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Religious Belonging and Multinational Encounters in “Infidel Izmir”: Past and Present Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-03-21 Ediz Hazir
In Turkey, the Roman Catholic Church faces an uncertain future as it lacks official recognition of its legal status. Thus, the survival of the small parishes signifies the survival of the Catholic Church in contemporary Turkey. This article focuses on the perseverance of the multicultural Roman Catholic community of Our Lady of Lourdes (Notre Dame de Lourdes) of Göztepe (in Izmir) after the arrival
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Richard Baxter Conformed to Nonconformity: The Modern Reception of Baxter as a Practical Theologian Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-03-21 David S. Sytsma
Through an examination of the Nonconformist reception of Richard Baxter, this essay provides a window into theological transition within early modern Protestantism. I argue that, although Baxter excelled in knowledge of scholastic theology, integrated scholastic theology into his practical writings, and produced a great scholastic system of theology—the Methodus Theologiae Christianae (1681)—over the
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Richard Simon and the tiers parti Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2022-03-21 Nicholas Mithen
Recent scholarship has sought to reinterpret the French biblical scholar Richard Simon, viewing him less as the unwitting participant in an agenda of radical secularisation, and more as the culmination of centuries of humanistic learning. This article repositions this rehabilitated Simon within the contested theological landscape of late seventeenth century French Catholicism. Drawing upon Simon’s
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The Devil of Delft in England: The Reception of the Dutch Spiritualist David Joris in 17th-Century English Polemics Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Gary K. Waite
The Dutch glasspainter and Anabaptist prophet David Joris (1501–1556) was the Netherland’s most infamous heretic who became a spiritualist who depreciated the scriptures, condemned confessional conflict, and argued that the devil did not exist external to a person’s mind. Unlike the Dutch founder of the Family of Love, Hendrik Niclaes, Joris had no following in England, yet English writers condemned
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Kuyper’s Spirituality in Its Calvin-Context Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Willem van Vlastuin
This article explores Abraham Kuyper’s spirituality by comparing it to that of John Calvin. Calvin’s Institutes exhibits three dimensions of his spirituality in the context of the mystical union with Christ, namely, the affective character of this union, its effects and its significance for a correct estimation of the world. By comparison, Kuyper put a greater emphasis on the importance of the affections
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Spiritualité, Spirituality, and Espiritualidad: A Lexicographical Approach to the Conceptual History of Spirituality Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Rady Roldán-Figueroa
This article offers a corrective to the widely held idea that the modern concept of spirituality is traceable to the seventeenth century French notion of spiritualité. Instead, the argument is made that the sixteenth and seventeenth century Spanish terms spiritual and spiritualidad are earlier expressions of the modern concept of spirituality. The article opens with an examination of the place of spirituality
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“An Unbendable Strength in Our Rosary”: Religious Life in the Gusen Concentration Camp Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Eileen Groth Lyon
The struggle to resist dehumanization and maintain a sense of identity and dignity in the German concentration camps has been a key theme in survivor testimonies. Some prisoners assert the paramount importance of religious faith in mustering the inner strength needed to survive. However, the clandestine nature of religious practice in the camps has meant that memoirs provide only fragmentary glimpses
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Voor de Heer en voor Oranje. Simon Oomius en zijn orangistische bazuinen (1672–1674), by Theo Basoski Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Gregory D. Schuringa
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Le Langage et la Foi dans l’ Europe des Réformes. XVIe siècle, by Julien Ferrant et Tiphaine Guillabert-Madinier (Dir.) Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Paul-Alexis Mellet,Mélinda Fleury
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Luther et Mahomet. Le protestantisme d’ Europe occidentale devant l’ islam, XVIe–XVIIIe siècle., by Pierre-Olivier Léchot Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Alastair Hamilton
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The Pucci of Florence. Patronage and Politics in Renaissance Italy, by Carla D’Arista Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Alastair Hamilton
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Birth Control Battles. How Race and Class Divided American Religion, by Melissa J. Wilde Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Daniel K. Williams
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Criticism and Confession. The Bible in the Seventeenth Century Republic of Letters, by Nicholas Hardy Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Pierre-Olivier Léchot
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The Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Aquinas, by Matthew Levering and Marcus Plested (Eds.) Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Seung-Joo Lee
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The History of Christianity in Britain and Ireland. From the First Century to the Twenty-First, by Gerald Bray Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Michael A.G. Haykin
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Revolution as Reformation. Protestant Faith in the Age of Revolutions, 1688–1832, by Peter C. Messer and William Harrison Taylor (Eds.) Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Erica R.J. Edwards Johnson
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Spielräume eines Pfarrers vor der Reformation. Ulrich Krafft in Ulm, by Berndt Hamm Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Christoph Burger
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Sermons for the Liturgical Year, by Hugh Feiss (Ed.) Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Anette Löffler
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Adam Pastor (ca. 1500–ca. 1565): A Post-Münster Anabaptist Bishop in the Borderlands between the Netherlands and Germany Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-07-21 Theo Brok
Adam Pastor was an itinerant Anabaptist bishop in the Lower Rhine region. Ordained by Menno Simons around 1542, he is best known for the division that unfolded between Dirk Philips and Menno Simons, which led to the first schism in Mennonitism. Although sixteenth-century contemporaries described him as an important bishop alongside Menno, Mennonite historiography since then has largely ignored him
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Art and Heterodoxy in the Dutch Enlightenment: Arnold Houbraken, the Flemish Mennonites, and Religious Difference in The Great Theatre of Netherlandish Painters and Painteresses (1718–1721) Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-07-21 Nina Schroeder
This paper considers the artist Arnold Houbraken (1660–1719) as an unconventional Christian and sheds new light on his representation of artists from religious minority groups in his Great Theatre of Netherlandish Painters and Painteresses (1718–1721). By exploring Houbraken’s years within the Flemish Mennonite milieu in Dordrecht (1660–ca. 1685) and investigating his representation of religious difference
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Celestial Sex: Paracelsus and the Teaching of the “Heavenly Flesh” of Christ Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-07-21 Anselm Schubert
This paper explores the origins of the Anabaptist doctrine of the “celestial flesh,” which conceived Christ as generated purely out of the substance of the Godhead and thus possessing an entirely “celestial body.” It argues that the origins of this doctrine lie in late medieval alchemical tracts adapted in Paracelsus’s Liber de Sancta Trinitate of 1524, according to which God has a body of heavenly
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The Contours of the Non-Lutheran Reformation in Germany, 1522–1546: The Distinction between the Bible-Centred Meeting Places and the Altar-Centred Churches Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-07-21 James M. Stayer
Among the common ways of portraying Reformation divides are the following categories: Magisterial vs Radical Reformations; or a “church type” vs a “sect type” of reform. This essay offers an alternative view. It underscores the differences between Lutherans and Anglicans on one side; and the Reformed, Anabaptists, and Schwenckfelders on the other. The Lutherans, like the Anglicans under Henry VIII
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From “the Radical Reformation” to “the Radical Enlightenment”?: The Specter and Complexities of Spiritualism in Early Modern England, Germany, and the Low Countries Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-07-21 Michael Driedger, Gary K. Waite, Francesco Quatrini, Nina Schroeder
This Special Issue arises from a symposium held at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in July 2019. That symposium was part of the “Amsterdamnified” research program funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2015–2022). In this essay, the editors introduce the scope and themes of the Special Issue, provide a brief historical overview of some key aspects of sixteenth-century
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The Holy Spirit in the Theological Work of Michael Servetus: The Spirit of Unity, or from Accident to Substance Church History and Religious Culture Pub Date : 2021-07-21 Christine Schulte am Hülse
This article examines the pneumatology in the theological works of the “heretic” Michael Servetus, which so far has received limited attention in research. This is worthwhile, since Servetus developed two answers to the question of what the Holy Spirit is: on the one hand, a movement of God in the human spirit understood as a divine accident of God; or, on the other, even the divine substance itself