This volume explores the diverse nature of the Reformation, its contested status in historiography as well as its manifold legacies from an ecumenical point of view. The essays are specifically interested in the distinct confessional cultures that emerged from the Reformation and how they relate to various aspects of modernity.
This volume explores the inherent pluralism of the Reformation and its manifold legacies from an ecumenical and interdisciplinary point of view. The essays shed new light on several key questions: How do we interpret and assess the Reformation as a historical and theological event, as a historiographic category, and as a cultural myth? What are the long-term global consequences of the Reformation period as manifest in the rise of competing confessional cultures and distinct Christian world religions, producing different types of modernities? How did these confessional cultures interact with the development of empires and nation-states, with the emergence of the sciences, as well as with divergent legal cultures and traditions in education and social welfare? What kind of modalities emerged in these confessional cultures for engaging with the humanistic study of the Bible and, later on, Higher Criticism?
Survey of contents
Jan Stievermann/Randall Zachman: Preface
The Many Faces of the Reformation
Euan Cameron: Reconsidering Early-Reformation and Catholic-Reform Impulses –
Randall C. Zachman: The Birth of Protestantism? Or the Reemergence of the Catholic Church? How Its Participants Understood the Evangelical Reformation
Interpretations of Scripture in the Reformation Period
Manfred Oeming: The Importance of the Old Testament for the Reformer Martin Luther –
Greta Grace Kroeker: Erasmus and Scripture –
Paul Silas Peterson: »The Text of the Bible is Stronger«: The Rebirth of Scriptural Authority in the Reformation and it Significance
The Reformation as an Interpretative Event
Emidio Campi: The Myth of the Reformation –
Scott Dixon: The German Reformation as a Historiographical Construct: The Shaping of the Narrative from Melanchthon to Walch –
Ute Lotz-Heumann: Confessionalization is Dead, Long Live the Reformation? Reflections on Historiographical Paradigm Shifts on the Occasion of the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation
The Aftermath of the Reformation Period
John O'Malley: Catholic Pastoral Care: The Early Modern Period –
Jan Stievermann: Early American Protestantism and the Confessionalization Paradigm: A Critical Inquiry
Confessional Empires, Missions, and Nations
Simon Ditchfield: The »Making« of Roman Catholicism as a »World Religion« –
Patrick Griffin: The Last War of Religion or the First War for Empire? Reconsidering the Meaning of The Seven Years' War in America –
Hartmut Lehmann: Nationalism as Poison in the Veins of Western Christianity, c. 1800 – c. 1950
Confessional Modernities, Enlightenment and Secularization
John Betz: J. G. Hammann as a Radical Reformer: Two Mites Toward a Post-Secular, Ecumenical Theology –
Volker Leppin: Friedrich Gogarten's Theology of Secularization
Confessional Cultures: Legal and Diaconical Traditions
Christoph Strohm: Confession and Law in Early Modern Europe –
Johannes Eurich: The Influence of Religious Traditions on Social Welfare Development: Observations from the Perspective of Comparative Welfare State Research
Scripture and the Evangelical-Pietist Tradition
Ryan P. Hoselton: »Flesh and Blood Hath Not Revealed It«: Reformation Exegetical Legacies in Pietism and Early Evangelicalism –
Douglas A. Sweeney: The Still-Enchanted World of Jonathan Edwards' Exegesis and the Paradox of Modern Evangelical Supernaturalism
Scriptural Authority and Biblical Scholarship in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Friederike Nüssel: The Value of the Bible: Martin Kähler's Theology of Scripture and its Ecumenical Impact –
David Lincicum: Ferdinand Christian Baur, the New Testament, and the Principle of Protestantism –
Matthias Konradt: Sola Scriptura and Historical-Critical Exegesis
