Midterm: Reformation Introduction

Question 1

Reformation Introduction.

Answer 1

• Most people think of people when they think of the Reformation. Mostly Luther and Calvin.
• The Reformation is not simply rooted in these two figures
• The reason we are familiar with Luther and Calvin and not the others is because the works of Luther and Calvin have been translated while others have not had their works translated.
• There are many other men and women.

1. Doctrines of the Reformation
2. Advancements of the Reformation
3. Horrors of the Reformation

Question 2

1. Doctrines of the Reformation

Answer 2

• 5 Solas
• This idea of the 5 Solas is a modern idea (not until 20th century).
• Luther would not understand the 5 solas
• Modern day summaries of what the Reformers were saying.
• How did the Reformers understand these terms and where did they come from?

Question 3

2. Advancements of the Reformation

Answer 3

• Age of Light and Renaissance (Rebirth of Learning and Art)
• • • Printing Press - Moveable type press allowed for information to go further. Chinese had done these earlier
• • • Oral communication could be communicated quickly, widely, efficiently, and without error.
• • • • • • Different than scribes used before
• • • Largely illiterate culture that had to learn to read. Encouraged learning
• • • Smaller Bibles are now popular and are inexpensive
• • • • • • Shift away from the Latin Vulgate
• • • Bible in Native Tongue (Vernacular)

Question 4

3. Horrors of the Reformation

Answer 4

• Execution of Heretics
• • • Similar to today’s context.
• • • Framed against a theological opponent. Not historic origin of the term.
• • • Some people labeled heretics for anti-trinitarians but some also for Lord’s supper or baptism different.
• • • This led to execution.
• • • You can’t tell the good without dealing with the bad.
• Political and Religious War
• • • Corpus Christianum - state Christianity

Question 5

Definition For Our Study

Answer 5

A religious, social, economic, and political movement shaped by a myriad of contextual factors, which aimed principally at reforming the late Medieval Roman Catholic Church, but which ultimately resulted in the rending of the old Western church structure. This division included the establishment of the Protestant tradition that subsequently splintered almost immediately into a diversity of confessional heritages.

5 Emphasis:
- - - A religious, social, economic, and political movement
- - - reforming
- - - resulted in the rending
- - - establishment of the Protestant tradition
- - - splintered

Question 6

A religious, social, economic, and political movement

Answer 6

• Tremendous amount of changes
• • • Ability for people to move station in life (better life for their children)
• • • Crumbling of Feudalism
• • • • • • Vacuum created for economy
• Politics -
• • • Rise of nation states
• • • Confluence of political nature of papacy
• • • Holy Roman Emperor - governing Germanic lands in Western Europe
• • • Leds to complex time period
• • • How Contextual Factors Change Things in the Church

Question 7

Reforming

Answer 7

• Aimed at late medieval Roman Catholic Church
• • • Distinction between the church Luther dealt with and the Catholic Church today
• • • Protestants today think of what was in the 16th century and not that of today
• • • There has been major changes
• • • Still some Roman Catholics function as 16th Century Catholics
• Desire to reform this church

Question 8

Resulted in the Rending

Answer 8

• Western, Latin Church
• Other Eastern Orthodox Church still there but we mostly deal with the Latin Church
• Baptist Life comes out of Latin Church

Question 9

Establishment of the Protestant Tradition

Answer 9

• Catholics said if you dethrone the one pope, you will end up with 100 popes and 100 different theologies
• Consequence of Reformation
• Hinge Moment in History

Question 10

The practical relevance of our study.

Answer 10

• Church Architecture
• Music
• Bible
• Language of the Gospel We Proclaim

Question 11

Church Architecture

Answer 11

• • • Sightline with Pulpit in Middle
• • • • • • Medieval Churches had pulpit on the side while the altar with the Eucharist in the middle
• • • Table with Do This in Remembrance of Me
• • • • • • To frame ourself from Roman Catholicism
• • • Beyond pulpit - elevated baptistry
• • • Cross - not a physical depiction of Jesus
• • • • • • Heb. 10 - Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, not on the Cross
• • • These came from the Protestant Reformation

Question 12

Music

Answer 12

• Instruments
• Whose singing?
• Latin or language people understand?

Question 13

Bible

Answer 13

• Bible you can read
• Laity holding Bibles

Question 14

Language of the Gospel We Proclaim

Answer 14

• Write Down What is the Gospel and Passages
• • • The Language and Passages we would use would portray protestant sensibilities
• • • Different than Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox because of Reformation

Question 15

Reformation historiography

Answer 15

Our own interpretation of the Reformation

Question 16

Three (3) questions to consider about the Reformation:

Answer 16

1. Periodization
2. Validation
3. Numeration

Question 17

Was the Reformation an Medieval Event or a Modern Event?

Answer 17

• Question results in a both-and-yes category
• Why?
• • -A time period that is moving from late medieval into modernity period
• • -Reformation is a bridge between the two eras
• • -Hinge moment in history - affixes to both eras.

Question 18

Two Important Ideas in Bridge Idea

Answer 18

• Many of the individuals we situate as a medieval or modern character
• • • Ex. Luther - is really a medieval period figure
• • • • • • Born, raised, and thinks with medieval mind
• • • • • • Devil - is a person he literally wrestles with in his mind
• • • • • • Spiritual Realm is real to him
• • • Ex. Calvin - 2nd generation reformer. More modern figure
• • • • • • Ideas, thinks does theology
• • • • • • Renaissance humanism as a foundation of thinking and learning
• • • • • • More forward looking
• Concepts that are introduced as advancements of theological and produce other concepts into modernity
• • • Don’t think they are more robust initially
• • • • • • Ex. Luther on Christian Freedom
• • • • • • • • • Tied into individual and freedom
• • • • • • • • • Invites Commoners into this freedom
• • • • • • • • • This is not some modern form of freedom
• • • • • • Ideas that are seeds germination into modern period
• • • • • • What they grow into sometimes good and sometimes bad
• • • • • • Don’t force modern thought onto them

Question 19

Was the Reformation a good thing or bad thing?

Answer 19

• The answer will be directed by our confessional heritage
• • • Roman Catholics look at this as a point of lament, negative,
• • • • • • This is what happens when you dethrone papal authority
• • • Protestants look positive on the Reformation
• • • • • • We have to deal with the negative sides of the separation
• • • • • • Deals with figures that does both good and horrific things
• This is a deeply complex question

Question 20

Should we use the term Reformation or highlighting the Reformations in plural?

Answer 20

• • • Singular because it is more common language
• • • Most serious study is plural reformations as actually correct
• • • • • • There are ideas that span across the tradition ex. sola scriptura
• • • • • • They don’t all agree how it is understood / applied

We Should of reformations plural is because:
a. Historical context.
- Different people at different places at different times undertaking reformation, which means there will be different manifestations of reformation
- - - Ex. Luther in Saxon is different England vs Calvin in Swiss Genea (2nd Generation Reformer)
- - - Calvin started when Luther finished
- - - Different Events
- - - - - - Rise of the peasants war only impacted in Germanic lands not in Scotland

  b. Hermeneutics. - Even if they agree in the authority of Scripture, they read it differently - - - - - - Luther: Law and Gospel Lens - - - - - - Anabaptist Radicals

Question 21

What does the term Reformation mean?

Answer 21

Reform -
- - - There is a recognition that something is wrong and needs modification
- - - Luther never intended to divide the church
- - - - - - Luther was convinced that the church left him not the other way around

Question 22

The key question of the Reformation

Answer 22

The truly dominant question is: “Who/What is the “true” Church?”

The question is again asked in the Protestant tradition which leads to division among Protestants
1. There must be a false church. What makes a church a false church?
This informs the reform that they want to institute.