Religious Currents and Cross-Currents

Religious Currents and Cross-Currents
Author: Johannes Van Den Berg
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 318
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789004114746

The religious history of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Protestantism was marked by a twofold movement. On the one hand there were attempts to consolidate and, if necessary, to reaffirm the heritage of the Reformation; on the other hand, we meet a growing critical evaluation of the legacy of mainstream orthodox thought, which could lead to a process of gradual renewal and reorientation, but also to forms of more radical and controversial criticism. Conservative as well as critical tendencies can be discerned in the religious landscape on both sides of the North Sea. In spite of differences in the historical framework and spiritual culture, the developments in Great-Britain and on the Continent often present remarkable parallels, and the water of the North Sea was not too deep for creative interaction. This volume contains a number of essays which deal with various aspects of English and Dutch church history and theology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Special attention is given to the problems surrounding the Calvinist doctrine of predestination; to English Puritanism and its impact on the Netherlands; to Jewish-Christian relations and polemics in the seventeenth century; to seventeenth-century millenarianism, in particular in the circle of the Cambridge Platonists; to the attitude of Dutch Reformed theologians to the Church of England; to eighteenth-century English and Dutch orientalist studies and to the development of enlightened ideas in the circles of English and Dutch Protestantism.

Religious Currents and Cross-Currents: Essays on Early Modern Protestantism and the Protestant Enlightenment

Religious Currents and Cross-Currents: Essays on Early Modern Protestantism and the Protestant Enlightenment
Author: Johannes van den Berg
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2021-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004476504

The religious history of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Protestantism was marked by a twofold movement. On the one hand there were attempts to consolidate and, if necessary, to reaffirm the heritage of the Reformation; on the other hand, we meet a growing critical evaluation of the legacy of mainstream orthodox thought, which could lead to a process of gradual renewal and reorientation, but also to forms of more radical and controversial criticism. Conservative as well as critical tendencies can be discerned in the religious landscape on both sides of the North Sea. In spite of differences in the historical framework and spiritual culture, the developments in Great-Britain and on the Continent often present remarkable parallels, and the water of the North Sea was not too deep for creative interaction. This volume contains a number of essays which deal with various aspects of English and Dutch church history and theology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Special attention is given to the problems surrounding the Calvinist doctrine of predestination; to English Puritanism and its impact on the Netherlands; to Jewish-Christian relations and polemics in the seventeenth century; to seventeenth-century millenarianism, in particular in the circle of the Cambridge Platonists; to the attitute of Dutch Reformed theologians to the Church of England, to eighteenth-century English and Dutch orientalist studies and to the development of enlightened ideas in the circles of English and Dutch Protestantism.

Als in Een Spiegel

Als in Een Spiegel
Author: Cornelis Van Der Kooi
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 900413817X

What is meant by knowing God? By sounding the work of John Calvin and Karl Barth as mirrors of reflection and experience, justice is done to the tension between the premodern and postkantian situation and a stimulus is given for a contemporary position.

Peter Martyr Vermigli and the European Reformations: Semper Reformanda

Peter Martyr Vermigli and the European Reformations: Semper Reformanda
Author: Frank A. James
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2021-11-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047405633

This collection of essays on Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562) not only demonstrate his shaping influence on Reformed Protestantism, but also illuminates some of his more important and provocative contributions to the various Reformations in sixteenth-century Europe, both Catholic and Protestant.

The Jesuit Mission to New France

The Jesuit Mission to New France
Author: Takao Abé
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2010-12-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004209654

A new interpretation of the Jesuit mission to New France is here proposed by using, for comparison and contrast, the earlier Jesuit experience in Japan. In order to present revisionist perspectives of the Jesuit missions based on a broader international framework beyond North America, the existing historical paradigms of the Jesuit missionary activity to Amerindians based on the limited regional history of New France are re-examined. The time period of analysis covers one entire century, from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century. The Jesuit evangelists used in this analysis include European, mainly Iberian and French, missionaries. The non-European converts dealt with in this discussion are Japanese and Amerindian peoples. The aspects considered for revisions encompass the interpretations of foreign cultures, the basic evangelistic approach of preaching, winning converts and educating them, organising Christian communities and the non-European practice of the religion. The Christian mission in Japan has proved to be a useful tool for these purposes.

Milton and the Reformation Aesthetics of the Passion

Milton and the Reformation Aesthetics of the Passion
Author: Erin Henriksen
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2009-11-23
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004183663

Scholarship on Milton's view of God the Father and the Son has focused on the author's theological beliefs. For Milton, these are equally artistic questions, and to address them this study considers the precedents in Christian art that provide models for portraying the divine within a reformed context. Milton's revision of the passion tradition in his short poems of 1645 and his later epic poems substitutes a living, obedient and subservient Son in place of late medieval representations of the crucifixion. His alternative passion unfolds through a poetic vocabulary of fragmentation, omission, and restoration, drawing on iconoclasm as an artistic strategy. This study addresses the long-standing question about Milton's avoidance of the crucifixion and contributes to the broader study of his reformed poetics.

Beyond Calvin

Beyond Calvin
Author: John V. Fesko
Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2012-06-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3647570222

The investigation of union with Christ and justification has been dominated by the figure of John Calvin. Calvin's influence, however, has been exaggerated in our own day. Theologians within the Early Modern Reformed tradition contributed to the development of these doctrines and did not view Calvin as the normative theologian of the tradition. John V. Fesko, therefore, goes beyond Calvin and explores union with Christ and justification in the Reformation, Early Orthodox, and High Orthodox periods of the Reformed tradition and covers lesser known but equally important figures such as Juan de Valdes, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Girolamo Zanchi, William Perkins, John Owen, Francis Turretin, and Herman Witsius. The study also covers theologians that either lie outside or transgress the Reformed tradition, such as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Faustus Socinus, Jacob Arminius, and Richard Baxter. By treating this diverse body of figures the study reveals areas of agreement and diversity on these two doctrines. The author demonstrates that among the diverse formulations, all surveyed Reformed theologians accord justification priority over sanctification within the broader rubric of union with Christ. Fesko shows that Reformed theologians affirm both union with Christ and the golden chain of salvation, ideas that moderns find incompatible. In sum, rather than reading an individual theologian isolated from his context, this study provides a contextual reading of union with Christ and justification in the Early Modern Reformed context.

Anglo-American Millennialism, from Milton to the Millerites

Anglo-American Millennialism, from Milton to the Millerites
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2004-05-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047405242

Neither the meliorist political culture of the nascent American republic nor its later drift toward apocalyptically tinged 'fundamentalist' Protestantism and dispensationalism can be explained outside the context of the shared Anglo-American traditions and practices of millennial expectation and apocalyptic angst--whether expressed by early colonists, Milton, Blake, Miller or the Continental Congress. In this chronologically direct and thematically varied volume, five scholars working in three distinct disciplines (Religion, English literature, and History) approach millennialism and apocalypticism in the British and Anglo-American contexts, making remarkable contributions both to the study of religious, literary and political culture in the English-speaking ecumene, and, at least implicitly, to the critique of disciplinary exclusivity. Only in such mixed company does the study of the millennial nexus in English and American religion, culture, literature and politics, from the time of Milton to the time of the Millerites, come into focus. Contributors include: Richard Connors, Andrew Escobedo, Andrew C. Gow, J.I. Little, Stephen A. Marini, Beth Quitslund, and John Howard Smith.

In Pursuit of Purity, Unity, and Liberty

In Pursuit of Purity, Unity, and Liberty
Author: Paul Chang-Ha Lim
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2004-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047405218

This contextualised study illuminates the oft-misunderstood aspects of Richard Baxter's ecclesiology: purity, unity, and liberty. In doing so, it sheds further light on the nature of seventeenth-century English Puritanism, and the quest for the true church and the corresponding conflicts between the Laudians and Puritans.

Spinoza and Biblical Philology in the Dutch Republic, 1660-1710

Spinoza and Biblical Philology in the Dutch Republic, 1660-1710
Author: Jetze Touber
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2018-06-27
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0192527193

Spinoza and Biblical Philology in the Dutch Republic, 1660-1710 investigates the biblical criticism of Spinoza from the perspective of the Dutch Reformed society in which the philosopher lived and worked. It focuses on philological investigation of the Bible: its words, language, and the historical context in which it originated. Jetze Touber expertly charts contested issues of biblical philology in mainstream Dutch Calvinism to determine if Spinoza's work on the Bible had bearing on the Reformed understanding of the way society should handle Scripture. Spinoza has received considerable attention both in and outside academia. His unconventional interpretation of the Old Testament passages has been examined repeatedly during the past decades. So has that of fellow 'radicals' (rationalists, radicals, deists, libertines, and enthusiasts), against the backdrop of a society that is assumed to have been hostile, overwhelmed, static, and uniform. Touber counteracts this perspective and considers how the Dutch Republic used biblical philology and biblical criticism, including that of Spinoza. In doing so, Touber takes into account the highly neglected area of the Dutch Reformed ministry and theology of the Dutch Golden Age. The study concludes that Spinoza--rather than simply pushing biblical scholarship in the direction of modernity--acted in an indirect way upon ongoing debates, shifting trends in those debates, but not always in the same direction, and not always equally profoundly at all times, on all levels.