History & Hope

Ethiopian Christianity a Forerunner of Protestantism

David D. Daniels, professor of world Christianity at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, writes, "In a sense, the Church of Ethiopia was the “'dream' for Luther, a true forerunner of Protestantism."

More excerpts:

"But Luther esteemed the Church of Ethiopia because he thought Ethiopia was the first nation in history to convert to Christianity.

"Located far beyond the orbit of the Roman Catholic Church, this first Christian kingdom, according to Luther, served as an older, wiser, black sibling to the white Christian kingdoms of Europe....

How Protestants Use the Bible and How They Think They Use It

The renowned reformation scholar Alec Ryrie charted “polemical” and “inspirational” uses of Scripture through the five centuries of Protestant history in the first of two Keough Lectures delivered at Washington Adventist University, Takoma Park, Maryland, on February 19-20.

Taking their stand on the supreme, even sole, authority of the Bible, Protestants have deployed it as “a proof text,” a weapon wielded “with precise literalism” in contending for truth against error. While acknowledging the scholarship on fundamentalism as a distinctly modern, reactionary phenomenon, Ryrie suggested an element of continuity with the Reformation, describing fundamentalism’s “inerrancy” doctrine as “a means of turbocharging Luther’s original position.”

How We Learned That Slavery is Wrong

Reformation scholar Alec Ryrie argues in this lecture that not only did Protestants make a major impact on the institution of slavery but that the slavery controversy changed Protestantism. In particular, he illuminates the complex question of how Protestants have used the Bible in addressing moral challenges. Its the first of four guest lectures to be given at Gresham College in connection with his work on a history of Protestantism from Luther to the present to by published by Harper Collins / Penguin USA in 2017.

The Papal Plan for "Reconciled Diversity"

"Somewhere in Pope Francis’s office is a document that could alter the course of Christian history. It declares an end to hostilities between Catholics and Evangelicals and says the two traditions are now 'united in mission because we are declaring the same Gospel.' The Holy Father is thinking of signing the text in 2017, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, alongside Evangelical leaders representing roughly one in four Christians in the world today."

So writes Luke Coppen in a recent report published by the Catholic Herald entitled "The Pope's great Evangelical Gamble."

Pope Francis and Baptist televangelist James Robison "high five" at the pontiff's meeting with evangelical leaders in 2014.

Tony Palmer, the Pope’s designated “Apostolic Representative for Christian Unity”, presented the document called the “Declaration of Faith in Unity for Mission” to Pope Francis when he met with

Father of the English Bible

William Tyndale's achievement summarized by Robert Pogue Harrison in a recent article reviewing several books marking the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible:

If there was a genius behind the King James Bible, it was the English priest William Tyndale....

Before Tyndale was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1536, he managed to translate the entire New Testament and roughly half of the Christian Bible’s Hebrew scriptures into English. There had been earlier English versions of the Christian Bible, yet Tyndale—an extraordinary linguist with a remarkable literary ear—was the first to base his translations on the Greek and Hebrew texts. His translation of the Greek New Testament, which had been made available by Erasmus in 1516, became the first edition of its kind in English. Printed in Worms in 1526, it was condemned that same year by Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall and banned by royal proclamation in 1530. Nevertheless, it had considerable diffusion and popularity in England....

Top 10 Questions About the Inquisition

Cullen Murphy answers to Top 10 questions he gets in talking about his new book, God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World, the first being, in short, What was the Inquisition?

It was a means used by the Church to enforce orthodoxy. Inquisitors would go out into troublesome regions, question people intensively, conduct tribunals and mete out punishments, sometimes harsh ones, like burning at the stake. Depending on the time and place, the targets were heretics, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, rationalists and sometimes people who held superstitious beliefs. The Inquisition everyone has heard of is the Spanish Inquisition, but there was more than one Inquisition, and the earliest, at the start of the 13th century, wasn't in Spain. And although Jews were sometimes the focus of that first Inquisition, as they primarily were in Spain, the more urgent targets were Christian heretics in the south of France and northern Italy.  more at Huffington Post

How Luther Went Viral

"It is a familiar-sounding tale: after decades of simmering discontent a new form of media gives opponents of an authoritarian regime a way to express their views, register their solidarity and co-ordinate their actions. The protesters’ message spreads virally through social networks, making it impossible to suppress and highlighting the extent of public support for revolution. The combination of improved publishing technology and social networks is a catalyst for social change where previous efforts had failed.

"That’s what happened in the Arab spring. It’s also what happened during the Reformation, nearly 500 years ago, when Martin Luther and his allies took the new media of their day—pamphlets, ballads and woodcuts—and circulated them through social networks to promote their message of religious reform...."  more from The Economist, Dec 17th 2011

To See History Doxologically: History and Holiness in John Howard Yoder's Ecclesiology

by J. Alexander Sider (William B. Eerdmans, 2011).

“Not just another book on John Howard Yoder, Sider’s To See H istory Doxologically is unique. Putting Yoder into conversation with figures as diverse as Cyprian, Oliver O’Donovan, Ernst Troeltsch, Gillian Rose, and Rowan Williams, Sider develops an account of holiness that helps us see that holiness is difficult — but in that difficulty is salvation.” — Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University

“A masterful book. . . . Sider makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Yoder’s thought and an even more significant contribution to the discipline of seeing the church always in its concrete particularity — a discipline rooted in praise of the Lamb that was slain and issuing in practices of repentance, forgiveness, memory, and dialogical vulnerability.” — Jeremy M. Bergen, Conrad Grebel University College

The New Calvinism

Five hundred years after his birth, John Calvin is proving to be an "irresistible Reformer."  J. Todd Billings analyzes Calvin's comeback in America in the Christian Century (1 Dec. 2009):

According to a Time magazine article earlier this year, the "New Calvinism" is one of the "ten ideas changing the world right now" (March 23).  The New Calvinists cited include megachurch pastor and author John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis; R. Albert Mohler Jr., head of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, who has remade the seminary according to a Calvinist agenda; and raw, hip-hop pastor-author Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle.  The New Calvinism is found in

Lutherans Apologize for Persecution of Anabaptists

The governing body of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) has approved a statement that prepares for a significant action of reconciliation with churches of the Mennonite and Anabaptist families.

The statement expresses “deep regret and sorrow” for the legacy of violent persecution of Anabaptists and especially for the ways in which Lutheran reformers supported this persecution with theological arguments....

Source: Ekklesia, 29 Oct 2009