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The future of the church does not look bright in North America and Europe. This is documented by many recent surveys. The church is riddled with scandals, be it sexual abuse or financial misappropriation. This led to a loss of trust which is very difficult to regain. We also live in an aging society in which younger people have been brought up with a consumer attitude which does not stop at the church doors. Moreover, we live in a secular society in which individualism runs contrary to the communal aspect of the church. While religiosity has not vanished, the Christian faith is perceived by many as an "old time religion" whose tenets have lost their luster. Yet we should not give up on the church too quickly. The church has something to offer which the world needs and which it cannot secure by itself. This uniqueness of the church shows in the pronouncement of law and gospel and in the sacraments. The church is also instrumental for our self-understanding by serving as guardian of the past, as the heart of the present, and as a reminder of a meaningful future. In conclusion some directions are given toward a viable church.
From the closing decades of the eighteenth century, German theology has been a major intellectual force within modern western thought, closely connected to important developments in idealism, romanticism, historicism, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. Despite its influential legacy, however, no recent attempts have sought to offer an overview of its history and development. Oxford History of Modern German Theology, Vol. I: 1781-1848, the first of a three-volume series, provides the most comprehensive multi-authored overview of German theology from the period from 1781-1848. Kaplan and Vander Schel cover categories frequently omitted from earlier overviews of the time period, such as the place...
On 13 June 1525, Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora, a former nun, in a private ceremony officiated by city preacher Johann Bugenhagen. Whilst Luther was not the first former monk or Reformer to marry, his marriage immediately became one of the iconic episodes of the Protestant Reformation. From that point on, the marital status of clergy would be a pivotal dividing line between the Catholic and Protestant churches. Tackling the early stages of this divide, this book provides a fresh assessment of clerical marriage in the first half of the sixteenth century, when the debates were undecided and the intellectual and institutional situation remained fluid and changeable. It investigates t...
In the three essays included in this new edition of The Fruit of Our Lips, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy made his clearest and most concise presentation of his understanding of the Christian tradition and the creative power of the spoken word proclaimed at the beginning of Genesis, and hence at the heart of the Jewish and the Christian faiths. Two of the three essays have never appeared in English before. All three root in and contribute to the author's ongoing dialogue with his friend Franz Rosenzweig and show the mutuality of the two men's thinking, for all their differences. Reading the material in the appendices in tandem with the three main essays provides a unique overview of the interpenetration of Rosenstock-Huessy's work on faith and his work on speech.
"Whoever needs an act of faith to elucidate an event that can be explained by reason is a fool, and unworthy of reasonable thought." This line, spoken by the notorious 18th-century libertine Giacomo Casanova, illustrates a deeply entrenched perception of religion, as prevalent today as it was hundreds of years ago. It is the sentiment behind the narrative that Catholic beliefs were incompatible with the Enlightenment ideals. Catholics, many claim, are superstitious and traditional, opposed to democracy and gender equality, and hostile to science. It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that Casanova himself was a Catholic. In The Catholic Enlightenment, Ulrich L. Lehner points to such figu...
The social and cultural challenges posed by the increasing threat to creation (climate change, destruction of biodiversity, etc.) are the starting point for new philosophical-ethical and theological reflections on the relationship between God, human beings and the world, as presented in this volume. God's creative impulse, which transforms anew, is at work in the actions of human beings and challenges us, in view of the threat to the "house of life" earth, to go new ways that make a common and good life possible. Creation and transformation are interrelated; an ecological theology of creation and practice of sustainability to be developed in the European context is to be embedded in the horizon of a global, liberating theology. Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Margit Eckholt, professor of dogmatics and fundamental theology at the Institute of Catholic Theology / University of Osnabrück, president of the European Society for Catholic Theology
Niels Hemmingsen (1513-1600) is one of the most influential Danish theologians in history. As a professor at the University of Copenhagen, Hemmingsen played an important role in moulding Danish society according to his understanding of Lutheranism during the second half of the sixteenth century. Drawing on sociology of knowledge, cultural memory, and confessional culture, Mattias Skat Sommer examines Hemmingsen's works and life in political and theological contexts. By studying Hemmingsen's role in forming a discourse of social interaction, the author argues that Hemmingsen was the leading agent in shaping post-Reformation Danish confessionalization. In doing so, Sommer emphasises the fluid boundaries of the Danish Reformation and adjusts two prominent theoretical frameworks discussed in contemporary research on early modern Europe, namely those of confessionalization and confessional culture.
The Catholic Church is under great pressure to change. The list of debated topics is long: women’s rights, same-sex partnerships, the involvement of the laity, etc. Michael Seewald makes it clear: the Church could be more flexible than it is currently. Discussions about reform move within a narrow dogmatic framework, but this is only one of many possibilities. Here Michael Seewald shows how it is possible for the Catholic Church to undergo fundamental reform while at the same time remaining itself.
This volume is the fruit of a "theological laboratory" initiated by the then-Centre for Child Protection and the Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC) called "Doing Theology in the Face of Sexual Abuse." Eventually those from the laboratory engaged those meeting for two years via "virtual tables," due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the end, twenty-six scholars offer insights on the crisis itself and pathways for moving forward. There is a certain urgency about this volume, which is not often reflected in works of theology or theological ethics. The sheer scale of the undermining of human dignity through sexual abuse that has occurred within the church asks questions of these disciplines and scholars within them: To what extent have we been blind to these issues? Why have our efforts in theology and theological ethics been so slow to wrestle with this crisis? How are theology and theological ethics implicated in the crisis? And how might the disciplines be constructive in responding? In this volume, we encounter a diverse range of scholars from all around the world wrestling with these and other questions.
The Republic of Venice was the only Catholic territory in which an Anabaptist community formed in the 16th century. The history of Venetian Anabaptism, hitherto little known in Reformation Studies, is the focus of this book. Using a large quantity of archival material and rare printed sources Riccarda Suitner reconstructs the lives of the Republic's Anabaptists and the inquisitorial repression they suffered, and analyses the doctrinal specificities of the Radical Reformation in this area. This story represents a fundamental stage in the relations between German, central-European and Italian culture in the early modern period. Events in Venice are presented within a broader comparative framework, paying particular attention to the German states, Switzerland, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Transylvania, Moravia, Tyrol, and the Kingdom of Naples. It will emerge that its Venetian history cannot be ignored if we are to gain a true understanding of the European Reformation.