Pittsburgh Theological Monograph - New Series General Editor - Dikran Y. Hadidian

Western Christians in the late Middle Ages were accustomed to living in a hierarchical Church - albeit one that had huge local differences and many divisions. Half a millennium later, that seeming unity has been shattered into tens of thousands of Christian denominations, each with its distinctive beliefs and structure. In The Wheat and the Tares, Andrew Chibi explores the era of the Reformation, showing how that unity was shattered in a few years. Chibi brings out the divisions that were simmering deep beneath the surface in the era before Luther posted his 95 theses attacking the sale of indulgences on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, sparking momentous changes throughout Europe. The widespread recognition of the need for reform is seen through the eyes of Erasmus, the greatest scholar of the age. Exploring the writings of the main reformers about the Church, Chibi brings out the diverse ecclesiological ideas. Jesus's parable of the Wheat and the Tares for Zwingli and other reformers offered an image, as the reformers sought to rediscover the purity of the Church as God's gift.

This excellent resource presents short, meaningful selections from major Reformed theologians of Europe, the British Isles, and America during the classical period, 1519-1799. Arranged thematically according to major doctrines, it identifies significant theological points that illustrate both the distinctiveness and diversity of Reformed thought.

By the end of the fifteenth century, the Eucharist had come to encompass theology, liturgy, art, architecture, and music. In the sixteenth century, each of these dimensions was questioned, challenged, rethought, as western European Christians divided over their central act of worship. This volume offers an introduction to early modern thinking on the Eucharist—as theology, as Christology, as a moment of human and divine communion, as that which the faithful do, as taking place, and as visible and audible. The scholars gathered in this volume speak from a range of disciplines—liturgics, history, history of art, history of theology, philosophy, musicology, and literary theory. The volume thus also brings different methods and approaches, as well as confessional orientations to a consideration of the Eucharist in the Reformation. Contributors include: Gary Macy, Volker Leppin, Carrie Euler, Nicholas Thompson, Nicholas Wolterstorff, John D. Rempel, James F. Turrell, Robert J. Daly, Isabelle Brian, Thomas Schattauer, Raymond A. Mentzer, Michele Zelinsky Hanson, Jaime Lara, Andrew Spicer, Achim Timmermann, Birgit Ulrike Münch, Andreas Gormans, Alexander J. Fisher, Regina M. Schwartz, and Christopher Wild.

The topic of certitude is much debated today. On one side, commentators such as Charles Krauthammer urge us to achieve "moral clarity." On the other, those like George Will contend that the greatest present threat to civilization is an excess of certitude. To address this uncomfortable debate, Susan Schreiner turns to the intellectuals of early modern Europe, a period when thought was still fluid and had not yet been reified into the form of rationality demanded by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Schreiner argues that Europe in the sixteenth century was preoccupied with concerns similar to ours; both the desire for certainty -- especially religious certainty -- and warnings against certainty permeated the earlier era. Digging beneath overt theological and philosophical problems, she tackles the underlying fears of the period as she addresses questions of salvation, authority, the rise of skepticism, the outbreak of religious violence, the discernment of spirits, and the ambiguous relationship between appearance and reality. In her examination of the history of theological polemics and debates (as well as other genres), Schreiner sheds light on the repeated evaluation of certainty and the recurring fear of deception. Among the texts she draws on are Montaigne's Essays, the mystical writings of Teresa of Avila, the works of Reformation fathers William of Occam, Luther, Thomas Muntzer, and Thomas More; and the dramas of Shakespeare. The result is not a book about theology, but rather about the way in which the concern with certitude determined the theology, polemics and literature of an age.