Amy Nelson Burnett

The Evolution of the Lutheran Pastors' Manual in the Sixteenth Century

Among the many changes brought about by the Reformation, perhaps one of the most obvious was the new image of the Protestant pastor. No longer was he set apart from his parishioners by the privileges of a separate estate or by the requirement of clerical celibacy. His most important functions were preaching and teaching, rather than the administration of the sacraments and other ecclesiastical ceremonies. Although there were clearly continuities between the duties performed by the late medieval priest and the new Protestant pastor, there was also a significant change in emphasis and in the expectations concerning the pastors duties.

Confirmation and Christian Fellowship: Martin Bucer on Commitment to the Church

During the last years of his ministry in Strasbourg, the Protestant reformer Martin Bucer and his fellow pastors introduced a new procedure for the exercise of church discipline, the voluntary enrollment of their parishioners in “Christian fellowships.” The parish structures created in Strasbourg have been regarded as forerunners of Pietist conventicles ever since the late seventeenth century, when Philip Jakob Spener justified his own Pietist assemblies by publishing a memorandum in which Bucer had defended the “Christian fellowships.” In the twentieth century, Gustav Anrich brought the attempt to establish “Christian fellowships” to the attention of scholars in his publication of an abridged version of Bucers initial proposal. Anrichs student, Werner Bellardi, wrote the standard study of the movements origin, development, and eventual disappearance on the basis of documents preserved in the Strasbourg archives. In their discussions of the movement, both Anrich and Bellardi were led astray by their assumption that Bucer originally intended to form conventicles of believers within the citys official church. In fact, those enrolled in “Christian fellowships” did not begin meeting together until the autumn of 1547, almost a year after Bucer first proposed the enrollment procedure.

From concord to confession: the Wittenberg Concord and the Consensus Tigurinus in historical perspective

The differences between the Wittenberg Concord (1536) and the Consensus Tigurinus (1549) reflect a change in the function of a confession from an earlier, consensus-building model to a later concern with drawing boundaries and establishing confessional identity. The Wittenberg Concord used ambivalent language and strategic silence to define the boundaries of orthodoxy. Its acceptance by the south German churches did not mean either their full acceptance of Luthers position or the Wittenbergers’ adoption of their position. The Swiss refusal to endorse the Wittenberg Concord confirmed Martin Luthers association of Zurich with heresy, and Jean Calvins acceptance of it while in Strasbourg put him within the broad definition of evangelical orthodoxy that it set forth. In contrast, the Consensus Tigurinus contained terminology that made broad agreement with the Lutherans impossible. By moving Geneva out of fellowship with Wittenberg and into fellowship with Zurich, the Consensus Tigurinus created a Reformed Church able to stand against the Lutherans.

Hermeneutics and Exegesis in the Early Eucharistic Controversy

This survey of eucharistic pamphlets reveals the range of issues raised by the contrasting exegesis of two central Scripture texts in the earliest stage of the eucharistic controversy. Influence can be a difficult thing to trace, but in the case of the eucharistic controversy, where arguments previously deemed heretical were expressed in print for the first time, it is possible to discern the emergence of lines of argumentation within each party. Luther and Zwingli both developed their eucharistic theology over time as they articulated positions held before the outbreak of the public debate, worked out the ramifications of those positions, and endorsed ideas first expressed by others. One of the striking features of this early debate is the foundational role played by the exchange between Luther and Karlstadt. The early debate over the Lords Supper reveals the disagreements concerning both hermeneutics and exegesis in the early evangelical movement. Keywords:Eucharistic Controversy; Exegesis; Hermeneutics; Karlstadt; Luther

Martin Bucer. Briefwechsel / Correspondance, vol. X (Juli 1533 – Dezember 1533)

The tenth volume of Martin Bucers correspondence covers the second half of 1533, a relatively calm period of the Strasbourgers life, especially in comparison to the previous year. After a two-mon...

The Reformation in Basel

A Companion to the Swiss Reformation presents the varied form taken by the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland over the course of the sixteenth century, highlighting regional differences as well as consequences for the Swiss Confederation as a whole.

Martin Bucer. Briefwechsel/Correspondance, vol. 9: September 1532-Juni 1533

The ninth volume of Martin Bucers correspondence in the Opera Latina series contains eighty-one letters written between September 1532 and June 1533. This was an eventful period of Bucers life, w...

Academic Heresy, the Reuchlin Affair, and the Control of Theological Discourse in the Early Sixteenth Century

Richard A. Mullers research has highlighted the blending of humanist methodology with Aristotelian philosophy over the later sixteenth century to produce the Protestant orthodoxy that dominated theology faculties through the seventeenth century. The Reuchlin affair would draw their attention to one of the key mechanisms for controlling theological discourse, the process of academic condemnation. The debate that resulted from the condemnation of Reuchlins Augenspiegel fundamentally weakened the procedures used to identify and suppress heresy in an academic context, so that when those measures were employed against Martin Luther, they proved ineffective. An understanding of the traditional method of controlling academic discourse and its distortion by the Reuchlin affair thus illuminates one generally unnoticed aspect of the early humanist-scholastic debate that shaped initial reactions to the charges of heresy leveled against Luthers 95 Theses. Keywords: academic condemnation; Aristotelian philosophy; Martin Luther; Reuchlin affair; Reuchlins Augenspiegel ; theological discourse

Basel and the Wittenberg concord

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Bislang geht die Forschung davon aus, daß es Martin Bucer nicht gelang, im Abendmahlsstreit zwischen Luther und den Schweizern einen Kompromiß zu erzielen. Gänzlich erfolglos war er allerdings nicht. Denn unter der Führung von Oswald Myconius nahm die Baseler Kirche 1536 die Wittenberger Konkordie an. In den beiden darauffolgenden Jahrzehnten vertrat Myconius eine Abendmahlslehre, die sich an Bucers Interpretation der Wittenberger Konkordie orientierte. Myconius’ Abendmahlstheologie stimmt weder mit der späteren lutherischen noch der reformierten Orthodoxie überein. Sie ist vielmehr ein Beispiel für die vermittelnde Theologie, die zwischen den beiden Phasen der Abendmahlskontroverse noch möglich war. Obwohl Myconius’ Nachfolger Simon Sulzer weiterhin versuchte, die Bucersche Interpretation der Wittenberger Konkordie zu vertreten, wurde die vermittelnde Baseler Theologie in der wiederaufflammenden Debatte der 1550er Jahre unhaltbar.

Martin Bucer and the Church Fathers in the Cologne Reformation

Abstract Martin Bucers theology is perhaps the most difficult of all the major reformers to characterize because of its evolving nature. Although there are certainly fundamental features that remained constant through his career, what makes Bucer so unusual and so fascinating is the evolution of his thought as he worked out the implications of those fundamental beliefs and their specific applications over his years of experience as pastor, teacher and church organizer.