THE REFORMED - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

THE REFORMED

The European WorldSlide2

Recap:

Luther’s Reformation conditioned by its context:

Peculiarities of the Holy Roman Empire

Printing Press

Two key principles:

Sola fide

(Faith Alone)

Sola Scriptura

(Scripture Alone)

Huge challenges to the Catholic ChurchSlide3

A ‘GERMAN’ EVENT?Slide4

A SAUSAGE:Slide5

Defined

Swiss Reformation:

1) attitude to the Law of God.

2) context in which it emerged.

What is this about?

Freedom

The ‘right’ of the Church to impose unscriptural rites on the laity.

Uncharitable

Idolatrous

Human invention, not Scripture

OBSCURED the law of God.Slide6

LECTURE STRUCTURE:

The Swiss context

Zwingli

The ‘Image’ problem

‘Lutheranism’ & ‘The Reformed’

War between the Cantons

Bullinger

& beyondSlide7

The swiss

context:Slide8

CONTEXT:

Not a NATIONAL event.

Series of City States – cantons.

Sense of

freedom

opportunity

for Reform to

flourish

reform often threatened the ties which maintained the balance of power between the

cities

Two centuries of weakening the authority of the Church and its

independence:

Bishops courts curtailed

Reigned in clerical independence

‘Traditional’ Catholicism flourishingSlide9

THE SWISS CANTONS:Slide10

CONTEXT CONDITIONS RELIGION:

Civic politics

I

nteraction

of Church and

State

L

ay

involvement

A

ll

hallmarks of the Swiss Reformation which spawned the ‘Reformed’ tradition.Slide11

ZwingliSlide12

ZWINGLI:

Same social level as Luther – both the cleverest sons of the wealthy middling sort.

BUT:

Luther – cloistered monk

Zwingli – parish priest

SO WHAT?

Zwingli

never experienced the detachment from everyday pastoral concerns which had been possible for

Luther

Christianity

embodied in everyday concerns.Slide13

Erasmus & Zwingli shared

the view

that God intended Christianity to be the engine of change and improvement in human society

Strong emphasis on the spirit as the critical relationship between God and humanity

Influence of Erasmus separated Zwingli from Luther

Met Erasmus in Basel & became his admirer.

Erasmus’s influence would be important in the Swiss context

Not a ‘Nation’ – a collection of City

S

tates.

Fiercely independent

Enthusiasm for Humanism

Classical culture & City StatesSlide14

Beginnings:

1518 – priest at the

Grossmünster

in Zurich.

Went beyond his brief – serious of sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (remember, rare to preach) in 1519

.

This ignored the ‘traditional’ liturgical cycle.

Book of Acts

Intensity and piety blossomed into conviction that the Church was in need of reform – set out to convince the city council that this was so 1520/21

.

Ceased to receive papal pension in 1520.

Context ripe for reform:

‘Sausage scandal’ turned into a public event in which issues had to be debated.

City authorities agreed to a series of public disputations on religion in

1523.

Distinct

– German, not

Latin.

Therefore

the city councillors – and by extension the civic community – were engaged in the future of their church

.

Church authorities angered by the novelty – refused to speak.

No ‘official’ defence to slow reform down.

Result: bible only source of authority in religious matters.Slide15

BEYOND LUTHER:

Denied indebted to Luther.

Euan

Cameron: ‘if Zwingli really did develop the distinctively “Reformation” message of salvation by free forgiveness, apprehended through faith, simultaneously but entirely independently of Luther, it was the most

breathtaking

coincidence of the sixteenth century’.

Significant difference:

Especially re: Law and

Gospel.

Luther

– a powerful distinction between the two.

Zwingli – Bible WAS divine law, represented divine will.

FORMS of Reformation

Who had the right to implement reform?

Luther stalled on this question

Hesitancy increased the likelihood of the trouble he hoped to prevent

Karlstadt

– clerical marriage & cleansed images.

Priesthood of All Believers became a mandate for laymen to conduct

reform

Iconoclasm incensed Elector Frederick. Slide16

The ‘image’ problem:Slide17

1523 – Leo Judd:

2nd Commandments made visible representations of the divine a grave sin against the majesty of God

‘you shall not make yourself a graven image, or any likeness [of God]...you shall not bow down to or serve them].

If Bible = Divine Law, the eradication of images was a NECCESSITY.

Ammunition that the Papal Church = Antichrist.

Population began to pull down images.

1523 2

nd

Zurich Disputation re: images.

Also the Mass – was that, too, an idolatrous image?

Result – 1

st

statement of doctrine produced anywhere during the Reformation

Action – banning of images in 1524; the Mass in 1525.

Whole fabric of medieval religion gone – where was purgatory now?

All by power of lay authority – clergy no longer the sole mediators.

THE ‘IMAGE’ PROBLEM:

Luther – a conservative:

Images

should be removed if ‘abused’ i.e. if they were subject to idolatrous and excessive devotions which offended against the majesty of

Christ.

But

, fundamentally, there was nothing wrong with art in the Church

.

Zwingli/Calvin – no representations in a religious setting:

Divine Law

Offends God’s Majesty

Humanity prone to idolatrySlide18

Cleansing the TempleSlide19

Iconoclasm:Slide20

LORD’S SUPPER:

Luther: unclear & conservative.

Denied transubstantiation.

But Christ still ‘present’ in the Host.

Zwingli:

Erasmian

prioritising of the spirit over the flesh:

Luther too literal in taking ‘This is my body, this is my blood’ as REAL flesh/blood.

Christ could not be on the communion table if on right hand of God in heaven

.

Sacrament = an oath:

Sacramentum

:

origins in the Roman army, a soldier’s oath.

Swiss – regular swearing of oaths was FOUNDATION of society based on independence and sense of local and civic loyalty.

An oath, an expression of the believer’s faith.

Remember what Christ had done for the community & express thanks.Slide21

Baptism:

Also an oath.

Luther had insisted on the importance of faith to the Christian in the process of salvation.

Every example of faith in the New Testament involved a profession of faith

.

BUT: only possible for adults – not infants or children

I

mplications

for the nature of civil

society:

C4th – Christian Church allied with the Roman Empire following the conversion of Constantine

M

onopoly

religion in the Empire.

All

members of society

were

members of the

Church:

That membership sealed in baptism

.

Luther – infants MUST be baptised for

social stability..

Zwingli, no, an

OATH:

welcomed

children into the Lord’s family – not a magical washing away of sin

.

Symbols,

not rites.

Radicals

would not go that far.

Defined the notion of the ‘Magisterial Reformation’ – those Reformers who would work with the magistrate – i.e. ‘the state’ in promoting reformSlide22

Crucial shift from medieval Catholicism:

Eucharist was the city meeting in love; baptism was the community welcoming – no sense of separation between Church and Zurich.

Sacrament altered from LMC - no longer something which God did for mankind, rather something which mankind did for God.

Zurich was to a purified, Godly city, living according to the Law.Slide23

‘L

utheranism’ & ‘The reformed’Slide24

‘LUTHERANISM’ & ‘THE REFORMED’:

Fuller Reformation than Luther.

By compelling infant baptism, the first Reformation to become rigid & orthodox:

To move beyond questioning & anarchy on 1521-25 into something concrete.

Humanism pivotal here:

Learning lead to a virtuous commonwealth

Faith lead to ‘disciplined’ living.

Conflict with one another.

Keen to point out that THEIR understanding is correct.

Years c.1530 were marked by moves to distinction between different groups of Protestants

.

Hinder the early Reformation as a political entity:

AND its power as a political challenge to emperor Charles V.Slide25

Philip of

Hesse

try to unite Luther and Zwingli.

To build on the momentum gained at the 1529 Diet of Speyer.

Summoned a discussion at Marburg (his family castle).

Problem: the Eucharist

Luther has already branded Zwingli a ‘fanatic’ on the issue.

Luther has a hissy fit

Zwingli is moved to the point of angry tears.

Results were two-fold:

1) shaped and defined ‘Lutheran’ doctrine (14 key ‘articles’ drawn up to unify reformers in cities all over Germany) which the Princes supported.

2) defined – as a form of counter-reaction – another form of Protestantism which saw Luther as the problem, not the solution.

Marburg 1529

Zwingli: ‘

You

were that one Hercules who dealt with any trouble that arose anywhere....You would have cleansed the Augustan stable, if you had the images removed, if you had not taught that the body of Christ was supposed to be eaten in

the

bread

’.

Protestantism was now fractured, & the ‘Reformed’ tradition was born.Slide26

The ‘Reformed’:

Homogeneity easily overstated:

Especially on the issue of Church structure & discipline.

Basle – more plural, spiritualists and ‘radicals’ present.

Berne &

Graubunden

– magistrates not have the same amount of authority to support Reform.

BUT did form an alliance.

Short-lived. Slide27

Context is all again:

IF THIS REFORMATION WAS MADE BY THE CITY STATE CONTEXT IN WHICH IT EMERGED, IT WAS SCUPPERED BY IT TOO.Slide28

Wars between the cantonsSlide29

WAR BETWEEN THE CANTONS:

1520s – increasing disquiet over the presence of Reform:

Issues:

Evangelism

L

oyalty

to the old

Church

E

xacerbated

existing political

fault-lines

Catholic Bishop keen to re-establish control over Zurich.

1529 Zwingli brought together in the Christian Civic

Union

Aggressive intentions:

Intended

to pull reluctant areas into

reform

Encroach on the territories of the Catholic Cantons.

Summer of 1529 war between Christian Civic Union and Catholic

cantons:

Zurich gained territories

Peace of

Kappel

-am-

Albis

– each

parish to choose its religious affiliation

.

Voting undercut Catholic elites

Synods – regional units of clerical/lay authority overseeing networks of parishes.

Significant re: Geneva/

P

resbyterians in England

Peace

short-lived:

Battle of

Kappel

in 1531, Zwingli butchered

Ended of Christian Civic Union

And of Zurich as a potential leader of the Reformed.

By 1555 Zurich could only stand and watch as the Catholic cantons ordered Protestant minsters out of their cities.Slide30

BULLINGER & BEYOND:

Heinrich

Bullinger

– Zwingli’s successor

Avoided involvement in politics.

Aimed to unite Protestants across Europe:

Helvetic Convention (1566)

Doctrinal syntheses.

Sermons collections.

Covenant

theology:

Essential to Protestant identity (chosen people).

Moral obligation – to continue to obey HIS law

.

Discipline & behaviour.