Studies in the Reformation (3 Vols.)

The Reformation: Roots and Ramifications

• Heiko A. Oberman
• 256 pages | 11 Nov 2004

In this wide-ranging volume, Heiko A. Oberman traces threads of continuity flowing to and from the Reformation. Many of his most important studies appear here in English for the first time.

Professor Oberman explores “experiential” mysticism; the tradition of humility; the “battle on two fronts” waged by the Wittenburg circle against Pierias and Eck; Luther’s medieval and apocalyptical conception of reformatio and its purpose; the pre-history of “confessionalization” in the Confession of Augsburg and its “Confutation” by Luther’s Roman opponents; Zwingli’s plans for a Godly alliance in the southern Germanic ecumene and the destructive tensions between Zwingli and Luther. In the final chapter he describes a model of three long-term “Reformations” that can also be seen as revolutions; the Conciliar Reformation, the City reformation and the Calvinist Reformation of the Refugees.

The often denied and generally misunderstood “continuities” between theological directions of the later Middle Ages, the theological reformation of the early sixteenth century and subsequent developments are constantly illuminated through exacting detail and compelling insights.

Heiko A. Oberman, formerly of Harvard University and the University of Tübingen, is now Regents Professor of History and Director of the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies at the University of Arizona.

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The Rhetoric of the Reformation

• Peter Matheson
• 280 pages | 11 Nov 2004

Peter Matheson has written the first study in English of the Reformation as a literary phenomenon. This book traces the first emergence of a “public opinion” in European history.

Using insights from social history, religion and literature, Professor Matheson explores the connection between the “communal Reformation” and the outpouring of pamphlets in the early 1520s. These pamphlets helped to create a dynamic and subversive network of communication where language and structure were of equal importance.

He also examines the relative strengths of polemical and dialogical approaches in winning adherents, the motivations of the authors, and the expectations of audiences.

Representing two decades of probing into the various components of the Protestant tradition, this volume is hardly recommended for those who are seeking instant theological gratification… This collection, directed to students of history and theology, is a rich mine of theological reflection
— Rodney L. Peterson Trinity Journal

Peter Matheson is Principal of Theological Hall, Melbourne.

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The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage

• B. A. Gerrish
• 448 pages | 11 Nov 2004

In recent years, much of the best historical work on the Reformation has been directed to Luther and his medieval background. It is B. A. Gerrish’s contention, however, that the significance of Protestant ideas cannot be appraised historically if Luther is made the sole point of reference or if the Reformation is treated as something other than a critical moment in a larger historical development to which liberal Protestantism also belongs. Nor, he maintains, can ideas and doctrines be understood in abstraction from the religious experience they express.

The Old Protestantism and the New, therefore, redresses the present imbalance in historical studies of Protestantism by raising questions about the intellectual heritage of the Reformers in the modern world. Gerrish’s approach is shaped by three dominant interests: Luther’s relation to other Reformers, especially Calvin; the relationship between classical and liberal Protestant thought; and the patterns of religious experience behind theological formulas. The originality of the individual chapters, which are written for historians as well as specialists in religious thought, is enhanced by the way in which the book as a whole brings together pivotal thinkers, including Erasmus, Schleiermacher and Barth.

B. A. Gerrish is John Nuveen Professor Emeritus and Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Chicago.

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