by Matthew Gaetano The appreciation of the celebration of Christmas varied among the early Reformers. Bruce Gordon touches on some of that history here, though see R. Scott Clark’s account here as well. Martin Luther’s love of the festival was particularly strong, as can be seen in his Christmastide sermons of 1544. Within a couple… Read More “All things laugh”: Martin Luther and Christmas
by Matthew Gaetano TRF has discussed the Protestant engagement with ancient philosophy and scholasticism quite a number of times (here, here, here, here). But we have not directly discussed Martin Luther’s engagement with the question of philosophy and its study by Christians. Luther’s famous contempt for Aristotle, especially early in his reforming career, is on… Read More “The Apostle Philosophizes”: Luther and the Critique of Metaphysics in 1515-1516
We are pleased to host a guest essay by Korey D. Maas (DPhil, University of Oxford), who is an associate professor of history at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. The original Protestants can be excluded from the natural law tradition only by means of misreading or misrepresentation. Context—and charity—should prevent both. In recent years a number of… Read More Luther and Natural Law: Cutting Gordon’s Knots
by Trevor Anderson I. The ‘Protestant Paradigm’ In this post I examine what historian Andrew Gow calls the “Protestant Paradigm” (PP) – a narrative regarding the status of popular piety and vernacular Scripture in the pre-Reformation era. Andrew Gow studied Reformation history under Heiko Oberman and is currently a professor of religious studies at the University… Read More Vernacular Scripture in the Reformation Era: Re-examining the Narrative
A review of Franz Posset’s Unser Martin: Martin Luther aus der Sicht katholischer Sympathisanten (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2015). by Eric J. Demeuse Historians of the Reformation understandably and perhaps necessarily delineate figures into confessional camps, even before those camps were themselves delineated. As early as 1519, John Eck is a Catholic (because he opposed Luther),… Read More Roman Catholic Lutherans?
by Joshua C. Benjamins Tuomo Mannermaa and his followers in the New Finnish School have made a forceful case that Luther’s doctrine of justification has at its heart the idea of actual participation in the divine life through union with Christ. Mannermaa also argues that Lutheranism subsequent to Luther lost the Reformer’s emphasis on the… Read More The Rejuvenation of Theosis in Lutheran Scholasticism
by Matthew Gaetano A friend of the Regensburg Forum, Darryl Hart, has undertaken a dialogue with me about the authority of the Council of Trent, among other things. This will certainly not be the last time that we address this topic here. But I thought that I could offer some more substantial evidence for my claims… Read More Trent’s Authority and Its Interpretation of Luther
by Eric J. DeMeuse In his now classic study of Martin Luther, Heiko Oberman writes that ‘Luther does not stand for the alternatives “truth not unity,” “conscience not institution,” “individual not community”.’ This sentence sums up, I think, Oberman’s project rather succinctly; namely, to overturn an old, ingrained ‘Here I stand’ narrative of radical discontinuity… Read More Does Unity Matter? Luther on the Unity of the Church
A Review of Tuomo Mannermaa’s Two Kinds of Love (Fortress Press, 2010) by Eric DeMeuse In Two Kinds of Love, Tuomo Mannermaa once again treads a new path in Luther studies which will likely bear many after him. Kirsi I. Stjerna’s lucid translation has finally brought this older work to English audiences, giving new life… Read More Aquinas, Luther, and LoveA Review of Tuomo Mannermaa’s Two Kinds of Love (Fortress Press, 2010)