bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Anglican Church in Maryland: Factors Contributory to the American Revolution
Authors: Rightmyer Nelson
Published: April 2006

The causes of the American Revolution were many and varied; not least among these was the legal position of the Church of England as established by law in Maryland as well as in some of the other colonies. Under this system men were taxed for the support of the Church and the ministry but were denied any part in the appointment of ministers or relief from priests who failed to fulfill their office to the satisfaction of the taxed. At least some of the cases of supposed neglect of duty may be considered from the standpoint of the legal aspects of the case entirely apart from the character of the individuals involved.
The Kulturkampf and Historical Positivism
Authors: Lougee Robert W.
Published: April 2006

The crisis in the relations of the church and state in Prussia in the seventies, the so-called Kulturkampf, became acute with the passage of the May Laws in 1873. These laws climaxed a series of measures which had curtailed clerical freedom of speech (Kanzelparagraph), abolished the Catholic Section of the Ministry of Worship, suppressed the Jesuits, and limited ecclesiastical influence over the schools (Schulaufsichtsgesetz). The primary objective of the May Laws, according to the Minister of Worship (Kultusminister), Adalbert Falk, was “to secure the indispensable rights of the state while rejecting interference in purely ecclesiastical affairs.”
Laissez-Faire or Government Control: A Problem for John Wesley
Authors: Kingdon Robert M.
Published: April 2006

Many students of John Wesley have examined his economic ideas;2few have appreciated their range. At least three sources molded the economic thought of the founder of Methodism. Only one of them, the Christian ethical tradition, has been studied with sufficient care. It was, to be sure, the first and most prominent source. But it was followed, first by Wesley's reaction to certain acute social problems which forced themselves on his attention during the 1770's, then by the thought of one of the most prominent economists of that day, the Rev. Josiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester. These later stimuli led Wesley to consider a problem which disturbed many of his contemporaries, the problem of the extent to which a government should be allowed to control commerce and industry. His thinking on this problem is important, not because of its sophistication, but because of the tremendous influence Wesley exerted on public opinion, through his uncommonly effective preaching, organizing, and writing.3
Paulus Albarus of Muslim Cordova
Authors: Cabaniss Allen
Published: April 2006

In the year of the Incarnation 839, there occurred an event which alarmed the inhabitants of Frankland: a royal chaplain named Bodo, nobly born and a deacon in Holy Orders, under singularly dramatic circumstances abandoned the Christian faith for Judaism, changed his name to Eleazar, took a Jewish wife, and went to live in Saracenic Spain. The incident is remarkable for three reasons. First, it shows the vitality of Jewish proselytism in the ninth-century Western world. Secondly, it had some effect on the relations between the Frankish state and the Spanish Muslim government.
Comenian Pansophic Principles
Authors: Spinka Matthew
Published: April 2006

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) is best known to the world as the pioneer of modern educational theories and methods. More particularly is he remembered as the author of a series of elementary Latin textbooks for which many generations of schoolboys in the bygone days have called him blessed. But although he has richly deserved the praise he has received for his pedagogical reforms, that contribution by no means exhausts his astonishingly many-sided accomplishments. For he was the author of almost two hundred treatises (some of them rather forbiddingly bulky tomes, not all so far published), dealing with scientific, linguistic, pedagogical, philosophical, political, literary, and above all religious and theological subjects. He was likewise a fervent enthusiast for religious and political peace during one of the most disturbed periods of European history—the era of the Thirty Years' War. And above all, he was a convinced believer in pansophy—the principle of unification of all scientific, philosophical, political, and religious knowledge into one all-embracing, harmonious world-view. Previously, the term pansophy was used by Peter Laurenberg (1585- 1639) for an encyclopaedic compend of universal knowledge. Comenius gave it a deeper connotation, that of correlating all knowledge by means of an unifying principle. Thus he endeavored to produce an encyclopaedic, unified system of education which would fuse into one whole all knowledge, ethics, and religion, and by having all people educated in this system, would ultimately secure universal peace. His pansophy is, therefore, the dominant principle of almost everything he wrote, pervading it either explicitly or implicitly. Surprisingly enough, by reason of the recent discovery of Comenius' long lost pansophic corpus, we hope soon to learn more about this important aspect of his work than we have known hitherto.
The Significance of the Word of God for Calvin
Authors: McNeill John T.
Published: April 2006

In the Reformation the phrase “The Word of God” was mighty and prevailed. It was pronounced with assurance and heard with acceptance. To use it was to invoke in one's behalf a divine utterance of incontestible authority, that was documented of old in the canonical scriptures but now freshly reverenced and understood after long centuries of disregard. The Reformation was, or at any rate aimed to be, a reform of the visible church by applying to it the superior authority of the Word of God, so that the Word may be said to be the panoply of the Reformation, its all-sufficient armor and resource. This appears from Luther's early writings through Calvin's whole work, and that of Protestant writers to a much later era, and is a familiar note in our day.
Puritan Political Thought and the “Cases of Conscience”
Authors: Mosse George L.
Published: April 2006

Looking back over the stormy times of Revolution and Civil War, Thomas Hobbes came to the conclusion that it was superior force which had been decisive. The sword rather than the heavens had passed judgment upon the people of the Lord. The holy zeal of the early Puritans had run its course; the crusade was ended. Had Thomas Hobbes looked across the Atlantic he would have seen another “Holy Experiment” in decline. The second half of the Seventeenth century saw a debacle of Puritanism of such dimension that not even their most purposeful enemies of an earlier date would have had cause to complain. One recent historian has even called the Restoration of Church and King a “Laudian triumph.” Yet for all this, the Revolution took place and triumphed, if only for a time. In evaluating the political ideas which the Puritans held before and even during their rise to power, subsequent events have too often been taken into account. Puritanism led to Revolution; thus doctrine of resistance to authority must be stressed. The movement failed to hold on to power largely due to the Utopianism of its proponents. This also must be explained. The first view has often led to stress upon a straight line of Puritan thought from Christopher Goodman to John Milton. The second contention based itself on the literal application of Scripture which Puritans were sometimes apt to make. It was their urge “to build Jerusalem on England's green and pleasant strand” which led them into all sorts of follies. We are still inclined to think of the Puritan in sombre dress, his intellectual equipment symbolized by the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other.
The Politics of English Dissent, 1832–1848
Authors: Cowherd R. G.
Published: April 2006

During the two decades after the passage of the great Reform Bill, the protestant Dissenters exerted a large influence in English politics. They were the staunch advocates of both liberal and humanitarian reforms. They first desired to abolish slavery. After that they wished to expand the areas of religious liberty to achieve a better social status for both themselves and the Irish Catholics. They strove diligently for a national system of religious education, comprehensive enough to include all the sects. Inasmuch as free trade appeared to them to be corollary of religious liberty and in keeping with their humanitarian sentiments, they joined enthusiastically in the crusade against the Corn Laws. Though they did not achieve all their aims, they did much to transform the Whigs into a Liberal party more representative of the middle classes, and to move the whole nation along the road from aristocracy to democracy.
The Tragedy of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II): An Interpretation
Authors: Ferguson Wallace K. , Rowe John Gordon
Published: April 2006

Since the publication of Voigt's classic volumes on Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini a century ago, scholarly interest in the celebrated pontiff of the mid-fifteenth century has grown, not withered, with the years. While the wealth of material contained in Aeneas's writings may in part explain this continuing interest, to a greater degree it is Aeneas himself who has fascinated historians. Yet for all the attention lavished upon him, there has been little agreement in the interpretation of Aeneas's personality and historical significance. This is not surprising. Since the days of Burckhardt, the fifteenth century in Italy has elicited different interpretations, and it is only natural that this diversity be reflected in the treatment of one who was, as all admit, the mirror of the age. Besides, it must be acknowledged that his life is so enigmatic in so many ways that agreement over its final meaning is probably impossible.
Recent Interpretations of Anabaptism
Authors: Friedmann Robert
Published: April 2006

When in the process of historical research the step is taken from a mere collecting of facts to a meaningful interpretation of these facts, we may speak of the maturity of this historical research. If that is true in general history, it is even more significant in the field of church history where ideas and spiritual principles dominate the scene. But the difficulties in this area are even more conspicuous than elsewhere. A perfectly objective church historiography is almost impossible due to the inevitable bias of the writer, his sympathies and his restricted ability to appreciate phenomena in widely different fields. In fact, no historiography can do without a set of categories and concepts of a specific nature, and the choice of these is definitely the work of the particular research person and his preferences.
Foucault, Louvois, and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
Authors: Bernard L. L.
Published: April 2006

In assaying responsibility for the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the crescendo of persecution which preceded it, historians have shown rather noteworthy indecisiveness. It would seem that almost every member of Louis XIV's inner circle and every possible combination of individuals within that select group have been stigmatized at one time or another by some memoirist or historian for his part in the events of 1685. Louvois, Le Tellier, Châteauneuf, Harlay, Seignelay, Fr. La Chaise, Mme. de Maintenon, and others have had their reputations alternately blackened and whitewashed, or restored to a fairly satisfactory shade of gray. The Grand Monarch himself has been portrayed both as the innocent victim of unscrupulous and misleading advisers and as the archfanatic in an entourage of fanatics.
Persecution of the Huguenots in the 18th Century
Authors: McCloy Shelby T.
Published: April 2006

In 1685 the government of Louis XIV revoked the vestiges of the Edict of Nantes, after having made various encroachments on it since the 1630's when Richelieu nullified the military provisions. And thus France, which under Henry IV in the late sixteenth century had gone farther toward legal toleration than the other states of Europe, lapsed into the ranks of those intolerant. The Edict had never been popular with a large element of the French people, notably the group which had fought under the Guises in the Wars of Religion. The clergy in particular urged its repeal. Louis XIII and Louis XIV under the influence of his Jesuit advisors, Pères Le Tellier and La Chaise, and of his second wife, Madame de Maintenon, a zealous ex-Protestant, revoked the Edict completely.
The Passing of the Church
Authors: Nibley Hugh
Published: April 2006

A Somber Theme:—Ever since Eusebius sought with dedicated zeal to prove the survival of the Church by blazing a trail back to the Apostles, the program of church history has been the same: “To give a clear and comprehensive, scientifically established view of the development of the visible institution of salvation founded by Christ.” To describe it—not to question it. By its very definition church history requires unquestioning acceptance of the basic proposition that the Church did survive. One may write endlessly about The Infant Church, l'Eglise naissante, die Pflanzung der Kirche, etc., but one may not ask why the early Christians themselves described their Church not as a lusty infant but as an old and failing woman; one may trace the triumphant spread of The Unquenchable Light through storm and shadow, but one may not ask why Jesus himself insisted that the Light was to be taken away. Church history seems to be resolved never to raise the fundamental question of survival as the only way of avoiding a disastrous answer, and the normal reaction to the question—did the Church remain on earth?—has not been serious inquiry in a richly documented field, but shocked recoil from the edge of an abyss into which few can look without a shudder.
Comment on the Essay of Professor Clebsch History, Bushnell, and Lincoln
Authors: Ahlstrom Sydney E.
Published: April 2006

During the 1960 convention of the American Historical Association a session on historical reviewing subjected the noncommittal or picayune irrelevance of these professional offerings to their due measure of censure and derision. Despite the justice of extending such judgments to the genteel and congratulatory “comments” and “critiques” ordinarily given at our conventions, I shall not attempt at any demolition of Professor Clebsch's scholarship or conclusions. This is not because my critical faculties are paralyzed but due to genuine satisfaction with what he has done and gratitude for the glimpse here given of his more extensive research. No more fitting centennial observance of the Civil War could be imagined than a sober examination of the meaning of this, our great national tragedy. Having no desire to manufacture disagreements or magnify quibbles, I can preserve some of the appearances of debate only by urging that the scope of his findings be extended at certain points. To this end I undertake the strangely impossible task of making the point of his essay both broader and sharper.
Objectives and Achievements of The Liturgical Movement in The Roman Catholic Church Since World War II
Authors: Koenker Ernest B.
Published: April 2006

When one mentions the “liturgy” or “Liturgical Movement” a variety of strange or confusing pictures is likely to be raised in a person's mind: the hearer may have passed through some unfortunate experience and thereby acquired what he calls “anti-liturgical inclinations;” he may have visions of vestments, gestures, or ceremonies which he finds difficult to follow; he may even be ready to dismiss everything liturgical as exhibiting “Catholicizing tendencies.”
King John of England: An Illustration of the Medieval Practice of Charity
Authors: Young Charles R.
Published: April 2006

King John of England has one of the most unsavory reputations of any medieval English king, but it is some vindication of the principle “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones” to find that he made charitable contributions amounting to substantial sums. Moreover, in spite of the harsh criticism that has sometimes been directed toward the medieval practice of charity, there is something stimulating about a system which caused even such a man as John to pay regular alms from his revenues throughout England.
The Ideology of Oliver Cromwell
Authors: Drake George
Published: April 2006

The problem of Oliver Cromwell's religious beliefs and the sincerity of those beliefs is one that has bedevilled historians from the seventeenth century to the present. Ultimately it is not one that will yield a concrete solution, for it is far too dependent on subjective considerations. Nevertheless, the impossibility of its definite resolution does not permit historians the expediency of dispensing with an enquiry into Cromwell's religion; for it is certainly the most striking characteristic of the man as he is revealed in his writings and speeches.
Revolution and Religious Liberty: The Conservation of the Theocratic Concept in Virginia
Authors: Hood Fred J.
Published: April 2006

In recent years American historians have seriously challenged the early twentieth-century liberal interpretation of the American Revolution. It now seems probable that the revolution was “an elitist movement with only a modest amount of explicit striving among either the people at large or any of the dominant political factions for a wider diffusion of political power.” One of the persistent themes of the liberal view has been that of the striving for and winning of religious liberty. This topic easily lent itself to the epic of the “common man” combining against the aristocracy to force substantial social and political changes.Even the terms “dissenters” and “establishment” carried the emotional impact inherent in the interpretation and made the whole process seem self-evident. Just as the reexamination of the American Revolution as a whole has made possible a more plausible understanding of the events in America after the revolution, a reassessment of the events leading to disestablishment and the legal adoption of a policy of religious liberty could lead to a fresh understanding of the role of religion in American national life.
Common School, Common Religion? A Case Study in Church-State Relations, Cincinnati, 1869–70
Authors: Michaelsen Robert
Published: April 2006

The history of the public school affords one significant means of discerning the pattern of evolving church-state relations in the United States. This is true because there have been frequent overlappings of the institutions of the church and the state in the public schools. However, the story deals with more than institutional encounter. The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States does not refer to church and state; it speaks of “an establishment of religion“ and of “the free exercise thereof.” In recent years it has become quite clear that under this language the public schools are on shaky grounds constitutionally whenever they engage in any activity of a religious nature. But the public school has always been looked to as the primary institution for instilling what is common and public in national life and thought—the shared memories and aspirations, loyalties and beliefs. Hence the public school has been confronted with the difficult responsibility of passing on the common traditions and even instilling “a common faith” (Dewey), while not engaging in “an establishment of religion.”
Anti-Christian Polemics in Seventeenth Century China
Authors: Lancashire Douglas
Published: April 2006

In several articles and books published in recent years attempts have been made to examine the anti-Christian tradition in China and to seek for the causes of the failure of Christianity to substitute itself for the religious and philosophical traditions of the Chinese people. Reflective analyses of missionary policy and strategy, as well as of the Chinesemilieuwithin which missionaries carried on their activities, have been made by theologians, historians and sociologists in order to determine what “went wrong.”
An Irish-American Journalist and Catholicism: Patrick Ford of the Irish World
Authors: Rodechko James P.
Published: April 2006

During the late nineteenth century, Irish immigrants were not always sympathetic toward the Catholic Church. Observers indicated that large numbers of Irish-Americans were dissatisfied with Catholic attitudes toward American conditions and might consequently sever their ties with the church. At times, priests, members of the hierarchy, and the American Catholic press showed particular concern that Patrick Ford, the influential and controversial editor of the New York Irish World, encouraged immigrants to question their traditional place in the church. In the late 1870s, Ford's opinions of American socio-economic and political affairs directly challenged those of Catholic spokesmen.
Hugh of St. Victor and the Ark of Noah: A New Look
Authors: Zinn Grover
Published: April 2006

The treatise De area Noe morali by Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) contains a short but significant piece of literal exegesis concerning Noah's Ark. This seemingly slight example of Victorine exegesis is of considerable intrinsic merit for in it Hugh ventured to criticize an accepted exegetical “authority” and offered in its place his own interpretation of the passage. It is the purpose of this article to examine Hugh's criticism of the traditional exegesis and his positive contributions through the correlation of reason, auctoritas, and a fresh examination of the literal sense of Genesis VI.
The Abbot and the Doctors: Scholastic Reactions to the Radical Eschatology of Joachim of Fiore
Authors: McGinn Bernard
Published: April 2006

“Why are these fools awaiting the end of the world?” This remark, said to have been made by Pope Boniface VIII during the perusal of a Joachite treatise, typifies what must have been the reaction of many thirteenth century popes to the eschatological groups of the time. With some notable exceptions, the popes of the century were men from a single mold: lawyers, administrators, dynasty builders—men trained to expand the interests of the best organized and most efficient government in Europe, the church. Though it would be a serious error to see the concerns of these men as purely political, for religion and politics were mingled in the thirteenth century in inextricable fashion, there was a practicality and a sense of reality to the lawyer popes that shines through Boniface's impatient outburst at the visionary mutterings and interminable squabbles of those who thought the end was near.
Praxis: “America must Listen”
Authors: McCutcheon William J.
Published: April 2006

Commenting upon Neville Chamberlain's announcement of war to the British people on September 3, 1939, Frederick Lewis Allen remarked, “With these sentences, spoken so quietly thousands of miles away, an era ended for America and another began.” Sufficient time has now elapsed for historians to analyze and appraise the events which informed and circumscribed that past era. Two articles have recently appeared in this journal substantiating such a conclusion. In his article dealing with “Continental Influence on American Christian Thought Since World War I,” Professor Sydney Ahlstrom forcefully argued that the most significant points of contact between the altered theological situation on the Continent and America's post-liberal thinking were four in number and scope: 1) a new movement in biblical exegesis and interpretation; 2) the German social movement; 3) the Swedish movement in theology; and 4) the “crisis theology” or dialectical school associated with Karl Barth. Without taking issue here with Ahlstrom as to the correctness or adequacy of his delineation of these times as “post-liberal” (in itself a somewhat unattached and ambiguous term), I would like to record those same points of contact within and from the perspective of American Methodism.
Social Forces in the German Reformation
Authors: Grimm Harold J.
Published: April 2006

The period of the Reformation touches the interests of most people in one way or another and consequently receives attention from historians with a great variety of interests, running the gamut from dialectic materialism to theology. Much of this concern stems from our preoccupation with the strong revival of religion subsequent to the first World War and evinced in neo-scholasticism, Barthian evangelicalism, neo-orthodoxy, the Luther renaissance, the ecumenical movement, and similar manifestations, on the one hand, and our great concern with the widespread social tensions and revolutions which are springing up in all parts of the world and are keeping us poised on the brink of another world war.
The Interchurch World Movement and the Great Steel Strike of 1919–1920
Authors: Ernst Eldon G.
Published: April 2006

Among the disruptive events of 1919 and 1920 during which the American people burst from their single-minded military drive into a confusion of renewed interests finally to settle into the peculiar character and mood of the twenties, was the Interchurch World Movement of North America. Expressing the American optimism and enthusiasm at the conclusion of World War I and then the disillusionment and retreat which soon followed, the Interchurch World Movement marked a significant transition in American Protestant history. The Interchurch World Movement's financial collapse and its abortive attempt to maintain the churches’ wartime crusading zeal contributed to the general decline of Protestant creativity, influence, and prestige in America during the 1920s.
John Woolman's Approach to Social Action— as Exemplified in Relation to Slavery
Authors: Moulton Phillips
Published: April 2006

More than any other single influence, it was Woolman's clear and steady voice that woke the conscience of the Quakers and ultimately, through them, of the Western world to the moral evil of slavery.
Christology and Exegesis in the Cappadocians
Authors: Winslow Donald F.
Published: April 2006

When, after their decade of studies in Athens, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus returned to Cappadocia, one of the first things they did was to compile a collection of the exegetical works of Origen and publish them under the title Philokalia. This fact might lead the historian to conclude that Basil and Gregory subscribed to, or at least were in sympathy with, the allegorical method of exegesis. But such is hardly the case, for in their later writings (and this holds true for the third member of the Cappadocians, the younger Gregory of Nyssa) there can be discovered no one prevailing approach to the interpretation of scripture. Allegory is indeed used, and often, but so too we find typological and anagogical exegesis, as well as frequent examples of naive literalism. That the Bible formed the basis of theological reflection for the Cappadocians can in no way be denied, but that they held to any particular style or styles of exegesis cannot be demonstrated.
St. Thomas Aquinas in Historical Perspective: The Modern Period
Authors: Colish Marcia L.
Published: April 2006

Witnessing as it did the seven hundredth anniversary of the death of St. Thomas Aquinas, the year 1974 was marked by multiple conferences and publications dedicated to his life, his thought and his place in medieval intellectual history. The recently completed septicentennial also provides a useful vantage point from which to examine the current historiographical assessment of St. Thomas' influence in modern intellectual history. Aquinas scholars devoted little systematic attention to this topic in 1974, a fact which, in itself, reflects a striking and persistent imbalance within the field of Aquinas studies. It is a commonplace to state that St. Thomas enjoyed an authority in the period since the thirteenth century far exceeding any he achieved in his own day. Yet, a consideration of the historiography of Thomas' place in modern thought reveals the fact that the Angelic Doctor's substantial post-medieval reputation has not generally been matched by an equally plentiful measure of historical understanding. For two generations, historians of the Middle Ages have made great strides toward the systematic recovery of the historical Thomas Aquinas. But the task of uncovering the historical significance of his thought within the changing contexts of post-medieval culture still awaits its Grabmanns and Chenus.
The Relationship between Science and Religion in Britain, 1830–1870
Authors: Ruse Michael
Published: April 2006

It is almost a truism that when Charles Darwin'sOrigin of Speciesfirst appeared, in 1859, many people found its evolutionism to be unacceptable for religious reasons. They thought the theory of natural selection working by random variations conflicted with long-held and cherished beliefs about God and His relationship with man and the world. But although the general fact of the religious opposition to Darwinism is well-known, precise questions about the nature of the opposition—if indeed there was total opposition—have yet to be answered fully The present article seeks to go some way towards the asking and answering of such questions, although the discussion will keep to relatively sophisticated thinkers who took both science and religion seriously, and who were therefore concerned to achieve some harmony between the two. It will not deal with those who cared only for either science or religion.
Sunday Schools and Changing Evangelical Views of Children in the 1820s
Authors: Boylan Anne M.
Published: April 2006

During the early nineteenth century Americans developed a new consciousness of children and of childhood as a stage of life. While it may be hyperbolic to term this event the “discovery of the child,” it seems clear that nineteenth-century Americans saw children and adolescents in very different ways than did their ancestors. Adults began to recognize the characteristics of childhood which separated children from themselves and to perceive that psychological and emotional changes accompanied the physical experience of puberty. Thus the nineteenth century saw the beginning of attempts to understand children on their own terms and to elaborate a theory of that stage later termed “adolescence.”
Secular or Sectarian History? A Critique of No Man Knows My History
Authors: Hill Marvin S.
Published: April 2006

When Herbert O. Brayer reviewedNo Man Knows My History, Fawn Brodie's biography of the Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, in theMississippi Valley Historical Reviewin 1946, his words were prophetic. “This book”, he said, “which purports to be a ‘definitive biography’ will probably be one of the most highly praised and highly condemned historical works of 1945.” The book has indeed been highly praised and highly condemned, with plaudits coming generously from professionals in the field of American history. It quickly became the standard life of Joseph Smith and the most influential book on early Mormonism, a status it has retained. Evidence of the respect it still commands is provided by Sidney Ahlstrom of Yale University who recently termed it a “sympathetic and insightful account” which is “unequaled” as a life of the Mormon prophet.
Racial Attituds in Wartime: The Protestant Churches During the Second World War
Authors: Orser W. Edward
Published: April 2006

Delegates to a special meeting of the Federal Council of Churches in Columbus Ohio, in March, 1946, adopted a report which committed the Council to work for a non-segregated church in a non-segregated society and called upon its constituent communions to do likewise. The statement represented a new departure, but its timing—coming at the end of the Second World War—was also significant. Although the position of the Federal Council was in advance of any positain yet taken by the major protestant denominations individually, it indicated that American protestantism was beginng to be challenged in a new way by the question of race. In the yers immediately prior to 1939 the denominations paid little attention to race as a social issue: by 1945 it was frequently the subject of denominational pronouncements and editorials in the church press. This contrast in the reponse of the churches suggests that the years of the Second World War had been crucial in placing new pressures upon white attitudes toward black Americans.
Georg Major as Controversialist: Polemics in the Late Reformation
Authors: Kolb Robert
Published: April 2006

Georg Major was a reluctant controversialist. External events and his own theological concerns forced him into a controversy which he loathed but to which he gave his name, the “Majoristic controversy.” That controversy forced Luther's heirs to refine their definition of the relationship between faith and works, but it also wracked and plagued Georg Major's life for a quarter of a century in spite of his efforts to work his way out of the dispute.
Moses Mather (Old Calvinist) and the Evolution of Edwardseanism
Authors: Noll Mark A.
Published: April 2006

In the fall of 1811, President Timothy Dwight of Yale College, traveling once again into the countryside in pursuit of New England's natural history, stopped briefly at Middlesex, Connecticut. Only five years before Dwight's visit, this village, known today as Darien, had suffered the loss of its longtime Congregational minister, Moses Mather. After commenting on the village, Dwight went on to say something about its late pastor:

Dr. Mather was a man distinguished for learning and piety, a strong understanding, and a most exemplary life. His natural temper was grave and unbending. His candor was that of the Gospel.… Dr. Mather died September 21, 1806, venerated by all who knew him, in the eighty-eighth year of his age.
“Pro Peccatis Patrum Puniri”: A Moral and Legal Problem of the Inquisition
Authors: Pennington Kenneth
Published: April 2006

The first letter in Pope Innocent III's register of his second year was Vergentis in senium, a letter which he sent to the city of Viterbo in March, 1199. The decretal reflected Innocent's growing concern with heresy in the papal states and established new and more stringent penalties for those who rejected or subverted the Christian faith. In Vergentis, perhaps following the Roman lawyer Placentinus, Innocent imposed the traditional spiritual punishment of excommunication on heretics, equated heresy with lese majesty, and applied to convicted heretics the sanctions for treason in Roman law: complete confiscation of goods, even disinheriting innocent children. The punishment was fitting, Innocent observed, because a heretic injured celestial majesty, a crime far more heinous than any offense committed against temporal authority. Since the heretics in Viterbo continued to demand his attention later in his pontificate, we do not know how effective Innocent's decree was, but Vergentis did establish a precedent for papal action throughout Christendom. In order to root out all vestiges of heresy, Innocent extended the provisions of the decretal from the heretics themselves to their “supporters, defenders, and harborers.” The decretal marked the first firm step of his increasingly grim policy to use all of the resources of the church to extirpate heresy from Christian lands. The step from Viterbo to the Albigensian crusade was a short one. And, since heresy was an ecclesiastical crime, both laymen and clerics who were accused of heresy had their cases heard in ecclesiastical courts, giving lawyers another item to add to the list of cases in which the pope could exercise jurisdiction in the secular world.
Pre-Christian Gnosticism in the Nag Hammadi Texts?
Authors: Yamauchi Edwin M.
Published: April 2006

One of the most important and controversial issues in Gnostic studies is the age of Gnosticism. Was it a post-Christian heresy? Was it roughly contemporaneous with the rise of Christianity? Was it Christianity's twin, as someone has called it? Or was it a fully developed movement preceding Christianity and influencing it? Ingeneral, German New Testament scholars, under the influence of Rudolf Bultmann, have assumed a pre-Christian Gnosticism as the basis for their interpretation of the New Testament. Other scholars such as Charles H. Dodd and Robert M. Grant have questioned their heavy reliance upon late Mandaean texts to support such a conviction. With the recovery of the Coptic Gnostic texts from Nag Hammadi a number of scholars, most notably James Robinson, have hailed these new materials as evidence for Bultmann's hypothesis:
From Holiness to Healing: The Faith Cure in America 1872–1892
Authors: Cunningham Raymond J.
Published: April 2006

One of the more interesting features of American religious life in the years following the Civil War was the renascence of perfectionist or “holiness” teachings among evangelical Protestants. Declaring that the scriptural Baptism of the Holy Spirit brought entire sanctification, perfectionists held that all Christians should seek and expect a “second blessing”, beyond the conversion experience, which would bring complete and instantaneous purification from sin and perfect holiness toward God. Beyond the “new birth” of justification, there lay the “higher life” of sanctification. These doctrines were first promulgated in the United States by the evangelist Charles Finney in the 1830s. Finney drew upon the theology of John Wesley and the early Methodists whose doctrine of “perfect love” paralleled his own religious experience. In the antebellum decades a proliferation of perfectionist devotional literature and a wave of perfectionist-oriented revivals bore witness to the appeal of the doctrine. Although Methodists were in the vanguard, the movement was thoroughly interdenominational. In this period perfectionism also had strong social connotations, and many social reforms of the era drew freely upon perfectionist impulses.
Lyman Beecher's Long Road to Conservative Abolitionism
Authors: Thompson J. Earl
Published: April 2006

Lyman Beecher's approach to antislavery reform has received remarkably little attention from historians. No thorough study has been made of his attitudes toward chattel slavery, the methods he advanced to ameliorate or eradicate it, and his feelings toward free blacks and their future in America. The interpretations that have been proposed have been deficient in design, superficial in exposition and misleading in conclusion.
The Social Gospel and the Failure of Racial Reform, 1877–1898
Authors: Luker Ralph E.
Published: April 2006

While American Society was coming apart in the 1960s, an impressive array of historians rallied to condemn what Rayford Logan called “the astigmatism of the social gospel” in race relations. Preoccupied by the ills of urban-industrial disorder, they suggested, the prophets of post-Reconstruction social Christianity either ignored or betrayed the Negro and left his fortunes in the hands of a hostile white South. The indictment of the social gospel on this count hinged upon the racism of Josiah Strong, the faithlessness of Lyman Abbott, and the complicity in silence of Washington Gladden, Walter Rauschenbusch, and the others.
William Perkins's “A Reformed Catholic”: A Psycho-Cultural Interpretation
Authors: Herbert James C.
Published: April 2006

It is remarkable that study of William Perkins (1558–1602) has had so little impact on conventional interpretations of English history. Of the work of this great pastoral theologian, William Haller observed that “no books… were more often to be found upon the shelves of succeeding generations of preachers, and the name of no preacher recurs more often in later Puritan literature.” In an article which commented upon Perkins's undeserved obscurity, Louis Wright suggested that in Perkins's thought Max Weber would have found “pertinent illustrations” for the famous argument about Protestantism and capitalism. Historical scholarship generally appears to have followed Wright's suggestion, mining Perkins's works for “pertinent illustrations” of established outlooks. Perkins has been pressed into service in economic and political versions of Haller's neo-Foxian epic which describes religious forces gathering relentlessly toward a mid-seventeenth-century climax. Other historians, encountering Perkins's insistent defense of the established church, have portrayed him as an Elizabethan moderate of varying degrees of sincerity and importance. Ultimately, these unproductive readings rest on an assumed typology of Anglicanism and Puritanism which casts Puritan theology as sectarian and disruptive while reserving the culturally integrative role of a churchly religion for Anglicanism. However faithfully this typology represents the outcome of seventeenth-century English history, it may have impeded fruitful analysis of Perkins's thought.
English and Dutch Sabbatarianism and the Development of Puritan Social Theology (1600–1660)
Authors: Sprunger Keith L.
Published: April 2006

Strict observance of the Lord's Day became a distinctive feature of English and Scottish society in the seventeenth century. The Sabbatarian principle touched not only British religion but many social and economic practices as well. At some times, English Puritan settlers in the Netherlands attempted to introduce their brand of Sabbatarianism into Dutch society but with disappointing results. The success or failure of Sabbatarianism often has been identified with a certain stage of capitalistic economic development. This article examines the centrality of teachings about the Sabbath in Puritan social theology and, secondarily, the Sabbatarian-capitalism connection by comparing events in England and Holland from approximately 1600 to 1660. A comparison of Puritan Sabbatarians at home in England and abroad in Holland reveals anew the extreme difficulty of transporting values from one society, where they fit, into another location.
Papalist Reaction to the Council of Constance: Juan de Torquemada to the Present
Authors: Izbicki Thomas M.
Published: April 2006

The Council of Constance has presented a problem to propapal historians since its close. On the one hand, the council ended the Great Western Schism, establishing an accepted line of popes while condemning doctrinal errors attributed to John Wyclille and John Hus. On the other hand, its decrees,llaec Santa and Freqnens, issued to safeguard the work of reunification and that of reform, later were used to justify the attempt of the Council of Basel to enact an anticurial reform of the church.Haec Santawas exalted to the level of a dogmatic definition in order to justify the Council of Basel's deposition of Eugenius IV, the second undoubted pope in the line begun at Constance.
Regionalism and Religion in America
Authors: Brauer Jerald C.
Published: April 2006

The purpose of this paper is to continue and perhaps to further discussion of the basic assumptions that long have undergirded the various general interpretative survey histories of Christianity and religion in America.1 Attention to particular problems, issues, and regions and the struggle with new methods have made available fresh insights into the nature of religious history in the American context. These insights raise the question of whether another general survey history of Christianity or of religion in America can or ought to be written until the profession develops a more adequate interpretive framework built solidly on recent research.
Justin Martyr and the Restoration of Philosophy
Authors: Droge Arthur J.
Published: April 2006

Our knowledge of the life of Justin “the Martyr” depends almost entirely on what he himself tells us, especially in the introduction to theDialogue with Trypho, where he recounts his journey to the true philosophy, Christianity. It appears that he was born in the late first or early second century at Flavia Neapolis in Samaria into a Greek-speaking family. Although he refers to himself in one passage as a Samaritan by race (Dial. 120.6), this background seems unlikely, since there is no evidence that he was familiar with any Samaritan religious traditions. Rather, it appears that his ancestors were originally Greek or Roman colonists who settled in Flavia Neapolis after its establishment by Vespasian in A.D. 72. In any case, he certainly was not Jewish, for he did not encounter the Jewish scriptures until later in life.
Of Thorns and Roses: The Logic of Belief in Gregory Nazianzen
Authors: Norris Frederick W.
Published: April 2006

In the twentieth century some significant secondary literature concerning Gregory Nazianzen has emphasized either his attacks on philosophy or the absence in his works of a rationale for the relationship between philosophy and theology. At times these apparent weaknesses are explained as integral to his rhetorical education and interests, almost as if all rhetoricians are the opposite of philosophers. Rosemary Ruether'sGregory of Nazianzus: Rhetor and Philosopher, the most influential monograph to deal specifically with these questions in the last few years, does depict Nazianzen's rationale for relating philosophy and theology. Yet she concludes that “we would be wrong if we were to suppose that Gregory either acknowledges or is aware of any dependence of Christianity on those [philosophical] traditions,” even though he loved and studied them. For her the Cappadocian stands in the line of Christian apologists who saw both Greek philosophy and religion as blasphemous.
War and Peace in the Puritan Tradition
Authors: George Timothy
Published: April 2006

Between 1640 and 1660 the English nation experienced a political, social, and religious upheaval which in retrospect can only be called a revolution. So profound was this crisis, epitomized by the public execution of a duly anointed king, that not even the restoration of the Stuart monarchy could reverse the long-term effects of those turbulent decades. Historians long have noted the religious purpose and zeal which moved so many of the king's subjects, egged on by their ministers, to resort to insurrection against their lawful sovereign. For example, Stephen Marshall, parliamentary preacher, spoke to the House of Commons in February 1642 on the impending civil war: “If this work be to avenge God's church against Babylon, he is a blessed man that takes and dashes the little ones against the stone.” In August of the same year William Carter told the Commons that God sometimes commanded brother to fight against brother: “God hath put into your hands, a work of his, the greatest that hath been on foot for God in these islands for many hundred years … God hath called you to the purging of the land of those locusts and caterpillers.” Two years later, the war against the king still unconcluded, Edmund Staunton declared: “There is a fire of civill war kindled in England, still burning in the bowels of it … but two bloods will quench it, the blood of Christ and that of his desperate enemies.” Such statements, while prompted by the revolutionary stirrings of the 1640s, must be set in the larger context of Puritan theories of war and peace. From the 1570s when Puritanism emerged as a distinct party of reform within the Church of England until 1641 when the Long Parliament convened, English Puritans developed a considerable body of literature dealing with the nature, purpose, and limits of warfare. The purpose of this article is to examine in this literature what might be called a Puritan theology, or perhaps better, spirituality of warfare in prerevolutionary England.
Heinrich Heppe: A Melanchthonian Liberal in the Nineteenth-Century German Reformed Church
Authors: Zuck Lowell H.
Published: April 2006

In 1978 the first American publication of Heinrich Heppe's classic textbook of 1861 on Reformed dogmatics appeared. That occasion provides an opportunity to give an account of Heppe's place in nineteenth-century German Protestantism. An examination of Heppe's life and writings shows that, like August Vilmar, his Lutheran antagonist on the Marburg University faculty, Heppe was a confessionalist, defending the old Protestant church against modern rationalistic enemies. Unlike Vilmar, however, Heppe's confessionalism was inclusive rather than exclusive.