CH621 - The Continental Reformation

  • 0 Standard Tuition Fee
  • 4
    Credit Points
  • 0.125 EFT 
  • 8
    AQF level
  • church historyUnit Discipline

Corequisites

4cps CH5xx

Exclusions

CH624.

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will

A. Know and understand

1. The major phases and developments in  the Continental Reformation identified in the unit content.

2. The life and thought of selected key figures in the history of the Continental Reformation.

3. Interpretations of the Continental Reformation.

B. Be able to

1. Discuss the impact of the social, political, religious and cultural context on Christian beliefs, practices and movements.

2. Evaluate historical evidence using primary and secondary sources.

3. Present an Analytical evidence-based argument or narrative.

4. Discuss interpretations of the Continental Reformation.

C. Be in a position to

1. Inform their theological studies with perspectives from the Continental Reformation.

2. Apply perspectives from the Continental Reformation to current issues in ministry and the contemporary world.

3. Evaluate interpretations of the Continental Reformation.

Content

Section A

Candidates study six of the following topics:

1. Medieval religious and intellectual questioning of the Church; the Avignon Captivity; the Conciliar Movement.

2. Political, ecclesiastical, economic and social setting of the Reformation and the Renaissance.

3. Martin Luther and the Reformation in Germany.

 4. Huldrych Zwingli and the Swiss Reformation.

5. The Radical Reformation and the Anabaptists.

6. John Calvin and the Reformation in Geneva.

7. The Counter Reformation; the Jesuits, the Council of Trent.

8  Calvinism in France and the Netherlands.

Section B

9. The study and analysis of TWO special texts related to the topic areas above, chosen from the following:

M Luther, Three Treatises of 1520

J Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bk IV

H Bullinger, Of the Holy Catholic Church

B Thompson, Liturgies of the Western Church, chs III–VII

Set Readings

As well as the works listed in General Recommended Readings, the following provide more detailed treatments of sections of this unit.

Primary Documents

Dixon, C. S. (ed.), The German Reformation: The Essential Readings (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999).

Lindberg, C., The European Reformations Sourcebook (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).

McNeill, J. T. (ed.), Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 Vols; London: SCM, 1961).

Naphy, W. G., Documents of the Continental Reformation (New York: Macmillan, 1996).

Selections from works of Luther, Zwingli, Bullinger in Library of Christian Classics.

Secondary References

Birely, R., The Re-fashioning of Catholicism, 1450-1700: a Reassessment of the Counter Reformation (New York: Macmillan, St Martin’s, 1999).

Cottret, B., Calvin: A Biography (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000).

Dixon, C. S., The Reformation in Germany (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).

Evans, G. R., John Wyclif: Myth and Reality (Oxford: Lion, 2005).

Gabler, U., Huldrych Zwingli: His Life and Work (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1986).

Gritsch, E. W., A History of Lutheranism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002).

Hillerbrand, H. J, The Division of Christendom: Christianity in the Sixteenth Century (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007).

Jenkins, A. K., Biblical Scholarship and the Church: a Sixteenth-Century Crisis of Authority (Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2007).

Kittelson, J. M., Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and his Career (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003).

Matheson, P., The Imaginative World of the Reformation (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001).

Mullett, M., The Catholic Reformation (New York: Routledge, 1999).

Nestingen, J. A., Martin Luther: A Life (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 2003).

Nohl, F., Luther: Biography of a Reformer (St Louis, MO: Concordia, 2003).

Pearse, M., The Great Restoration: the Religious Radicals of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998).

Reymond, R. L., John Calvin: His Life and Influence (Fearn: Christian Focus, 2004).

Scribner, R. W. and C. S. Dixon, The German Reformation (2nd ed.; Basingstoke: Macmillan 2003).

Wengert, T. J. (ed.), Harvesting Martin Luther’s Reflections on theology, ethics, and the church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004).

Wright, A. D., the Counter-Reformation: Catholic Europe and the Non-Christian World (Aldershot, Hants/Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005).