Faith and the Academy: Vol 2, Issue 1

A PUBLICATION OF THE CENTER FOR APOLOGETICS & CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT AT LIBERTY UNIVERSITY

FAITH ACADEMY AND THE

Engaging the Culture with Grace and Truth

RETRIEVING THE

Reformation SOLA SCRIPTURA: IMPLICATIONS FOR CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP AND INTEGRATION Dr. John Woodbridge

“ORDINARY” LABOR AND CHRISTIAN CALLING Dr. Roger Schultz

LOOKING BACKWARD TO MOVE FORWARD Dr. Tyler Scarlett

AN INTERVIEW WITH KEITH GETTY

Volu me 2 • Is s ue 1 Fall 2017

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fall 2017

Joshua D. Chatraw, Executive Editor Benjamin K. Forrest, Managing Editor Joshua Erb, Assistant to the Managing Editor Edward E. Hindson, Editorial Board Gary Isaacs, Editorial Board Elisa Rollins, Editorial Board Gabriel B. Etzel, Editorial Board

Joshua Rice, Creative Director Emilee Ellsworth, Marketing Director Michael Strobel, Marketing Manager Kati Holland, Project Coordinator Dani Heitzman, Graphic Designer

 /LibertyUACE | @ LibertyUACE |  ACE@liberty.edu |  Liberty.edu/ACE

“Retrieving the Reformation,” Faith and the Academy: Engaging Culture with Grace and Truth 2, no. 1 (Fall 2017): A publication of Liberty University Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement

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FINGERPRINTS OF THE REFORMATION

MUSIC AND THE REFORMER

WOMEN AND THE REFORMATION

PROTESTANT-MUSLIM RELATIONS IN REFORMATION EUROPE

Johannes Schroeder

Donna Davis Donald

Joshua D. Chatraw

Benjamin Esswein

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Contents

8 Fingerprints of the Reformation Joshua D. Chatraw, Executive Editor of Faith and the Academy and Executive Director of the Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement, Liberty University

12 Sola Scriptura: Its Implications for Christian Scholarship and Integration John Woodbridge, Research Professor of Church History and the History of Christian Thought, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

16 The Reformation: Looking Backward to Move Forward Tyler Scarlett, Pastor-Teacher, Forest Baptist Church, Forest, Virginia

20 “Ordinary” Labor and Christian Calling: A Gift of the Reformation Roger Schultz, Dean of College of Arts & Sciences and Professor of History, Liberty University

24 Theological Music: An Interview with Keith Getty

31 Women and the Reformation: Sola Scriptura’s Implications for Tradition and Authority Donna Davis Donald, Assistant Professor of History, College of General Studies, Liberty University, Department of History, Liberty University

36 Protestant-Muslim Relations in Reformation Europe: Peace through Scripture more than with “Pikes and Muskets” Benjamin Esswein, Assistant Professor of History, Liberty University

39 The Political Use of the Bible During the Protestant Reformation Gai Ferdon, Associate Professor of Government, Helms School of Government, Liberty University

44 Archaeological Research in the Field: Qumran Cave #12

Keith Getty, Christian Hymnist and Worship Leader

Randall Price, Distinguished Research Professor, Rawlings School of Divinity, Liberty University; Curator, Liberty Biblical Museum

27 Music and the Reformer

Christy Connell, MA in History '17, Liberty University

Johannes Schroeder, Alumnus, Ed.D. LU '16, Bibelseminar Bonn, Germany

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INTERDISCIPLINARY ESSAYS

BOOK REVIEWS

48 Engaging our Christian Heritage in its Broader Cultural Contexts: Interdisciplinary Engagement from History & Church History

58 The Unfinished Reformation

Sam Smith, Department Chair, Director of Graduate Program, Professor of History, Department of History, Liberty University Ken Cleaver, Associate Professor of Church History and Theology, Rawlings School of Divinity, Liberty University

51 Where There Are People, There Too Are Stories: Interdisciplinary Engagement from Literature and Apologetics Marybeth Davis Baggett, Associate Professor of English, Department of English, Liberty University A. Chadwick Thornhill, Chair, Theological Studies, Rawlings School of Divinity, Liberty University

53 Narcissism & the Reflections of “Me�: Interdisciplinary Engagement from Psychology and Youth Ministry Dan Logan, Associate Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, Liberty University Troy Temple, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, Professor of Theology and Family Ministries, Rawlings School of Divinity, Liberty University

Megan Gentleman, Student Fellow, Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement

58 Why the Reformation Still Matters Matthew Mielnicki, Student Fellow, Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement

59 Luther on the Christian Life Jack Carson, Student Fellow, Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement

59 Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers Ben Shaw, Student Fellow, Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement

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Training Champions for Christ since 1971

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Editorial

Joshua D. Chatraw Executive Editor, “Faith and the Academy" Executive Director of the Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement Rawlings School of Divinity, Liberty University

FINGERPRINTS OF THE REFORMATION The Danger of Reducing the Reformation

Several years ago while pastoring, I asked a group of students if they knew who Martin Luther was. A student glibly chimed in, “He’s the reason we get a day off school every January.” He was of course referencing Martin Luther King Jr. and the national holiday we celebrate in King’s honor each year. When I explained that I was referring to the other Martin Luther, I mostly got puzzled looks. My fear is that many Christians' knowledge of the Reformation, even if not as deficient as that of those students, is typically limited to bits and pieces here and there: “Luther posted his Theses on a door somewhere in Europe, John Calvin was that guy who taught predestination, and so on.” In a day when church history is often viewed as simply “that stuff that happened way back when” and therefore seems irrelevant to everyday life, the five-hundred-year anniversary of the Reformation presents an excellent opportunity to look back and retrieve its relevance for today.

Though Academics of course have a much stronger grasp on both the events of the Reformation and significance of those events for today, there can still be a tendency among some to reduce the Reformation to a merely religious or theological event. One of our concerns at the Center for Apologetics and Cultural Engagement is that while we recognize the Reformation was, of course, a profoundly theological event, we see that it was not just a theological event.

It was also a cultural event that should be understood and reflected on at multiple levels. For instance, the Reformation was spurred on by new technologies such as the printing press and cultural developments such as the rediscovery of ancient languages. Moreover, the Reformation profoundly affected the very way Westerners think about aspects of life as fundamental as work, sex, and marriage. Much of the Western world’s “social imaginary”1 — the intuitive practices

and assumptions about life and the world around us — has been so deeply shaped by the Reformation that we simply take it for granted. The fire that was set ablaze in Wittenberg five hundred years ago was motivated and propelled by a variety of theological, historical, and cultural forces and spread in deep and complex ways. The essays in this volume reflect this complex reality, taking a multi-perspectival approach in order to offer abiding lessons for today.

SCRIPTURE PROVIDES US WITH THEOLOGICAL LENSES TO ASSESS MOVEMENTS SUCH AS REFORMATION, BUT THEY AREN’T ROSE-COLORED. In one of the essays which set out to frame the content of this volume, guest contributor John Woodbridge, Research Professor of Church History and the History of Christian Thought at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, applies the Reformation motto of sola scriptura to higher education and reminds us not only of the need for Christians to integrate academic disciplines but also to keep Scripture as the unifying norm that governs them and binds them all together.

In addition to taking one-dimensional approaches to the Reformation, another type of reductionism to avoid is glossing over the shortcomings of the Reformation.

Scripture provides us with theological lenses to assess movements such as Reformation, but they aren’t rosecolored. Historical research has a way of reminding us not only of human achievement but also human failure, and the Reformation is no different. If we, as heirs of Protestantism, neglect to admit that the Reformation and the Reformers had their faults, we will be committing another kind of reductionism in which we re-envision

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our history to consist of only the palatable or convenient aspects of our past. Luther, for example, was both godly — a saint — and anti-semitic2 — a sinner. Unless we profess that the Reformers were imperfect — sometimes distressingly so — and offer biblical correctives when needed, then the gospel that they sought to recover will be contradicted in our practice.

Another problem presented in the aftermath of the Reformation, which is still acutely felt today, was the fragmentation of the church into various denominations and divisions. This disunity is troubling for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is clearly in conflict with Jesus’ prayer that God’s people “may be one” even as God himself is one (John 17:11). In this issue, one of our local Lynchburg pastors, Tyler Scarlett, who is both a Liberty alumni and an adjunct professor of homiletics at Liberty, offers reflections on two recent books that take up the problem of the divisions left in the wake of the Reformation: Peter Leithart’s The End of Protestantism and Kevin Vanhoozer’s Biblical Authority after Babel.

Agreeing with both Vanhoozer and Leithart, Scarlett writes of the potential for retrieving the Reformation and casting a vision for the future which takes into account both the triumphs and limitations of the Reformation: “If Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses made it clear, ‘That’s the way we shouldn’t be going,’ then Leithart and Vanhoozer’s two works are now adding, ‘And here’s the way we should be going.’ These men possess a mutual burden for the church of today to become the church of tomorrow by learning from the church of the past.” It is important to keep in mind that as we study the Reformation, seeking to retrieve it and learn from it, we are not taking a nostalgic look into the past, wishing we could return to some sort of idyllic “good ol’ days.” Retrieving our past is about stepping into the future filled with insight and wisdom.

Retrieving the Reformation for Today Even if we deemed the pre-modern world of the sixteenth century, despite its failures, to be better overall than our current secular context and desired

to return to it, that would only be wishful thinking.

There is no going back. Thus, a call to “retrieve” the Reformation is not a call to go backward to a previous era; it is a call to bring the Reformation forward and incorporate it into our twenty-first century context.

Retrieving the Reformation in this future-oriented way is imperative to holding fast to the faith once for all entrusted to God’s people (Jude 3). As the late British theologian John Webster once observed: Poring over the traditions of Christian practice and reflection is not ‘an impossible return to the past’ but an opportunity to see the present situation of theology for what it is: as a moment in the history of redemption. . . But if the context of theological work is not simply the present moment as some quasi‐absolute constraint but also and more importantly the long past of the Spirit's work, then ‘tradition’ — the intellectual and spiritual culture of the communion of the saints — is indispensable to the operation of theological reason.3 To ignore the work of the Spirit as expressed in the collective wisdom of the Reformation church is to deprive ourselves of the grace God has bestowed upon his people and to leave us anchorless, blown to and fro by the winds of our age and far more likely to repeat past failures. This issue of Faith and the Academy seeks avoid such peril by retrieving the many glorious gains of the Reformation and responsibly applying them to our current context. For example, Roger Schultz, Liberty’s Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, in his essay writes of the important role the Reformation has played in redeeming ordinary work as sacred. At the end of his essay, Schultz models how leaders can retrieve the Reformation by helping students discern their vocation. Yet, it was not just “ordinary” practices that the Reformation shaped; it impacted worship as well. Keith Getty, a leader in the revival movement for the composition of modern hymns, and Johannes Schroeder, a Liberty alumni, living and pastoring in Germany, reminds us of the effect that the Reformation had on liturgy and music. Songs have a way to seep into our minds and, even more importantly, our

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hearts. The Reformers passed down the richness and beauty of their theology through songs, and these two essays implicitly ask us the question: What do the songs we sing say about our theology?

As a part of taking a multi-dimensional approach, the editorial board commissioned articles on three topics that are sometimes neglected in discussions of the Reformation: women, missions, and politics. Donna Davis Donald, an assistant professor of history at Liberty, explores three women associated with the Reformation, seeking to explain the impact sola scriptura has had on the role of women and the degree of authority that is permitted them in society and the church. Another one of our history professors, Benjamin Esswein, explores the relationship between Protestants and Muslims in Reformation Europe and asks what we might learn from the Lutheran reformer, Primus Truber and his German countrymen. Gai Ferdon, associate professor of government, relates how the Reformation and its accompanying emphasis on bible translation impacted views on government and politics.

As has become our standard practice in Faith and the Academy, we have grouped what we call “interdisciplinary essays” together toward the end of this issue. In the spirit of integration, these essays are authored by Liberty professors from different departments who have teamed up to offer a reflection on their particular disciplines, such as history and church history (in the spirit of the Reformation), literature and apologetics, and psychology and youth ministry. Finally, four student fellows from the Center of Apologetics & Cultural Engagement have offered short book reviews on books related to the Reformation. These reviews provide an opportunity for them to come alongside their academic mentors and contribute to the journal by supplying brief overviews of some recent and relevant works.

In real life ­ — history, culture, and theology are intertwined. Thus, the most effective way to understand and explain the events that occur in our world, particularly seminal events such as the Reformation, is to integrate disciplines rather than employing each separately. In this volume, I invite you to re-evaluate and enrich your view of the Reformation by immersing yourself in the complexities of the Reformation provided by the essays in this journal as you join us in celebrating the five-hundred-year anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.

Soli Deo Gloria!

This is a term often used by the philosopher Charles Taylor.

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According to Eric W. Gritsch, Luther was anti-semitic in the theological sense of the term. For a short essay explaining this in more detail, see his article “Was Luther Anti-Semitic?” Christianity Today, accessed June 8, 2017, http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-39/wasluther-anti-semitic.html.

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John Webster, “Ressourcement Theology and Protestantism” in Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology, ed. Gabriel Flynn and Paul D. Murray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 493.

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The Legacy of the Reformation

Sept. 28-29

CELEBR ATING

THE

500th

Anniversary of the

REFORMATION Plenary Speakers: TIMOTHY GEORGE “Luther and the Theological Convictions of the Reformation” Beeson Divinity School

JOHN WOODBRIDGE “The Missional Legacy of the Reformation” Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

CARL TRUEMAN “The Personal, Christian Life of the Reformers” Westminster Theological Seminary

PAIGE PATTERSON “Living and Passing on the Legacy of the Reformation” Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Registration is free. Sign up at

LIBERT Y.EDU/MS/REFORMATION500.

Co-Sponsored by: CENTER for APOLOGETICS & CULTURAL ENGAGEMENT | COLLEGE of ARTS & SCIENCES COLLEGE of GENERAL STUDIES | RAWLINGS SCHOOL of DIVINIT Y SCHOOL of COMMUNICATION & DIGITAL CONTENT | SCHOOL OF MUSIC

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Guest Contributor

John Woodbridge Research Professor of Church History and the History of Christian Thought, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

SOLA SCRIPTURA: IMPLICATIONS FOR CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP AND INTEGRATION The Protestant Reformers Martin Luther (14831546), John Calvin (1509-1564) and their evangelical colleagues taught that Holy Scripture should play a determinative role in any form of education.1 As advocates of sola scriptura, Luther and Calvin firmly believed the Bible inspired by the Holy Spirit reveals divine, fully trust-worthy doctrine and teachings about who God is, who we are and what the world is. Scripture, the central focus of which is Christ, constitutes a norma normans (“the determining norm”). It rules over all human opinions, church traditions, church doctrines, creeds and academic disciplines [“science” or natural philosophy, liberal arts]. Infallible Scripture is not “normed” or shaped by any of these sub-disciplines. Put another way, the Bible reveals reality from God’s perspective. The Lutheran Book of Concord reads: “The Holy Scriptures alone remain the only judge, rule, and standard, according to which, as the only test-stone, all dogmas should and must be discerned and judged, as to whether they be good or evil, right or wrong.” Infallible Scripture is to interpret infallible Scripture.2

Rules of Academia Today Christian academics who engage in scholarly research and writing face a genuine quandary, especially if they want to adhere to this reformational ideal of sola scriptura. They often feel that for them to punch their ticket into the secular Academic world, they must agree to all of its “rules”. Unfortunately, one of the principal “rules” of the secular academic world is to accept the methodological postulate of naturalism. A scholar’s failure to accept this “rule” can mean possibly forfeiting entrance into Academia as an authentic peer scholar.

In 2011, historian Brad S. Gregory of the University of Notre Dame described the hegemonic grip of the use of the secular postulate of methodological naturalism in the Academic life in the West:

Regardless of the academic discipline, knowledge in the Western world today is considered secular by definition. Its assumptions, methods, content, and truth claims are and can only be secular, framed not only by the logical demand of rational coherence, but also by the methodological postulate of naturalism and its epistemological correlate, evidentiary empiricism. Knowledge must be based on evidence, it must make sense, and (aside from purely conceptual abstractions) it can neither assume nor conclude that anything which putatively transcends the universe is real, else it ceases to count as knowledge….3 In the Academy, any scholarship that denies the presuppositions of naturalism is generally dismissed as counterfeit or “tribal” because it does not agree with the prevailing assumptions of the academy’s foundational dogma. Thus, scholarship which cites “causes” or “agencies” (other than naturalistic ones) is relegated to a non-scientific, non-objective designation, and is seen as a lesser form of inquiry and research.

Those Christian academics who dare to cite divine or supernatural agency as a causative force are immediately deemed scholarly outsiders. These Christian academics might be heroes and heroines in their own “culturally,” sequestered communities such as Christian colleges and churches; however, they should not expect a warm welcome from the gatekeepers of the secular academy.

They should not wait by their phones in anticipation of a call from faculty search committees at the leading universities of the land; they should not hope that any of their writings acknowledging God’s existence and divine agency in a substantive fashion will in fact be published by prestigious presses. Professor Gregory argues that the grip of secularism upon the larger academic world is total and profound. It is unforgiving of appeals to supernaturalism.

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Faith and Learning (and the Academy)

Since World War II literally hundreds of seminars devoted to “faith and learning” have taken place in Christian schools. Educators like Dr. Arthur Holmes of Wheaton College often led seminars of this kind. Professor Holmes was well known as the author of Faith Seeks Understanding (1971), The Idea of a Christian College (1975), All Truth is God’s Truth (1977) and Building the Christian Academy (2001). Professor George Marsden, in his studies, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (1994) and The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (1997),

offered a persuasive account of secularism’s rise to dominance in American higher education.

In The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges & Universities from their Christian Churches (1998), James Burtchaell also traced the rise of secularism’s growing influence in Christian schools. He recounted the stories of various Protestant and Roman Catholic schools which were once church related. Often seeking the approval of the secular Academy, their boards, administrators and faculty members distanced themselves from the Christian churches that gave them birth. Burtchaell observed: “But the greatest outside authority to which all these colleges in our study now

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defer is that of the academy itself ” (834). He analyzed the mindset of the professors teaching at these schools saying, “But Christian scholars, to be at home in this kind of academy, need not actually forswear their faith.

All they must do is agree to criticize the church by the norms of the academy, and to judge the gospel by the culture. And most of them have burnt that incense when bidden” (p. 850).

In the eyes of Academic secularists, those schools which seek to remain faithful to their Christian convictions do not engage in responsible scholarship.

In describing the secularists’ assessment of these Christian schools, Professor Gregory observes: “But such doctrinally circumscribed institutions thereby exclude themselves from the critical inquiry characteristic of the pursuit of knowledge, it is usually thought, and they are therefore properly ignored by scholars and scientists who are dedicated to the pursuit and transmission of value-neutral knowledge.”4 Professor Gregory’s provocative and dire assessment that scholars in Christian schools are somehow quarantined and isolated in parochial institutions and should not be chalked up as an infallible analysis. After all, the volume in which he complained that secular academia had no room for scholarship acknowledging the divine was published by a leading secular press — Harvard University Press. Nonetheless, Professor Gregory’s lament does suggest that Christian scholars do need to continue thinking through carefully what it means to punch the ticket required to enter the secular Academy of our day.

Finding the Foundations of Our Field(s) Some years ago, I was invited by a college administrator to lead an integration seminar at a Christian University with a group of members of the faculty. The school affirmed sola scriptura – that is the Bible is the inerrant written Word of God. It reveals fully trust-worthy doctrine and teachings about who God is, who we are and what the world is. It rules over all human opinions, traditions, church doctrines, creeds and academic disciplines. Infallible Scripture is not “normed” or shaped by any of them. Infallible Scripture interprets infallible Scripture. Put another way, the Bible reveals reality from God’s perspective.

At the time of the invitation, I was aware of Professor Gregory’s assessment of higher Christian education. I myself wondered if the Christian distinctive of some Evangelical institutions resided less in their distinctly Christian course instruction but in their important

community “pieties.” These “pieties” might include the fact the schools still retained Bible and Theology departments, still required students to attend chapel, still enforced “Christian” community standards of behavior for students and faculty members and still sponsored “mission trips.” Were these very important “pieties” of Christian college life the trait that distinguished the schools from secular institutions and not any robust engagement with the challenge of secularism’s impact on the teaching of academic disciplines?

The moment of truth arrived when in the first session of the seminar I indicated to the professors what I anticipated we might be doing together to advance our understanding of the integration of faith and learning. We agreed that our work together should focus on integrating their respective disciplines with Holy Scripture. I applauded their desire. I mentioned in passing that the approach some evangelical scholars were embracing — “playing by all the rules” of the Academy — had a major drawback, the embrace the “methodological postulate of naturalism.”

I immediately tried to reassure the professors that my goal was not to urge them to withdraw from participating in the Academy. If anything, I was a strong proponent of Christians writing for the Academy and teaching at secular universities as well as at Christian institutions. I myself had taught at three secular universities — two in Europe and one in the United States. My concern was to discern an approach to “doing scholarship” that would simultaneously permit evangelical professors to remain faithful to scripture alone and at the same time participate in the larger world of Academia.

I then gave to the professors the following “to do” list for the seminar designed to help them think through the integration model for their own discipline: 1. Research, in brief, the historical origins of your discipline regarding its founding principles.

2. Draw up a list of the traits a scholar today must exhibit to gain entrance into the guild of your discipline as a respected member (one of the traits would inevitably be an acceptance of the methodological postulate of naturalism).

3. Assess one by one the required traits in terms of whether it is inimical to or compatible with the Christian faith.

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4. Draw up a strategy for handling traits that are inimical to the Christian faith in such a way that you do not compromise your Christian walk, nor do you jeopardize your participation as fully accredited members in the Academy.

Then it was arranged that I would meet with each of the professorial-groups for an hour to discuss what their findings were. Their written assignment was to write a paper in which they summarized the results of what they discovered in pursuing their “to do” list.

To give them a touch of solace, I indicated to them that I had worked through this same “to do” list in trying to sort out the ways the study of history could be integrated faithfully with the Christian faith. As it turns out, several of the professors discovered they had taken on board many more naturalistic assumptions than they had ever imagined.

Reformation of the Academy This practice was enlightening to many, but the question remained, “What should professors do if they discern their discipline includes key elements not compatible with biblical teaching?” In this context, the remarkable resources of a Christian University or College comes to the fore. This is where biblicalintegration becomes a critically important practice in the life of a Christian University, and where the reformation might give us an example moving forward.

For those of us committed to sola scriptura, we believe that scripture does in fact speak (directly or indirectly) to the range of truth that has been revealed in God’s word. Perhaps, these fields have built the structures of their methodological interpretations upon a faulty foundation. If this is the case, then providing a better, or a more sure foundation would be a worthwhile

opportunity for the Christian Academy. One way this may happen is through dialogue between university departments and the faculty of the Bible/Theology departments. These individuals might be helpful as you think through, together, how to mitigate the potential conflict in a biblically faithful manner, or perhaps to assist in the reframing or replacing of faulty foundational assumptions in the field.

As a Christian University, I charge you with this goal — in the spirit of the reformers — to cast off the dressings of tradition that limit one’s understanding of the real reality. Replace these with a view of life that harnesses the eternal perspective and is rooted upon the sure foundation of Holy Scripture.

1 See Roland Bainton, Here I Stand A Life of Martin Luther (Louisville: Abingdon, 2013), and Herman J. Selderhuis, John Calvin A Pilgrim’s Life (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009).

2 This opening paragraph has been used with permission from one of my upcoming publications titled, “The Protestant Reformation and the Role of Scripture in Education” in Christian Higher Education and Learning in the Evangelical Tradition edited by David Dockery (Wheaton: Crossway, forthcoming 2018).

For Luther’s perspectives on biblical authority, consult: C. B. Smyth, Martin Luther’s Authority of Councils and the Churches (1847) (London: William Edward Painter, 1847); 23, 46-48, 56-61, 189-190; Mark D. Thompson, A Sure Ground on which to Stand: The Relation of Authority and Interpretive Method in Luther’s Approach to Scripture (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2006); Robert Kolb, “The Bible in the Reformation and Protestant Orthodoxy,” in The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures, ed. D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans: 2016, 89-114. See also: Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966.

3 Brad Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 299.

4 Ibid.

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Alumni Contributor

Tyler Scarlett Pastor-Teacher, Forest Baptist Church, Forest, VA

THE REFORMATION: LOOKING BACKWARD TO MOVE FORWARD I have six children. Whenever our family circus piles into the minivan, it’s only a matter of time before someone blurts out, “Are we going to Nana’s house? Is it soccer day? Can we go to McDonalds?” Curious little minds constantly want to know “Where are we going?”

Half a millennium ago, a brave monk named Martin Luther dared to ask this same question of Christendom. Granted, the German Reformer may not have fully known where Christianity was headed, but he did know it should not continue along its current trajectory.

Luther loathed much of what he saw being done in the name of Christ. He refused to indulge in indulgences. He was convinced that the Catholics of his day were not catholic enough. And he believed that the true gospel — ­ entombed beneath tradition and politics — was ready to be resurrected. Luther was incensed with the cultural Christianity of his day and resolved to do something about it.

The fire that burned within his bones can be found in the first eleven words of his now-famous Ninety-five Theses. In his preamble, Luther reveals both the ground and goal of his bold act. He wrote, “Out of love for the truth and from a desire to bring it to light…”

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth: that’s where the church of Luther’s day needed to be going. Popular Christianity was begging to be reformed into more biblical Christianity. And so, Luther nailed his ideas to the door at Wittenberg sending spiritual shockwaves across Europe and history.

Luther’s conviction regarding the truth is what Protestants everywhere are celebrating this year in the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. But after centuries of reflection, some wonder if Luther didn’t create more problems than he solved.

In his effort to correct the errors of Catholicism, is it possible that Luther’s movement overcorrected?

Historians and theologians agree that the current, fractured landscape of Christianity is not an intended feature of the Reformation but an unintended bug.

Where the Medieval Catholic church provided a sense of unity absent the truth, modern Protestantism touts a sense of the truth absent any real unity.

As I said, I have six children. But Luther has effectively fathered millions of Protestant offspring.

His Reformational descendants are now gathering in hundreds of separate traditions. Most people call them denominations. Others call them problems.

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Two miles separate our church building and my home. In that short distance, I pass all kinds of churches: three non-denominational, a Presbyterian, an Episcopal, a Missionary Alliance, two Methodist, and a Baptist church (not to mention my own).

It is clear to me, as one author has noted, that the unavoidable by-product of the Reformation is that “the church became the churches.”1

I drive past these neighboring flocks and wonder about the future of denominationalism. Will this splintering continue? What will the landscape of Christianity look like in the decades ahead? What kind of church (or churches) will my six kids worship in? Exactly five hundred years after Luther, Protestant minds still want to know, “Where are we going?”

Two recent books which bring light and heat to this issue are The End of Protestantism by Peter Leithart2 and Kevin Vanhoozer’s Biblical Authority After Babel.3 Both works take a fresh look at the Reformation and its aftermath with an eye toward the future. Each book is heavy on Scripture, footnotes, ideas, and best of all, hope in Christ and His kingdom.

The End of Protestantism?

In the first work, Peter Leithart takes Jesus’ prayer from John 17:21 literally. Our Lord prayed that “those who believe…may all be one; even as You, Father are in Me and I in You.” Jesus prayed for unity among His future followers. Given the denominational schisms that have arisen since 1517, Leithart points out that Jesus’ prayer is still unanswered and that we have a long way to go.

If you’re looking for Leithart to then explain exactly how this grand telos is achieved in our lifetime, you will be disappointed. I don’t think that’s his intention however. In fact, he does something more helpful.

Instead of articulating a step-by-step recipe for ecclesia ala King, Leithart floats something beneath our noses that is more alluring: the very aroma of the kingdom of God. He writes, “What is needed is not a return to one or the other existing churches but faith to walk in a way of being church that does not yet exist.”4 For those interested, I highly recommend reading the third chapter, entitled “A Reformed Church.” Using his sanctified imagination, Leithart envisions a neverbefore-seen phase in Christianity where believers everywhere are sanctified and edified. It’s not a perfectly unified church, but it is a more unified church. His ideas are a creative, demanding, and inspirational as his vision is rooted in our Lord’s own desire.

Mere Protestantism Kevin Vanhoozer agrees with Leithart about the problem. Vanhoozer asserts, “It is the standing challenge for the church to display its unity in Christ despite its differences.”5 Where Leithart stirs the imagination to daydream about a new era of Christianity, Vanhoozer engages the mind with more concrete ideas of how to move in that direction within our current context. The way forward, he contends, is for more Protestants to become, what he calls, “mere Protestants.”6

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In short, Vanhoozer wants to see churches recapture the essence of the five solas (first championed by the Reformers) as a mutual rallying point. Rightly understood, these five principles become “a hermeneutic tool with which to arbitrate the conflict” between different traditions.7 Vanhoozer’s approach is intended to foster a mutual understanding, genuine unity, and a shared interest in defending the truth across denominational lines.

C.S. Lewis proposed that Christianity should be thought of as one giant house with each faith tradition occupying individual rooms inside. Vanhoozer, instead, pictures “various denominations … as houses, and Protestantism as the street. Think of mere Protestant Christianity as a block party — and the neighborhood watch.”8 In other words, by revisiting and dialoguing with one another within the shared interpretive framework of the five solas, the Scriptures can be better understood, celebrated, and believed by everyone.

What is both impressive and refreshing about Vanhoozer’s work, is his emphasis upon the local church. Rather than bemoan evangelicalism and call for a total abandonment of church-as-we-knowit, he does the opposite. He skillfully and pastorally introduces a sixth much-needed sola to the familiar quintet: sola ecclesia.9 The local church, he contends, is where mere Protestantism must be fostered, promoted, and first practiced.

Kingdom-Focused Protestantism

populated by people from every tribe, tongue, and nation which includes different confessional tribes and denomi-nations. When the Methodist church down the street welcomes an atheist-turned-Christian into their fellowship, that’s not a loss for us Baptists; it is a win for the kingdom of God. Celebrating that shared success is charitable, truly Christian, and a step closer to the actual catholic spirit that the Reformers (and these two authors) envisioned.

If Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses made it clear, “That’s the way we shouldn’t be going,” then Leithart and Vanhoozer’s two works are now adding, “And here’s the way we should be going.” These men possess a mutual burden for the church of today to become the church of tomorrow by learning from the church of the past.

Protestants everywhere should take note.

Trust me: when a Presbyterian and a Reformed Evangelical can write about a Lutheran in such a way that even a Southern Baptist can applaud, then you know that the spirit of the Reformation is alive and well and that the kingdom is at work.

1 Brad S Gregory, Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 369.

2 Peter Leithart, The End of Protestantism (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016).

I like to think of myself as a whole-hearted Baptist looking for opportunities to be a big-hearted Baptist.

These books, and this year’s celebration of the Reformation, remind me why I need to be both.

3 Kevin Vanhoozer, Biblical Authority After Babel (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016).

As a whole-hearted Baptist, I affirm Vanhoozer and Leithart’s rock-solid commitment to Scripture. They both demonstrate a thoroughly Lutheran commitment to the truth. And yet, for me, this is where the tension lies.10 Denominational differences are real, stark, and at times, glaringly so. How to understand and practice the ordinances, for instance, was even a test of fellowship for Luther, Zwingli and other Reformers. I suspect that such issues will continue to be a major hurdle in the future. Anyone who is committed to their secondtier convictions will find that a permanent, authentic coming-together is more easily described than done.

7 Ibid., 29.

At the same time, I aim to be a big-hearted Baptist.

I regularly remind myself that the Marriage Supper of the Lamb will be far more than a giant Baptist potluck supper. The full kingdom of Christ will be

4 Leithart, The End of Protestantism, 26.

5 Vanhoozer, Biblical Authority After Babel, 31.

6 Ibid., 3.

8 Ibid., 33.

9 Ibid., 29.

For additional such concerns, see Bobby Jamieson, review of Biblical Authority After Babel, 9 Marks, November, 2016, accessed May 1, 2017, https://www.9marks.org/review/21830/.

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FA I T H A N D T H E A C A D E M Y: E N G A G I N G T H E C U LT U R E W I T H G R A C E A N D T R U T H

Second Annual

Next Gen Apologetics Conference

“HUMAN IDENTITY” HOW DO OUR DESIRES SHAPE US?

Nov. 6-7

Plenary Session: Nov. 6, 7-8:30 p.m.

Center for Music and the Worship Arts, Concert Hall

TODD WILSON Author of “Mere Sexuality” and Senior Pastor at Calvary Memorial in Oak Park, Ill.

Register at LUAPOLOGETICS.COM Co-sponsored by the Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement and the Center for Youth Ministries

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20 Roger Schultz Professor of History and Dean College of Arts & Sciences, Liberty University

“ORDINARY” LABOR AND CHRISTIAN CALLING: A GIFT OF THE REFORMATION The 16th Century Protestant Reformation transformed the concept of “calling” and work, paving the way for professions, market entrepreneurship and modern capitalism. We usually think of the Reformation’s impact on the Church and Christian theology – which was its primary focus, however, the Reformation also had a broad influence on politics, social institutions, and economic activity.

Medieval society prior to the Reformation had been highly stratified and hierarchical. Those in religious life, such as priests, monks and nuns, possessed a real “calling,” as they directly served God. All others, in the secular world, who performed common and ordinary work, didn’t have a genuine “vocation.” Their labor might be necessary, but it mattered little in a permanent or eternal sense.

Medieval culture was at best ambivalent about ordinary labor. Members of the First Estate (the clergy) didn’t work because they were busy praying and serving God. Members of the Second Estate (the nobility) wouldn’t work because their function was to fight and rule. It was left to the Third Estate (the common people of all economic classes) to engage in earthly toil and the drudgery of labor.

Priesthood of the Believers and Ordinary Labor Martin Luther’s emphasis on the “priesthood of all believers” changed everything. Based on scripture I Peter 2:9, Romans 12:1, Revelation 5:10, Luther taught that all Christians were priests, with immediate access to God. From the earliest days of the Reformation, in the great revolutionary tracts of 1520, Luther challenged the Roman Catholic hierarchy, emphasized the dignity of individual believers, and affirmed the value of their labor. In contrast to the monastic call into isolation and retreat, Reformers preached that Christians were called into service in the world. A

new sense of “calling” sprang from the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.

Reformers also stressed the Dominion Mandate of Genesis 1:26-28. At the creation of the world, God gave specific tasks to Adam and Eve. They were to be fruitful, to subdue the earth, and to take dominion over all creation. This was a positive commission, given by the Creator to His image-bearers, wherein God affirmed the value of earthly labors.

The emphasis on calling was particularly strong in the Reformed wing of the Reformation.1 As Alister McGrath notes, “The idea of a calling or vocation is first and foremost about being called by God, to serve Him within his world.”2 John Calvin especially believed that Scripture emphasized the “nobility of work,” which was a “high calling” and “a God-oriented activity.”3 From this Reformation foundation sprang a great commercial revolution.

Biblical texts were the inspiration for the Reformation teaching on work. Writing to a church distracted by theological speculations, the Apostle Paul emphasized productive labor (2 Thess. 3:8-9).

He said that anyone who would not work should not eat (3:10). He condemned those who refused to work (3:11). He exhorted believers, by the Lord, to “eat their own bread” (3:12, KJV).

Ephesians 6 provides a comprehensive view of labor relations and duties. It emphasizes one’s providential setting and a person’s calling, the Reformers taught, was determined by providential circumstances. Masters were to treat laborers with kindness and respect (3:9).

Servants must be obedient and work hard, as unto the Lord, knowing that their ultimate reward came from God (3:5-8).

FA I T H A N D T H E A C A D E M Y: E N G A G I N G T H E C U LT U R E W I T H G R A C E A N D T R U T H

The most remarkable passage on work is Titus 2.

Paul directly addresses slaves, the involuntary laborers on the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder. Slaves were to be obedient, well-pleasing, responsive and faithful (2:9). Their motivation: “that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.” There is something humbling and overwhelming about this teaching — ­ that humble slaves could adorn the gospel with their faithful earthly service!

(Protestant) Work as Service Unto God Years ago, while in college, I worked a restaurant job with my friend Mike. A nominal Christian, Mike was very smart but very lazy. I tried to persuade him to work harder, citing Ephesians 6 and Titus 2. Since he had voluntarily accepted employment, I argued, he was obligated to work even harder than the slaves in the New Testament passages. But it was to no avail.

Mike’s constant response was “minimum wages, minimum work!” All I got from the experience was a maxim for life: “Don’t be a Minimum Mike.”

A commitment to “calling” can transform the lowest drudgery. As the mother of nine children, my wife had to deal with constant diapers. The job was no fun.

Her attitude changed, however, when she realized that being a mother was a noble calling — and her blessed calling from God. Once she determined to “change diapers for the glory of God,” it liberated her and paved the way for joyful service.

In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber provided a scholarly introduction to calling. A sense of “Calling” (“one’s task given by God”) was ubiquitous among Protestants, but largely unknown in Catholic circles.1 When people were motivated by a sense of divine calling, they worked hard and were highly productive. This productivity, linked to a Protestant asceticism (or frugality) led to enormous capital accumulation. Protestants poured themselves into their work, finding their success and blessing a confirmation of God’s favor. Calling was a defining feature in Protestant and, particularly, in Reformed societies.

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Ben Franklin was an excellent example of the Protestant ethic. Though he lost the faith of his forbearers, he retained the Puritan focus on calling, service, frugality and diligence. His Poor Richard’s Almanac, spectacularly successful and published annually from 1733 to 1758, was filled with pithy proverbs and aphorisms. Its wisdom sprang from scriptural teaching. In his classic Autobiography, Franklin recalled how growing up, for instance, he heard his godly father quote from Proverbs 22:29 — “’Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.’ Later in the Autobiography, Franklin recalled “I thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encouraged me, though I did not think that I should ever literally stand before kings, which, however, has since happened; for I have stood before five, and even had the honor of sitting down with one the King of Denmark to dinner.”5

Giving the Gift of “Calling” to Students James 4 is an excellent text regarding Christian calling. It includes a warning about poor vocational motivations, such as making money (v.13), and boasting about the future (v.16). People had bragged about the future – about their location, occupation, duration and outcomes. James reminds readers of their limitations, of human impotence, mortality and ignorance of the future (v14). It is okay to make plans, James adds, but always with a confession of the sovereignty of God and the qualifier, “If the Lord wills” (v15). Finally, James exhorts his listeners to do the right thing.

How can a student, planning for a vocation, determine the “right thing”? I ask students a series of seven questions as I help them to search for the answer to this question: 1. What are your interests? God gives us a sense of calling in our burdens, interests and passions.

2. What are your skills? God gives gifts and abilities to be used. He will not call someone to a work for which no gifts are given.

3. What are your affirmations? Trusted friends and counselors can see special gifts and recommend areas of potential service.

4. What are your opportunities? God providentially opens doors of service. Sad is the situation where someone turns down a God-given opportunity to wait for a firmly closed door to open.

5. How can you meet your obligations? Student may have obligations that must be met before pursuing other opportunities.

6. How can you help others? We remind students to look outside themselves to see how God will use them.

7. How can I advance the cause of Jesus Christ? The chief end of man, the Shorter Catechism taught, was to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Ultimately we are placed on this earth to bring glory to God — even in our work and our calling!

As we consider our charge to translate this gift of the reformation for our students today, I am reminded of what Dr. Jerry Falwell, Sr. used to say to his faculty as they were engaged in shaping students. In his exhortation, he emphasized a two-fold salt and light ministry. The “salt ministry” was necessary to preserve and transform culture. Falwell repeatedly stressed “calling” – urging students to find areas of service and work. The calling could be a conventional, religious one as minister or missionary. The “light ministry” involved sharing the gospel and bringing people to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. But Christians could, should, and will also be called of God to education, medicine, law, engineering, etc. As Champions of Christ in every sphere of human activity, graduates could transform the world for the cause of Christ’s Kingdom, and thus re-gift this Reformational commitment to the biblical principle of calling.

1 Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism rev. ed.

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 74.

2 Alister McGrath, “Calvin and the Christian Calling,” First Things, June 1, 1999, accessed May 1, 2017, https://www.firstthings.com/ article/1999/06/calvin-and-the-christian-calling.

3 David Hall and Matthew Burton, Calvin and Commerce: The Transforming Power of Calvinism in Market Economies (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R Publishing, 2009), 22.

4 Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 99.

5 Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, accessed May 1, 2017, http://www.wwnorton.com /college/history/archive/ resources/documents/ch03_04.htm.

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Second Annual Conference on Theology and Culture Co-Sponsored by Liberty University Student Activities

COMING SPRING 2018

EVERY SQUARE

INCH “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’”

Abraham Kuyper

SPEAKER: GREGORY THORNBURY PRESIDENT OF KING’S COLLEGE

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Guest Interview

THEOLOGICAL MUSIC:

AN INTERVIEW WITH KEITH GETTY Recently, Keith Getty took some time to have a conversation with the managing editor of “Faith and the Academy,” Benjamin K. Forrest. Getty, perhaps best known for his hymn, “In Christ Alone” is a hymn-writer, producer, worship leader, and author (“Sing” B&H, 2017). Along with his wife, Kristyn, he has been called to a ministry that encourages the singing of God’s people. The hope and passion for their ministry is that they will create and produce music that shapes the theology of the church and is a witness for the church — unto the Glory of God.

Forrest: Most of Our faculty and our audience are

familiar with the music you and Kristyn have written, but for those who are not, please share a little of your story and how you were called to this ministry of songwriting and music.

Getty: Well, I grew up with a bunch of guys in the

North of Ireland who, during their university years, decided they wanted to become pastors. Five of them went to Oxford or Cambridge and all were motivated to enter the ministry by the glaring need for depth among 21st century believers. We believed then and still do now, more than the previous generations that we are on an absolute precipice in history. While the Bible is in more languages than before and there are more Christians in the world, the challenges to Christianity have increased and the depth of the average Christian believer is shallower than at any point since the [Protestant] Reformation. To coin a phrase from Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” It was this need, then, that made those guys want to become pastors. For me, I was neither intelligent nor holy enough to become a pastor, so I thought instead, at the age of 25, that I could write hymns that taught the Bible. The first one that was released was “In Christ Alone”, a hymn I co-wrote with Stuart Townend. Since then, the whole journey has been building on that idea, building a catalogue

In this book, Keith and Kristyn Getty write to church members to remind them why the Church should sing, when the Church should sing, and how the Church should sing. A congregation that gains a greater understanding of why they sing won’t dread a worship service, with arms crossed and shoulders slumped, but see singing as an opportunity to proclaim the gospel together in obedience to God. Sing! guides individual church members together with their congregation on a campaign to declare with one voice, This is why we sing!

Getty, Keith and Kristyn. Sing!: How Worship Transforms Your Life, Family, and Church. Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2017.

FA I T H A N D T H E A C A D E M Y: E N G A G I N G T H E C U LT U R E W I T H G R A C E A N D T R U T H

of hymns that teach the Bible to churches around the world and being a steward of those hymns.

Forrest: Your original goal was to write music and your current goal is to write hymns. For those who don't understand, what is the difference or how do you classify a hymn vs. other contemporary Christian music?

Getty:

Well, Benjamin, as you know, there is no scientific difference. I grew up on hymns in the hymn book, which of course was in some ways both the legacy of the Psalms and the legacy of the church fathers.

The modern interpretation, however, is essentially the legacy of Martin Luther. In the providence of God, Luther was born in the inauguration of the printing press. He readily used the printing press to create hymn books. Certainly, one qualification for a hymn is that it has been found in a hymnbook. When publishing these hymnbooks, church leaders get together and ask what songs teach a part of the Bible that we want our congregations to know. Secondly, melody is considered. They ask, what types of melodies that every congregation and every generation could sing.

And thirdly, the construction of this hymn is of such a quality that they believe the songs therein will last for the lifetime of this hymnbook. In other words — will people sing this song for the next 40-50 years?

Forrest: Our journal is about Cultural Engagement, how do you see Christian songwriters and musicians engaging the broader culture through music?

Getty: I had the privilege of being able to write a

number of musical productions in my twenties that were aimed, I guess, at a more mainstream audience while still having something to do with Christianity.

However, the biggest single witness of my life has been the widespread use of “In Christ Alone” — funerals, weddings, and commissioning services. I just heard last month of a young teenager who gave his life to the Lord during the singing of that hymn. And I’ve heard of many people for whom that has been the case.

God’s people singing is a radical witness.

So, I probably have two answers to your question.

First of all, we’re commanded to sing praise to the Lord together. In terms of congregational worship, that’s what we’re commanded to do. [Not all worship leaders] are commanded to engage the broader culture. What we’re commanded to do is to sing together — so the most important thing for church music has to be meeting God’s people in singing.

That is a radical witness, and that's one of the things that the seeker sensitive movement and a lot of the

contemporary movements (including certain aspects of both Charismatic and modern reformed thinking) have missed out on. Gods people singing is a radical witness. When we look at history of our faith, we can see the role of song in the Old Testament and throughout the history of the Israelites. We can look at in the New Testament and see how the singing of Paul and Silas and the church in Acts has born testimony to other people regarding the nature of God. Throughout Church history, God’s people sang — and this song played an impact in every revival. History talks about the powerful witness and noticeabilty of God’s people singing in those times.

The second thing I would say is that all of us as created people have to be a witness. That doesn't mean that every time we get together with our non-Christian friends we sing hymns. Of course not — but there are wonderful opportunities through musical excellence always to warm peoples hearts to the Lord. I think it was Tim Keller who said “excellence is the most inclusive virtue.” I can tell you as a musician, I have a very Lutheran view of music, rather than a Calvinistic view of music — in other words, I believe that music is valuable for every part of life and should be enjoyed. The virtuosity in music is to be explored, enjoyed and developed.

Excellence is always attractive. If you go to the top restaurant in town, you can’t get a table. When you do, you will see that most of the plates returning to the kitchen are clean and because we love beautiful food — it transforms our day. We look forward to it.

We love eating it. Frankly, the conversation over those meals is better because you are in a better mood, you’re inspired, and you’re excited. This is creation theology because Genesis tells us that food was given to be beautiful to look at and nutritious to eat. We’re not these kind of theologues that are answering some kind of scientific question, which is why melody and beauty are so important in music. If you try to reduce music to being something that can give you 15% church growth or can be a form of theological catechization, then you automatically have a reputation of being either dull/ dead theological believers or a church leader that doubles as a manipulative salesman.

Forrest:

How has the Reformation had a special impact on you, your songwriting, and your approach to worship?

Getty:

Luther believed in the preaching and the singing of the Word. I think the understanding that we grow as believers, in part, through the songs that we sing. When Luther’s life was in danger and Europe was

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in meltdown, he had this interesting journey where he took time to catechize the chorales that would be for his churches because he realized what they sung will be crucial.

Luther, I think, articulated better than anyone. He understood that he who has the melodies has the people. That’s why the biggest book of the Bible is a song book. That to me is the challenge of the new generation. If we’re not singing the truth in ways that are beautiful and passionate and radical, we can’t expect to be a transformative generation – that is the power of singing, the power of theology, and the power of music.

Forrest:

As this journal is for Christian faculty members, how can we — as professors of Math, Science, History, Theology, English, Physics, etc. cultivate some of this vision for a life of theological singing that reflects the glory of God to the world? How can we cultivate that in and among our disciplines?

Getty: What a wonderful question! Well, I think we

have to recognize that there is a dysfunction in both our culture and our understanding of the commandment to sing. There’s been an absolute disconnect between what the Bible teaches about singing and how we interpret it. It's a common thing that happens within church history when an issue becomes controversial: the natural reaction is to try to neutralize it and leave it to the side because it causes trouble. And, of course, music has always been a very controversial, hotblooded topic. Essentially, I would say that singing is transformational, and I think it has four areas in which it leaves participants transformed.

First, the songs you sing transform your personal life.

They bring Sunday into the week, they transform how you think about God, how you pray, how you think, and how you react.

Second, songs (and singing) transforms your family. A family organization a number of years ago did a survey on Christian marriage. Of the families surveyed, those who regularly prayed and sang together never got divorced. That's a stunning thing. It’s interesting, for

example, that the new England puritans who brought and defended the faith fearlessly on the east coast of America with the early settlers wouldn't allow a man to take communion on Sunday if he had not led prayer and sung worship in his home each day during the week. Because, they said, how could they let him take communion with the church family if he won’t take care of his first duty. His first duty is not to put bread on the table or to fulfill his dreams in life. His first duty is to pray and sing with his family.

Third, singing transforms our churches. You know, we don't go to church on a Sunday to try and get something. We go to church out of obedience to be part of God’s family. Similarly then, singing is a symbol of that. The picture of heaven is one of God’s people singing to Him and with each other forever.

The unique microcosm we have on earth is going to church on a Sunday and singing with one another to encourage one another. We sing because we’re commanded — because we’re created, because we’re compelled. We also sing because we’re part of the family of God. And so for me, singing is encouraging.

In singing we pass our experiences, encouragement, and faith to those around us.

Lastly, as we look into the 21st century, we should expect new and considerably difficult experiences as Christians. Let us make sure the aroma of our churches is a beautiful, radical witness. Like all the great revivals, let us pray for revival movements in history. When one of the great revivalists was asked if revival could ever come again to America he said “well, can you sing?”

What is more radical than a bunch of people from every part of society coming together to sing to their creator and redeemer with joy and thanksgiving!

Faith and the Academy would like to thank Keith (and Kristyn) for taking time away from their current tour to answer these questions in order to challenge our audience to consider the spiritual discipline of singing… unto the glory of God.

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Alumni Contributor

Johannes Schroeder Ed.D. LU '16 Bibelseminar Bonn, Germany

MUSIC AND THE REFORMER “Greetings in Christ! I would certainly like to praise music with all my heart as the excellent Gift of God which it is to commend it to everyone.”1 Lofty words like these Luther often found when addressing one of his favorite topics — music. An accomplished musician himself, trained in old and contemporary styles, music, to Luther, had equal standing to the preached Word of God. The Reformation itself was a singing movement.2 Song was used to teach and to worship, and songs spread the word of the gospel faster than any spoken word. Through song every ordinary person could make sense of their faith and give voice to their devotion. Luther’s theses and sermons brought the Reformation into the churches and courts, but songs brought it into the hearts of the people. The Reformation ignited a revival of song with Martin Luther at its epicenter who clearly articulated spiritual intentions for music in worship.

The Songs of the Reformation The Reformation that started in 1517 gave to the people of Germany the gospel, and it afforded them the freedom to hear it with understanding and to believe it with eternal consequence. Luther did not reinvent the worship service, but rather reformed it, building on known liturgies. His first order of worship, the Formula Missae (1523), included mixed languages with Gregorian Chants as the basis for music, but also used German songs and the Psalms. Later the Deutsche Messe (1526) was completely translated into German.

For it, many old Catholic melodies were simplified to better fit the German syllabic stress patterns, and in it we find devotional songs, and school, children’s and folk-songs. Some existing songs were theologically adjusted, secular songs were completely rewritten, and new songs were composed.

The Reformation ignited a revival of song. The holy soundtrack of new song accompanied the proclamation of the word and the responses of believers. In fact, music and song is almost the

only definitive art that arose from the Lutheran Reformation. We do not find distinctly protestant architecture, painting or sculpting, but there is an immense treasure of evangelical sacred music giving testimony to the fact that the reformation truly was a singing movement.3

The Music of the Reformer Much has been written on Luther’s theology of music, and there is certainly much to be said.

Even a perfunctory interaction with it reveals, that the reformer did not merely emphasize cognitive understanding, but strongly believed in the personal experience of the things known and believed. This conviction can be viewed as the foundation of his theology of music.

Luther’s musical biography helps to understand his almost existential hermeneutical view of music. He likely grew up listening to rugged mining songs that connected music with the reality and harshness of life. The stringent education of his youth influenced his understanding of music as a moral power. While studying in Eisenach he probably was inspired to begin writing his own songs as he encountered a musical-poetic student circle. In church, he likely sang in liturgical boy’s choirs, in which the Dom of Magdeburg must have left a deep impression on young Luther. He studied music theory in Erfurt where he also developed his tenor voice and learned to play the lute. At the Augustinian Monastery in Erfurt he entered an environment saturated with music. Here he learned the Gregorian Chants, which would accompany him for the rest of his life, but also Psalms and other liturgical expressions of music. Since 1517 he publicly contributed to music through original compositions.4

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The Reformers Intentions with Music Luther had little patience with bad musicianship, but found even harsher words for music in the church applied without spiritual understanding. Accordingly, music for pleasure had no place in Christian worship, for the song of the redeemed must serve a higher purpose. He criticized pompous presentations of Masses as well as mindless mutterings of Psalms. To him, music always had a spiritual intention, and without it became blubbering and bellowing. An extensive testimony of his theology of music is found in the preface to a hymnbook.5 When listening to the Reformer’s own words on his high view of sacred music, we see his intention to use it for the purposes of identity, theology, morality, understanding, and response.

The Identity Intention “After all, the gift of language combined with the gift of song was only given to man to let him know that he should praise God with both word and music, namely, by proclaiming [the Word of God] through music and by providing sweet melodies with words.” 6 Music is a gift of God, instilled into every created thing. Through the capacity of music, we understand a portion of what it means to be created in the Imago Dei. Music that emanated from the existence of the creator becomes part of humanity’s own existence, which also sets it apart from the rest of creation and gives it an eternal purpose of singing praises to God.

The Theological Intention “Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.” 7 “The Holy Ghost himself honors her as an instrument for his proper work.” 8 The gospel message hinged on the five soli which Dr. Luther and his companions tirelessly emphasized. It is remarkable to note that for Luther, music applied to each of these doctrinal pillars upon which he rested the theological bulwark of his reformation. Music proclaims the gospel of grace — Sola Gratia — that leads to receiving it by faith — Sola Fide. Through song comes understanding of the Word as the believer is seized by truth — Sola Scriptura — and confesses in song that righteousness is only found in Jesus — Solus Christus.

And through their raised voices in praise God alone is glorified — Soli Deo Gloria.

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The Moral Intention “For whether you wish to comfort the sad, to terrify the happy, to encourage the despairing, to humble the proud, to calm the passionate, or to appease those full of hate – and who could number all these masters of the heart, namely, the emotions, inclinations, and affections that impel men to evil or good? – what more effective means than music could you find.” 9 For Luther, music could develop the moral orientation of a person, especially in their youth. “And you, my young friend, let this noble, wholesome, and cheerful creation of God be commended to you. By it you may escape the shameful desires and bad company. At the same time, you may by this creation accustom yourself to recognize and praise the Creator.”10 Luther understood that the moral force of music can be used for good or ill. The ill being music which elicits a self-centered emotion and which encourages an experience of an anthropocentric nature. This music he considered “fleischlich” [carnal] and his music literature sought to counteract it. The good use of music would encourage enjoyable emotions while retaining cognitive control so that the attention is directed towards God and Christ.11

The Response Intention “Therefore, my dear brother, learn Christ as crucified, learn to sing to him in the face of your desperation over yourself and say: You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness.”12 These words were penned in a letter to George Spenlein, and they show how Luther naturally includes the believer’s song as his testimony of faith. Elsewhere Luther encouraged every believer to “accustom yourself to recognize and praise the Creator.”13 Luther had a kerygmatic view of the worship service, which is to say that the “Word” was at the center of a conversational exchange. In his sermon at the inauguration of the Torgauer Schlosskapelle in 1544 he laid the foundation for this understanding of worship in terms of “Wort” (word) and “Antwort” (reply). He explained that in the worship service, God speaks through the Scriptures and the believers answer through prayers and songs of praise.

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The Understanding Intention “No one speaks or listens to a Scripture adequately, unless he is seized by it so that he feels on the inside what he speaks or listens on the outside.”14 Luther believed that music in and of itself, regardless of lyrics or other influences, is a force that aids the cognitive understanding of the listener or music maker.

Understanding, on the vehicle of the vox musicae, not only informs but seizes the person.15 And this being seized by the music then becomes part of the hermeneutic process by which truth is understood, believed, and applied. In other words, understanding is not just an intellectual enterprise but involves a knowing with the heart. In the preface of the Wittenberger Chorgesangbuch (1524) he asserted the church should, “sing spiritual songs and psalms from their heart, so that The Word of God and Christian doctrine may be driven and practiced in manifold ways.”16

Conclusion The song of the reformation emphasizes the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Next to the proclamation of the Gospel, and the believers’ testimony of faith, the song in worship also is an invitation for all believers to participate in the praises of God. As a holy priesthood without need of a mediator the Levitical privilege of singing praises to Almighty is now a joyful duty of each saint. Music was an intentional spiritual force of the Reformation that Luther joyfully applied and forcefully defended, for after all, he was leading a singing movement.

1 Martin Luther, "Preface to Georg Rhau's Symphoniae Lucundae: 1538," in Liturgy and Hymns, ed. Ulrich S. Leupod, Luther's Works (1979; repr., Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1965), 321.

2 Johannes Block, Verstehen Durch Musik: Das Gesungene Wort in Der Theologie (Tübingen, Germany: A. Franke Verlag, 2002), 13-15.

3 Sören Thomas Hoffmann, "Vom Geistlichen Singen Und Spielen," in Mennonitisches Jahrbuch 1995 (Lahr, Germany: St.-Johannis-Drukerei, 1995).

4 Block, 33-6.

5 Luther, Liturgy and Hymns, 321-4.

6 Ibid., 323-4.

7 Ibid., 323.

8 Ibid.

9 Luther, Liturgy and Hymns, 323.

10

Ibid., 324.

Daniel Reuning, "Luther and Music," Concordia Theological Quarterly 48, no. 1 (1984), 18-19.

11

12

Block, 49.

13

Luther, Liturgy and Hymns, 324.

14

Block, 99.

The term “vox musicae“ (the voice of music) is often used in the literature on Luther’s theology of music to convey the concept of the effect of “in and of itself“, in contrast to the effect of music “because of lyrics, context, etc.” In this case, the “vox musicae” aids in the process of understanding since it not only carries information but touches (e.g. seizes – a term Luther emphasized in this context) the person deeply, which leads to true understanding that has an effect in thought, life, and action.

15

16

Personal translation.

31 Donna Davis Donald, Assistant Professor of History, College of General Studies, Liberty University

WOMEN AND THE REFORMATION: SOLA SCRIPTURA’S IMPLICATIONS FOR TRADITION AND AUTHORITY One of the defining issues of the Reformation was authority, specifically that of tradition versus scripture. With the refrain sola scriptura, the reformers affirmed the supremacy of the Bible as the source of authority. What remained was to sort out what that meant. Signature doctrines such as transubstantiation, purgatory, and clerical celibacy all succumbed to the authority of the biblical text, but not all traditions were subject to the same scrutiny, especially those related to the role of women.

At the time of the Reformation, the western tradition regarding women was commonplace. Women were valued primarily as vessels for bearing children. As heirs of Eve, they were culpable for the very existence of sin and the curse. That women were physically, intellectually, and spiritually inferior meant that they had few legal rights, limited economic opportunities, and virtually no choice in the trajectory of their lives. Women were to be modest, passive, and silent. While the Reformation brought significant changes to sixteenth-century Europe, historians disagree about whether these changes were a net gain or a net loss for women.1 What is certain is that women contributed significantly to the Reformation. Even within their circumscribed place, women found ways to act by partnering with their reforming husbands, supporting leaders of the movement, and sometimes taking more independent action.

Katie Luther: Theologian, Wife, & Reformer Katherine von Bora, the former nun who married Martin Luther, is surely the most widely recognized female figure of the Reformation.2 She was one of several nuns from a local Cistercian monastery who embraced Luther’s teaching and sought to leave the convent. Luther himself devised a plan for their escape, enlisting the help of his merchant friend who often delivered herring to the monastery. Of the twelve women who were smuggled out of the cloister

in a fishwagon, several returned to their families, but most were married to former monks or priests. After finding marital matches for other nuns, monks, and priests, and two subsequent years of unsuccessful matchmaking for Katherine, Luther and Katie agreed to wed.

Women were valued primarily as vessels for bearing children.

In 1525, the former monk and the former nun set up housekeeping in a building that had housed the Augustinian monastery at Wittenburg. Since the idea of married clergy was a novel one in the Christian west, Katie (as her husband called her) and Luther’s home became the model for the Protestant parsonage. The former monastery was soon lively with ten children, six of their own and the four orphans they raised.

Their home was also a center of hospitality, frequently housing as many as thirty students, guests, or boarders all under Katie’s supervision.3 While Katie never established a public role for herself outside the household, it is clear that she was well-educated and fully engaged in the theological controversies of the day. Space limitations prevent a full portrait here, but the way Luther spoke of her and to her says something about the part she played in his work. Not surprisingly, she was his “dear wife,” but he also called her a theologian and a scholar. He lauded her as a consummate gardener and brewer, but also as a preacher. More than once, he publicly called her his “lord.” Indeed, he had no trouble elevating her to a superior place in their partnership: “I am an inferior lord, she the superior; I am Aaron, she is my Moses.”4 Apparently, Katie was not only a supportive companion to Luther, she was also an active participant in his work, all within the traditionally accepted roles of wife and mother.

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Marie Dentière: Author, Apologist, & Reformer Marie Dentière was also a former nun and minister’s wife, but she was not content with what tradition dictated for women. From the Augustinian convent at Tournai, Marie converted to Protestantism and fled to Strasbourg where she married Simon Robert, a priest-turned-reformer. Together, they became the first husband-wife team sent out to promote the Reformed Church in other cities.5 Widowed after a few short years, she married another minister, Antoine Froment, and moved to Geneva where she became an ardent supporter of John Calvin.

Although her family life is not documented, it seems likely that her home was similar to those of other reformers. However, Marie extended her influence beyond the domestic sphere through writing. In her earliest known work, The War and Deliverance of the City of Geneva, she recorded the first eyewitness account of the Reformation in Geneva. More like a sermon than a chronicle, Marie’s narrative interprets events through the lens of scripture and boldly calls out those she identified as the enemies of God’s work in Geneva.6

More controversial was the publication of a letter from Marie addressed to Queen Marguerite of

Navarre. Most of the letter consisted of an articulate defense of Protestant theology, but it also included a more radical section in which Marie defended the place of women within that theology. Based on her understanding of scripture, she reasoned that women should be permitted to write and act as ministers even if they were not allowed to preach in assemblies and churches. She also defended the right of women to interpret scripture and to teach that interpretation to one another.

“For what God has given you and revealed to us women, no more than men should we hide it and bury it in the earth. And even though we are not permitted to preach in public in congregations and churches, we are not forbidden to write and admonish one another in all charity.” 7 Marie called on women to cross the boundaries erected by tradition and step into a more active role in spreading the gospel. Specifically, she asserted that women and men had equal claim to reading and understanding the scriptures. Her writing demonstrates her impressive knowledge of scripture and her theological acumen.

This public plea to reconsider biblical teaching about women rather than adhering to conventional practices drew opposition. However, Marie’s greatest transgression was not her doctrine, but that she dared to speak and write with authority, particularly on religious matters.

After her death, her support for the reformation in Geneva

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and her theological contributions were largely unknown until the recovery of her work in the nineteenth century.

Charlotte d’Arbaleste: Biographer, Mother, & Reformer

The visibility of Katie Luther’s position and the vehemence of Marie Dentière’s writing stand in contrast to the less public approach of another Protestant woman, Charlotte d’Arbaleste.8 As the wife of a Philippe de Duplessis-Mornay, a prominent Protestant nobleman, Charlotte managed a large household and actively supported the military activities of her husband, during the French Wars of Religion.

Mornay was also a man of letters and Charlotte became his self-appointed archivist, going to great lengths to collect and preserve his literary output which included theological treatises, polemical pamphlets, and poetry.

She also became the guardian of his legacy. Beginning in 1584, she penned a lengthy account of his life dedicated to their only son. Recounting his achievements and challenges as a political and military leader, Charlotte also wrote of her husband’s conversion, narrated their separate, but equally harrowing, escapes from Paris during the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and described their subsequent courtship and marriage. In fact, her memoire remains the best source we have for his life and work.

In this account, Charlotte is an indispensable partner in her husband’s work as a leader in the French Protestant community. Her role as wife and mother remain traditional, but the act of writing itself, especially in this form, was unusual. For her, writing was a means for influencing her children and perpetuating the legacy of her husband, but also a way to support and preserve the Protestant cause within the bounds of socially accepted behavior for women.

In a separate account, Charlotte describes an incident that forced her to press the limits of those boundaries. As a noblewoman, Charlotte was obligated to maintain her family’s standing at court and part of the requirement was to keep up with the latest fashion.

When the local Protestant pastor forbade a certain hairstyle in the interest of modesty, Charlotte boldly defied his order. She defended her action, not in terms of her own rights to self-determination, but with an appeal to the traditional authority of her husband and of the church. She admonished the pastor for confronting her personally and directed him to take the matter to her husband, for he had the final say over her hairstyle. She also questioned the minister’s interpretation of Reformed Church teaching on what she saw as a non-essential matter, affirming her willingness to obey such teaching.

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This paradoxical moment illustrates the tension that characterized the contribution of many women of the Reformation. Charlotte challenged one authority figure by appealing to another authority, and, in doing so, asserted her own ability to identify truth. Both in her writing and in her resistance to an overzealous minister, Charlotte tested the limits of the traditional ideal of the silent, submissive woman. But even her assertiveness was carefully inscribed within the accepted norms of the authority of husband and Church.

1 For an overview of the development of this tradition, see Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. “The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: Introduction to the Series,” published in all 60 volumes of The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996-2010).

2 The most accessible introduction to the women described here is Kirsi Stjerna, Women and the Reformation (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2009).

3 Stjerna, 59.

Conclusion

4 Quoted in Stjerna, 60.

These women of the Reformation did not set out to break the tradition of marriage and family or to have women overtake men in positions of authority.

However, their confidence in their own knowledge of scripture and their own assurance of sound doctrine tested the limits of the traditional perception of women. They knew the scriptures, they were convinced of the authority of biblical teaching, and they did not hesitate to use this as a means to challenge those who would value tradition more highly than truth.

5 Marie Dentière, Epistle to Marguerite De Navarre: And, Preface to a Sermon by John Calvin, trans. and ed. Mary B. McKinley (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 5.

6 Jane Dempsey Douglass, “Marie Dentière's Use of Scripture in Her Theology of History," in Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective: Studies in Honor of Karlfried Froehlich on His Sixtieth Birthday, edited

by Mark Stephen Burrows and Karlfried Froehlich (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 227-244.

7 Dentière, 53.

8 Charlotte Arbaleste de Mornay, A Huguenot Family in the XVI Century: the memoirs of Philippe de Mornay, sieur du Plessis Marly written by his wife, trans. and ed. Lucy Crump (London: Geourge Routledge & Sons, 1926); Charlotte Duplessis-Mornay, Les Mémoires de Madame de Mornay, trans. and ed. and Nadine Kuperty-Tsur (Paris: Honoré Champion Editeur, 2010).

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36 Benjamin Esswein, Assistant Professor of History, College of Arts & Sciences, Liberty University

PROTESTANT-MUSLIM RELATIONS IN REFORMATION EUROPE:

PEACE THROUGH SCRIPTURE MORE THAN WITH “PIKES AND MUSKETS” Looking back at the Reformation, some striking expressions of the nascent, Protestant faith stand out. For instance, early Protestants eagerly and actively participated in proselytizing their movements through missions and Bible translations. Among the Evangelicals (Lutherans), this was especially true. As with Martin Luther’s famous theses and treatises, the printing press remained key in this endeavor.

This printing phenomenon was only as old as the Reformation, and best exploited by the reformers throughout the 1500s.1 The implementation of printed Biblical literature blazed pathways for the gospel to bring change and reconciliation in areas that had once seen strife and division.

My goal in this short essay, is to highlight an obscure, but still equally important Lutheran reformer, Primus Truber, and his mission collaborators.2 Actively printing and distributing Slavic Bible translations and Lutheran materials during the 1560s, they distributed over 30,000 copies throughout the Balkans and into Eastern Europe. Such numbers and distribution would not have been possible without significant donations from Protestants both in central Europe and on the eastern borders, where the Muslim Ottoman Empire continued to apply pressure to the Christian kingdoms.

Heightened Cultural and Political Tensions

Truber’s Bible Translations and printed pamphlets specifically targeted Ottoman lands with the gospel.

Truber's belief was that the presentation of the Bible, in the common tongues of people, would bring peace, despite political and cultural differences. After the Ottoman Empire had annihilated the Hungarian armies at the Battle of Mohacs in 1526 and destroyed the unity of Hungary into competing sections known as Habsburg Royal Hungary, Transylvania, and Ottoman Hungary, no European dared question this Turkish Empire’s destructive power. In fact, Martin Luther had preached resistance to the Ottomans, while

also acknowledging they were a “scourge of God”, sent to bring vengeance for papal sins.3 Nevertheless, the Ottomans had engendered a new political situation in Europe, which saw parts of Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Transylvania and the Balkans become a borderland, tugged like a rope between the Ottomans and Christian rulers like the Habsburgs.

In the sixteenth century borderlands, we may cautiously observe how the Ottoman officials in Central Hungary interacted with the faiths they regularly encountered.

Though the topic is controversial among historians, there was no singular response from the Ottoman Imperial office on what to do about Western Christians on the frontiers.

In the first decades of Ottoman rule in Hungary, for instance, poll taxes were imposed and young boys were forced into the service of the sultan's court and his army.

This led to a fair amount of friction between indigenous populations and the Ottoman officials. Legends grew in Europe of some leaders and priests being beaten and humiliated (on charges of blasphemy). Public displays of Christian, religious practice in Hungary, it was said, had been restricted. Churches were seized, and bell-ringing forbidden. Few new churches were allowed and many old churches were permitted only scant repairs, and not the usual level of maintenance or anything considered “extravagant material.” There was even an attempt to force a Reformed minister to learn the Qur’an.4 Still, local resistance remained high and if they disagreed with the Ottoman policies some villages immigrated en masse to Habsburg or Transylvanian lands.5 Additionally, there was also an influx of Muslim immigrants as the Ottomans attempted to form centers of support in Hungary to increase support for their rule there. Accounts have indicated that the Ottoman settlement of Muslims in Hungary included soldiers and their families, but many officers and officials in the Ottoman army were nominal converts to Islam — who were often practicing beliefs not in accordance with Islamic tenants.6 Outside of Bosnia, where a sizable Muslim population had been relocated,

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there were no areas lastingly converted or incorporated into Islamic culture.7 Ottoman policies in Istanbul (Constantinople) did not always match the realities on the ground as local Ottoman commanders and officials attempted to differentiate between Hungarians supporting the Habsburgs and those supporting local rulers. Initially, some violence occurred between the Ottoman soldiers and the local Christian populace, but never was there a wide-scale program of destruction or persecution. The sultan in Constantinople distanced himself from these religious affairs as much as possible.8

Tensions Soothed as the Bible Translations Spread

Many Protestants, at that time, were either indifferent or supportive of the Ottomans in their struggles against Catholic powers.9 Truber, as a leading reformer and practical-minded theologian, represents a mediating figure between the Evangelical and Catholic faiths. His role in the borderlands printing project, as a translator of biblical literature and church reformer in Slovenia and Croatia (together called Krain), also revealed pertinent information concerning belief and practice in the borderlands. The recurring warfare between the Habsburgs and Ottomans devastated a region clearly open the reformer’s message. Concerning the spread of biblical literature among the borderland’s leaders, Truber reiterated in a pleading letter to the Habsburg prince Maximilian II: And that these [princes] are responsible for other populations, because your subjects of these two languages, also the Turks, their neighbors, will make use of it, hence through it they obtain more peace from the Turks than with their pikes and musket, as I then about this matter wrote at length to Your Royal Majesty in the forward of the Letter to the Romans.10 Since Truber’s work saw contributions from Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed leaders, the focus on distributing this work, as extensively as possible, indicates broad support to stem the advance of the Ottoman armies through the spread the Gospel.

As throughout the 1560s the materials began distribution, Truber took trips into Krain to help the process. His assistant, Peter Paul Vergerio, remained behind, but peculiarly stated in a letter to a Protestant German noble that there was one contributor, called “Georgius a Turci,” who was a generous count, “one greatly zealous for the gospel.”11

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His donations had been used for funding Truber’s work, but as a “Turkish count” his inclusion in this ministry leaves many questions. It is possible that he was from Transylvania or the Balkans or that he was connected to the invading Ottoman armies. Thus, it is possible that this “Turkish count” was among those who, now being in control of this region, but seeing no help at reform coming from the capital, decided to look elsewhere. Or, perhaps he was a local noble who, though politically loyal to the Ottomans, had seen too much devastation and war to seek help on religious matters from Constantinople. Both are possibilities, but regardless, what his mention reveals is the broad support given for the spread of Christian literature in this volatile region and the potential of Truber’s work finding peace across hostile borders.

Concluding Remarks The cause of spreading God’s word and the Gospel had unified seemingly antagonistic views. From a modern perspective this shift may seem minute or inconsequential. After all, the longer view of history reveals a rather divided and bloody course through the Thirty Years War, English Civil War and renewed strife with the Ottomans. But for those yearning for substantive change, the hope for true reform and religious liberty brought substantial relief for over half a century (1550s-1610s). While political and dynastic struggles would continue in this region for centuries to come, slowly the religious tensions between the faiths began to subside. Medieval calls for crusades were replaced by fervent missions and the spread of biblical literature. The response to the spread of the biblical literature was one of great promise and increased cooperation in a very volatile region. The official policy of the Ottoman administration expanded to allow all Christian faiths by the 1620s, and focused increasingly on ensuring tribute payments arrived as often as possible from the surrounding areas, instead of religious interference.12 Thus, when political and religious tensions often seemed the most volatile, it has been the spread of the gospel that has eagerly worked to bridge the differences between both sides with its emphasis was on healing and unity. In the current cultural and political climate, this is a point modern Christians should embrace.

Into the 1550s Martin Luther’s works out published Catholic ones by a rate of 5 to 1, and half of all Protestant printed material consisted of part or all of Luther’s works. See: Mark U. Edwards Jr., Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).

1

2 See my work on Truber: Truber, Ungnad & Vergerio: Territorial Churches in the Habsburg/Ottoman Borderlands, (New York: Peter Lang, 2016).

3 Martin Luther, On War against the Turk, 1529.

4 Pál Fodor, “The Ottomans and their Christians in Hungary”, in Frontiers of Faith: Religious Exchange and the Constitution of Religious Identities, 1400-1750, Eszter Andor and István György Tóth, eds., (Budapest: Central European University, 2001), 139-140.

5 Ibid., This position is somewhat disputed. Cf. David Géza, in “Limitations of Conversion: Muslims and Christians in the Balkans in the Sixteenth Century”, in the same book, Frontiers of Faith, 149-156.

6 Ibid., 137-139.

7 Sultans spent money on defenses in Hungary but not on “sultanic foundations”. It was designated as a permanent frontier province. “Thus it would appear that the Ottoman ruling establishment largely viewed borderland areas as serving defense first and foremost, while borderland prosperity rarely ever materialized.” Suraiya Faroqhi, “Coping with the Central State, Coping with Local Power: Ottoman Regions and Notables from the Sixteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century” in The Ottomans and the Balkans: A Discussion of Historiography. Adanir, Fikret and Suraiya Faroqhi, eds., (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 351-381.

8 Pál Fodor, “The Ottomans and their Christians in Hungary”, 144.

9 The Hungarian Calvinist preacher Gál Huszár told Bullinger in 1557 that the Turks there were "so much inclined to the servants of the Gospel". Tóth, "Hungary, Turkish Hungary, and Transylvania", 216; and there were hopes in Germany and England that the Turks would crush the Papacy and install authorities that encouraged the spread of Protestantism. Matthew Birchwood and Matthew Dimmock, Cultural Encounters between East and West, 1453-1699, (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2005), 6-7.

Primus Truber, Pisma Primoža Trubarja, Jože Rajhman, Hgg. (Llubljana, 1986), 67–68.

10

Peter Paul Vergerio, Briefwechsel zwischen Christoph, Herzog von Würtemberg, und Petrus Paulus Vergerius., Eduard von Kausler und Schott, ed., dated 24th of October, 1563, letter 189.

11

Pál Fodor, “The Ottomans and their Christians in Hungary”, 146, & Caroline Finkel, The Administration of Warfare: The Ottoman Military Campaigns in Hungary, 1593-1606, (Wien: VWGÖ, 1988), 14-15.

12

39 Gai Ferdon, Associate Professor of Government, Helms School of Government, Liberty University

THE POLITICAL USE OF THE BIBLE DURING THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

The European continental Reformation (1400s-1500s) is known for producing an array of theological scholars whose writings attempted to either reform Roman Catholic institutions or replace them.1 Protestant Reformers, armed with vernacular translations of the Scriptures and a new approach to biblical interpretation, strategically attacked significant doctrinal assumptions critical to the Church’s authority as well as the ecclesiastical and civil institutions developed from them.

The Roman Catholic Church, for all intents and purposes, dominated the flow of information relative to the Scriptures. Most European laity were unschooled in Latin, without direct access to the Bible, and therefore, dependent upon the Priesthood to interpret its divine doctrines, which included its political and governmental truths. It was not until the Scriptures were made available in the language of the common man that individuals were able to infer a political theology with its corresponding civil/institutional emphasis. Protestant readings of the Scriptures resulted in new relational paradigms between individuals, communities and ecclesiastical and civil authorities.

The institutional consequences of the translation of the Scriptures into English, German, and French, resulted in a new constitutional relationship between

rulers and ruled characterized by limited ecclesiastical and civil authority. Early modern political thinkers of Great Britain would seek to incorporate Protestant reformed political principles and methods of constitutional design to solve the constitutional crises brought on by the English civil wars (1642-1647), sometimes referred to as the Puritan revolutions. The British Interregnum (1649-1660) can be characterized as an attempt to new-model the ancient constitution through commonwealth structures, and patterned, in part, after the Old Testament Hebrew polity.

Protestant Bible Translation: A Vehicle for Reformed Theology in Service of Commonwealths The German reformer Dr. Martin Luther (14831546) is credited with formally launching the continental Reformation with his Disputation of Dr. Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgencies. Commonly referred to as the ‘NinetyFive Theses,’ Luther publicly nailed his points of dispute with the Church to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. His subsequent writings would continue to attack the ecclesiastical absolutism of the Roman Catholic Church with its monopoly upon salvation and the Scriptures.

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The leading French reformer was none other than John Calvin (1509-1564), who confronted the assumption that the Roman Catholic Church was the center and reference for life. Calvin forcefully declared that God alone bore absolute sovereignty over all of life, not the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore, every institution must be organized in submission to Him. Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) was an attempt, in part, at such institutional reorganization of the church and state through the application of the Scriptures. The Republican city-state of Geneva, Switzerland was Calvin’s institutional experiment to model a commonwealth upon Scripture, which subsequently impacted the ecclesiastical and civil structures of the New England Colonies, especially that of Massachusetts Bay. There were a number of reformers who made significant contributions to the Protestant movement. Much could be said of the labors of men like the Bohemian Jan Hus (1369-1415), the Scotsman John Knox (1505[1515] 1572), the Frenchman Theodore Beza (1519-1605), as well as the Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531).

The Reformation not only produced a wave of Protestant leadership, but Bible translations were being rapidly disseminated through Johannes Gutenberg’s press with its advent of movable type in 1436 . Consequently, the Catholic hierarchy’s interpretive supremacy over the Scriptures was forever altered.

It was an Oxford professor who produced the first English translation of the Scriptures based upon Jerome’s 382 A.D. Latin Vulgate — the version used by the Roman Catholic Church. John Wycliffe (1320-1384), known as the ‘Morning Star of the Reformation,’ published his Wycliffe Bible in 1384. The German, Johann Gutenberg (14001468) produced the Gutenberg Bible in 1455 and like Wycliffe’s, was translated from Jerome’s Vulgate.

The Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) published his Greek and Latin Parallel New Testament in 1516 from Greek New Testament manuscripts then available, and therefore, apart from the Vulgate. Erasmus’s translation placed greater stress upon the importance of original languages in establishing textual authenticity and interpretation.

Another Englishman, William Tyndale (1494-1536), translated the New Testament from Greek into English in 1526. Tyndale’s translation was followed by Miles Coverdale’s (1488- 1569) 1535 English Bible and then another, the very large Great Bible of 1540. Luther published his German New Testament in 1522 and translated the entire Scriptures by 1534.

One of the most controversial translations was the Geneva Bible (Breeches Bible) of 1560, with its first printing in England in 1571. A product of numerous reformed hands, including those who fled persecution in Britain under Queen ‘Bloody’ Mary Tudor (155358), the Geneva Bible was the most widely read Bible in the English-speaking world. It underwent approximately 200 printings from 1560-1644, and was referred to as the Bible of the Puritans of Great

Calvin forcefully declared that God alone bore absolute sovereignty over all of life, not the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore, every institution must be organized in submission to Him.

Britain and America. It is highlighted by its vast and influential sections of marginalia which incorporated reformed Calvinist interpretation, some of which directly attacked interpretive positions supportive of absolute civil and ecclesiastical authority.

A case of interpretive point is found in 1 Samuel 8:11 which rehearses Israel’s demand for a King like those of the surrounding Gentile nations. This chapter in particular has undergone quite imaginative interpretations over the centuries, and either in support of the absolute authority of Kings, or their very limited authority. As Samuel reminds Israel of the “manner of the King” in regards to property and servants, the Geneva translators supply their audience with an interpretation which emphasized divine limitations upon the authority of kings. Kings who rule outside their authorized bounds are ruling contrary to His will: “Not that kings have this authority by their office, but that such as reign in God’s wrath should usurp this over their brethren contrary to the Law (Deut.

17:20).” This interpretation proved quite unsupportive of monarchs generally, even Britain’s, and monarchical authority specifically.

Geneva Bible’s profound impact upon early American colonization is depicted in ‘The Embarkation of the Pilgrims in 1620,’ (1844) displayed along-side other prominent paintings of American history in the Rotunda of the U.S Capitol. Painter Robert Walter Weir depicts William Brewster sitting conspicuously

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with an open Geneva Bible — ‘The Pilgrims’ Bible’ — on his lap, with other outstanding Plymouth Colony leaders looking on.

A “New” Hermeneutic: Ad Fontes — Back to the Sources Individuals who had access to the Bible advanced alternative interpretive methodologies which conflicted with the Roman Catholic Church’s standard approach.

A Protestant hermeneutic was developing which laid greater stress upon the grammar and original languages of the Bible as well as its historical and literary contexts.

Even Rabbinic and Jewish studies were incorporated into biblical interpretation. ‘Sola Scriptura’ produced, in part, a hermeneutic which employed Renaissance philological techniques with its emphasis upon history, grammar, syntax, original language analysis, and literary forms. The Geneva Bible incorporated this new hermeneutic.

Reformation Europe produced new political readings of biblical passages which resulted in radical constitutional ideas. These newly developing political theologies were multifaceted in nature, challenging old perspectives on civil and ecclesiastical government as well as the authority of magistrates. These emerging continental ideas were quickly making their way into England in the 1570’s as part of the Puritan movement, which included, among other sectarians, Republicans, known also as Commonwealthsmen, who contended against the Royalist political assertion that monarchy was God’s highest constitutional pattern by which men were to be governed.

A more detailed explication of the great hermeneutical debates emanating from the Reformation would reveal a new political theology advancing principles of liberty of conscience and religious liberty, civil liberty and limited civil government, separation of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, equality under the law, government of laws, inalienable rights, popular consent and delegation of authority and power. Covenants became God’s relational paradigms through which to organize all of life, including political and ecclesiastical institutions, eventually transformed into republics and commonwealths.

It was none other than the great American statesman John Adams (1735-1826) who articulated America’s liberty-roots as grounded in the Reformation. In his 1765 Boston Gazette editorials, “A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law,” Adams addressed this “wicked confederacy between the two systems of tyranny,” or

between ecclesiastical and political magistracy, which restrained the advance of “liberty, . . . knowledge and virtue.” It was not until “God in his benign providence raised up the champions who began and conducted the Reformation,” that tyranny was transformed into liberty.

From the time of the Reformation to the first settlement of America, knowledge gradually spread in Europe, but especially in England; and in proportion as that increased and spread among the people, ecclesiastical and civil tyranny, which I use as synonymous expressions for the canon and feudal laws, seem to have lost their strength and weight. . . .

It was this great struggle that peopled America. It was not religion alone, as is commonly supposed; but it was a love of universal liberty, and a hatred, a dread, a horror, of the infernal confederacy before described, that projected, conducted, and accomplished the settlement of America.2 As we celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, let us remember, restate, and reaffirm the great liberty-roots whose seeds were planted by reformers courageously challenging the tyranny of their day with biblically inspired truths — truths which eventually birthed and inspired the foundations of the United States of America — and redeploy them to confront the tyranny of our own time.

1 This article is adapted from the ‘Introduction,’ to a previously published monograph by Gai Ferdon, The Political Use of the Bible in Early Modern Britain: Royalists, Republicans, Fifth Monarchists and Levellers (Cambridge, UK: Jubilee Centre, 2013), and with permission from the Jubilee Centre. Interested readers can access the entire monograph for free at http://www.jubilee-centre.org/?s=Ferdon.

2 John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams, vol. 3, The Works of John Adams; Autobiography, Diary, Notes of a Debate in the Senate, Essays (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856), 451, OLL, http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2101.

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CRS Review

ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN THE FIELD: QUMRAN CAVE #12 Randall Price, Distinguished Research Professor Rawlings School of Divinity, Liberty University Christy Connell, MA in History '17 Liberty University

Qumran is a part of the Judean Wilderness, near the Dead Sea. In this area of Israel’s desert, there are naturally forming caves frequented by peoples from the past who often hid valuables and ancient writings.

Sometime around the first-century, a Jewish sect who lived at Qumran had deposited jars filled with scrolls throughout these caves. The scrolls found in these caves became known as The Dead Sea Scrolls.

This was because, most of the excavation research was done after-the-fact.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, considered the greatest manuscript discovery of all time, represent the oldest copies of the Bible and serve as an example of the text Jesus read when He was on earth. Since their discovery in the late 1940’s, every new translation of the Bible has taken the Dead Sea Scroll’s biblical text into consideration in making their translation.

The scrolls also contain invaluable information about the history, culture, and religion of one of the most pivotal periods in history — the time of Jesus’ birth and the formation of the Church. Since the mid1950’s, political problems in the region have prevented further archaeological excavations searching for caves or scrolls. Many scholars, however, believed there were simply no more scrolls (or caves) to be found.

History of Qumran Excavations

Over the past 60 years the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls has produced entire departments in universities dedicated to this specific research. More papers and books have been written about these scrolls than any other single archaeological discovery. However, comparatively little field research and excavation had taken place to increase the knowledge of the scrolls.

From 1948-1956, eleven scroll-caves have been identified in the area surrounding Qumran. These caves, for the most part, were first found by native Bedouin shepherds. Archaeologists only learned of

The Dead Sea Scrolls, considered the greatest manuscript discovery of all time, represent the oldest copies of the Bible and serve as an example of the text Jesus read when He was on earth.

the caves after the Bedouin had looted the site and sold the scrolls and fragments. Because archaeologists only found the Qumran caves after the caves were looted, most of the research surrounding storage and set up of the scrolls in the cave was based on theories of conjecture. This changed in 2017 when a team of faculty and students from Liberty University discovered scroll cave #12 at Qumran.

Engaging Students in Research In January of 2017, Christy and I, along with additional team members from the faculty and study body of Liberty University, arrived in Qumran. We had received permission from the Israeli Antiquities

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Authority to excavate a portion of the mountain side in hopes of finding additional evidence regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls. A possible scroll-cave location had been identified on one of my previous trips to Israel, and we wanted to see if this location could have been used along with the other caves.

Christy was one of my GSA’s in the Biblical Archaeology Museum, and I had grown to appreciate her hard work and interest in ancient relics. I invited her on this trip, and it turned out that her assistance became invaluable!

At the time, she was a master’s student in the history program. She hadn’t yet decided on what to write about for her thesis and this seemed like a unique opportunity for advancing her education. What we have realized, was that this research opportunity, which has been a great blessing to the both of us, started materializing at the invitation from a professor.

that allowed the cave to receive classification as the 12th Dead Sea Scroll Cave, even though there were no intact scrolls found. However, these were probably removed in the 1950s by Bedouins, as some of their old equipment was found in the cave, along with broken pottery. The Bedouins who looted the caves did not recognize the jars as valuable, so they left many of these in place in the cave. Had they known that a single broken Dead Sea Scroll jar has sold for $1 million, things might have been different. However, leaving the scroll jars allowed archaeologists for the first time to observe how the scrolls had been deposited. Experts from Israel and other countries paid a visit to the excavation site. The official conservator of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem said, “This is what everyone who has the scroll syndrome dreams of. This may be the most important find of the 21st century, as far as we are concerned!”

Finding Cave #12

Student Reflections on Research

Once the excavation team explored the cave they found two entrances separated by a man-made pillar and inside a large area with a 50 foot tunnel in the back of the cave partially filled by stones that collapsed from the roof as a result of earthquakes. I (Christy) was one of the few members of the team able to fit into this crawl space. I donned my helmet, headlamp, and mask (to prevent breathing the centuries old dust and debris) and began exploring the darkness. In the smallest parts of the cave it was so narrow I had to crawl on my stomach. It was pitch black. I couldn’t see anything in front of me. I was crawling over pieces of animal bones and gravel. Eventually, the rest of the team removed the stones in the floor of the tunnel and we were all able to begin excavation inside the lower parts of the cave. Over the next several weeks we uncovered remains of scroll jars inside niches that had been carved along the sides of the walls. We dubbed this find, “Cave 12,” — the first Dead Sea Scroll cave found in over 60 years.

It was an amazing opportunity to be able to work with my hands and uncover artifacts that I had previously only read about or seen in museums. I also had the opportunity to meet with and work beside several experts in the field of biblical archaeology.

From these archaeologists I learned much, and I made connections that I hope will last a lifetime. It really made the history that I had previously only read about come alive. The most exciting aspect of this experience is that because it is the first Dead Sea Scroll Cave to have been discovered in approximately sixty years, it also opens the possibility of there being more scroll caves to discover in the future.

As we continued our methodical sifting, we found debris from the cave and many artifacts associated with the scrolls, such as pieces of textile that had once wrapped the scrolls. The results of these finds have encouraged other teams of archaeologists to reexamine the other caves in order to evaluate the fragments and debris left behind.

While many interesting things were found during the excavation of Cave 12, the most important artifact was a scroll fragment that was discovered at the end of the second week of digging. It was this discovery

Research at Liberty and the Training of Champions After the two week trip we returned to Lynchburg.

Christy finished her thesis and defense titled, “A History of the Archaeology at Qumran.” Not only did she study history through her time at Liberty, but she also was a part of making history.

I (Randall) believe it is very important for Liberty students to have hands-on experience in research and to have the opportunity to make real contributions in the academic world. As a university that has achieved the success it once dreamed of — we have the responsibility to steward these gifts and opportunities and the lives/ futures that have been entrusted to us. What started here will continue in the lives of the next set of students as we continue to return to Qumran and explore the Judean Wilderness.

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FAITH and

C ULT URE LE C T URE “Living with Doubt in a Secular Age” FEATURING:

DR. MARK ALLEN

DR. JOSHUA CHATRAW

SEPT. 21, 2017 AT 6PM IN THE SCIENCE HALL AUDITORIUM. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT LUAPOLOGETICS.COM

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INTERDISCIPLINARY ESSAYS

Engaging our Christian Heritage in its Broader Cultural Contexts: Interdisciplinary Engagement from History & Church History Sam Smith, Department Chair & Professor of History College of Arts & Sciences Ken Cleaver, Professor of History & Theology Rawlings School of Divinity What is the relationship between church history and general history? This is a question that arises from time to time both in the church and the academy. It is an especially important question for Evangelical Christians. The differences and similarities reveal how both disciplines play unique and vital roles in engaging students and the larger culture.

agendas as well, but success is measured more by the ability to draw from a broad array of perspectives and weave the various themes (theology and religion among them) to explain the whole story. Despite these differences, the general historian and church historian have much to contribute to one another.

Church History is a specialization within general history — like military history, art history, political history, etc. It is similar to researching one’s own family history. The church historian is primarily concerned with one slice of the historical pie — explaining what makes our Christian family think and live the way we do. As Christians ourselves, we often look for evidence of our own faith in other historical contexts and weave a narrative together that best explains our theological and religious perspectives. Yet we often are so focused on our own segment of society that we develop merely an apologetic agenda in our historical research and writing. We thus are in danger of developing a somewhat myopic approach to church history and history in general. Eusebius’s fourth century work, Church History, is an early example of this. It had two agendas. It was first of all an earnest attempt to explain four centuries of Christian history, but it also was an apologetic work to substantiate the faith of Constantine, the first Christian Roman Emperor.

Even though the broader discipline no longer stresses Eusebius’s overtly apologetic function, it nevertheless uniquely and often favorably highlights the role Christianity has played in history.

Two examples illustrate the complementary roles of general and church history. Nineteenth century church historian Philip Schaff wrote that “it is not the business of the historian to construct a history from preconceived notions and to adjust it to his own liking, but to reproduce it from the best evidence and to let it speak for itself.”1 Yet, he also noted of his mentor at the University of Berlin, August Neander that “the most enduring merit of Neander’s church history consists in the vital union of the two elements of science and Christian piety.”2 Twentieth century historian of China and of world Christianity, Kenneth Scott Latourette, serves as a similar example. He held simultaneous positions in Yale’s history department and divinity school. His most celebrated work is his four volume study of Christianity’s expansion.3 His careful attention to historical context — politics, economics, etc. — behind Christianity’s remarkable

General history, on the other hand, tends to develop a more broadly-based, synthetic understanding of history.

The general historian, even one specializing in religious history, is less denominationally or missionally focused and works more from questions of political, economic, military, and social settings. General historians have

Integrating the Disciplines

FA I T H A N D T H E A C A D E M Y: E N G A G I N G T H E C U LT U R E W I T H G R A C E A N D T R U T H

growth speaks to his rigorous historical method.

Nevertheless, he argued that central to understanding the church’s expansion was not simply these “externally congenial circumstances” of historical context, but the “inward vitality, something in the nature of the religion or sect which commands such enthusiastic devotion….”4 Clearly, neither Schaff nor Latourette saw empirical investigation coupled with spiritual presuppositions as antithetical to accurate history.

The Reformation is an excellent case study that shows the importance of a spiritual and empirical understanding. To write about the Reformation apart from an understanding of the tensions over justification by faith alone (Protestant) or by works and faith (Roman Catholic), would be to miss the Reformation’s theological origins. In his book, The Reformation Era, 1500-1650, Harold Grimm wrote, “The Reformation had its inception in the search for the answer to a typically medieval question, ‘How can I be saved?”5 This was the question that drove the Reformation and is still being asked and hopefully answered today.6 The theological question, is vital, but it is not the only question.

An investigation of the Reformation that focuses on the theological or spiritual side at the expense of the larger historical context will be less authentic and meaningful. For example, to confine Luther’s disgust with the selling of indulgences as spiritually motivated apart from the economic hardships associated with them would be to de-contextualize the story. Luther wrote in 1520, “I believe that Germany now gives much more to the pope at Rome than it gave in former times to the emperors. Indeed, some estimate that every year more than three hundred thousand gulden find their way from Germany to Rome, quite uselessly and fruitlessly; we get nothing for it but scorn and contempt. And yet we wonder that princes, nobles, cities, endowments, land and people are impoverished!” And, Luther added, “We should rather wonder that we still have anything to eat!”7 Luther’s words may sound hyperbolic, until one realizes that

within two years of writing this the Roman Catholic Church would control close to half of Germany’s wealth!8 Both spiritual abstractions and empirical realities work in tandem to produce greater truth.

Cultural Engagement from the Disciplines Given the differences between the church historian and the general historian — assuming both are believers — their respective tasks for effective engagement with culture merge under a basic methodology. How might the general or church historian engage culture effectively? We suggest the following principles as starting points.

1. Biblical truth is the first principle. The ultimate historian is God Himself, and the Bible is His Word.

It is a supremely reliable source of truth for all contexts of life, and it should guide our approach to empirical evidence. Human behavior can often, but not only, be explained by the biblical themes of humanity’s separation from, and reconciliation to, God. 2. Every story has a context. Before a valid interpretation of available data can take place, context or background must be established. History, neither in whole or in part, takes place in a vacuum. Imagine taking a selfie in front of a blank wall and sending it to your friends. They will have no context from which to discern where you are, what time it was, or if you are alone or with others. However, if you take a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower on a sunny day with people mulling in the background, your friends will be able to deduce multiple facts and meanings from the context alone.

3. Remain grounded in the evidence. Research broadly, and lay out the historical content as it is, not merely as you want it to be. To be sure, the allimportant interpretive stage will follow, but before you can interpret, you must have the facts straight.

It is surprising, sometimes alarming, to see how often historians (often Christian historians) dive into abstractions and interpretations before they have even established what actually happened.

4. Cautiously employ the subjective. All historical interpretation involves subjective decisions. Where there is a feast of data, the historian will have to prioritize which facts make the final edition of the lecture given or work written. Where there is a famine of data, the historian will have to decide how to explain the gaps that bear no (or little) historical evidence. The

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historian’s task is not a simple chronicling of the past.

If that were so, we would simply read primary sources in chronological order. History is not just the past, it is the interpretation of the past.9 5. Cultivate empathy for those in the past. One of the most important lessons to learn from history is to understand those who are different. Differences include politics, social mores, religious convictions, etc. Empathy is not the same as sympathy. Whereas sympathy finds core elements of agreement, empathy may even strengthen disagreements, but increases one’s understanding as to why certain characters acted the way they did. Consider history as a foreign country.

Unless historians seek to know and understand the larger habits of life surrounding the people of this foreign country under investigation, they will never reach a meaningful interpretation. This same principle applies to engaging modern culture. In fact, empathizing with those in the past can be an important step in engaging with modern culture since the same skill is necessary in bridging the gap with those who may or may not share the same civic virtues or faith commitments.

1 Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 1 in Christian Classics Ethereal Library, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc1.i.II_1.19. html.

2 Stephen R. Graham, “Modern Pioneers: Philip Schaff--Father of American Church History,” Christianity Today. 72. http://www. christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-72/modern-pioneers-philipschaff.html.

3 Kenneth Scott Laourette, Christianity in a Revolutionary Age, 4 vols.

(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1969).

4 Quoted in William A. Speck, “Kenneth Latourette’s Vocation as Christian Historian,” in George Marsden and Frank Roberts, A Christian View of History, 129.

5 Harold J. Grimm, The Reformation Era, 1500-1650, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1975), 1.

6 For an insightful, modern discussion of the state of the Reformation today, see Gregg Allison and Chris Castaldo, The Unfinished Reformation: What Unites and Divides Catholics and Protestants After 500 Years. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016.

7 Martin Luther, “An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility,” vol. 7 in The Works of Martin Luther (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982), 65.

8 Rodney Stark, The Triumph of Christianity (NY: Harper One, 2011), 322.

9 For example, the German language has two words for history: Historie (the event) and Geschicte (the interpretation of the event).

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INTERDISCIPLINARY ESSAYS

Where There Are People, There Too Are Stories: Interdisciplinary Engagement from Literature and Apologetics Marybeth Davis Baggett, Associate Professor of English College of General Studies, Liberty University A. Chadwick Thornhill, Associate Professor of Apologetics and Biblical Studies Rawlings School of Divinity, Liberty University Some books are indelibly tied to their historical moment. For readers, they conjure images of the past and bring to mind impressions of a bygone era. The glory of Rome’s Golden Age emanates from the pages of Virgil’s Aeneid; Anglo-Saxon heroism, from Beowulf.

The Divine Comedy captures the political tensions of early fourteenth century Florence while Uncle Tom’s Cabin highlights the systemic injustice and personal toll of slavery in the Antebellum American South.

These stories and myriad others were born from the events, trends, and attitudes of their respective periods.

Often these books and their cultural fodder are so closely united in the public imagination that the line between fictional story and historical fact is blurred.

Our vision of the past is filtered through the lens of story, where events are centered on conflict, heroes and villains are driven by ethically-charged purposes, and details are imbued with significance provided by the story’s end. Dwelling a bit on this distinction — between brute historical fact and meaningful story — highlights a fundamental human drive, deep at the heart of who we are as people. We are inveterate storytellers, a trait evidenced by myth and fairy tale, classic literature and memoir, theater and television.

Where there are people, there too are stories.

At their best, stories are entertaining, and the pleasure they provide is undeniably part and parcel of their overall value. But they also do more than offer mere diversion. The value of story both embraces and surpasses amusement. Stories delight and teach, to modify Horace’s classic formulation.1 Or to channel Jonathan Swift, they deliver “sweetness and light.”2 At least that is what we hope for. Susan Gallagher and Roger Lundin explain that in telling stories, “we struggle to discover what we have been, who we are, and what we ought to be.”3 This explanation dovetails

with N. T. Wright’s argument that human life is anchored in and shaped by the stories, both implicit and explicit, we tell ourselves.4 For this reason, Wright contends that worldview and narrative are not separate modes of thought but interwoven ones. Contra an Enlightenment approach to knowledge, Wright suggests that worldview is not simply a set of interconnected beliefs, propositions we espouse or reject; rather, a person’s worldview is made up of many facets of human existence. Through story, these disparate elements are woven together in a coherent whole.5 Worldviews tell stories of where we have come from and where we are going. Stories both articulate and illuminate relationships: they position individuals in community, highlight the ways in which we are shaped by our environment, and trace the often invisible bonds between cause and effect.

Samuel Coleridge identifies this activity as the work of the imagination, finding patterns and unifying them into a coherent whole. The human imagination, for Coleridge, finds its source and ideal in the creative processes of God. While Coleridge’s theology often verged on the heterodox, this connection between man’s imaginative activity and the creative work of God parallels J. R. R. Tolkien’s theory of sub-creation, that writers of stories generate for their readers what he calls secondary worlds; to do so, they must draw on ultimate reality, spinning transcendent truths into literary form. For this reason, the act of storytelling is bound up with our spiritual and moral standing. What we find in the world around us, how we arrange those findings is dependent on our expectations and will.

And so the products of this imaginative activity — the stories we hear and those we tell — provide a glimpse into the respective author’s conceptions of the world.

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Worldview and the Stories We Tell Nineteenth-century American author Stephen Crane, for example, wrote stories populated with people in dire situations, ill-equipped to survive, let alone overcome, the life-threatening challenges they faced. His characters in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets live in slums and fight — literally and figuratively — for limited resources. “The Open Boat” depicts shipwreck survivors facing the open sea with only an insubstantial dinghy between them and certain death.

Representative of the naturalistic vein of American literature, Crane’s tales begin and end in despair.

Much of Crane’s work draws on his own experiences and actual conditions he witnessed in the tenements of the Bowery district of New York. But the conclusions he draws about these experiences, the doom and gloom, is the work of his worldview. We can imagine a story that might highlight its characters’ dignity and human spirit despite such conditions and find unexpected reason for hope. This seems to be Deborah Hopkinson’s goal in Shutting out the Sky: Life in the Tenements of New York, 1880-1924.

We might be tempted to understand the import of this connection between story and worldview along radical postmodern lines, that we should jettison notions of objective truth, goodness, and beauty and instead embrace the pluralistic idea that we create our own realities. Who is to judge whether Crane or Hopkinson has the right take on Bowery life? The uneasiness this question stirs up might encourage us to retreat to the traditional ways of understanding worldview—as a checklist to be ticked off. However, Wright offers the following criteria by which to evaluate stories: the sense they make of the world, both in broad-brush and specifics; how simple are their outlines; how well they handle details and explain the data on offer; and whether they can be translated beyond their immediate contexts.6

Narrative Apologetics Pitted against Crane’s story, with no outside assistance, Hopkinson’s understanding of Bowery life seems Pollyannaish. Looking only at material circumstances, life does indeed appear “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” as Thomas Hobbes described it.7 But the Christian has access to another story, one that accounts for and reinterprets all that Crane identifies. The gospel acknowledges the injustice and tragedy of life in the Bowery and offers hope for redemption, not an idealistic, unreliable optimism but

a substantive promise made good in the incarnation, resurrection, and enthronement of Jesus Christ.

As we engage with those whose worldviews differ from our own, it’s worthwhile to keep in mind this dual function of stories, how their personal histories have shaped their belief systems and how their belief systems in turn attempt to tell a story about the world.

Using Wright’s framework, we can examine not only the facts which undergird these stories, but the stories themselves and their explanatory power. If the story a worldview offers does not make sense of the world, of good and evil, justice and injustice, love and hate, it is too thin. And in doing so, we can point ourselves and others toward a truer, thicker story which makes sense of our world. Christianity is both sweeping in its scope and intimate in its practice, rendering everything meaningful and nothing expendable.

We learn and rehearse this story through our participation in the life of the church. The sacraments of communion and baptism, remind us of our place in this story. For Christians are not merely characters at the mercy of the cosmic plot; we are actors and storytellers ourselves, tasked with sharing in word and deed the story of hope and redemption to others. This is the grand story which is the measure of all others, the story we must proclaim and embody in our encounters with the stories around us each day.

1 Horace. The Art of Poetry, in The Critical Tradition, edited by David H. Richter (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007), 91.

2 Jonathan Swift, “A Tale of a Tub,” in Gulliver's Travels, A Tale of a Tub, The Battle of the Books (New York: Modern Library, 1931), 532.

3 Susan V. Gallagher and Roger Lundin, Literature through the Eyes of Faith (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1989), 35.

4 N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 123.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid., 42.

7 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Produced by Edward White, and David Widger, Accessed May 27, 2017. https://www.gutenberg.org/ files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm, XIII.9.

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Narcissism & the Reflections of “Me”: Interdisciplinary Engagement from Psychology and Youth Ministry Dan Logan, Associate Professor of Psychology, School of Behavioral Sciences, Liberty University Troy Temple, Associate Dean & Professor of Theology and Family Ministries, Rawlings School of Divinity, Liberty University After a full day of work and teaching university students aged 18-29, my wife asked me (Dan), “how was class today?” This was a typical question, and somewhat routine, for which I often answered with an expected positive response. However, this time it was different. Earlier that day I had a class that lacked energy and was fairly boring. I began to share this challenging experience with a fair amount of personalization, even sharing that I was bored with the content and I was the one teaching! After five minutes of lamenting, she looked at me and said, “You realize people don’t think about you as much as you think they think about you.” As a somewhat reactive and talkative person, this rendered me speechless. I am sure I had a pensive look on my face that prompted her to explain more. She proceeded to explain how the students have their own challenges to worry about, bills to pay, relationships to foster, responsibilities, etc. and they were not thinking about me or the “boring” class. At that moment, I realized that I had placed a fair amount of attention on “me” and what reflected “me”.

As humbling as this experience was for me, I can’t help

but think about how much attention people give to the “me” in the room and how much time they spend adjusting the reflection of “me” in a culture saturated with social media that also focuses on “me.”

This reflection is a reminder of the Greek mythical character Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool, not knowing the reflection was actually himself. Unlike Narcissus, we live in a culture that provides the ideal forum for which a person can adjust his/her reflection in the “pool” of social media.

I should take a picture of my food so everyone knows I am eating surf and turf. Never mind the reality of eating left-overs the previous day. I should retake this selfie at a different angle to minimize my double chin.

Never mind the reality that this person knows that diet and exercise would be a good life choice. I should post pictures of my vacation to Europe. Never mind the reality of having to pay off the credit card bill for the next twelve months. The concern is not social media, but rather the use of social media as a reflection of a false reality…just a little adjustment here and there

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is all we need. This false reality begins to tell a story that is part autobiography and part fiction. The more likes we get or followers of our false reality the more tempting it is to entertain the idea that this false reality is in fact our real-reality.

According to the Pew Research Center, 68% of all Americans use Facebook, 28% use Instagram, 21% use Twitter, 25% use LinkedIn, and 26% use Pinterest.1 In the same report, the largest percentage of Instagram (59%) and Twitter (36%) users are men and women ages 18-29. And, this same group is the largest users of messaging apps (42%) and auto-delete apps (56%).

Interestingly, this time period in human development (18-29) often focuses on identity and relationship building.2 This is a time in which individuals may be prompted to put their best “face” forward…or, at least, be tempted to adjust their best “face” — just a little bit. It certainly is understandable that a person wants others to see them at their best. However, this brings into question the influence of this false reality on the present and the future.

The concern is not social media, but rather the use of social media as a reflection of a false reality… just a little adjustment here and there is all we need.

As each generation (Greatest, Silent, Baby Boomers, Generation X) leaves its reflective mark on society, it would appear that, in part, a common goal was to advance medicine, provide more opportunity for education, and to progress with the development and use of technology. Each generation that follows the previous generation(s) enjoys the advancements made in these areas and enjoys a “better way of life.” How will this next generation of Millennials influence the advancement in these areas and see their reflection in the pool of society? Will this reflection be an accurate reflection, or adjusted just a little bit? If the only goal is to adjust it — just a little bit, will the following generation actually have a “better way of life?" This then is our charge.

Finding Our Value in the Reflection This betterment of life has become the defining goal of our modern culture. We have become chasers of the

curated image with the hope that our stock will rise via likes, favorites, and retweets. Young adults have now valued social media breaks over refueling retreats and vacations. We, now, value and declare value solely on the perception that we control. The result, an image driven culture that feeds on the next cute video, Facebook vacation post, and Snap Chat story.

But wait! Before you fall prey to the overgeneralization that this describes young generations alone, consider your own daily practice. Do you post a social media announcement of a proud accomplishment from you or your child? This may not seem narcissistic, but if we are searching to validate our value to the people around us, that’s exactly what it is. Furthermore, this narcissism epidemic is not isolated to the young as indicated by the research revealed in a recent article on Barna.com.3 Research revealed that “seven in 10 parents say they sleep with their phone next to them.” It’s no wonder that the same research indicated that more than 80% of teens sleep with their phones.

The fact that we, adults, keep our phones next to us so we can check email and our calendar can reveal a narcissistic character as accurately as the 1,000 selfies that your teenager posts…by second period. We all over estimate how much everyone around us actually thinks about us. We, parents and children, have placed our value in the not so trustworthy hands of the oftenfaceless validators of our curated reflection and made the story about “me.”

With such a strong tether to devices and screens that we use to curate our image so that the reflection of who we are is exactly what we want others to see, we find ourselves in direct opposition to the divine image that we have been created to reflect. How can our community see the Creator and His image reflected in us when we spend so much careful, intentional energy in reflecting something that’s completely “me” and only the “me” that we want them to see? How can we see the Creator and His image in us when we look at our feed or story on social media more than we focus on Him and His grand story?

Guiding Reflections in the Home As parents and educators, we have been given one of the hardest and, yet, most fulfilling jobs in all of creation. God has gifted us with children, teens, and young adults and commissioned us to lead them to realize the image that was placed there by their Creator. Narcissism is largely galvanized around the individual, “me.” The practical steps that we can take in our families should help us as believers to focus on

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others beginning with Christ and expanding to our family and friends, even beyond to the community around us. Here are some practical steps to reign in narcissism at home and allow Christ to shine through and help us find our value in Him alone.

Simply put down the device. It’s hard to take a selfie or send a Snap Chat without your phone, tablet, or computer. Social media has become the primary means for the “me” epidemic in our society. This is the practice of media solitude. Scripture is replete with guiding principles that admonish us to quiet our hearts and minds. From Psalm 46:10 where God our Refuge directs His people to “Be still, and know that I am God.” (ESV) to Psalm 62:5 where we are taught to find rest in God alone, we can and must set aside the things which keep us from truly seeing our God and Image Maker clearly.

• Park your devices, everyone! This includes parents and children. Park them at meals and bedtime. Park them in a location that limits access and distraction. This could be in another room or tucked away in a drawer.

• Take breaks throughout the day. I know it’s outdated, but what if you left your device in the car a couple of times a week when you went to lunch. Or, leave your laptop on your desk when you go to the next meeting. Try using a journal to write notes every once in a while.

Focus on what you give rather than what you get. The “me” vortex is driven by what it gets from others. Instead of pursuing response in the form of likes, favorites, and re-tweets, why not cultivate a climate of doing for others or catching someone doing something right and recognize them with affirmation. Create a culture in your home where you truly prefer one another and outdo one another as Paul charges us in Romans 12:10, “Love one another with brotherly love and affection. Outdo one another in showing honor” (ESV). This sounds a little competitive because it is. But it’s not so that “me” wins, it’s the strategy for overcoming evil in our families and our lives.

Foster interdependence rather than independence.

The “me” society is built on the search for independence of the individual and their dreams and rights. You can be anything that you want to be seems to be a positive affirmation of individual dreams, but it can’t easily miss the power behind the collaborative nature of the body of Christ.

Individualism pushes us to find our place and climb

as high as we can. But the gospel is built on the interdependence, “us.” 1 Corinthians 12 is often the most resourced text for understanding how the body of Christ works, by design. As Christians, we are family and forever connected by the salvation found only in Christ. That tie is put there by God and we now looked to each other to be actively using the gifts that we have been given to serve the mission of the gospel and each other. But, even more, Paul’s body metaphor drives home the truth that we truly need each other to function effectively and see great fruit. Help your family to see that each member is valuable by assigning tasks that only they will be responsible to do and if they don’t, the whole family will feel it. But when they do, the whole family experiences greater joy.

Chase the “me” of narcissism out of your life every day and then lead your family to take intentional steps that will change their focus on Christ and the true reflection that they have been created to be. After all, people don’t think about you as much as you think they think about you.

1 “Social media update 2016: Facebook usage and engagement is on the rise, while adoption of other platforms holds steady,” Pew Research Center, accessed June 2, 2017, http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/ social-media-update-2016/.

2 E.H. Erickson, ed., Youth: Change and Challenge, (New York: Basic Books, 1963); Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).

3 “6 Tech Habits Changing the American Home,” Barna.com, April 18, 2017, accessed June 2, 2017, https://www.barna.com/research/6-techhabits-changing-american-home/.

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Send Us Your Top

STUDENTS Let the Center

for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement

equip your students to address today’s most challenging social and cultural issues with humility and wisdom through its Student

Fellows program.

Students from all academic disciplines can participate. Applications for Spring 2018 are available at LUApologetics.com and must be submitted by Sept. 10, 2017.

Shawn Akers, J.D. Dean, Helms School of Government Senior Fellow, Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement

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Book Reviews Megan Gentleman Student Fellow, Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement Is the Reformation over? Do Catholics and Protestants have shared commonalities that can unite our fellowship? Are such questions important to ask and answer? It is these questions that Allison and Castaldo answer in The Unfinished Reformation. Both authors recognize the confusion that continues to surround the relationship between Catholics and Protestants, and because of this they began their “search for clarity” (13) in order to explore the spiritual-relational dynamics that exist between Protestants and Catholics and whether or not we can live together as brothers and sisters, in Christ. After setting the groundwork of Reformation history, the authors list several reasons this question is important for the church today, such as the common goals, shared hopes, and relational dynamics between families, marriages, and friendships — in order to shed light on the necessity of the conversation.

True, there are obvious commonalities between Catholics and Protestants such as theological beliefs and societal hopes; however, there are many differences that cannot be ignored or dismissed, and the bulk of the book is made up of a discussion on these differences which include the views on Scripture, the image of God, sin, the church, and salvation. These are critical categories for every believer to think about as they affect such tangible and visible aspects of the Christian life.

Polar extremes are not necessary, and the argument here is that one can love their brother or sister well without necessarily agreeing with them; conformity is not maturity. In light of the differences and similarities, Allison and Castaldo submit that the reader adopts a position “that acknowledges and gives thanks for the real agreement that exists across the divide while honestly noting the areas of profound disagreement on a host of issues” (140). The discussion began in The Unfinished Reformation is extremely timely and beneficial and leads readers to consider for themselves whether the Reformation is over or not.

Matthew Mielnicki Student Fellow, Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement Over the past few decades, the American religious landscape has seen increasing cooperation between Protestants and Catholics in addressing social and humanitarian issues for which they find common ground.

Indeed, as the influence of Christianity recedes in western civilization one can see why this collaboration might be the case. Additionally, Christians in the United States find themselves within a culture that prefers a form of religious tolerance that highlights similarities rather than examines differences. Naturally, within this setting, Christians might wonder why we should redraw the old battle lines and resurrect theological disputes, especially when the collaborative endeavors of the last few decades have worked so well. Aware of this concern, Michael Reeves and Tim Chester point out that the basic questions of the reformation are not temporally or culturally bound. Questions on attaining God’s approval, overcoming sin, recognizing how God speaks to us, and considering the kind of hope we can have in the face of death will always have contemporary relevance and needs continued theological grounding (20). However, the tone of the work is not one of dispute, but of discovery, as the authors work through the thoughts of key reformers in hopes that evangelicals will rediscover why the issues were important then, and should be considered important now. Ultimately, the work appears to be more concerned with theological indifference than with theological differences, although the latter is still clearly important, especially when the former becomes more broadly apparent.

While the book is systematic and approachable, it moves beyond the more expected and perhaps obligatory Reformation concerns like Justification by faith to important themes of the period like union with Christ, which many laypeople do not consider thoroughly enough today. Indeed, Luther and Calvin saw the importance of this union in explaining soteriological mysteries like the transference of sin from the believer to Christ and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer. Indeed, the authors contend that union with Christ is the basis of this “Copernican revolution in theology” (177-22). Thus, the work addresses the major areas of concern while placing them within a broader theological and historical backdrop.

However, this book is not a point-counterpoint examination of Protestant and Catholic doctrines. Moreover, while it contains elements of systematic and historical theology, it doesn’t particularly fit either genre. Rather, Why the Reformation Still Matters is an apologia for dialogue – with the reformers on the necessity of theological reflection for the continued transformation of the Church.

FA I T H A N D T H E A C A D E M Y: E N G A G I N G T H E C U LT U R E W I T H G R A C E A N D T R U T H

Jack Carson Student Fellow, Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement Carl Trueman provides a succinct and colorful engagement with the life and work of Martin Luther in his book, Luther on the Christian Life. The Father of the Protestant Reformation has not only had a tremendous impact on the history of the western world, but he has also left behind extensive writings on the proper way to live the Christian life. While Trueman intentionally avoids critically engaging with the dangers and merits of Luther’s theology, he provides an excellent introduction to Luther’s thoughts.

Trueman clearly has a deep fondness for Luther’s legacy, teachings, and passions. This fondness shines through every page of Luther on the Christian Life, and it fills the book with a reverence that sheds the monotony of a simple biography. Trueman is able to display Luther’s teachings on Scripture, prayer, righteousness, and even the sacraments in a way that is winsome, light, and — at times — genuinely amusing.

In addition, Trueman does an excellent job of framing Luther’s wide scope of teaching within the historical context of Luther’s own life. He parses out Luther’s various — and sometimes changing — views in a way that offers the chance for the reader to, in a sense, learn alongside of Luther. For example, Trueman walks the reader through Luther’s own transformation of thought that led to his famous distinction between “theologians of the cross” and “theologians of glory” (75-77). Due to the dynamic changes that Luther’s life entailed, his writings can easily be confusing if not set against the backdrop of his life and explained as a progression of thought. Trueman offers this exact service to his readers in Luther on the Christian Life.

While many aspects of Luther’s teaching may seem commonplace to Protestants today, Trueman brings to the surface many of Luther’s less commonly known views. Chief among these is Luther’s view on the “Liturgy of the Christian Life.” Trueman emphasizes that Luther held a high view of the formative value of liturgy and routine (99-115). Within modern evangelicalism, the theme of liturgical living has seen an incredible resurgence in the past couple years.1 Trueman’s writing serves as reminder to Protestants that this emphasis on liturgical living is not alien to the foundations of Protestantism; in fact, the Father of Protestantism himself emphasized the necessity of living liturgically.

Benjamin C. F. Shaw Student Fellow, Center for Apologetics & Cultural Engagement Daniel Dreisbach, who has a DPhil from the University of Oxford and a JD from the University of Virginia, has written an important work that contributes to a greater understanding of the Bible’s influence on the founding fathers. Dreisbach argues that although there were other influences on the founders, they “knew the Bible better than any other literary work” (2). Not only did they know the Bible, they also used it. These two themes, the knowledge and use of the Bible by the founders, are examined in this book. This is done by first identifying the prominence of the Bible throughout that period and then by exploring how different biblical texts and themes were used by the founders.

Part One considers the significance of the Bible on the overall culture which, Dreisbach writes, is “difficult to overstate” (25). He highlights how the Bible came to such high standing by examining the Protestant Reformation, the impact of the KJV Bible, and the use of the Bible in education (27-47). As members of this culture, the founders too were influenced by the Bible. They believed it was valuable in the development of one’s mind and moral character (55-70). For politicians, not only was biblical language and imagery used in common parlance, but Scripture could add weight or authority to an argument, refer to normative standards or morals, highlight the role of God’s Providence, and help one to better know God and God’s relationship with man (72-94).

In Part Two, he surveys the use of several different biblical passages or themes used by the founders in order to clarify how these texts were understood and applied. For one example, he examines the way various politicians used Micah 6:8 and also includes a discussion of its original context (the other passages/themes follow a similar outline). The moral instruction behind this text was considered by many founders, believers and unbelievers alike, to be relevant in their own day. By forming a new nation, one that desires to be free and selfgoverned, it is important for its citizens to live virtuous lives. In other words, this meant to “do justly, and to love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God” (100-101, 104). These chapters are particularly important in that they identify not just that the founders used the Bible, but how they used it.

Dreisbach’s work provides a valuable resource by examining the Bible’s influence in the lives of the founders as well as its use within their discourse. The work itself is highly researched with several references for those who wish to do further study.

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For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Romans 1:16-17

Coming January 2018 Vol. 2, no. 2 Faith and the Academy: Engaging Culture with Grace and Truth “Scholarship in the Christian Academy”