Theology and Visual Culture in Early Modern Calvinism

2021 ◽  
pp. 286-303
Author(s):  
William A. Dyrness
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
Cultural Reconstruction ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Vision Of God ◽  
The Aesthetic

Recent scholarship on the arts and the Reformation has come to focus more broadly on the cultural reconstruction the Reformation made necessary and the resulting material and visual culture. Calvin’s challenge in Geneva was not about what the Reformation had left behind but what would replace that medieval world. Key for Calvin was the experience of worship: the oral performance of the sermon, the singing of Psalms and partaking the sacraments, as a dramatic call enabled by the Holy Spirit summoning worshippers to a vision of God and God’s presence in the world. The regular communal worship and the preached drama of sin and salvation constituted the aesthetic-dramatic mirror (Turner) of the emerging Protestant imagination. This encouraged a mutual caring for the needy but also carried deep aesthetic implications. In the Netherlands this imagination is evident in the placement of textualized images in churches, and in landscape paintings and portraits, and, in France, it stimulated Huguenot architects to recover classical orders in the service of restoring to the earth its Edenic beauty.

scholarly journals Join the Holy Spirit on Zoom

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
Giuseppina Addo
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Worship Services ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
The Aesthetic

The COVID-19 global pandemic impacted all social relations, including the way religious communities engage in worship services. Due to strict social distancing protocols, the only viable solution for many congregations was online worship. This article investigates how platforms in cyberspace, such as Zoom, can provide a substitute for the core religious practices found in physical worship services, particularly for African Pentecostal believers who rely heavily on the aesthetic and sensory experience of their religious environment. Drawing on the theoretical concept of affordance, it is argued that digital affordances such as the chat box and emojis are used by believers to communicate affective moments arising from the sensory experience of worship. Members of the congregation become ‘digital spiritual hype people’ who render support to leaders in order to create and regenerate an affective environment where the presence of the Holy Spirit can be felt. The Holy Spirit, a fundamental pillar for Evangelical Christians, is understood as an embedded presence within the digital infrastructure. The internet connection, the phone and computers and screens are all re-appropriated as spiritual tools through which miraculous healing can be dispensed to believers in need. This research stands at a critical juncture between what might be termed the ‘pre-COVID era’ and the ‘post-COVID era’. As vaccination plans continue to roll out and social distancing measures are slowly being lifted, a ‘post-COVID era’ for African Pentecostals means negotiating the boundaries between online and offline spaces to fulfil core religious practices.

The Divine Trinity

2018 ◽  
pp. 39-53
Author(s):  
William J. Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Attributes Of God ◽  
Vision Of God ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity ◽  
The Way

The Christian vision of God is that God is three Persons in one Substance. This vision went beyond Scripture in order to do justice to Jewish monotheism, encounters with Jesus as an agent of divine action, and personal and corporate experiences of the Holy Spirit. Objections based on entanglement with Greek metaphysics and on certain feminist claims about male language fail. Loss of the Trinity involves serious impoverishment of the life and work of the church. Its continued embrace prepares the way for the exploration of the attributes of God.

A Parisian Colloquy of 1566: Holy Spirit or Holy Church

1970 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
Donald G. Nugent
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Holy Spirit

Mary Stuart was accused of many things, but never of being a theologian. Nevertheless, at the end of the summer of 1561, the recently widowed and star-crossed Queen, in an extraordinary interview with the intrepid Reformer, John Knox, put her finger on what was perhaps the fundamental question of the Reformation. Concerning the respective credentials of the Kirk of Scotland and the Kirk of Rome, she pleaded: ‘Ye interpret the Scriptures in one manner, and they interpret in another. Whom shall I believe? And who shall be judge?’ Knox's reply was, au fond, an appeal to the Holy Spirit.

Luther, Martin (1483–1546)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.A. Higton
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Good Works ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Justification By Faith ◽  
The Holy Spirit

Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk who found the theology and penitential practices of his times inadequate for overcoming fears about his salvation. He turned first to a theology of humility, whereby confession of one’s own utter sinfulness is all that God asks, and then to a theology of justification by faith, in which human beings are seen as incapable of any turning towards God by their own efforts. Without preparation on the part of sinners, God turns to them and destroys their trust in themselves, producing within them trust in his promises made manifest in Jesus Christ. Regarding them in unity with Christ, God treats them as if they had Christ’s righteousness: he ‘justifies’ them. Faith is produced in the sinner by the Word of God concerning Jesus Christ in the Bible, and by the work of the Holy Spirit internally showing the sinner the true subject matter of the Bible. It is not shaped by philosophy, since faith’s perspective transcends and overcomes natural reason. Faith, through the working of God’s Holy Spirit within the believer, naturally produces good works, but justification is not dependent upon them – they are free expressions of faith in love. Nevertheless, secular government with its laws and coercion is still necessary in this world because there are so few true Christians. Luther’s theology brought him into conflict with the Church hierarchy and was instrumental in the instigation of the Reformation, in which the Protestant churches split from Rome.

Art and the Artist in the Lutheran Reformation: Johannes Mathesius and Joachimsthal

2017 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 1081-1120
Author(s):  
Christopher Boyd Brown
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
World History ◽  
Aesthetic Quality ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
Mining Town ◽  
Lutheran Theology ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Holy Spirit

Luther's student Johann Mathesius, longtime pastor in the Bohemian mining town of Joachimsthal, provides a lens for seeing early modern art and artists through Lutheran eyes, challenging modern interpretations of the dire consequences of the Reformation for the visual arts.1For Mathesius, pre-Reformation art provided not only evidence of old idolatry but also testimony to the preservation of Evangelical faith under the papacy. After the Reformation, Joachimsthal's Lutherans were active in commissioning new works of art to fill the first newly built Protestant church, including an altarpiece from Lucas Cranach's workshop. Mathesius's appreciation of this art includes not only its biblical and doctrinal content but also its aesthetic quality. In an extended sermon on the construction of the Tabernacle in Exodus 31, Mathesius draws on Luther's theology of the special inspiration of the “great men” of world history to develop a Lutheran theology of artistic inspiration, in which artists are endowed by the Holy Spirit with extraordinary skills and special creative gifts, intended to be used in service of the neighbor by adorning the divinely appointed estates of government, church, and household.

scholarly journals Gebed en aanvechting. Ervaring van de Reformatie voor een seculiere tijd

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-134
Author(s):  
P. Veerman
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Core Elements

Changed worldviews and ongoing secularization have raised new temptations for the Christian practice of prayer. How can believers, who are also profoundly influenced by this environment, persist in prayer and teach the next generation how to pray? Reformers Luther and Calvin teach that prayer and temptation belong together. In thisarticle I examine three core elements from the Reformation teaching on prayer that can challenge secularization: (1) the importance of praying from the heart; (2) the role of the Holy Spirit in prayer; and (3) the use of written prayer.

The Reformation of Liturgy

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan C. Karant-Nunn
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Evangelical Movement ◽  
The Way

Along with Reformation changes in authorized religious belief came the urgent revision and refinement of ecclesiastical ceremony—the liturgy. Both before and after the Evangelical movement, every act and decorative object within the churches symbolized a point of theological affirmation. Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli led the way in directing a new program, which constituted an aural and visual means of instructing the laity. The transubstantiating priest gave way to the preacher of Scripture, and the sermon now became the centerpiece of organized worship. The Holy Spirit inspired the clergyman in his pulpit. The Lord’s Supper remained a liturgical and theological focal point even though it was not as prominently placed in services as preaching. Across Protestant Europe, new forms of observance inculcated doctrine upon parishioners. Social rituals—marriage, baptism, and penance—were made congregational and not just familial or personal concerns.

scholarly journals The Spirit of God in the New Testament: Diverse witnesses

1999 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andries Van Aarde
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Gospel Of John ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Triune God ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Nicene Creed ◽  
Three Phases

The article begins with a discussion of the development of the doctine with regard to the Holy Spirit. This development took place in three phases: from apocalypticism to the Nicene Creed to the Reformation. In the doctrine of the Triune God the Holy Spirit functions as the third persona. In the New Testament the Spiit of God should be seen against the background of intermediary and apocalyptic figures. A comparison of passages in Luke-Acts, the Gospel of John and Paul's letter to the Romans attests to a diversity of witnesses with regard to the Spirit of God. The aricle includes a discourse on the nature of the chaismatic gits of the Holy Spirit witnessed in 1 Cointhians 12. By way of conclusion, a list of recommended publications with regard to the Biblical witness of the Spirit of God is presented.

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