He Shall Reign Forever and Ever

Kristin and I had a wonderful time at the U-Mass Lowell Messiah sing-a-long. Kristin and our daughter Rachel sang with the sopranos and I sang with the mute section (but I was singing joyfully on the inside). What a wonderful piece of music!

Steven Runge

If you love studying the New Testament in Greek, you owe it to yourself to check out Steven Runge's outstanding blog.

A Liberating Truth

"Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand." - Romans 14:4 NKJV

I would be happier receiving critical feedback from Tim Keller, Doug Wilson, and N.T. Wright than in spending my life trying to point out where they are going wrong. Yes, we must protect our churches from error. Yes, we need to critique each other in order to "contend earnestly for the faith which has once and for all been delivered to the saints." Nevertheless, most Reformed bloggers would benefit from pondering Romans 14:4 before sending their latest critiques of more famous men off into cyberspace.

It is a liberating truth to know that God hasn't called me to be Tim Keller. He has called me to follow Him. Christ has set us free from the burden of being another pastor's nanny to the joyous task of proclaiming His victory over Satan, sin, and death on behalf of His people.

Please Read Before 10 November 2010

For our last week of the semester we will be looking at Gutenberg and the Pre-Reformation saints.

John Wycliffe 1328?-1384

Wycliffe was educated at Oxford where he also became a professor. Wycliffe was highly regarded for his learning and was asked to comment on the most pressing issues of his day. Of particular concern were the political conflicts for supremacy between popes and kings. Wycliffe eventually argued that popes were not superior to kings. He also denied the medieval doctrine of Transubstantiation (i.e. that the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper literally and miraculously become the body of and blood of Jesus). Although those loyal to the pope vigorously sought to persecute Wycliffe and his followers (called Lollards), they were never entirely successful and the Lollards helped to pave the way for the Protestant Reformation in England.

Johannes Gutenberg

Christians have long been known as "people of the Book". But what if most Christians could never own a book of their own let alone their own personal copy of the Bible. The reason for this was simple: Books were tremendously expensive. One full handwritten copy of the Bible would cost more than a typical person made in a year. Even a university library in the Middle Ages might have only a couple hundred volumes in it. That all changed when Johannes Gutenberg developed an efficient method of using movable type in the middle of the fifteenth century. The Reformers latched on to this new technology to distribute their own theological treatises as well as for the printing of Scripture. The printing press allowed Luther's and Calvin's teachings to spread around Europe at a rate that would have been unimaginable just a century earlier.

Jan Hus 1369?-1415

Jan Hus was a Bohemian reformer. Many of his teachings anticipated those of Martin Luther. Hus attacked the Church's practice of selling indulgences to pay for the Crusades. Hus was familiar with the writings of John Wycliffe and his most famous work, On the Church, borrows heavily from Wycliffe's teaching. He was burned at the stake for the charge of heresy. During one debate, Luther's opponent tried to back him into a corner by claiming that Luther was teaching the same views that Jan Hus had been condemned for. Luther, not being familiar with Hus' writings asked to have the opportunity to read them. Luther then returned and proclaimed: "We are all Hussite's!"

Please Read by 3 November 2010

This week we will be looking at the reshaping of Medieval Europe. In particular, we will be discussing Scholasticism, the Black Death, the Hundred Years War, and the impact of the fall of the Byzantine Empire on the West.

HUNDRED YEARS WAR

It would be helpful for you to read a bit about the 100 Years War prior to class. A short and very simple outline of the 100 Years War can be found here. A slightly more academic account of the war can be found here.

SCHOLASTICISM

Scholasticism was a method of learning, teaching, and thinking that came to dominance in Europe during the late Middle Ages. As the name implies, a great deal of emphasis was placed on the rigorous sort of thought that took place in schools. There was a sustained attempt to combine Aristotelian philosophy with the theological insights of the Latin Church Fathers.

1. What relationship should Christian thought and Biblical interpretation have with pagan (remember that Aristotle was a pagan) philosophy?
2. What benefits would such a detailed and rigorous approach to theology have for the Church in general and individual Christians in particular? What harm might such an approach cause in the life of the Church?
3. Were peasants, serfs, and craftsmen equipped to engage in scholastic reasoning? If not, how would this impact who theology was actually being done for?

It is important to understand both the attractions and pitfalls of scholasticism because this way of thinking under-girded the theology of the Medieval Church that scholars like Erasmus and Reformers like Luther and Calvin were protesting against.

Please Read by October 27th

This week we are going to step away from our focus on Western Europe in order to look at the Mongols, Marco Polo, and the Far East.

It would be helpful if you familiarized yourself with the following names and facts before you come to class:

THE MONGOLS

1. The term Mongol refers to anyone who spoke a Mongolic language. In the modern world we tend to identify people by the nation sate that they live in, but it was common to use language in the ancient world as the primary marker of group identity (so Greeks were the people who spoke Greek). This is not universally the case. For example, many first century Romans and Jews spoke Greek rather than Latin or Aramaic/Hebrew.
2. Geographically, the Mongols seem to have come from China and Mongolia. Most of the Mongolians alive today live in China, Mongolia, and Russia.
3. The two Mongols that we will be talking about in class are Genghis Khan 1162-1227 and his grandson Kublai Khan 1215-1294.
4. The khans, especially Genghis Khan, are often portrayed as brutal and ruthless barbarians. This one dimensional portrait is terribly misleading. Why would such a misleading portrait be repeated so frequently? Try to find something positive to say about Genghis or Kublai Khan.
5. The term khan is a title for a ruler of the Mongols. It is difficult to translate it accurately as terms like king, prince, general, or dictator all carry connotations of what those terms mean in the context of European history.

MARCO POLO 1254-1324

1. Marco Polo was a Christian trader from Venice, Italy. He traveled widely and wrote (actually dictated) about his travels.
2. After 24 years of traveling in the Far East, Marco Polo returned to Venice to find that it was at war with Genoa. Marco was imprisoned and dictated his stories to his cell mate.
3. People were fascinated with the accounts of exotic lands that Marco provided. The assessment of the historical accuracy of his writings has ranged from deeming them highly reliable to suggesting that he basically made it all up. Would knowing that Marco Polo dictated his stories to his cell mate lead you to question some of their historical integrity?
4. What Marco Polo did accomplish was to broaden the horizon of Europeans to realize that there were vast civilization that they knew virtually nothing about.

Please Read Before October 20th

This week we will be looking at the period known as the High Middle Ages. In particularly, we will be focusing on the Crusades, the Magna Carta, and Corruption in the Church.

Time: 1000 to 1300 AD in Europe

In preparation for this class it would be helpful if you could come to a preliminary understanding of what an Indulgence is in Roman Catholic Theology. Controversies around the granting (also the buying and selling) of indulgences profoundly colors European history from 1000 AD right through the Reformation era. Furthermore, the Roman Catholic doctrine of Indulgences is largely the same today as it was in the Middle Ages.

The fundamental question is this: What are Christians supposed to do to recover a right relationship with God after they have sinned against Him?

According to the Medieval Church (and modern Roman Catholicism), the Sacrament of Penance (often called the Sacrament of Reconciliation today) was a necessary bridge to recovering a right relationship with God. It consists of three parts:

1. Contrition. According to the Council of Trent, Contrition is “sorrow of the soul and detestation for the sin committed, together with the resolution not to sin again (Roman Catechism II, V, 21).”
   
2. Confession. “Confession to a priest is an essential part of the sacrament of Penance (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1456).
   
3. Satisfaction. “Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more t make amends for the sin: he must ‘make satisfaction for’ or ‘expiate’ his sins (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1473).

What is an indulgence?

“An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church, which as the minister of the redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.”

Questions:

1. What impact would this teaching have on the authority of the Church?
2. What impact does this teaching have on how people perceive God?
3. How did the Medieval Church use this teaching to raise vast sums of money?