The Reformation was marked by fights with words, and the understanding of language and the use of it was central. This notion grew to a large extent out of the Renaissance movement in which new thinking on language had emerged, and the discipline of rhetoric, together with a renewed understanding of dialectics, had become more powerful than in medieval times. A turn toward the attention paid to rhetoric in antiquity took place, and a revival of ancient authorities on rhetorical and dialectical theory took root. Luther was a part of this, and rhetorical observations and thoughts play a substantial role throughout his oeuvre, not only in the way he made use of language in his struggle to find and spread new insights , but also in his thoughts, especially on spoken and written communication between God and man. The use of rhetoric is not the only key to explain how and why Luther’s theology developed in new and groundbreaking ways and became as influential as it did, but it certainly laid an important base for the unfolding of his creative thought.
Article
Carl Axel Aurelius
In the Swedish history of Christian thought there are various interpretations of the Reformation and of Martin Luther and his work. In the 17th century, Luther predominately stood out as an instrument of God’s providence. In the 18th century, among the pietists, he was regarded as a fellow believer, in the 19th century as a hero of history, and in the 20th century during the Swedish so-called Luther Renaissance as a prophet and an interpreter of the Gospel. This does not necessarily mean that the interpretations of Luther merely reflect the various thought patterns of different epochs, that whatever is said about Luther is inevitably captured by the spirit of the time. The serious study of Luther’s writings could also lead to contradictions with common thought patterns and presuppositions. One could say that Luther’s writings have worked as “classics,” not merely confirming the status quo but also generating new patterns of thought and deed, making him something rather different than just a name, a symbol, or a flag, which sometimes have been assumed. And one can only hope that his writings will continue to work in the same way in years to come. Anyway the reception of the Lutheran heritage in Sweden is well worth studying since it in some ways differs from the reception in other Evangelic countries.
Article
Richard Viladesau
The reformers of the 16th century brought to the fore questions regarding sacred images that had arisen in the context of changes in society, religion, and art in the late Middle Ages. Late medieval Catholicism already produced warnings against idolatry in the cult of images, superstition, and the misuse of popular devotional practices for monetary gain.
Reformation-era re-evaluations of sacred images arose primarily from three overlapping impulses: (1) the humanistic enlightenment and critique of external religion; (2) concern for the Scriptures, including the Old Testament prohibition against idolatrous images; and (3) the ethical complaint against ecclesiastical luxury and neglect of the poor. Some of the Reformers fostered a more or less complete iconoclasm (e.g., Karlstadt, Bucer, and Hätzer). Others had positive attitudes toward art in general, but had reservations about religious representations (Calvin). Yet others had more ambiguous attitudes. Zwingli thought that images are inherently dangerous because of the temptation to idolatry, but his position softened toward the end of his life. Luther’s ideas on sacred representations changed through his career from a somewhat negative to a fairly positive evaluation. He held that the Old Testament prohibition pertained only to idols, not to images themselves. His primary concern was that images and devotion to them could foster a spirituality of external works as the means to salvation. This problem could be met by uniting images with texts and stressing their didactic function.
The Council of Trent dealt with sacred art in 1568. The Council agreed with the reformers that abuses were possible in the cult of the saints and in the use of art, and also that much of the art itself was “inappropriate” for sacred use because of its worldliness. However, its decree insisted on the validity and usefulness of images and their veneration.
The decree of Trent did not give specific guidelines for sacred art, but only general principles, leaving implementation in the hands of bishops. The vagueness of Trent’s decree made room for a wide range of practical judgments about what was “appropriate” or “fitting” in sacred art. But in the second half of the 16th century, several bishops and theologians wrote treatises on painting to guide artists.
The Tridentine reforms, although put into practice in varied ways, included several general characteristics: (1) elimination of “sensual” and secular elements from sacred art; (2) faithfulness to Scripture and tradition; (3) concern for doctrine and devotion above artistry; (4) use of art as a means of education, indoctrination, and propaganda; (5) the valuing of visual naturalism; (6) polemical concentration on contested dogmatic themes in content; and (7) the sensual as a means of entry into the spiritual.
With the advent of the Baroque in the later stages of the Counter-Reformation, a spirit of triumph prevailed. Art that was pleasing to the senses brought an atmosphere of spiritual exaltation. Baroque art was purposefully theatrical, artful, and dramatic.
An unintended result of the image controversies was the separation of sacred and secular art and the formulation of separate criteria for each.
Article
Allison Palmer
The term “Neoclassicism” refers to an era when a large number of artists and scholars across Europe in the 18th century took inspiration from the history and material remains of classical antiquity, which was defined as ancient Greece and Rome. While Neoclassicism is often considered a stylistic trend, artists worked across stylistic categories, yet they were all part of a broad milieu that responded to profound societal changes by seeking out classical precedents for questions posed by Enlightenment thinkers. These questions included the purpose of religion in society, where philosophers including John Locke (1632–1704) and François-Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694–1778) theorized new spiritual modes to examine human existence.
Many religious painters of the 18th century studied at the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture established in Paris in 1648 under royal sponsorship that dictated taste, and these artists were championed for their ability to depict grand expressions of human emotion learned from antiquity and from classicizing Renaissance and Baroque artists, including French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), who popularized the Roman concept of exempla virtutis. Jean- Baptiste Colbert, the First Minister to King Louis XIV and Vice-Protector of the Academy, promoted this grand classicizing Baroque style as the elevated style of the aristocracy, which laid the foundation for Neoclassicism. For French philosopher Denis Diderot (1713–1784), art could provide pleasure, but a superior artwork provided a visual beauty that inspired virtuous behavior; thus, while not all art served a religious function, artworks often showed examples of virtue. For example, Diderot, who reported on the biennial exhibitions sponsored by the Academy in Paris, praised Jacques-Louis David’s (1748–1825) Oath of the Horatii (1784, Louvre Museum, Paris), a depiction of a 7th-century bce Roman legend, for its demonstration of patriotic sacrifice. Many of these moralizing narratives drew upon stories from classical antiquity, learned by artists trained at the French Academy in Rome (established in 1666) during a period of study sometimes called the Grand Tour.
Neoclassical art was also shaped by the intense cultural questioning that arose with the French Revolution, and it found fertile ground during the Industrial Revolution. Religious art had a complicated historical development in the 18th century given the dramatic changes that disrupted religious institutions and church patronage in favor of secular patrons and new subjects. Nonetheless, the moralizing tendencies of Neoclassicism and the academic favoring of historical painting continued to provide a place for religious art and architecture throughout the 18th century, much of which deserves further study.
Article
William J. Wright
When Martin Luther began his academic studies at Erfurt, Renaissance humanism and skepticism had become well entrenched in the German academic world. He also found them at Wittenberg. Starting with Petrarch, humanists appeared in Italy who acquired the skills necessary to find solutions to their needs in the content of ancient pagan classics and Christian writings. Two major groups of humanists existed after the mid-15th century with distinct solutions for the needs they felt: rhetorical humanists epitomized by Valla and Neoplatonic humanists led by Ficino and Pico. Rhetorical humanism appealed to the heart and exempted the truth of Christian teachings from skepticism. Neoplatonic humanism sought to establish absolute truth by synthesizing the wisdom of all religions and philosophies.
It is well-known today that ultramontane Renaissance humanism was imported from Italy by large numbers of students from the north who studied there. German and other northern humanists mostly followed either in the path laid by Valla or that of Ficino and Pico. Luther was a beneficiary of the Christian humanism and biblicism of the rhetorical path, which also led to the development of the loci method of learning and the educational work of Melanchthon. The Neoplatonic path led to further development of logical solutions based on both Plato and Aristotle. This path developed remarkable syntheses of Christianity with ancient and medieval philosophies and religions, mostly meant to improve Christian life. Though familiar with the Neoplatonic path, Luther did not accept its basic views.
Article
Tarald Rasmussen
Until 1814, Norway was under Danish rule, and the story of Luther’s reception in Norway is included in the story of Luther’s reception in Denmark (cf. Niels Henrik Gregersen’s article on Luther in Denmark). The Reformation was introduced in Norway in 1536 along with Danish rule and loss of Norwegian national sovereignty. Most pastors—some Danes, but gradually also more Norwegians—were educated at the University of Copenhagen and were strongly influenced by the training they received there.
In the period of national awakening in the 19th century, national identity and Lutheran identity were more difficult to combine in Norway than in neighboring Lutheran countries like Denmark, Sweden, or Germany. This period lasted quite long after 1814 until a specific tradition for Luther’s reception was established in Norway. Along with the Luther renaissance in Germany and Sweden in the 1920s and 1930s, a new interest in Luther and the Reformation also emerged in Norway. Luther texts (primarily texts from his early career) were translated into Norwegian, a Luther Society was established, and the first academic dissertation dealing with Luther’s theology was published. On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the Reformation in Denmark/Norway, a comprehensive collection of essays was published in 1937 in order to reintroduce Luther and Reformation topics into religious and public debate. After World War II, scholarly research on Luther gradually increased in importance, and several Luther dissertations were published in international languages during the second half of the 20th century. In 1979 to 1983, six volumes of Luther’s writings were translated into Norwegian.
Article
Roger R. Jackson
Mahāmudrā, “the Great Seal,” is a Sanskrit term (Tibetan: phyag rgya chen po) that connotes a wide range of concepts and practices in Indian Mahāyāna and, especially, Tibetan Buddhism, most of them directly or indirectly related to discourse on ultimate reality and the way to know and achieve it. The term first appeared in Indian tantric texts of the 7th or 8th century ce and gained increasing prominence in the final period of Buddhism’s efflorescence on the subcontinent, particularly in the sometimes transgressive Mahāyoga and Yoginī tantras and the works of such charismatic great adepts (mahāsiddhas) as Saraha, Tilopa, and Maitrīpa. By the 11th century, Mahāmudrā had come to refer, in India, to a hand gesture signifying clear visualization of a deity, one of a number of “seals” (with or without hand gestures) that confirm tantric ritual procedures, a consort employed in sexual yoga practices, a meditation technique in which the mind contemplates its own nature, the great bliss and luminous gnosis that result from advanced subtle-body practices, a way of living in the world freely and spontaneously, and the omniscient buddhahood that is the final outcome of the tantric path. It also came to be synonymous with such concepts as emptiness, the middle way, sameness, the co-emergent, the natural mind, luminosity, the single taste, non-duality, meditative “inattention,” buddha nature, non-abiding nirvāṇa, and a buddha’s Dharma Body—to name just a few. Although little discussed during the period of Buddhism’s introduction to Tibet (c. 650–850), Mahāmudrā came to the fore on the plateau during the so-called Tibetan Renaissance (c. 950–1350), finding a place of greater or lesser prominence in the ideas and practices of the religious orders that formed at that time, including the Kadam, Sakya, Shijé, Shangpa Kagyü, and—most notably—the powerful and influential Marpa Kagyü, for which it is a pivotal term, referring to the true nature of the mind, a style of meditation aimed at the realization of that nature, and the perfect buddhahood resulting from that realization. Although it has all these meanings and more, Mahāmudrā became best known as a contemplative technique in which the mind realizes, and settles within, its own true nature: as empty and luminous. It was brought to the center of Kagyü religious life by Gampopa (1079–1153), and studied, practiced, and systematized by generations of great Kagyü scholars and meditators. In later times, it sometimes inspired syncretic formulations, which combined the practices of Kagyü Mahāmudrā with those of the Nyingma Great Perfection (Dzokchen), or the Gelukpa analysis of the emptiness of all existents. Over the course of a millennium or more in Tibet, the Great Seal informed ritual, prompted ecstatic poetry, provoked debate, became the focus of yogic retreats, and was used as a lens through which Indian Buddhist thought and Tibetan institutional history might be viewed. With the post-1959 Tibetan disapora and the subsequent spread of Tibetan Buddhism outside Asia, Mahāmudrā has become a topic of interest for scholars and practitioners in many and varied settings, and a part of the vocabulary of educated Buddhists everywhere.
Article
The coming of the gospel to America with the Spaniard conquistadors meant the launch of the most important salvation of souls campaign ever seen. The knowledge of the written Law and the administration of the sacraments, such as the sacrament of baptism, allowed the “Indians” to be redeemed from original sin and access, at least, Purgatory. While the colonial church promised salvation to the Andeans, it faced the problem of “deciding” the eschatological destiny awaiting the ancestors of the “Indians” (new Christians), especially the Inca rulers. After an inevitable condemnation of the Incas by the early colonial catechisms, new discursive channels appeared suggesting a possible redemption of the Incas, with arguments that evoked the principle of natural law and the acquisition of natural enlightenment.
The redemption and salvation of the monarchs of Tawantinsuyu would reach various discursive spaces. It is found subtly in the field of visual representations, especially in a group of canvases produced during the period commonly called the Inca Renaissance, and in performative acts where the evocation of the Inca past acquires an important eschatological dimension.
Article
David Bains
Beginning with the Renaissance, the architecture of churches in the West was shaped by new cultural and liturgical demands that reshaped the spaces of Christian worship. Renaissance Christians found models of urban monumentality and geometric harmony in the architecture of classical Rome that they deemed lacking in their existing Gothic forms. At the same time, both Catholics and Protestants placed new emphasis on preaching and on the ability of worshipers to see the liturgy. These factors decisively reshaped church architecture. The rational austerity of the Renaissance, however, soon gave way to the more exuberant decoration of the baroque and, in time, to a revival of the Gothic. Beginning in the late 18th century, it became valued for its association with mystery, organic development, and the endurance of faith amid the rise of scientific rationalism. By the mid-19th century, an eclecticism in architecture had developed where many church builders used varied styles to actualize buildings of many plans in order to bring the desired historical and emotional associations to the structure, or simply to distinguish it from its neighbors. Yet, architectural principles—often associated with the Gothic—that emphasized the integral relation of form, structure, and function led many church builders to embrace architectural modernism. They rejected applied ornament, especially that which hid the structure of the building. Concrete, steel, and glued laminated wood beams made possible new designs often with a minimalist aesthetic and innovative ground plans.
As in the 16th, so in the 20th century this architectural shift was associated with new values and liturgical demands. For many there was a fundamental concern with the architectural expression of the immanence of God. Historical styles and dim light seemed wrongly to suggest that God was not part of the contemporary world. Along with this, liturgical ressourcement fostered throughout the 20th century by the Liturgical Movement and endorsed by the Second Vatican Council championed the idea that liturgy was “the work of the people,” a corporate activity in which all participated. This led to the development of the “modern communal church” as a liturgical form. Many historic buildings were significantly altered. Within thirty years, a sizable revolution was insisting on more traditional, often classical, architectural forms ensuring that future church building would be shaped by a dialogue between tradition and the modern.
Article
Pedro Flor
Following the pattern in vogue during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the religious architecture policy followed by the Portuguese kings was based on the construction of buildings. This approach unsurprisingly sought to respond to the growth of religious orders in the kingdom and simultaneously served as a mirror of magnificence and royal power. In order to make the construction sites of such buildings more successful, working procedures such as the direction of general work, how the tasks were divided, and how workers were paid needed an in-depth but careful adjustment. The royal patronage around the Mendicants (mainly Dominicans and Franciscans) throughout the 15th century appeared to be dominant. At the end of the century, during the reign of King Manuel I, the tendency was to favor and support instead the Hieronymites, a contemplative and intellectual religious order, responsible for spreading the Devotio Moderna and a reformist spirit centered on Erasmus. The Monastery of Batalha, the Monastery of Jesus of Setubal, and the Monastery of Jerónimos are three representative sides of an architectural strategy where power and spirituality mix in the interior and exterior of buildings that fortunately still remain.
