Quote of the Day

The Christian response to a culture drowning in amusement should not be to offer it Christian amusement. — Ted Beam

Was Luther Really a Boozer? Nah, Not so Much

As Schaff points out, quite justifiably,

Aleander and Caracciolo [who attended the Diet of Worms] to the Vice-Chancellor Medici, April 19, 1521 (Brieger, I. 153): “Martino uscito fuora della sala Cesarea alzò la mano in alto more militum Germanorum, quando exultano di un bel colpo di giostra.”

In a letter of April 27 (l. c. p. 166), they call Luther “il venerabile ribaldo,” who before his departure drank in the presence of many persons “molte tazze di malvasia, della qual ne è forte amoroso.”  The charge of intemperance is repeated in a dispatch of April 29 (p. 170): “la ebrietà, alla quale detto Luther è deditissimo.”

That Luther used to drink beer and wine according to the universal custom of his age, is an undoubted fact; but that he was intemperate in eating or drinking, is a slander of his enemies. Melanchthon, who knew him best, bears testimony to his temperance.

Luther drank, just like everyone else.  But not more than everyone else.  Although, I admit, it is fun to make light of his boozings.

‘I Don’t Believe in God’. ‘That’s ok, Bob, He Doesn’t Believe in You Either…’

Still one of the best scenes from a dystopian movie. Probably THE best.

Non-Theologians and Theological Discourse

Watching non-theologians discuss theology is like watching celibate priests discuss the bliss of marriage. They’ve heard some things, but don’t have any personal experience in the matter.

Capitalism: An Observation

If capitalism is the engine that makes America run, greed is the coal that fuels it.

Today With Bullinger

On the 27th of April, 1535, Heinrich Bullinger’s aptly titled Bericht der krancken, Wie man by den krancken vnd sterbende[n] menschen handlen, ouch wie sich ein yeder inn siner kranckheit schicken vnnd zum sterben rüsten sölle appeared thanks to the Zurich publisher Froschauer.

TVZ have published this book, along with lots of Bullinger’s most important works, in their 7 volume Heinrich Bullinger: Schriften, in modern German.

The book at hand gives detailed advice on ministry to the sick and dying.  It’s profoundly pastoral and even still very engaging.

Protests on Campus: An Observation

Protest to your heart’s content, kids.

But when you call for harm to be done to others you’ve stopped being protestors and started being terrorists.

And terrorists are evil regardless of which end of the political spectrum they perch on.

Ideological visciousness is not the ‘own’ you think it is.

From the Vault: American Biblical Dilettantism

Most Americans will tell you what they think the Bible means, but only 11% have read the entire thing (and that’s probably an overly optimistic percentage) and only 9% say they’ve read it more than once. And more than half of Americans have either read none of it, a few sentences, or a few stories.  Biblical illiteracy is rampant in America.  Christians, of all people, should be students of Scripture.

Breaking News: You don’t know anything about the Bible if you’ve only read it once.  Anything.

Progressive ‘Church’ ‘Theology’

Bold claims on the outside, but empty on the inside.

Quote of the Day

We ought therefore not to be surprised that there is much in God which we cannot understand, and that very many truths of the faith we cannot yet prove since we do not yet know everything. The great God in His rich mercy saw our poor knowledge and came into our flesh and assumed it that He might work for us, die, and rise again from the dead; until after a life full of love He raised Himself above the world of sense into His eternity.-  GIROLAMO SAVANAROLA

Reminder: It’s Time to Act Before The End Comes…

For many years I worked on the ‘Person in the Pew’ commentary series. You need it.  You want it.  You must have it.

Individual books can be obtained if you wish them.   And the whole series is also available. The procedure is simple:

1- Drop me an email at jwest@highland.net telling me what you’d like.
2- Paypal the cost of the volumes.  Or Paypal the cost of a single volume.
3- I will then send them to you without delay.

But do please note, the purchase entitles you to make use of the volumes for your personal use but they may not be shared or given or sold to second parties under any circumstances.  Of course there’s no way to monitor your honesty in this matter, but you’ll know.  And so will God.

Mind you, I’m not a marketer and I know nothing about business or the business of selling things. I’ve never been in biblical studies for the money and I’m not aiming to make a fortune with the complete series in pdf.

But, that said, all the hours put into these volumes are worth something, so I’m selling the lot for $75. That’s authentically inexpensive considering the thousands of pages written. And it’s a good commentary for layfolk.

Quote of the Era

“Let us, therefore, forsake the vanity of the crowd and their false teachings and turn back to the Word delivered to us from the beginning, let us therefore forsake the vanity of the crowd.” — Polycarp

The 506th Anniversary of the Heidelberg Disputation

Am 26. April 1518 war Martin Luther zu Gast in Heidelberg. In der dortigen Universität leitete der Reformator eine wissenschaftliche Disputation. Anlass war das Generalkapitel – die höchste beschlussfassende Instanz – der deutschen Augustiner-Eremiten strenger Observanz, das 1518 in Heidelberg stattfand. Zunächst waren also die Ordensangelegenheiten geklärt worden, bevor es zur Disputation kam.

Die Disputation selbst kann schon als Teil des Vorgehens der römischen Kirche gegen Luther im Streit um den Ablasshandel verstanden werden. Der Augustinerorden war von Rom beauftragt worden, eine Disputation durchzuführen, in der Luther seine Thesen zum Ablass erläutern sollte. Dies geschah jedoch nicht, denn Luther ging schlicht nicht auf die Problematik ein. Stattdessen befasste er sich – im Hörsaal der Artistenfakultät – mit den Themen der Werkgerechtigkeit und der theologia crucis.

Etc.

Peasants And their Interests

Luther writes

Peasants … seldom go so far as to despise God and religion, for they hardly think about such things.

True fact Martin, true fact.

Totally True

Editors gone wild…

The Infectionists of Geneva

In and around Geneva in the 1530’s and following were a group of persons who were known as ‘infectionists’.  They killed people, apparently simply for the pleasure of it (and of course, to rob them of their possessions).

A pestilential disorder had for many years prevailed in Geneva, and the surrounding districts, to such a degree, that the population was in fact decimated, two thousand inhabitants dying out of twenty thousand, the highest estimate of the population of this little city. All the relations of life were disturbed: the courts of justice were closed; and the evil would have become still worse, had not circumstances led to the discovery of a conspiracy, of rare iniquity even in those times, formed by a set of wretches who diffused the infection by means similar to those employed in 1530. Their practice was to mix up the virus drawn from those who were sick of the plague with salve, and then to place it upon the locks and bars of doors, and on the lines in the public streets. The disease was thus spread in the most awful manner. Even some of the inspectors of the hospital were in league with these wretches, whose only object it was to share among each other what belonged to the dead

After several of these ‘terrorists’ were captured they confessed the names of their co-conspirators under the rack.  On 25 April,1545 Calvin wrote to Farel

Why should I relate to you what has taken place in regard to the infection? Weber (Textor) is with you, and he can explain to you all the circumstances much more clearly than I could in a letter. Renat has filled us with surprise: it is perfectly wonderful that a man who remained firm under torture should be overcome by a supposed promise; that is, by its being told him that I had obtained the promise of a pardon for him from the council.

His wife confessed that she had destroyed eighteen men by witchcraft or poisoning, and that he had killed four or five. The power of the Lord was wonderfully shown at the death of this culprit, so perfect was the conversion of his soul. In the morning he evinced no sign of repentance, but still, as it seemed, hurried on by his fanaticism, he complained that he was about to be punished, though the Lord had pardoned him. But the Lord, as I have said, has wrought marvellously and beyond my hope. Both met their death joyfully, with the greatest firmness, with the strongest faith, and with the surest indications of repentance.”

Calvin was willing to accept the repentance of these murderers.  That’s the softer and gentler Calvin Servetus could have known had he too shown a turning to God.

99% of the People on Facebook and Twitter Who Talk About the Bible

Indeed…

Zwingli Critiques a Review by Emser

Emser didn’t like Zwingli’s ‘Commentary on True and False Religion‘ (a work of true genius) so when he reviewed it (i.e., responded to it), said review provoked Zwingli to respond – in part –

You are so shallow, not to say foolish, that I am convinced you absolutely failed to understand what I wrote.

Few do read with the aim of understanding anything really.

272 BCE

That’s the date. Give Niels Peter Lemche’s latest essay in Bible and Interpretation a read to find out what it’s the date of.

Remembering T.H.L. Parker on the Anniversary of his Death.

Everyone will know the work of the great Calvin scholar.  Refo 500 had the sad news on 29 April, 2016.

Dr T.H.L. Parker, the outstanding British Calvin scholar of the twentieth century, died on Monday 25 April 2016. He was in his hundredth year, and had lived independently until the final weeks of his life.

His last publication was a new preface to an edition of his 1961 book Portrait of Calvin celebrating the 2009 anniversary of the reformer’s birth. In 2015 he considered but declined a request to oversee a revised edition of his study Karl Barth. He continued intellectually sharp until the final days of his life. His wife died in 2003 and he bore both the grief and loneliness of her loss and increasing physical infirmity with courage, determination and faith.