Amy Marga studies Karl Barth's early encounter with Roman Catholic theology during the 1920s, especially seen in his seminal set of dogmatic lectures given in Gottingen, and his second set of dogmatic lectures, given in Munster and which remain unpublished. Her analysis demonstrates his search for a concept of God's objectivity - Gegenstandlichkeit - which would not be dependent upon philosophically-laden concepts such as the analogia entis, but which would rather be anchored in God's being alone. The author shows that Roman Catholicism, especially the thought of Erich Przywara, became the...

More than one hundred years after the introduction of the Reformation, the clergy in Rostock set out to reform the spiritual and moral life of the city and fashion it into a new Zion. Disappointed with the results of the Lutheran Reformation, their reform efforts were less concerned with confessional purity than with the practice of Christian piety. The resulting reform movement in Rostock became one of the most vigorous in 17th century Germany.Jonathan Strom examines the consequences of the Reformation, the clergy's social and economic status, the career path of a typical pastor, and the...

English summary: The fact that rationalization and self-reflection were possible even across denominational boundaries is one of the fascinating characteristics of the period of enlightenment. This often led to a more flexible understanding of the concept of religion, which proved to be very open to being integrated into the debate. In his study, Bjorn Pecina develops just such an understanding of religion by evaluating the works of two outstanding scholars: Moses Mendelssohn and Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem. German description: Es gehort zu den faszinierenden Merkmalen des...

Jan Stievermann's pioneering study of Cotton Mather's Biblia Americana examines this Puritan scholar's struggle to reconcile traditional readings of the Old Testament with a growing awareness of the historicity of Scriptures. With fascinating insight into an underappreciated period of biblical interpretation, the author discusses Mather's efforts to intervene in contemporary debates over the legitimacy of Christian interpretations of the prophets, as well as over the authorship, provenance, genre, and spiritual import of the "Solomonic books." As the study shows, Mather engaged in forms of...