Thomas Cranmer's Register: Little Understood and Unpublished

Abstract

Thomas Cranmer's register in Lambeth Palace Library is a document which is little understood and as yet unpublished. Episcopal registers trace the work of bishops and archbishops in their dioceses and provinces. As such, they are fundamental primary source documents. In a series of two articles, the author will first examine the composition and history of use of Thomas Cranmer's register and then, in a second article to be published in the next issue of this journal (RRR 7.1), set the contents of the register in the context of modern historical scholarship. This article fulfils the first of these two aims.     

The Theology of the Cross and God's Work in the World

Ian Barbour has distinguished eight theologies of God's role in nature, together with corresponding models of divine activity. This essay examines these ideas in the light of a theology of the cross. Three of Barbour's approaches—the neo-Thomist, the kenotic, and the existentialist—are able to provide different aspects of a theology of divine action that is consistent with belief that God's definitive revelation takes place in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. These approaches encourage attention to a part of traditional doctrines of Providence, the idea that God acts by "cooperation" with natural processes. The kenotic character of divine involvement in the world means that the regularities of the basic interactions of physics are maintained. The idea of cooperation can be extrapolated into the past, to give some insight into ways of understanding God's activity in originating the universe.     

The First Latin Book of Common Prayer: English Reformation in a Continental Perspective

Abstract

The Ordinatio ecclesiae (1551) of Alexander Alesius is a little-known Latin translation of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. Alesius had been resident in England in the 1530s and had kept in touch with his English friends when he returned to the continent, becoming professor of theology at Leipzig. The Ordinatio ecclesiae is, in many ways, a baffling document since it is not a rigid translation of Cranmer's rite. Instead, it contains passages which are both more Roman and more evangelical than the English liturgy. Following a detailed comparison of the English and Latin versions, the author attempts to place the Ordinatio ecclesiae in the context of Reformation politics on the continent during the years between the ‘Augsburg Interim’ and the resumption of the Council of Trent. He finds that the Latin Prayer book was intended to publicize Cranmer's reform measures as an example of a territorial Reformation in order to add a substantial voice to the chorus of evangelical churches calling for a free General Council. The conservative nature of the first Book of Common Prayer seemed ideally suited to further dialogue between evangelicals and reform-minded Catholics, but also to appealing for reconciliation and unity among Lutheran theologians in Saxony who had become divided on the issue of the Interim.     

Calvin's Theology of Creation and Providence: God's Care and Human Fragility

This article describes some of the basic elements of John Calvin's theology of creation and providence by situating them within a trinitarian framework. By using metaphors such as mirror, theatre and garment, Calvin pictured the earth as a generous gift of the Creator within which God shows his goodness, power and fatherly care. Calvin understands God not to be far away, but rather to be near and to sustain all life on earth by the power of the Holy Spirit. The visibility and tangibility of God's care as shown in the order of the universe and the reality of the world as a habitable place is of particular significance for Calvin. I argue that although contemporary science has changed our ideas regarding the universe in significant ways, there is an important aspect of Calvin's thinking that may be recognizable for the modern mind: the fragility of life on earth.     

Attending to the Sabbath: An Alternative Direction in Karl Barth's Theology of Prayer

Most accounts of Karl Barth's theology of prayer focus on the active dimensions of prayer, as prioritized in the formal sections on prayer in the Church Dogmatics. This leads to the suspicion that Barth has little time for the contemplative and reflective dimensions of prayer. This article will complement the existing approaches by broadening the scope of inquiry from the formal prayer‐sections into other, less obvious areas of the Dogmatics to uncover an alternative, contemplative, direction in Barth's theology of prayer. It will suggest, therefore, that attending to his rich but often‐neglected account of the Sabbath affords the opportunity to begin the work of reassessing Barth's relation to the contemplative tradition.     

Martin Bucer and the Revision of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer: Reform of Ceremonies and the Didactic Use of Ritual

Abstract

This paper looks again at Erasmus's Ciceronianus, a satire published in 1528, which created enormous controversy on it's appearance. The text raises questions which are difficult to answer. One of the central characters in the work is Nosoponus (Mr Workmad). The paper puts the case for identifying this character with Giulio Camillo Delminio (c. 1480-1544).     

Invitation to the Triune Conversation: Explorations of Prayer through the Theology of Robert Jenson

This paper attempts to contribute to our understanding of prayer through an engagement with its crucial role in the systematic thought of Robert Jenson. I present prayer as our invitation to the triune conversation. Developing some of Jenson's categories, I work to show that a Christian understanding of prayer connects to a spectrum of systematic loci, especially creation and anthropology, the sacraments and ecclesiology, mission and eschatology. In these three modes, the anthropological, the ecclesial and the eschatological, prayer enters into the ultimate conversation that animates the world through faith, love and hope. This paper concludes by arguing that such an account of prayer, if authentic, supports a contemporary retrieval of the cataphatic dimension of theology.     

Theology of the Cross and the Experience of God's Presence: A Lutheran Response to Pentecostal Wonderings

As Lutherans and Pentecostals begin an official international dialogue, the author, a Lutheran member of the dialogue, responds to two related sets of questions raised by a Pentecostal member of the dialogue during a preceding six‐year consultation between these traditions: whether there is a place in the Lutheran tradition for a “theology of glory,” considering the centrality of “a theology of the cross” for Luther; and how Lutherans speak about experiencing the presence of God, and the means through which one encounters God.     

Clark H. Pinnock,Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God's Openness

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Grounding Providence in the Theology of the Creator: The Exemplarity of Thomas Aquinas

Discussion of divine providence was traditionally grounded in the wisdom and benevolence of the Creator, until the impact of nominalism which narrowed the theological focus upon the absolute power and freedom of the divine will. An exemplary approach for discussing providence which predates nominalism and which has surprising contemporary relevance is the one developed by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae . It is exemplary both for how it discusses providence and for what is says about it. Methodologically, Aquinas explains providence in two contexts, one theological, the other cosmological, in order to avoid misconstruing the reality of one term because of the dynamics pertinent to the other. Substantively, this understanding of providence rests upon the theological foundation of the Creator's wisdom and benevolence, which in the world find expression as a comprehensive order oriented towards emergent goodness. Through this order God is provident by the genuine and contingent causal actions of creatures, a natural and non-deterministic means that makes it highly compatible with modern science.