{"id":9573,"date":"2023-07-28T14:38:10","date_gmt":"2023-07-28T19:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=9573"},"modified":"2023-07-28T14:42:25","modified_gmt":"2023-07-28T19:42:25","slug":"the-reformation-as-renewal-chapters-2-and-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=9573","title":{"rendered":"THE REFORMATION AS RENEWAL, CHAPTERS 2 AND 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church<\/em><\/strong><strong> by Matthew Barrett<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chapter 2: Spiritual Assent and Mystical Dissent<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chapter 3: Faith Seeking Understanding<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Due to various factors, I am going to make these summaries shorter. I hope they clarify some important matters and motivate you to go deeper into the Protestant tradition.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>I will again be adding some of my own reflections\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>In chapter 2, Barrett covers various monastic orders and mystical movements of the medieval period. A few thoughts\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>It is all too easy for us Protestants to discount or discard all together the best of the monastic and mystical traditions. My two short, yet good recommendations to correct this problem are:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Rule of St. Benedict<\/em> and <em>Of the Imitation of Christ<\/em> by Thomas \u00e0 Kempis (William C. Creasy, ed.)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Rule of Saint Benedict\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"625\" height=\"550\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"clipboard-write\" style=\"max-width:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/read.amazon.com\/kp\/card?asin=B073WHCCC3\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Imitation of Christ: A Timeless Classic for Contemporary Readers\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"625\" height=\"550\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen style=\"max-width:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/read.amazon.com\/kp\/card?preview=inline&#038;linkCode=df0&#038;ref_=k4w_oembed_oghGf4jPxRiWWG&#038;asin=087061231X&#038;tag=bingshoppinga-20\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>In closing out chapter 2, we must remember that the late Middle Ages was hardly a \u201cspiritual graveyard, lifeless and full of darkness.\u201d (Barrett, p. 69)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chapter 3 covers one of my favorite topics: faith seeking understanding. Too many conservative Christians in the West are confused about what biblical faith is and what faith entails. Biblical faith is neither a subjective wish-fulfillment nor is it mathematical certitude. People like Augustine and Anselm invite us to appreciate that there is both struggle and increasing clarity that comes from trusting in God.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A seminal book for me, and one that I regularly recommend is: Lesslie Newbigin\u2019s <em>Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship<\/em>. Newbigin makes a compelling case that many Christians view faith as almost mathematical certainty or on the other side of things, as simply a subjective choice.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"625\" height=\"550\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"clipboard-write\" style=\"max-width:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/read.amazon.com\/kp\/card?asin=B08V9DS3FX\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>If you are looking for a clear introduction to church history, I would recommend <em>Church History in Plain Language<\/em>, fifth edition, by Bruce L. Shelley.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Church History in Plain Language, Fifth Edition: The Story of the Church for Today&#039;s Readers\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"625\" height=\"550\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"clipboard-write\" style=\"max-width:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/read.amazon.com\/kp\/card?asin=B08NHWDBZ1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church by Matthew Barrett Chapter 2: Spiritual Assent and Mystical Dissent Chapter 3: Faith Seeking Understanding Due to various factors, I am going to make these summaries shorter. I hope they clarify some important matters and motivate you to go deeper into the Protestant [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,43,106,68,122,178,52,50,51,149,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-christianity","category-church","category-church-fathers","category-controversy","category-history","category-martin-luther","category-medieval-period","category-reformation-period","category-roman-catholicism","category-theology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9574,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9573\/revisions\/9574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}