Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Foreword by Martin E. Marty
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Canon law and civil law on the eve of the Reformation
- 2 Loving thine enemy's law: The Evangelical conversion of Catholic canon law
- 3 A mighty fortress: Luther and the two-kingdoms framework
- 4 Perhaps jurists are good Christians after all: Lutheran theories of law, politics, and society
- 5 From Gospel to Law: The Lutheran reformation laws
- 6 The mother of all earthly laws: The reformation of marriage law
- 7 The civic seminary: The reformation of education law
- Concluding reflections
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Foreword by Martin E. Marty
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Canon law and civil law on the eve of the Reformation
- 2 Loving thine enemy's law: The Evangelical conversion of Catholic canon law
- 3 A mighty fortress: Luther and the two-kingdoms framework
- 4 Perhaps jurists are good Christians after all: Lutheran theories of law, politics, and society
- 5 From Gospel to Law: The Lutheran reformation laws
- 6 The mother of all earthly laws: The reformation of marriage law
- 7 The civic seminary: The reformation of education law
- Concluding reflections
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Reformation that Martin Luther unleashed in Germany in 1517 began as a loud call for freedom – freedom of the Church from the tyranny of the pope, freedom of the laity from the hegemony of the clergy, freedom of the conscience from the strictures of canon law. “Freedom of the Christian” was the rallying cry of the early Lutheran Reformation. It drove theologians and jurists, clergy and laity, princes and peasants alike to denounce Church authorities and legal structures with unprecedented alacrity. “One by one, the structures of the church were thrust into the glaring light of the Word of God and forced to show their true colors,” Jaroslav Pelikan writes. Few Church structures survived this scrutiny in the heady days of the 1520s. The Church's canon law books were burned. Church courts were closed. Monastic institutions were confiscated. Endowed benefices were dissolved. Church lands were seized. Clerical privileges were stripped. Mendicancy was banned. Mandatory celibacy was suspended. Indulgence trafficking was condemned. Annates to Rome were outlawed. Ties to the pope were severed. The German people were now to live by the pure light of the Bible and the simple law of the local community.
Though such attacks upon the Church's law and authority built on two centuries of reformist agitation in the West, it was especially Luther's radical theological teachings that ignited this movement in Germany. Salvation comes through faith in the Gospel, Luther taught, not through works of the Law.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Law and ProtestantismThe Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation, pp. 1 - 32Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002