Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 41

What the Reformers Thought They Were Doing

was the backdrop for the Reformers' more precise soteriological
formulation: God's grace, unmerited and unmeritable, justifies
sinners through the imputation of the external, "alien" righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is mediated through faith understood
as trust, reliance, dependence.
It is tempting for modern interpreters of the Reformation to
portray the Reformers as the great activists of their time-sixteenth-century Lenins or Robespierres out to shake the world
and overturn kingdoms. But this is not how they themselves saw
their work, and we miss something crucial if we do not take with
full force the Reformers' own view of the providential direction of
their movement. Perhaps with a twinkle in his eye, Luther put it
like this:
I simply taught, preached, wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my
Philip [Melanchthon] and my [Nicolaus von] Amsdorf, the Word so
greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did
such damage to it. I did nothing. The Word did it all.

"God has seized me and is driving me, and even leading me on,"
Luther wrote to Staupitz in 1519. "I am not the one in control.
I want to be at peace but I am snatched up and placed in the
middle of an uprising."
Calvin was always more reticent than Luther to speak about
himself, but he too referred to his embrace of the evangelical
faith as "a sudden conversion" by which God subdued his mind
and "made it teachable." When, just a few years later, he was set
upon by the fiery Guillaume Farel, who threatened the young
scholar with a divine curse should he refuse to join the reforming
modernagejournal.com

41



http://www.modernagejournal.com

Modern Age - Fall 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Fall 2017

Contents
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - Cover1
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - Cover2
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - Contents
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 2
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 3
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 4
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 5
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 6
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 7
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 8
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 9
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 10
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 11
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 12
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 13
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 14
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 15
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 16
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 17
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 18
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 19
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 20
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 21
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 22
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 23
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 24
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 25
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 26
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 27
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 28
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 29
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 30
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 31
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 32
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 33
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 34
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 35
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 36
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 37
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 38
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 39
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 40
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 41
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 42
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 43
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 44
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 45
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 46
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 47
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 48
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 49
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 50
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 51
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 52
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 53
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 54
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 55
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 56
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 57
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 58
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 59
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 60
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 61
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 62
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 63
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 64
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 65
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 66
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 67
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 68
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 69
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 70
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 71
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 72
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 73
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 74
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 75
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 76
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 77
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 78
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 79
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 80
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 81
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 82
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 83
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 84
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 85
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 86
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 87
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 88
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 89
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 90
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 91
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 92
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 93
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 94
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 95
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 96
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 97
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 98
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 99
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 100
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 101
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 102
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 103
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 104
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 105
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 106
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 107
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 108
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 109
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 110
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 111
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 112
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 113
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 114
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 115
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 116
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 117
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 118
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 119
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 120
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 121
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 122
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 123
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 124
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 125
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 126
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 127
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 128
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 129
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 130
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 131
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 132
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 133
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 134
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 135
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 136
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 137
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 138
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 139
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 140
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 141
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 142
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 143
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 144
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 145
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 146
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 147
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 148
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 149
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 150
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 151
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 152
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 153
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 154
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 155
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 156
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 157
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 158
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 159
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 160
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 161
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 162
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 163
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 164
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 165
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 166
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 167
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 168
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 169
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 170
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 171
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 172
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 173
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 174
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 175
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 176
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 177
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - 178
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - Cover3
Modern Age - Fall 2017 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2018winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2017fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2017summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2017spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2017winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2016fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2016summer
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2016spring
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2016winter
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2015fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2014fall
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/isi/modernage_2014summer
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com