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Chapter Two - Troeltsch on Protestantism and Modernity
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- By Lori Pearson, Carleton College
- Edited by Christopher Adair Toteff
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- Book:
- The Anthem Companion to Ernst Troeltsch
- Published by:
- Anthem Press
- Published online:
- 10 May 2018
- Print publication:
- 15 December 2017, pp 37-54
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- Chapter
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Summary
During his years as a professor in Heidelberg (1894– 1914), Ernst Troeltsch engaged himself intensively with historical studies of the relation between Protestantism and the origins of the modern world. These writings provide a rich and multi- faceted picture of Troeltsch's theory of modernity, and demonstrate Troeltsch's unique way of exploring and analyzing the role of religion in it. Like many other intellectuals in Heidelberg in the early 1900s, Troeltsch used interdisciplinary and historical research to illuminate questions about the modernization of society and to explore possible responses to the perceived crises of modernity resulting from rapid social change. Troeltsch and his colleagues in the Eranos- Kreis regularly discussed various forms of political, economic, and social modernization and were particularly interested in religion as a force capable of shaping culture and of generating values and norms to guide the present and the future.
From the early years of his scholarly production, Troeltsch's historical studies of Christianity and of Protestantism revised and challenged widespread scholarly consensus about the study of theology and church history in Germany. Especially among Lutheran church historians, these disciplines directed the study of history toward the explication (and in some sense the legitimation) of the dogmatic assertions of the (Protestant, institutional) church. Troeltsch rejected this approach from the beginning. In his dissertation, Troeltsch's study of Lutheran reformer Philip Melanchthon (and scholastic theologian Johann Gerhard) became the occasion for working out a new method that placed theology in its societal contexts instead of focusing in an insular way on the history of ideas or doctrines (apart from their profound intertwinement with social, political, economic, and cultural forces). Troeltsch explored the institutional conditions that informed Melanchthon's interpretation of natural law and showed how Melanchthon's theological and legal categories reinforced the political and social order of the Protestant territories. Troeltsch's method thus had a relativizing effect on the interpretation of church history and questioned the dominant view of Protestantism as the foundation of the modern world. Far from initiating or even embracing a protomodern culture of individual freedom, the Protestant Reformers (in Troeltsch's view) carried forward the medieval model of a theological and political unity of culture, and were thoroughly a product of the late Middle Ages and not the bearers of the modern world.
Evaluation of a Pandemic Preparedness Training Intervention for Emergency Medical Services Personnel
- Robyn R.M. Gershon, Nikole Vandelinde, Lori A. Magda, Julie M. Pearson, Andrew Werner, David Prezant
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- Journal:
- Prehospital and Disaster Medicine / Volume 24 / Issue 6 / December 2009
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 28 June 2012, pp. 508-511
- Print publication:
- December 2009
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- Article
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Introduction:
Emergency medical services (EMS) personnel play an integral role during the national response to a pandemic event. To help ensure their health and safety, especially during the early stages of an outbreak, knowledge and adherence with personal protective equipment (PPE) and infection control strategies will be essential.
Objectives:The objective of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a multi-method, pandemic preparedness training intervention using a pre-/post-test design.
Methods:A convenience sample of 129 EMS personnel participated in a training program on pandemic preparedness. Training consisted of an educational intervention with a focus on the routes of transmission of the influenza virus, proper use of respiratory PPE, agency policies regarding infection control practices, and seasonal influenza vaccination. This was followed by a skill-based drill on respirator fit-checking and proper respirator donning and doffing procedures.
Results:Pre-/post-test results indicate a significant increase in knowledge and behavioral intentions with respect to respirator use, vaccination with seasonal influenza vaccine, and willingness to report to duty during a pandemic.
Conclusions:This method was effective in increasing knowledge and compliance intentions in EMS healthcare personnel. Further research should focus on whether training results in behavior modification.
Schleiermacher and the Christologies Behind Chalcedon
- Lori Pearson
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- Journal:
- Harvard Theological Review / Volume 96 / Issue 3 / July 2003
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 19 August 2003, pp. 349-367
- Print publication:
- July 2003
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Although Schleiermacher's Christology is one of the most commented-upon doctrines of his dogmatic system, little scholarship exists on its relation to patristic Christology.
One exception is an article by Richard Muller (“The Christological Problem as Addressed by Friedrich Schleiermacher,” in Perspectives on Christology [ed. M. Shuster and R. Muller; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991] 141–62) that shows how “the doctrinal intention behind Schleiermacher's way of affirming the divinity of Christ evidences common ground with the dogmatic intention” of Chalcedon (p. 142). Muller's main objective is to demonstrate that Schleiermacher's Christology does not violate what he calls “patristic orthodoxy.” He does not explore in detail how Schleiermacher's doctrine of Christ may draw (whether intentionally or not) on the Christologies of specific patristic figures or schools. George Hunsinger, in an article outlining Karl Barth's debt to Martin Luther, makes a very brief comparison between Schleiermacher's Christology and that of Theodore of Mopsuestia, labeling both as “spirit-oriented” because they hold that “Jesus points us to the Holy Spirit” and not vice versa. Thus, in Hunsinger's view, these Christologies are focused only formally on Christ, but substantively on the Holy Spirit. See “What Karl Barth Learned from Luther,” Lutheran Quarterly 13:2 (1999) 129. Given Schleiermacher's view of the church, as well as his conception of the dependence of the believer and the community upon Christ, Hunsinger's interpretation is not convincing. To many this gap in scholarship will seem understandable and even appropriate, given Schleiermacher's famous rejection of two-natures language in his major dogmatic work, Der christliche Glaube.Henceforth Gl. All references to passages from Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsätzen der evangelischen Kirche in Zusammenhange dargestellt follow the English translation of the second German edition offered in The Christian Faith (ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928). Occasionally I supply in parentheses the German original, from the standard critical edition edited by Martin Redeker (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1960). In this essay, I shall identify parallels between Schleiermacher's Christology and some of the Christologies “behind” Chalcedon—those conflicting Christologies that Chalcedon attempted to mediate. By examining the way in which certain emphases of Cyril of Alexandria, on the one hand, and Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius, on the other, are present in Schleiermacher's own doctrine of Christ (especially in Gl. §§93–99), I shall argue that Schleiermacher does not simply reject Chalcedon, but rather reconfigures its combination of apparently disjunct christological traditions in a new and creative way.