Prof. Alec Ryrie: “The Politics and the Anti-Politics of Protestantism: Five Hundred Years After the Reformation”

Einladung zu einem Vortrag in englischer Sprache
Wednesday, 15th November 2017 at 7 pm

Nova Vita Residenz Am Folkwang Museum, Goethestraße 19, 45128 Essen

What are the political implications of Protestantism? Since the beginning of Luther’s movement this has been an explosive question, and Protestants have been deeply divided by it. One strand of the tradition emphasizes submission and obedience, and celebrates the God-given authority of the prince or the magistrate. This has repeatedly implicated Protestants in supporting state power, whether for good or ill. An alternative strand celebrates conscientious defiance of and even resistance to state power. This has at times led Protestants into political violence and revolution, and even to the creation of theocracies. Both of these strands can be traced back to Luther himself and to his early collaborators. This lecture will survey the interplay of these two strands over the five centuries since Luther, from the early Reformation and the era of the religious wars to the crises of the twentieth century. It will also argue that alongside those two strands lies a crucial third element: withdrawal from and disdain for politics. This “apolitical” instinct can also be traced back to Luther himself and recurs from Pietism to Pentecostalism. It is a crucial perspective for understanding Protestantism’s history, including the predicament of Protestant churches in our own secular age and what might happen to them next.

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Alec Ryrie is Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University, Visiting Professor in the History of Religion at Gresham College, London, and co-editor of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History. He has written widely on the history of the Reformation in the British Isles and beyond, and his 2013 book Being Protestant in Reformation Britain won the Society for Renaissance Studies Book Prize and the Richard L. Greaves Book Prize. His book Protestants: The Faith that Made the Modern World was published in 2017.

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Mit freundlicher Unterstützung der

VIJO Clubgastronomie im ETUF
Vincenzo Bonelli
Freiherr-vom-Stein-Straße 204a, 45133 Essen

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Die Nova Vita Residenz Am Folkwang Museum liegt neben dem Mercure-Hotel auf der Bismarck Straße und auf der Goethestraße zwischen der Erlöserkirche und dem Folkwang-Museum.

Parkmöglichkeiten findet man in der Goethestraße, der Tiefgarage der Nova Vita Residenz (Einfahrt Bismarck Straße) oder auf dem Parkplatz des Saalbau/Sheraton-Hotel

U-Bahn: von Essen Hbhf. Richtung Bredeney – Station: „Saalbau“ Huyssenallee gegenüber Saalbau/ Sheraton-Hotel (3 Minuten Fußweg) oder U17 oder U18 – Station: „Bismarck Platz“ (10 Minuten Fußweg).