Week 17 · AD 1601–1700
Devotion, Doctrine, and a New World
Lutheran worship reaches North America as Europe argues over doctrine and war
This week
Lutheran worship reaches a new world
- Rasmus Jensen holds Lutheran worship at Churchill in 1619
- New Sweden’s pastors, and the Lenape catechism of 1696
- Councils at Dort, Westminster, and Jerusalem, each with a Lutheran classification
- The Thirty Years’ War ends at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648
- Devotion and doctrine: Arndt, Gerhard, Spener, and Pietism
Christ between the two thieves
Rembrandt van Rijn, 1653, etching: Christ on the center cross, with two thieves beside him
Church life
Lutheran worship reaches North America
Church life
Lutheran worship at Churchill, 1619
- Rasmus Jensen, a Danish Lutheran pastor, sailed on Jens Munk’s 1619–1620 voyage
- The crew wintered near the Churchill River, in what is now Manitoba
- Jensen held a Christmas sermon and Mass there in 1619
- Jensen died on 20 February 1620, and no settlement lasted
- This is the earliest known Lutheran worship in North America
Church life
New Sweden and its first pastors
- New Sweden was a Swedish colony on the Delaware River, and Lutheran from the start
- Peter Minuit’s ships land in 1638 and build Fort Christina
- Reorus Torkillus, the first Lutheran pastor to serve a Lutheran colony in North America, dies there in 1643
- Johannes Campanius builds a log church on Tinicum Island in 1646
- Campanius translates Luther’s Small Catechism, a short book of Christian teaching, into Lenape
Controversy
Church unity, and the teaching behind it
Christ and the sacraments
Calixtus and Calov on church unity
- Syncretism means blending teaching to unite churches
- Georg Calixtus of Helmstedt used the first five centuries as a base for uniting Christians
- Abraham Calov of Wittenberg answered that this gave up Lutheran teaching on Christ and the Supper
- In 1655 Calov drafted the Consensus repetitus against Calixtus, which never became binding
Councils and events
Synods, a war, and its peace
Councils and events
The Synod of Dort, 1618–1619
- The Reformed Synod met in the Netherlands
- It answered the Remonstrants, followers of Jacobus Arminius, who taught that election depends on foreseen faith
- The Canons say sinners cannot save themselves, and salvation is by grace in Christ
- The Canons teach that Christ died effectively for the elect only
- Lutheran classification: Mixed
Councils and events
The Westminster Assembly, 1643
- The Westminster Assembly first met on 1 July 1643, called by the English Parliament
- It wrote the Westminster Confession and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms
- It holds Christ as true God and true man, and justification by faith
- Lutheran classification: Mixed
Christ and the sacraments
The Synod of Jerusalem, 1672
- Patriarch Dositheus led the synod in 1672
- The synod answered Cyril Lucaris, an earlier Patriarch of Constantinople, and his Calvinist-leaning confession
- Decree 17 says bread and wine are changed into Christ’s body and blood
- Lutheran classification: Spurious
Councils and events
Peace of Westphalia, 1648
- The Thirty Years’ War, from 1618 to 1648, was driven by religion and politics
- In spring 1618, Protestant nobles in Prague threw two imperial governors out of a castle window
- The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended the war
- Study how its religious terms let different churches live together
Major people
Teachers of devotion and doctrine
Major people
Devotion and doctrine
- Johann Arndt’s True Christianity, Book I, came out in Jena in 1605
- Arndt points readers to Christ’s saving work and the new life it brings
- Johann Gerhard, a leading Lutheran teacher, wrote Sacred Meditations in 1606
- Spener’s Pia Desideria (“Pious Wishes,” 1675) began Pietism, a movement that stressed personal faith and holy living
Wider world
Colonies, print, and a famous trial
Wider world
Colonies, print, and science
- Jamestown, 1607: English colonists settle in Virginia
- Mayflower, 1620: passengers sign a compact to govern their colony
- Bay Psalm Book, 1640: the first book printed in British North America, for singing in worship
- Galileo, 1633: the Roman Inquisition finds him “vehemently suspect of heresy”
- Pennsylvania, 1681: King Charles II grants William Penn the land by charter
- Germantown, 1688: Pastorius and three others send the first known protest against slavery to a Quaker meeting
Lutheran developments
Lutheran life in Germany and America
Lutheran developments
Edict, Halle, and Pennsylvania
- Emperor Ferdinand II’s Edict of Restitution (6 March 1629) ordered Protestants to return church lands taken since 1552
- The edict threatened Lutheran church property across northern Germany
- Francke began a school for poor children at Halle in 1695
- Justus Falckner went from Halle to Pennsylvania in 1700, with his brother Daniel
- In 1703 he was ordained at Gloria Dei, the first Lutheran ordination in North America
Confessional Lutheran connection
What the Confessions teach
Confessional Lutheran connection
What we confess
- Christ is true God and true man, and he died for human sins (Augsburg Confession III)
- Baptism offers God’s grace, and the Supper gives Christ’s true body and blood (Augsburg Confession IX, X)
- New Sweden’s pastors taught the Small Catechism, and Campanius used it with the Lenape
- The Dutch ban on Lutheran worship tried to bind Lutherans to the Canons of Dort (compare Augsburg Confession VII)
For discussion
Where do Baptism and the Supper give assurance, and how does that differ from the strength of a conversion experience?