#reformers

[bantarleton]

On 29 February 1528 - Scottish Reformer Patrick Hamilton was burned at the stake. Having earlier travelling to Europe, where he met several of the leading reformed thinkers, Patrick returned to Scotland to preach. He was tried as a heretic by Archbishop James Beaton, found guilty and handed over to secular authorities to be burnt at the stake in St Andrews as Scotland's first martyr of the Reformation.

[reformedontheweb]

"Reformed theology is not only systematic but also 'catholic,' sharing much in common with other communions that are part of historic Christianity. The sixteenth-century Reformers were not interested in creating a new religion. They were interested, not in innovation, but in renovation. They were reformers, not revolutionaries. Just as the Old Testament prophets did not repudiate the original covenant God had made with Israel, seeking instead to correct the departures from revealed faith, so the Reformers called the church back to its apostolic and biblical roots.

Though the Reformers rejected church tradition as a source of divine revelation, they did not thereby despise the entire scope of Christian tradition. John Calvin and Martin Luther frequently quoted the Church Fathers, especially Augustine. They believed the church had learned much in her history, and they wished to conserve what was true in that tradition. For example, the Reformers embraced the doctrines articulated and formulated by the great ecumenical councils of church history, including the doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ's person and work formulated at the councils of Nicea in 325 and of Chalcedon in 451."

R. C. Sproul- What is Reformed Theology, published by Baker Books, P. O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI., pgs. 28-29.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

We honor the Reformers, but our confidence is not in them. Our confidence is in Christ.

R.C. Sproul

[durnesque-esque]

*wild random high school flashback*

My AP Euro class had a reputation for extreme video projects. So when the assignment was Reformation, one group did a parody of Pirates of the Caribbean where Barbossa was the Pope, the apple was a loaf of bread, and his line became "I could eat a whole loaf of Jesus."

We also lived in a town famous for golf carts so they definitely filmed a "high seas" battle of the Reformers while racing golf carts and blasting the theme music.

[indizombie]

Reformers such as President Cyril Ramaphosa confront a widespread reality which, because it reflects patterns which go back many years and springs from the exclusion of many from the benefits which democracy was meant to bring, is tenacious and can survive shocks. Removing a few high-profile people will not change much because the networks will survive, as they have done since the departure of former president Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family, who were meant to be the cause of all the problems. None of this means that sharply reducing corruption in South Africa is impossible. Deep-rooted problems created over centuries demand thorough-going solutions which will take time to work. While this requires  patience and understanding, the alternative is many more years of public railing at corruption while the problem remains because its causes have been ignored.

Steven Friedman, 'Corruption is deeply rooted in South Africa’s past. This is why it matters', Independent Online

[willkommen-in-germany]

At the Wartburg in Erfurt, Thüringen, Eastern Germany

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"The contest is now between the privileged and the unprivileged, and a terrible one it is. The slave snaps his fetters, the peasant feels an unwonted strength nerve in his arm, the people rise in stern and awful majesty, and demand in strange tone their ever despised and hitherto denied rights."

- William Lyon Mackenzie, July 26 1837, in his newspaper The Constitution