A Liturgy of Lament for a Broken House-Church: The Pious Meditations (1619) of Johann Christoph Oelhafen
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2023-01-01
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This article explores the evolving nature of affectivity in the long Reformation, focusing especially on the place of lament in the ‘emotion script’ of early modern Lutheranism. It examines this script by introducing readers to an extremely rich and previously unknown ego-document or ‘Selbstzeugnis’ from early seventeenth-century Nürnberg: Johann Christoph Oelhafen's ‘Pious Meditations on the, Alas, Most Sorrowful Bereavement’. The article argues that the ‘Pious Meditations’ was shaped by the liturgical life of the early modern Lutheran house-church, even as it contributed a new and important ‘setting’ to this liturgy that allowed greater room for biblical lament in times of overwhelming grief. This new ‘setting’, in turn, constituted a revision of the early modern Lutheran ‘emotion script’.
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Rittgers, RK (2023). A Liturgy of Lament for a Broken House-Church: The Pious Meditations (1619) of Johann Christoph Oelhafen. Reformation and Renaissance Review, 25(2-3). pp. 82–100. 10.1080/14622459.2023.2278144 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/30716.
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Ronald K. Rittgers
Prof. Rittgers joined the faculty of Duke Divinity School in the fall of 2021. He is interested in the theology and spirituality of the Age of Reform (ca. 1050-ca. 1650), and also studies the important intellectual, social, and cultural developments of this period in western Christianity. In addition to articles and essays, Professor Rittgers has authored a number of books: The Reformation of the Keys: Confession, Conscience, and Authority in Sixteenth-Century Germany (Harvard University Press, 2004); The Reformation of Suffering: Pastoral Theology and Lay Piety in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany (Oxford University Press, 2012); The Reformation Commentary on Scripture: Hebrews and James (Intervarsity Press, 2017); a co-edited volume, Protestants and Mysticism in Reformation Europe (Brill, 2019); and A Widower’s Lament: The “Pious Meditations” of Johann Christoph Oelhafen (Fortress, 2021). Prof. Rittgers is currently working on a book entitled The Enchanted Word of Early Protestantism. He has held grants from the NEH and the Lilly Foundation, and has been a senior research fellow at the Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel, Germany) and the Leibniz Institute for European History (Mainz, Germany). Professor Rittgers has also served as the president of the American Society of Church History.
A committed teacher, Professor Rittgers offers survey classes on the History of Christianity, as well as seminars on topics such as Martin Luther, Christian Theology in the Age of Reform, Christian Spirituality in the Age of Reform, Renaissance Christian Humanism, and Faith and History.
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