Reading Seminar

The seminar is open to students looking for a thesis subject (BA or Speciale).

For Luther, creation was an ongoing activity of God, whereas for John Calvin it was a means of discerning God. For them and other evangelicals, however, worship was separate from creation: verbal and centred on the written text of the Bible. Yet, during this period, European Christians were only just beginning to acknowledge the existence of continents, flora, fauna and human beings – an entire hemisphere – that had never been imagined, let alone named, by classical or Christian sources. Even as creation became far more extensive geographically, encompassing far greater diversity of plants, animals and human beings, Luther was separating it from the collective work of the faithful. Theologically, devotionally, socially and culturally, what did Creation become? How might the changed relationship between creation and worship have shaped thinking about the natural world and the environment to the present day? Can we trace a line between Luther's rejection of any allegorical reading of Scripture — a mode of reading that established a living dialectic between Creation and Scripture — and modern attitudes towards our environment?

We will discuss key interpretations of Genesis from the main Protestant reformers, guided by Lee Palmer Wandel.