This seminar will explore the contemporary relevance of Martin Luther's teachings within the African context. In the 16th century, Martin Luther famously challenged the established practices of the Catholic Church, sparking a movement that profoundly influenced the Western world.
But how do his ideas and principles resonate with Africans in the 21st century? The seminar will be conducted through a series of interactive sessions, including presentations, reflective exercises, and plenary discussions, ensuring a comprehensive and participatory learning experience.
Participants are encouraged to actively participate in discussions, contributing their unique viewpoints and experiences. This includes sharing relevant resources such as articles, books, and other materials that can enhance collective understanding and foster meaningful discussion. Since the eighteenth century, national historiographical accounts of the Reformation in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the Nordic countries have been characterized by a national and distinct Lutheran discourse.
Within this paradigm, the influence of Martin Luther in Wittenberg and the role of the princes in the spread of the Reformation have been particularly emphasized. However, this has led to an underemphasis even in more recent research on the early Reformation movement and its theology, not least the urban reformation theologically, administratively, and institutionally and the humanist and Zwinglian influence on the Reformation movement as it spread from the Baltic Sea cities and along the trade routes and intellectual networks to the Nordic countries.
The North is defined by the Scandinavian kingdoms incl. Participants are invited to present papers or studies in the areas of urban and early reformation in the North, studies in theological networks and studies of Nordic reformers and their international connections and inspirations.
