Taiwan Church News 3376 Edition November 7 - 13, 2016 Headline News The Reformation As A Process Of Contextualization In EssenceReported by Chiu Kuo-rong To celebrate Reformation 500, a seminar entitled as "Studies of Calvin's Theology in Taiwan" was held at TaiwanTheological College and Seminary(TTCS) in the afternoon on November 7. This event was jointly organized by the Center of Calvin Studies at TTCS, Association of Calvin Studies in Asia, and PCT's Church History Committee. This seminar focused on discussing the relationships between the Calvin studies and the Reformation 500.Professor Zeng Yang-en, a distinguished church historian and expert in Calvin's theology, pointed out that the Reformation is a process of contextualization in essence. Prof Zeng took the famous Affairs of the Sausages occasioned in 1518 to explain why the Reformation is actually aprocess of contextualization. After Zwingli, a renown Swiss reformer, experienced the conflict of the church's stubborn doctrines on food and the people's actual demand during the Lent, he started to challenge the church's hypocritical legalism via a re-interpretation of the Bible and got a prevail in Swiss, noted Prof Zeng. "Freedom is the most critical idea of the Reformation; it's not a secular freedom of do-what-you-want-at-will, but anidea with deep religious convictions. The opposite side of freedom is "non-freedom", and it is actually an "agnst" which the reformers tried to deal their contemporary problems in terms of Christian faith. Angst is a frame of bondage; and trying to escape from such predicament is the spirit of the Reformation!", stressed Prof Zeng. Translated by Peter Wolfe |