Dennis Austin Britton
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823257140
- eISBN:
- 9780823261482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823257140.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Chapter 1 surveys writings by important English theologians—including William Tyndale, Thomas Becon, John Hooper, and John Whitgift—and shows that race became a powerful tool for clarifying the ...
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Chapter 1 surveys writings by important English theologians—including William Tyndale, Thomas Becon, John Hooper, and John Whitgift—and shows that race became a powerful tool for clarifying the Church of England’s theology concerning baptism and the origins of Christian identity. Race functions in two ways in the Church of England’s baptismal theology: one, in arguments against English Anabaptists, as the Church of England asserted that the children of Christians should be baptized just as the children of Jews were circumcised; and two, in arguments asserting that the children of Christians who died before being baptized were nevertheless saved because God is also the Father of Christian “seed.” This chapter also shows that the rhetorical force of theological arguments about baptism often presupposes a belief among English readers that infidels, namely Turks, were racially different from themselves.Less
Chapter 1 surveys writings by important English theologians—including William Tyndale, Thomas Becon, John Hooper, and John Whitgift—and shows that race became a powerful tool for clarifying the Church of England’s theology concerning baptism and the origins of Christian identity. Race functions in two ways in the Church of England’s baptismal theology: one, in arguments against English Anabaptists, as the Church of England asserted that the children of Christians should be baptized just as the children of Jews were circumcised; and two, in arguments asserting that the children of Christians who died before being baptized were nevertheless saved because God is also the Father of Christian “seed.” This chapter also shows that the rhetorical force of theological arguments about baptism often presupposes a belief among English readers that infidels, namely Turks, were racially different from themselves.
Neema Parvini
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474432870
- eISBN:
- 9781474453745
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474432870.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter complicates the outline of moral philosophy in Shakespeare’s period provided by the previous chapter by considering the impact of the Protestant Reformation and the challenge posed by ...
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This chapter complicates the outline of moral philosophy in Shakespeare’s period provided by the previous chapter by considering the impact of the Protestant Reformation and the challenge posed by John Calvin to the synthesised humanist moral systems that had been developing during the Renaissance. It also considers the impact of the rise of capitalism, which is broadly coincident with that of Protestantism. It considers the moral implications of Calvin’s three solas, as mediated in England by William Perkins’s A Golden Chain (1591) and Thomas Becon’s The Governance of Vertue (1556), while noting Shakespeare’s possible hostility to puritanism. In the second half, it reconsiders Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) and the Calvinist notion of “the calling”, while tracing the changing attitude towards commerce in the work of Giovanni Botero, John Wheeler, and Walter Raleigh. It argues that Calvin’s thought lacks the individualist and entrepreneurial enterprise found in Machiavelli, and that any attempt to locate “the spirit of capitalism” must be found in the “unresolved tension” between Machiavelli and Calvin.Less
This chapter complicates the outline of moral philosophy in Shakespeare’s period provided by the previous chapter by considering the impact of the Protestant Reformation and the challenge posed by John Calvin to the synthesised humanist moral systems that had been developing during the Renaissance. It also considers the impact of the rise of capitalism, which is broadly coincident with that of Protestantism. It considers the moral implications of Calvin’s three solas, as mediated in England by William Perkins’s A Golden Chain (1591) and Thomas Becon’s The Governance of Vertue (1556), while noting Shakespeare’s possible hostility to puritanism. In the second half, it reconsiders Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) and the Calvinist notion of “the calling”, while tracing the changing attitude towards commerce in the work of Giovanni Botero, John Wheeler, and Walter Raleigh. It argues that Calvin’s thought lacks the individualist and entrepreneurial enterprise found in Machiavelli, and that any attempt to locate “the spirit of capitalism” must be found in the “unresolved tension” between Machiavelli and Calvin.
