Protestantism? Reflections in Advance of the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, 1517-2017
NOVEMBER 14–16, 2013
A conference sponsored by the Center for Faith and Inquiry at Gordon College in partnership with the University of Notre Dame, the Boston Theological Institute and Refo500.
The world edges closer to a significant symbolic date: October 31, 2017, the quincentennial of the Protestant Reformation. Countries, social movements, churches, universities, seminaries, and other institutions shaped by “Protestantism” face a daunting question: how best to commemorate the Reformation 500 years after the fact? This conference aims to undertake a fundamental inquiry into this question in anticipation of the upcoming milestone.
This project is funded by a grant from the Religion and Innovation in Human Affairs program of The Historical Society.
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Herman J. Selderhuis is Director of ReFo500 and Professor of Church History at the Theological University of Apeldoorn (Netherlands).
“The Protestant Reformation and Post-Christian Europe”
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Timothy George is the dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University. He teaches church history and doctrine and serves as executive editor for Christianity Today.
“Interpreting the Reformation in Light of the New Ecumenism”
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Brad S. Gregory is Professor of History and Dorothy G. Griffin Collegiate Chair at the University of Notre Dame. His principal area of study is Western Christianity in the Reformation era analyzed comparatively and cross-confessionally.
“The Reformation and Modernity: Explaining the Causal Nexus”
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Philip Jenkins is Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University and serves as Co-Director for the Program on Historical Studies of Religion in the Institute for Studies of Religion.
“What hath Wittenberg to do with Lagos? Sixteenth-Century Protestantism and ‘Global South’ Christianity”
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Matthew Levering is professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton and a Roman Catholic theologian. He is an expert on the theology of Thomas Aquinas.
“Aquinas, Calvin, and the Church”
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Matthew Lundin is assistant professor of history at Wheaton College. His major field is the history of Early Modern Europe with an emphasis in the social, cultural, and intellectual history of early modern Germany.
“Myth and History in Interpreting Protestantism: The State of Current Historiography”
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Karin Maag is professor of History at Calvin College and director of the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies, one of the world's foremost collections of works on or by John Calvin.
“The Reformation and Western Higher Education”
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Sung-Deuk Oak is Dongsoon Im and Mija Im Chair and associate professor of Korean Christianity at the UCLA Center for Korean Studies. His fields of expertise include the history of Korean Christianity and its East Asian and global connections, especially interactions between Christianity and Korean religions, medical and educational missions, and Korean Bible translation.
“Protestantism Comes East: the Korean Example”
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Sarah Hinlicky Wilson is assistant research professor at the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, France, and editor of Lutheran Forum.
"Martin Luther at 500 and the State of Global Lutheranism"
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John Witte, Jr. is Jonas Robitscher Professor of Law, Alonzo L. McDonald Distinguished Professor, and director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He is a specialist in legal history, marriage law, and religious liberty.
“Protestantism and the Shaping of Western Law”
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Thomas Albert (Tal) Howard
Professor of History
Director, Center for Faith and Inquiry
Gordon College
Professor Howard holds a Ph.D. in European intellectual history from the University of Virginia. Professor Howard has also studied and/or taught at Valparaiso University, the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, the Humboldt University of Berlin, the University of Basel, and the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Religion and the Rise of Historicism (Cambridge, 2000) and Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (Oxford, 2006), and editor of The Future of Christian Learning: An Evangelical and Catholic Dialogue by Mark Noll and James Turner (Brazos Press, 2008). His most recent book, God and the Atlantic: America, Europe and the Religious Divide (Oxford, 2011). Read more >>
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Mark A. Noll
Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History
University of Notre Dame
Mark A. Noll is a historian specializing in the history of Christianity in the United States. He holds the position of Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. Recent books include Protestantism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011); The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith (InterVarsity Press, 2009); God and Race in American Politics: A Short History (Princeton University Press, 2008). Noll is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; in 2006 he received the National Endowment for the Humanities medal at a White House ceremony. Read more >>
