No Humanism, No Reformation / No Reformation, No [Wittenberg] Humanism

It's a frequent contention that the Reformation had been an impossibility, historically speaking, without the advent of Humanism, and students of the era quickly recognize this fact as they read through the primary sources. The same impulse that animated Humanism, ad fontes, also animated the reformational desire to return to the source of the Church's life, Scripture itself, without the scholastic accretions, the "human traditions," of the Middle Ages. It's like buying a Gucci purse: you can either go to the guy on the corner and get a knock-off, or you can expend a little extra effort and get the real mccoy. So no Reformation without Humanism.

Same goes for the Wittenberg form of Humanism: it, too, is inconceivable apart from the Reformation. The peculiar brand of Humanism that developed in Wittenberg was reformational Humanism, a Humanism deeply informed by the theological thought of Luther and Melanchthon, as we've had occasion to point out here at Renascentes Musae.

In celebration of the phenomenon of Wittenberg Humanism, Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, is hosting a conference entitled "Lutheranism and the Classics." You can read more about it by clicking here. So mark your calendars for 1 and 2 October, 2010, and please join us as we examine, prod, explore, uncover, probe, and revel in the intellectual tradition of earliest Lutheranism.