The Eucharist in the Reformation

Description

The Eucharist in the Reformation: Incarnation and Liturgy takes up the words, 'this is my body', 'this do', and 'remembrance of me' that divided Christendom in the sixteenth century. It traces the different understandings of these simple words and the consequences of those divergent understandings in the delineation of the Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic traditions: the different formulations of liturgy with their different conceptualizations of the cognitive and collective function of ritual; the different conceptualizations of the relationship between Christ and the living body of the faithful; the different articulations of the relationship between the world of matter and divinity; and the different epistemologies. It argues that the incarnation is at the center of the story of the Reformation and suggests how divergent religious identities were formed.

Lee Palmer Wandel is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities. She is the author of, Always Among us: Images of the Poor in Zwingli's Zurich, (1990), and Vocacious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basel, (1995), and editor of Facing Death (1990), and History Has Many Voices (2003). Her work has been published in Archive for Reformation History, Sixteenth Century Journal, The Cambridge History of Christianity, and many other journals.

'It is an extremely well-researched book drawing on the multi-disciplinary skills that liturgical study at its best demands. The theologians are well-explained, the liturgies understood, and the historical settings examined with both an eye for detail and an ability to paint the sort of picture that awakens the imagination. ... enlightening ...' Church Times 'Wandel follows Christ's words through the heritage of outstanding representatives of the most influential doctrines with an admirable degree of success. Her ability and skill to communicate the history and theologies of the epoch recommend the book to a wide readership. Coherent organization and concise narrative make the work accessible to students, and advanced early modernists will find it a useful compendium.' Sixteenth Century Journal