The Reformation of the Keys: Confession, Conscience, and Authority in Sixteenth-Century Germany (repost)
The Reformation of the Keys: Confession, Conscience, and Authority in Sixteenth-Century Germany By Ronald K. Rittgers
Publisher: Harvard University Press 2004 | 330 Pages | ISBN: 0674011767 | PDF | 1 MB
Publisher: Harvard University Press 2004 | 330 Pages | ISBN: 0674011767 | PDF | 1 MB
In an exceptionally fair-minded and scrupulous book, Ronald Rittgers charts a route through theological and social complexities with great clarity and subtlety. Lutherans experienced strong and conflicting emotions about confession, and Nuremberg makes a fine case study of their divergent reactions. This is an original and important addition to scholarship.
The Catholic Church's claims to spiritual and temporal authority rest on Jesus' promise in the gospels to give Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven. In the sixteenth century, leaders of the German Reformation sought a fundamental transformation of this "power of the keys" as part of their efforts to rid Church and society of alleged clerical abuses. Central to this transformation was a thoroughgoing reform of private confession.