Religion Past and Present
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Subject: Religious Studies
Edited by: Hans Dieter Betz, Don S. Browning†, Bernd Janowski and Eberhard Jüngel
Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
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Religion Past and Present (RPP) Online is the online version of the updated English translation of the 4th edition of the definitive encyclopedia of religion worldwide: the peerless Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (RGG). This great resource, now at last available in English and Online, Religion Past and Present Online continues the tradition of deep knowledge and authority relied upon by generations of scholars in religious, theological, and biblical studies. Including the latest developments in research, Religion Past and Present Online encompasses a vast range of subjects connected with religion.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
Weniger, Erich
(270 words)
[German Version] (Sep 11, 1894, Steinhorst – May 2, 1961, Göttingen) received his habilitation at Göttingen in 1926 and taught there as an adjunct. From 1929 to 1933, he taught at the schools of education in Kiel, Altona, and Frankfurt am Main, in leadership positions at the latter two. Put on leave in 1933, after 1945 he taught at the school of education in Göttingen and after 1949 at the university. Between 1933 and 1945 he worked as a free-lance writer with a focus on military education, in a cozy relationship that appears problem-¶ atic in hindsight. As a member of the German Committ…
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Religion Past and Present
Werdenhagen, Johann Angelius (von)
(325 words)
[German Version] (ennobled in 1637; Aug 1, 1581, Helmstedt – Dec 26, 1652, Ratzeburg). After studying philosophy (J. Caselius, C. Martini) and law at Helmstedt, he began teaching as an adjunct in 1601. In 1607 he went to Salzwedel as deputy rector; from 1616 to 1618 he taught as professor of ethics at Helmstedt. Finding that position unpromising, he entered the political service of Magdeburg, lived as a writer in Leiden and The Hague from 1627 to 1632, and then returned to the service of Bremen, M…
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Religion Past and Present
Werenfels
(413 words)
[German Version]
1. Peter (May 20, 1627, Liestal – May 23, 1703, Basel), Reformed theologian. After university studies and ordination, Werenfels became court chaplain to Count Friedrich Kasimir of Ortenburg near Passau, deacon in Basel, pastor in Wolfisheim near Strasbourg, archdeacon in Basel, pastor of the church of St. Leonard in Basel, and finally in 1675 chief pastor (antistes) of the Minster. At the university, he held the chairs of dogmatics, Old Testament, and New Testament successively. He had supported his predecessor L. Gernler when the
Formula consensus Helvetica was in…
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Religion Past and Present
Werfel, Franz
(654 words)
[German Version] (Sep 10, 1890, Prague – Aug 26, 1945, Beverly Hills, CA) grew up in Prague in an atmosphere of tolerant piety characteristic of the assimilated middle-class German Jews; he was also exposed to Catholicism by his governess and his attendance at a school run by the Piarists. In October 1912, he was hired as an editor by the Kurt Wolff Verlag, with partial responsibility for the series “Der jüngste Tag.” His volumes of poetry
Der Weltfreund (1911),
Wir sind (1913), and
Einander (1915) quickly brought him to the attention of the circle of expressionists. The apoca…
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Religion Past and Present
Werkmeister, Leonhard (von)
(453 words)
[German Version] (ennobled in 1808; monastic name Benedikt Maria; Oct 22, 1745, Füssen – Jul 16, 1823, Stuttgart). In 1764/1765 Werkmeister entered the Benedictine abbey of Neresheim; he studied in Benediktbeuern and was ordained to the priesthood in 1769. In 1770 he became novice master. From 1772 to 1774 and 1778 to 1780, he taught philosophy in Freising; in 1780 he became head of studies in Neresheim. In 1784 he was appointed court chaplain by the Catholic duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg. In 179…
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Religion Past and Present
Werner, Friedrich
(225 words)
[German Version] (Sep 3, Oliva [today part of Gdansk] – Nov 30, 1955, Düsseldorf), jurist. After studying political science and law, he received his doctorate in 1922 and began a career in judicial service in 1923. Having joined the National Socialist Party, he became a member of the Berlin city council in 1930 and joined the Deutsche Christen movement. On Jun 25, 1933, he became acting president of the Protestant High Consistory of Berlin; on Sep 18 he became its president. In the same year he be…
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Religion Past and Present
Werner, Gustav
(277 words)
[German Version] (Mar 12, 1809, Zwiefalten – Aug 2, Reutlingen) studied Protestant theology in Tübingen from 1827 to 1832, working intensively with the works of E. Swedenborg. In Straßburg (Strasbourg) from 1832 to 1834, he found his life’s ideal in the works of the Alsatian pastor J.F. Oberlin; from then on, he dedicated himself to putting Christianity into practice. As vicar in Walddorf, near Tübingen, from 1834 to 1840, he established a nursery school and a vocational school. In 1840 he moved t…
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Religion Past and Present
Werner, Johannes
(157 words)
[German Version] (1598–1659?), itinerant prophet. In 1629 Werner, a peasant from Bockendorf in Saxony, felt called by a vision to spend the next years prophesying and commenting on the “changes in the Holy Roman Empire” coming during the Thirty Years War. He condemned Saxony’s “betrayal” in the 1635 Peace of Prague. After 1636 he marched with the Swedish army; even after the Peace of Westphalia (Westphalia, Peace of), he accompanied military units until his death. He called for war against the Cat…
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Religion Past and Present
Werner, Martin
(186 words)
[German Version] (Nov 17, 1887, Bern – Mar 23, 1964, Bern) studied theology in Bern and Tübingen from 1910 to 1914. After several
locum tenens positions, including filling in for K. Barth in Safenwil, he became a lecturer in New Testament at Bern in 1921; he was appointed professor of systematic theology there in 1928. In his analyses of the history of dogma, Werner, a friend of A. Schweitzer, described the Hellenization of Christianity (A. v. Harnack) as being rooted in the process of de-eschatologizing the originally…
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Religion Past and Present
Werner, Zacharias
(277 words)
[German Version] (Nov 18, 1768, Königsberg [Kaliningrad] – Jan 17, 1823, Vienna), German writer and Catholic priest. His father, professor of history at Königsberg, died early; the enthusiastic Pietism of his mother exercised a powerful influence on him. He began to study law and finance in 1784; in 1793, without concluding his studies, he entered Prussian government service. He led an unsteady life, fluctuating between an idealistic image of the artist, motivated by Christianity, and the unrestra…
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Religion Past and Present
Wernle, Paul
(213 words)
[German Version] (May 1, 1872, Zürich – Apr 11, 1939, Basel), liberal New Testament scholar and church historian. After teaching at Basel as a lecturer, he was appointed professor of NT in 1900 and church history in 1901. In his studies of Jesus and primitive Christianity, he took a mediating but independent position between the History of Religions school and E. Troeltsch as well as earlier historical theology, especially A. v. Harnack. His
Jesus can be considered a highpoint of neo-Protestant life-of-Jesus research. His second
magnum opus, his history of 18th-century Swiss Prot…
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Religion Past and Present
Wernsdorf, Gottlieb
(115 words)
[German Version] (Feb 25, 1668, Schönewalde – Jul 1, Wittenberg), theologian representative of late Lutheran orthodoxy. Wernsdorf served as professor of theology, provost, and general superintendent in Wittenberg, where he championed a continuation of Wittenberg orthodoxy based on intensive adoption of Luther. He was highly critical of mystical influences on theology and especially of Pietism, which he (with V.E. Löscher and others) opposed politically and theologically. Of his writings, the
Disputationes academicae (1736/1737) were the most important. Kenneth Appold Bibli…
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Religion Past and Present
Wesley
(990 words)
[German Version]
1. John (Jun 17, 1703, Epworth, Lincolnshire – Mar 2, 1791, London), the founder of Methodism (Methodists). Wesley attended Charterhouse School and Christ Church in Oxford; he received his B.A. in 1724, was ordained dean and priest in 1725 and was elected Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1726. Originally Dissenters, Wesley’s parents now held strong high-church, ¶ even Jacobite views (James I); his own early impressions were strengthened by his Oxford education. Parental influence also marked his personality. His mother’s dominance c…
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Religion Past and Present
Wessel Gansfort, Johann
(288 words)
[German Version] (c. 1419, Groningen – Oct 4, 1489, Groningen), a reform-oriented theologian. As a pupil and teacher of the Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life in Zwolle from 1432, Gansfort adopted the spirituality of the devotio moderna, which made a lasting impression on him. In 1449, he began to devote himself to intensive theological studies in Cologne, Heidelberg and Paris, in the course of which he turned to nominalism and, having learned Greek and Hebrew, laying the basis for an intensi…
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Religion Past and Present
Wessenberg, Ignaz Heinrich von
(549 words)
[German Version] (Nov 4, 1774, Dresden – Aug 9, 1860, Constance), pastoral reformer committed to the cultural ideals of the Catholic ¶ Enlightenment (II, 4.f). Wessenberg was the son of an aristocratic Breisgau family, destined for a career in the church. As was standard practice in the church within the Empire, he was admitted to minor orders in 1785 and assigned a living as a cathedral canon in 1791/1792. During studies at Dillingen (from 1792), Würzburg (from 1794), and Vienna (from 1796), he ca…
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Religion Past and Present
West African Missions
(518 words)
[German Version] The first Christian missionaries to West Africa came with the Portuguese as they worked their way down the coast in the late 15th century. The highpoint of these early Catholic missions came in the mid-17th century, particularly through the activity of the Spanish Capuchins in Senegal and in Sierra Leone, the Slave Coast and the kingdom of Benin. Sporadic and weakly sustained, these missions were limited to areas of European influence on the coast and had little long-term impact. It was Protestant societies, arising out of the revival movements (Revival/Revi…
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Religion Past and Present
West, Benjamin
(175 words)
[German Version] (Oct 10, 1738, Springfield Township, PA – Mar 11, 1820, London, UK), was born of Quaker parents, made a reputation as a portraitist in New York, and moved to London in 1763 where he became historical painter to George III in 1772 and president of the Royal Academy in 1792. In 1779 he was commissioned to decorate the Royal Chapel at Windsor with paintings depicting the progress of religion revealed, and, although the project was later abandoned, West’s oil studies of such subjects as
Pharaoh and His Host Lost in the Red Sea (1792) caused controversy in the 1790s by their …
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Religion Past and Present
Westcott, Brooke Foss
(155 words)
[German Version] (Jan 12, 1825, Birmingham, UK – Jul 27, 1901, Durham, UK). Educated at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, and at Cambridge, Westcott was fellow of Trinity College (1849–1852), a school master at Harrow (1852–1869), and Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge (1870–1890). Ordained in 1851 he also held Church office as canon of Peterborough (1869) and Westminster (1883), and as bishop of Durham (1890–1901). A member of the “Cambridge Triumvirate” (with J.B. Lightfoot and F.J.A. Hor…
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Religion Past and Present
Westermann, Claus
(453 words)
[German Version] (Oct 7, 1909, Berlin – Jun 11, 2000, Heidelberg), Old Testament scholar. His father Diedrich Westermann was a specialist in African languages. After schooling and university studies, he served in the Confessing Church; after military service and imprisonment, he served as a pastor in (West) Berlin, where after 1949 he also taught as a lecturer in the theological seminary, being appointed professor in 1954. From 1958 until his retirement in 1977, he was a professor in the faculty o…
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Religion Past and Present
West-Europa-Mission
(115 words)
[German Version] The West-Europa Mission, a missionary center founded in Wetzlar 1974 by the publisher Hermann Schulte, is dedicated to mission in the spiritually impoverished (in its view) Western European countries of France, Spain, Belgium, and Italy, which have also been neglected by missionaries. It supports missionaries in partner organizations in these countries, engages in mission through publication and radio ministry, supports a Protestant school and correspondence Bible courses, facilit…
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Religion Past and Present