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[German Version] 1. Ludwig (Apr 15, 1798, Wildbad – Nov 18, 1828, Rielingshausen), considered the most important preacher of the Württemberg revival (I). In poor health from the time of his studies in Tübingen onward, he was employed at only two places, for two years in each case: in Stuttgart as curate at the Leonhardskirche (1823–1825) and in Rielingshausen as pastor (1826–1828). Hofacker's preaching style was characterized by the clarity of its scholastic construction and language (“That ¶ is, I do not make a broth around the truth, … instead it comes out quite dry”), …

[German Version] Family devotions are the locus where personal and communal piety is observed and practiced in daily life. In the evening and morning (and at midday), the household community (House/Household) pauses and reaffirms its existence before God. Hence family devotions represent worship occasions outside regular Sunday worship (Ministerial offices, Liturgy: V) through which Christians exercise their universal priesthood in reaffirming that their time and indeed they themselves are in God'…

[German Version] (c. 1450, Altkirch, Alsace – Sep 20, 1503, Basel). After studying at Basel, he moved to Paris in 1468, where he was influenced by J. Heynlin of Stein and his combination of Scholasticism and Humanism. In 1472 he became parish priest of Sankt Theodor in Kleinbasel; in 1479 he was appointed to teach canon law at the University of Basel, where he served four terms as rector. Surgant, Heynlin, S. Brant, J. Wimpfeling, J. Geiler von Kaysersberg were among the outstanding representatives of Upper German and Alsatian Humanism and its understanding of a reformatio of the church a…

[German Version] Christian letter-writing is as old as Christianity itself. (The non-Christian literature of consolation, as in the works of Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch, significantly influenced the letter-writing of the Early Church, esp. stylistically.) Whether we are thinking of Philemon or the extensive correspondence of Basil the Great, the corpus of Luther’s letters (which also mark the beginning of a German epistolary culture), the letter-writing of the Pietists (Pietism) or modern corresp…

[German Version] I. General – II. Practical Theology I. General Devotion (Lat. devotio) is the concentration of one's thoughts or energies on the divine. The corresponding German term Andacht derives from Middle High German andâht, whose root is the same as that for “to think,” albeit not in the sense of theoretical considerations or instrumental problem solving, but in the sense of “concentrating one's thoughts on a single object.” This includes not only the intentio, i.e. the orientation or focus of one's spiritual energies on a single object, but also attentio, i.e. the active e…

[German Version] I. Eastern Christianity – II. Western Christianity I. Eastern Christianity The prayerful remembrance of the deceased is regarded as a central praxis pietatis in all eastern Orthodox churches of the two, three, and seven ecumenical councils. All eastern liturgies include prayers for those who have died in the faith in the anaphora, that is in a central position in the service. In the Byzantine Divine Liturgy (VI), prosphora are offered from which pieces are taken in memory of the deceased and mixed with the eucharistic gifts after Communion to s…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Church History – III. Dogmatics – IV. Practical Theology – V. Missiology I. Religious Studies Confession and absolution, expressive of the substantiality of guilt (I) and the impact of the spoken word with its magico-ritual power, are among the “most widespread means of structured confrontation of the ego with itself” (Hahn & Knapp, 7). They appear already in tribal societies (Kikuyu, Nuer, Acholi in East Africa) as part of purificati…