Christmas Sermons: Displays of Development in a Theology of Christian Faith and Life (1790–1833)
Ebook
Overview
New discoveries arise alongside memories in every Christmas sermon that Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) ever delivered. This book invites readers into an informed experience of Christmas through eleven sermons. In these pages readers watch Schleiermacher lay discovery and memory side by side, because this is how his own famed systemic theological views of Christian faith and life developed throughout his life. These sermons evoke first curiosity then wonderment at the prospects reading can open. For Schleiermacher, Christmas was always a special time to engender such experiences--a time to survey different vistas of Jesus' birth and career. Schleiermacher lived when the modern age was being born. He contributed substantially to that birth and to the health of modern times. His sermons collected here display the main theological grounds for his worldview, which is still quite timely today.
“This volume of Schleiermacher’s extant Christmas sermons makes
available to its Anglophone readers an accessible introduction to
his incarnational theology. The distinguished editor’s postscripts
and notes helpfully draw out developments within Schleiermacher’s
thought from 1790-1833 by providing comparison with his other
works, including Christian
Faith and Christian Ethics. Readers will enjoy
a new appreciation of the extent to which Schleiermacher’s theology
is suffused with love, joy, and the active power of the divine
Spirit.”
—Shelli Poe, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Millsaps
College
“This volume presents a remarkable contribution. Like his
1806 Christmas Eve dialogue, Schleiermacher’s
Christmas sermons provide a clear and accessible glimpse of the
center point of his theology: the emergence of the new, redeemed
life through the advent of Christ. Moreover, these eleven sermons,
spanning from 1790-1833, chart significant lines of development in
Schleiermacher’s Christology and his understandings of grace and
sin. This is a rich resource for readers of Schleiermacher and of
modern Christian thought.”
—Kevin Vander Schel, Gonzaga University, Assistant Professor,
Religious Studies Department
“This is an deal first reading for new students; it can act as
appetizer for further Schleiermacher studies.”
—Abraham V. Kunnuthura, author of Schleiermacher On Christian
Consciousness on God's Work in History, Professor of Christian
Theology at Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, India
Editor Terrence N. Tice, a contributor to Schleiermacher studies
and translations for many years, is Emeritus Professor of
Philosophy and Education at the University of Michigan. This book
is a companion volume to Schleiermacher’s popular dialogical drama
Christmas Eve Celebration (Cascade Books, 2010).
Translator Edwina Lawler, Emerita Professor of German at Drew
University, has translated and edited works by Schleiermacher,
including Fifteen Sermons of Friedrich Schleiermacher Delivered
to Celebrate the Beginning of a New Year (2003).