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 PrintableVersion Reformation marriageI’ll alter himREFORMATION MARRIAGE This is a historical theology book which looks at the husband and wife relationship in the writings of Luther and Calvin. The starting point is a review of modern academic assessments of the two great Reformers on this subject and the idea that some have expressed in recent years that Calvin seems not so fixed concerning the roles of marriage partners, but is open to the possibility of change as culture changes. Obviously the feminist agenda of our times is in the background of this study. Setting the Reformers in their historical context, the author first gives us a review of what Augustine said about marriage and of the medieval church’s attitudes. Beginning with Luther he then takes us on a thorough and helpful survey of what Luther and Calvin had to say. There are some marvellous quotations in these chapters, especially from Luther’s work, The Estate of Marriage. And it has to be said that, being men of the 16th century, the two Reformers do use some quite unhelpful wording concerning women from time to time. But the outcome of the enquiry is that ‘the revisionist interpretation of Calvin’s view of the husband-wife relationship is to be discounted’. However, it is clear that though the author gives a fair account of the two Reformers and comes to his conclusion in a balanced way, yet he himself is not at all happy that the Reformers were united and fixed on the teaching of the husband as the head of the family. As I understand it, he blames this partially on their method of insisting on returning to the creation narrative in order to find their basic understanding of marriage. (Though it should be said that when Jesus was asked about marriage and divorce, this is precisely what he did, Matthew 19:4,5). The writer instead argues that the gospel points to a ‘trajectory’ towards the ‘equality’ of the partners in marriage. At this point, I think Mr. Parsons is as influenced by his own cultural context as he believes that the Reformers were by theirs. If the gospel has a ‘trajectory’ it seems to me it is not towards 21st century views of the right to ‘equality’ but the great liberation of being ‘set free to serve’. And that is a rather different emphasis. I think the thing I found most frustrating about this book was that when the author gives criticism of the Reformers’ views, some of which may indeed be valid, he never reveals precisely his own standpoint, nor the exegetical basis for it. In this sense it does not seem very satisfactory. John Benton© Evangelicals Now - May 2006 |
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