Amy Nelson Burnett – författare

In Debating the Sacraments, Amy Nelson Burnett brings together the foundational disputes regarding the baptism and the Lord's Supper that laid the groundwork for the development of two Protestant traditions-Lutheran and Reformed-as well as of dissenting Anabaptist movements. Burnett places these disputes in the context of early print culture, tracing their development in a range of publications and their impact on the wider public. Burnett examines not only the writings of the major reformers, but also the reception of their ideas in the pamphlets of lesser known figures, as well as the role of translators, editors, and printers in exacerbating the conflict among both literate and illiterate audiences. Following the chronological unfolding of the debates, Burnett observes how specific arguments were formed in the crucible of written critique and pierces several myths that have governed our understanding of the sacramental controversies. She traces the influence of Erasmus on Luther's followers outside of Wittenberg and highlights the critical question of authority, particularly in interpreting the Bible. Erasmus and Luther disagreed not only about the relationship between the material world and spiritual reality but also on biblical hermeneutics and scriptural exegesis. Their disagreements underlay the public debates over baptism and the Lord's Supper that broke out in 1525 and divided the evangelical movement. Erasmus's position would be reflected not only in the views of Huldrych Zwingli and others who shared his orientation toward the sacraments but also in the developing theologies of the Anabaptist movement of the 1520s. The neglected period of 1525-1529 emerges as a crucial phase of the early Reformation, when evangelical theologies were still developing, and which paved the way for the codification of theological differences in church ordinances, catechisms, and confessions of subsequent decades.

Though the Reformation was sparked by the actions of Martin Luther, it was not a decisive break from the Church in Rome but rather a gradual process of religious and social change. As the men responsible for religious instruction and moral oversight at the village level, parish pastors played a key role in the implementation of the Reformation and the gradual development of a Protestant religious culture, but their ministry has seldom been examined in the light of how they were prepared for the pastorate. Teaching the Reformation examines the four generations of Reformed pastors who served the church of Basel in the century after the Reformation, focusing on the evolution of pastoral training and Reformed theology, the theory and practice of preaching, and the performance of pastoral care in both urban and rural parishes. It looks at how these pastors were educated and what they learned, examining not only the study of theology but also the general education in languages, rhetoric and dialectic that future pastors received at the citys Latin school and in the arts faculty of the university. It points to significant changes over time in the content of that education, which in turn separated Basels pastors into distinct generations. The study also looks more specifically at preaching in Basel, demonstrating how the evolution of dialectic and rhetoric instruction, and particularly the spread of Ramism, led to changes in both exegetical method and homiletics. These developments, combined with the gradual elaboration of Reformed theology, resulted in a distinctive style of Reformed Orthodox preaching in Basel. The development of pastoral education also had a direct impact on how Basels clergy carried out their other dutiescatechization, administering the sacraments, counseling the dying and consoling the bereaved, and overseeing the moral conduct of their parishioners. The growing professionalization of the clergy, the result of more intensive education and more stringent supervision, contributed to the gradual implantation of a Reformed religious culture in Basel.

The debate over the Lord's Supper had momentous consequences for the Reformation, causing the division of the evangelical movement, influencing the formation of political alliances, and contributing to cultural differences among the Protestant territories of Germany and Switzerland. Karlstadt and the Origins of the Eucharistic Controversy is the first full-length study of the beginning of that debate. Going beyond the traditional focus on Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli, it emphasizes the diversity of the "sacramentarian" challenge to traditional belief in Christ's corporeal presence and re-evaluates the significance of Luther's colleague, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, to the debate. The book describes Luther's earliest criticisms of the mass and the efforts in Wittenberg to reform liturgical praxis to correspond with his ideas. It then looks at pamphlets written by other reformers to show how Luther's understanding of the sacrament was adapted and modified outside of Wittenberg. It shows how Karlstadt's eucharistic pamphlets introduced into the public debate several arguments that would become standard Reformed criticisms of the Lutheran position. The book also demonstrates the influence not only of Erasmus but also of John Wyclif and the Hussites for discussions of the sacrament, highlights the role of the reformers of Basel and Strasbourg for developing the "Zwinglian" understanding of the Lord's Supper, and draws attention to the early eucharistic theology of the Silesians Kaspar Schwenckfeld and Valentin Krautwald. The book will become an indispensable guide for readers seeking to understand the issues surrounding the outbreak of the eucharistic controversy in the sixteenth century.

With higher education’s refocus over the last three decades on bringing greater recognition and reward to good teaching, the idea of peer review has gained popularity. One tool for documenting and reflecting on the quality of teaching and student learning is a course portfolio. A course portfolio captures and makes visible the careful, difficult, and intentional scholarly work of planning and teaching a course. Illustrated through examples of course portfolios created during a four-year project on peer review of teaching, this book demonstrates how faculty can integrate well-designed peer review into their daily professional lives, thus improving their teaching by incorporating a means for assessment and collaboration and revealing the student learning that happens with effective teaching within an institutional reward systems.This book offers a model of peer review intended to help faculty document, assess, reflect on, and improve teaching and student learning through the use of a course portfolio. It features a rich collection of materials—including four dozen exhibits to help assemble a portfolio, reviewers’ comments, and reflections drawn from more than 200 professors and portfolio authors in various disciplines and institutions—that faculty can use to develop their course portfolios to be used in their peer review of teaching.

An essential companion for university faculty interested in conducting scholarly inquiry into their classroom teaching, this practical guide presents a formal model for making visible the careful, difficult, and intentional scholarly work entailed in exploring a teaching question. As a how-to guide, this is an invaluable resource for planning and conducting classroom research—formulating questions and hypotheses, defining a data collection methodology, collecting data, measuring the impact, and documenting the results.Inquiry Into the College Classroom is filled with richly illustrative examples that highlight how university faculty from a range of academic disciplines have performed scholarly inquiries into their teaching and leads faculty on a journey that includes: Developing a formal model for structuring the exploration of a classroom inquiry questionProviding a practical and useful guide for faculty interested in exploring teaching and learning challengesDetailing faculty experiences in measuring specific changes in student learning or perspectivesDemonstrating how to document classroom inquiry in a form to be shared, used, and reviewed by other facultySharing useful and practical suggestions forgetting started with a classroom inquiryHighlighting different models for disseminating classroom inquiry workLinking classroom inquiry to larger conversations about the scholarship of teaching and learning