Friday, May 23, 2025

It is the 23rd of May 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

The 23rd of May is the day Savonarola died, it’s the day Joan of Arc was caught! Type either into the search box at 1517.org and you can find those shows- I was considering jumping into an aspect of one of those events when the sometimes convoluted and byzantine method I have for choosing events reminded me of a lesser-known event that took place on this day that can fill in a little bit of a mailbag question. A heads up , this weekend is a mega-mailbag weekend as I’m trying to get out from an avalanche- a wonderful avalanche- but one nonetheless, I am trying to crawl out from underneath.

And a common question has to do with the place of the church and education- higher education, private education, public education, Christian education, and so on and so forth. There is an obvious link between the two, and today’s event, taking us back to the Imperial City of Nuremberg and the year 1526, will help us fill in some of those gaps.

The idea that the Protestant Reformation and Education would go hand in hand was not always the case. There is a quote, sometimes attributed to Erasmus- an opponent of Luther- that “wherever Lutheranism reigns, knowledge perishes”- and this has been expanded to any of the Reformation traditions, the gist being “if you let those fundamentalists in, say goodbye to any critical thinking”. And in the early years of the Reformation, you might see that point in that some believed that the world was ending, and some saw all institutions, not just the church, as a fallen and lost institution.  

You’ve likely heard the name Philip Melanchthon if you’ve listened to this show or read any histories of the Reformation- he is painted a variety of colors- from Luther’s right hand man to someone too willing to compromise (there’s even a pejorative- “philippist” for this) but I am interested in the nickname he was given while he was still alive- the Praeceptor Germaniae- or “the teacher of Germany” and we can link this to some of his most important work as a reformer and his work specifically in that Southern German city of Nurenberg.

Nuremberg (or Nurnberg) was a Free Imperial City- that is, they had certain freedoms granted by the Emperor and would be unlikely to want to rock the boat. But it was also a center of Humanism- that key Renaissance school of thought that believed humans could flourish studying the “humanities” or the disciplines related to letters and language. Nuremberg was a center of the arts with the likes of Albrecht Durer making his studio there as well as the home of the Meistersinger Hans Sachs. A town councillor, the humanist Willibald Pirckenheimer, who, although no fan of the Reformation, was in contact with Melanchthon. Add to this a young patrician in the city, Hieronymus Baumgartner, who returned to Nuremberg having studied under the Reformers in Wittenberg.

Melanchthon was asked by the town to start a school, but he felt tied to Wittenberg and was unwilling to take the new position until he was given a leave of absence in 1525. BY the following year, the local Scottish monks had abandoned their monastery, and so the new school in Nuremberg had a building.

And thus it was on this, the 23rd of May in 1526, that Melanchthon would give the inaugural address at the first school of its kind- a high school, or “gymnasium” developed along the lines influenced by both the Reformation AND Humanism as developed by Melanchthon. And it is in the address that he said:

“For the cities, it is not the bulwarks or walls that are reliable protective walls, but the citizens who are characterized by education, prudence, and other good qualities. The Spartans say the walls must be made of iron, not stone. But I am of the opinion that a city should not be defended so much by weapons as by prudence and piety…” 

And so we see the marriage of humanism and the Reformation in the person of Melanchthon and in his role as “the teacher of Germany” and the first name in Reformation and education.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and more on the growth of the early church from Acts 16:

Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. 2 The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3 Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4 As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 23rd of May 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man getting ready for his eldest son's wedding- mazel tov, Gillespie family! He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man saying, 'Don't look now,' but we’re on a six-game winning streak and the Angels are probably going to win the World Series. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.