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1:00pm - 1:30pm

Amy Burnett, President Calvin Studies Society; Professor of History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and
Mary Jane Haemig, Associate Professor of Church History, and Director of the Thrivent Reformation Research Project, Luther Seminary

G. Sujin Pak
Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity,
Duke University Divinity School.

“Luther and Calvin on the Nature and Function of Old Testament Prophecy:
The Case of the Minor Prophets”

Prof. Pak’s research interests center around the history of biblical interpretation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the role of exegesis in the formation of confessional identity, and the role of biblical interpretation in Christian-Jewish relations. She’s written several articles on Luther and Calvin’s exegesis. Currently she is researching the history of the interpretation of the Minor Prophets for an upcoming volume of the Reformation Commentary on Scripture (IVP) and exploring Reformation readings of biblical prophecy. Her first book, The Judaizing Calvin: Sixteenth-Century Debates over the Messianic Psalms, was published by Oxford University Press in November 2009.

Dr. Juergens’ fields of research include Early Modern Polish history, Reformation history with a focus on the second phase of the Reformation (after 1548), and the history of print. He has published Johannes a Lasco in Ostfriesland. Der Werdegang eines europäischen Reformators, Tübingen 2002 (Spatmittelalter und Reformation NR 18); and edited with Eckhard Grunewald, Der Genfer Psalter und seine Rezeption in Deutschland, der Schweiz und den Niederlanden 16.- 18. Jahrhundert, Tübingen 2004 (Frühe Neuzeit 97); and with Thomas Weller, Religion und Mobilität. Zum Verhältnis von raumbezogener Mobilität und religiöser Identitätsbildung im frühneuzeitlichen Europa (VIEG Beiheft 81), Göttingen 2010.

Through research on a wide array of court records, Jeffrey Watt has had a special interest in the social impact of religious change as seen in a variety of topics that cut across national, linguistic, and confessional boundaries. His publications include Choosing Death: Suicide and Calvinism in Early Modern Geneva (Truman State University Press, 2001); The Making of Modern Marriage: Matrimonial Control and the Rise of Sentiment in Neuchâtel, 1550-1800 (Cornell University Press, 1992); The Scourge of Demons: Possession, Lust, and Witchcraft in a Seventeenth-Century Italian Convent (University of Rochester Press, 2009). He is currently engaged in research on the Consistory in Calvin's Geneva. Drawing comparisons from his previous work on the Roman Inquisition, he is particularly interested in the Consistory's efforts to nurture contrition for sins and reconciliation between feuding parties.

Paul Westermeyer
Professor of Church Music and Cantor, Luther Seminary, St. Paul. Visiting Professor of Church Music, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN.

Dr. Westermeyer’s most recent research has been for the Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship which will be published this summer (July, 2010). It is a set of source data and commentaries on each of the 650 entries - texts and tunes - in the hymnal. Other than articles, the publication that preceded the Companion is Rise, O Church: Reflections on the Church, Its Music, and Empire (Morning Star, 2008) which grew out of a series of lectures for the Mississippi Conference on Church Music and Liturgy in the summer of 2007.Currently Westermeyer is working on an article for Cross Accent which will explore the theme of abundance and discernment to be taken up at the meeting of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians in 2011.

Dr. Billings has research interests in the Reformation, Reformed theology, and contemporary systematic theology. His first book, Calvin, Participation, and the Gift: The Activity of Believers in Union with Christ (Oxford, 2007) won a 2009 Templeton Award for Theological Promise, awarded internationally for the best first books of scholars in theology and religious studies. He is also author of The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Eerdmans, 2010), and co-editor (with I. John Hesselink) of Calvin’s Theology and Its Reception: Disputes, Developments, and New Possibilities (Westminster John Knox: forthcoming). He has published articles on Calvin and Reformational theology in several books, as well as the Harvard Theological Review, International Journal of Systematic Theology, and The Christian Century.

Dr. Latini’s research and writing emerge from the intersection of practical theology, ecclesiology, and the social sciences. She is the author of The Church and the Crisis of Community: A Practical Theology of Small Groups (Eerdmans: Spring 2010) and numerous articles dealing with practices of congregational care. She is currently co-authoring a book on nonviolent communication as a spiritual practice of the church in late modernity.

Susan C. Karant-Nunn’s most recent publications include The Reformation of Feeling: Shaping the Religious Emotions in Early Modern Germany (Oxford University Press, 2010); Reformationsforschung in Europa und Nordamerika, eine historiographische Bilanz /Reformation  Research in Europe and North America, a Historiographical Assessment, vol. 100 of the Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte/ Archive for Reformation History (Gutersloher Verlagshaus, 2009), co-edited with Anne Jacobson Schutte and Heinz Schilling; and Masculinity in the Reformation Era (Truman State University Press, 2008), co-edited with Scott H. Hendrix. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of early modern Europe, with emphasis on the German-speaking lands during the Reformation.She received a 2003-2004 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship to support her study of emotion, physicality, and the Reformation. She is presently writing a book on the body of Martin Luther.

Bruce Gordon’s research has focused on the Reformation in German-speaking lands, in particular the Swiss Confederation, but his interests range over diverse aspects of late-medieval and early-modern religion. He has published on the development of the ministry in the Reformation, Protestant historical writing, angels, Zwinglian devotional literature, and sixteenth-century Bibles. His most recent books are The Swiss Reformation (Manchester University Press, 2002), Architect of Reformation. An Introduction to Heinrich Bullinger, 1504-1575 (Baker Academic, 2004), edited with Emidio Campi, and Calvin (Yale University Press, 2009). He is currently completing a project on the Protestant Latin Bibles of the Sixteenth Century.

Prof. Kolb has recently published Martin Luther, Confessor of the Faith (Christian Theology in Context series; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Lutheran Ecclesiastical Culture, 1550-1675, editor, (Leiden: Brill, 2008); with Charles P. Aran.The Genius of Luther’s Theology. A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008). His ongoing projects include helping edit a new “Handbook of Martin Luther” for Oxford UP, along with Irene Dingel and Lubomir Batka; and he is about to begin a study of how Luther’s and Melanchthon’s students used the Bible - not their Schriftlehre as such, but their preaching and commentary procedures.  

Besides his published dissertation on Philip Melanchthon's interpretation of John's Gospel, Professor Wengert is co-editor, with Robert Kolb of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, of the recent English edition of The Book of Concord.  In 2006 he published a practical commentary on the Formula of Concord, A Formula for Parish Practice: Using the Formula of Concord in Congregations (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).  In 1997 and 1998, he published three books on Philip Melanchthon.  One, Human Freedom, Christian Righteousness (Oxford University Press), investigates Melanchthon’s relation to Erasmus and in 2000 earned Wengert the Melanchthon Prize from the city of Bretten, Germany (Melanchthon's birthplace).  In 2008 he published his studies of Priesthood, Pastors, Bishops (Minneapolis: Fortress), and in 2009 his book on Luther’s catechisms appeared. 

Prof. Whitford teaches courses on the history of Christianity, the Reformation, and the Reformed Tradition. He is the author of The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era (Ashgate, 2009); and the editor of Reformation and Early Modern Europe: A Guide to Research, (Truman University Press, 2008). He is currently at work on a history of the Reformation that uses Philipp of Hesse as its guide through the sixteenth century.

Christine Helmer’s historical-theological research interest is two German theologians, Martin Luther and Friedrich Schleiermacher, and her constructive-theological research is in the area of liberal theologies. She is the author of The Trinity and Martin Luther (Zabern 1999), is series editor of the Liberal Theologies Series with Northwestern University Press, and is contributing editor and co-editor of eight volumes in the areas of biblical theology, philosophy of religion, Schleiermacher studies, and Luther studies, most recently The Global Luther (Fortress 2009).