Christian Faith as Religion

Book excerpt: Christian Faith as Religion investigates the theologies of John Calvin and Friedrich Schleiermacher with respect to the questions: What is Religion? and What is Christian Religion? The author argues that the classical and liberal exemplars of Protestant theology are best compared when these two questions are thoroughly examined, and calls into question the contention of neo-orthodox theologians Karl Barth and Emil Brunner that Schleiermacher's theological use of the category "religion" signifies a departure from the tradition of the Reformation. He offers a revised comparative framework that discloses the material and formal similarities between Calvin and Schleiermacher with respect to their employment of the categories "religion" and "revelation" and allows the historical theologian to delineate the trajectory that accounts for both continuity and discontinuity in the transition from classical to modern Protestant theology. This allows the systematic-hermeneutical question of a contemporary Protestant theology informed by the historical and philosophical study of religion to be taken up anew.