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  • The Theology of the Czech Brethren from Hus to Comenius
  • Marcus Harmes
Atwood, Craig D. , The Theology of the Czech Brethren from Hus to Comenius, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009; cloth; pp. 480; 26 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$80.00; ISBN 9780271035321.

The Theology of the Czech Brethren from Hus to Comenius offers an exploration of the interaction between community, ritual, and belief. It spans the fourteenth century up to the Moravians of the eighteenth century, and develops significant arguments concerning the evolution of the key Czech doctrine of the separation of church and state. While the broad contours of the Czech Reformation will be familiar to English readers of Reformation history, there is comparatively little English language scholarship on the Brethren, the third and smallest of the three Hussite churches (behind the Utraquist and Táborite communities). Craig Atwood clearly illustrates key features of the Brethren, notably their insistence on the unity of life, but also their openness to the world and their concomitant emphasis on reconciliation in the midst of persecution.

The book participates directly in a major historiographical debate over the origins of the Moravian Church (the modern Brüdergemeine in Germany). The Moravian Church's own historiography traces its origins to the Hussites, with a point of continuity revolving around the moment in the 1730s when Bishop Daniel Ernst Jablonsky laid hands on Nicholas von Zinzendorf as a bishop of the Unitas Fratrum. Von Zinzendorf occupies a major place in the modern historiography of the Moravian Church, and he is associated with the time of the 'Hidden Seed', which Moravian historians claim as a period of continuity between the old Church of the Hussites and the Moravian Church. Atwood confounds this received wisdom and normative history by re-orienting the history of the Church before the 'Hidden Seed' and the Zinzendorf period, so that the Brethren between Hus and Comenius can be interpreted as a church in its own right, rather than as a predecessor to the Moravian Church of the eighteenth century.

Atwood places the message of the Brethren in an unexpectedly broad, but nonetheless refreshing, setting. Assessing the world after 1992, a moment in time when Cold War tensions decline, Atwood, a product of a Moravian theological seminary, asserts that the chief messages of the Brethren of faith, hope, and love seem more pertinent than ever.

While the book is superbly researched and the scholarship is scrupulous, [End Page 201] at times Atwood's clear personal affection for the Brethren and his strong Christian faith is the dominating feature of his analysis. Neither affection nor faith should in any way be considered an impediment to producing a scholarly text, and Atwood's scholarship is of the highest standard. But it does lead Atwood to advance an interpretation of the Brethren's later impact and global significance that draws several long bows. Thus the Brethren were 'a voice of reason and toleration in a violent age' and left an 'inspiring' legacy (p. 409). He makes significant claims for their impact on the world after the Early Modern period. According to Atwood, the Brethren also stand at the foundation of major developments in modern Christianity. He does not really delineate what features of modern Christianity can be attributed to the Brethren, and his book concludes on this note of slight exaggeration and unbalanced analysis.

However, his analysis of the distinctive layers of Czech theology is a strong aspect of this study, and so too is his analysis of the distinctions between church and state that inform much Czech theology. He presents strong evidence which makes clear the rejection of the doctrine of justification by faith, and the emphasis instead placed on good works. He also explains with clarity the causes of the Brethren's separation from the state church, attributing it to a crisis of faith, in which the Brethren perceived that the state church was not practicing what they preached.

In the end, Atwood's purpose in revising normative foundation stories of the Moravian Church is only partly successful. This is because Atwood is engaging with a historiographical debate that has been conducted largely in languages other than...

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