The Lutheran Household as Part of Danish Confessional Culture

Koefoed, Nina Javette

doi:10.13109/9783666551246.321

Cited by 7 publications

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“…This was not least the case with the gendered roles of father and mother of the house in charge of the household, which became an epicenter of Lutheran confessional culture, shaping the early modern Scandinavian kingdoms (cf. Wunder, 1992, p. 263; Koefoed, 2018, 2019, p. 6–8).…”

Section: Concluding Remarks: Women As Wives and Rulersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women as wives and rulers in Martin Luther's theology

Stopa

2023

Dialog

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This article offers a theological analysis of Martin Luther's complex view on women and their role in society, focusing on his exposition of the narratives of creation and fall in the Lectures on Genesis. Luther's understanding of women is defined by an ostensible paradox. On the one hand, Luther claims that all women are equal to men in relation to God and hold the power to rule over the earth, which they execute as leaders of the household. On the other hand, Luther passes on a traditional view of women being of a weaker nature and argues that wives have to subordinate to their husbands. I interpret this understanding of women as an outcome of Luther's theological anthropology based on his doctrine of justification. Men and women are equal as priests and kings in relation to God and authorized to manage their relationship with him, to teach and pray for others, and to disobey authority that interferes with this faith relation. As sinners, though, they must submit to authority to suppress sin. Both men and women exercise authority through their gender-specific callings in the earthly hierarchies, which constitute God's created order. However, women have to subordinate to their husbands in order to suppress sin. The article discusses whether this complex view on women promoted patriarchal social structures or whether the freedom and equality of the spiritual realm over time filtered through to the role of women in society, paving the way for their liberation.

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Section: Concluding Remarks: Women As Wives and Rulersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women as wives and rulers in Martin Luther's theology

Stopa

2023

Dialog

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“…; Stopa, 2021a, 2021b). Historian Nina Koefoed has analyzed the influence of Luther's understanding of the Fourth Commandment on seventeenth‐ and eighteenth‐century Danish society, stressing the role of the household as an epicenter of Lutheran confessional culture (Koefoed, 2018).…”

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“…43 43 In Luther's theology, however, women as matres familias were granted the power to manage households, which became the epicenters of Lutheran confessional culture (Koefoed, 2018; Stopa, 2019). …”

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Trusting in God and His Earthly Masks: Exploring the Lutheran Roots of Scandinavian High‐Trust Culture

Stopa¹

2020

J Historical Sociology

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In recent years, the high level of trust among Scandinavians in general and Danes in particular has attracted considerable international interest. The article unearths the rooting of Danish trust culture in Lutheran soil arguing for the influence of Lutheran theology and social teaching on Danish society from the Reformation onwards as a key to understanding its historical background. It identifies central social imaginaries of trust in Luther's work and trace their impact on eighteenth‐ and nineteenth‐century Danish Lutheran confessional culture by analyzing texts written by the influential theologians Erik Pontoppidan (1698–1764) and Niels Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783–1872).

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“…At the Møn tugt workhouse most of the children were teenagers, but in Viborg, adults were committed for disobedience to their parents. See Koefoed (2018) for disobedient children in the Viborg tugt workhouse .…”

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I Trust You with My Child: Parental Attitudes to Local Authorities in Cases of Disobedient Children in 18th Century Denmark

Koefoed¹

2020

J Historical Sociology

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During the 18 th century, a series of new institutions appeared in the provinces of Denmark. Their purpose was to discipline beggars and vagrants and to teach them not only to work, but also the Word of God. These tugt workhouses also became institutions for the reform of disobedient children behaving in an "un-Christian" manner. Children were often placed here at the initiative of their parents. The article argues that the trust placed by parents in the state authorities in this way can be understood within the framework of Luther's social teaching, especially his doctrine of the three estates and the understanding of the nature of authority and of mutual obligation that is represented there. 1 | INTRODUCTION In 1745, Mads Hansen Black, a citizen of Odense, wrote to the local authority, the estate owner and county governor Count Christian Rantzau. Black presented himself as an old man compelled with "great sorrow and pain" to witness the trouble caused by his son Jacob. The father described how the "several evil vices" of his son, who was seventeen years old, were getting worse and worse in spite of all admonitions and punishment from himself and from others. Black was worried that Jacob might end up in even worse trouble unless he was taken into detention "with strong force." To this end, he appealed to Count Rantzau for help. In his letter, he asks the count to: out of particular gentleness, [… ] show such mercy to help me [the father] to bring him as a disobedient child to the tugt house at Møn either for some years, if improvement (if God grants it) was to be expected, or if not, for life (RA, LA, Møn, Indkomne Breve 1745_21). 1 He goes on to assure the count that the boy is capable of work, and he expresses the hope that he might be taken into training for a profession (Ibid. 1745_21). Here a father who is unable to make his son behave is

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The Lutheran Household as Part of Danish Confessional Culture

Cited by 7 publications

References 1 publication

Women as wives and rulers in Martin Luther's theology

Women as wives and rulers in Martin Luther's theology

Trusting in God and His Earthly Masks: Exploring the Lutheran Roots of Scandinavian High‐Trust Culture

I Trust You with My Child: Parental Attitudes to Local Authorities in Cases of Disobedient Children in 18th Century Denmark

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