Professor of History, Accreditation Liaison Officer
Email:
Phone:
(616) 632-2834
Office:
H 312
Biography
My chief research interests lie in early modern central Europe, especially in the religious and political history of Southwestern Germany in the late sixteenth century. I am also interested in early modern science, in particular the reception of the ideas of Paracelsus, the great Swiss-German medical iconoclast. I have also engaged in scholarship on witch-hunting in the period, especially regarding the demonological ideas that made this tragedy possible.
In addition to offering surveys of world history, I teach intermediate level of European history courses. I offer advanced courses in German history and a seminar in the history of witchcraft.
Recent Scholarly Activity
- Selected Research Publications
- “The Evolution of Erastianism: Hugo Grotius’s Engagement with Thomas Erastus,” Grotiana 34/1 (2013): 41-61.
- “Swiss Students and Faculty at the University of Heidelberg, 1518–1622,” in Church and School in Early Modern Protestantism: Studies in Honor of Richard A. Muller on the Maturation of a Theological Tradition, ed. Jordan J. Ballor, David S. Sytsma, and Jason Zuidema, 255-269. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
- “De Heidelbergse Catechismus in de theologische context van de Palts,” in Handboek Heidelbergse Catechismus, ed. Arnold Huijgen, J.V. Fesko, and Aleida Siller, 61-72 (Utrecht: Kok, 2013).
- Thomas Erastus and the Palatinate: A Renaissance Physician in the Second Reformation (Leiden, Brill, 2011).
- Contributor to: Plummer, Marjorie Elizabeth and Robin Barnes, Ideas and Cultural Margins in Early Modern Germany: Essays in Honor of H.C. Erik Midelfort (Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2009).
- Bierma, Lyle D. with Charles D. Gunnoe Jr., Karin Y. Maag and Paul W. Fields, An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism: Sources, History, and Theology, Studies and Texts in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought, ed. Richard A. Muller (Grand Rapids: Baker, September, 2005).
- Translated into Dutch as: [Lyle D. Bierma and Charles D. Gunnoe] “Auteurschap van de Heidelbergse Catechismus,” in Handboek Heidelbergse Catechismus, ed. Arnold Huijgen, J.V. Fesko, and Aleida Siller, 73-83. Utrecht: Kok, 2013
- Translated into Japanese as: ハイデルベルク信仰問答>入門 : 資料・歴史・神学 (Lyle Bierma, et al., An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism: Sources, History, and Theology, Japanese). trans. Takashi Yoshida. 2013.
- Translated into Portuguese as: Introdução ao Catecismo de Heidelberg: Fontes, História e Teologia. Trans. Marcos Vasconcelos. Cambuci (São Paulo): Editora Cultura Christã, 2010.
- Williams, Gerhard Scholz and Charles D. Gunnoe Jr. eds., Paracelsian Moments: Science, Medicine, and Astrology in Early Modern Europe, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies, no. 64 (Kirksville , MO : Truman State University Press, 2002).
- Microforms
- Charles Gunnoe, editor; Richard Muller, advisor, The Heidelberg Reformation, I & II.
- Encyclopedia and Dictionary Articles
- Contributions to Europe 1450-1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, and The New Westminster Dictionary of Church History.
- Selected Conference Papers and Invited Lectures
- “The Heidelberg Catechism in the Light of Contemporary Correspondence,” Profil und Wirkung des Heidelberger Katechismus, co-sponsored by the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg and Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, Heidelberg, May 2013.
- “The Evolution of Erastianism,” Symposium Ordinum Pietas, Peace Palace Library, The Hague, June 2013.
Education
- Ph.D., University of Virginia
- M.A.T.S., Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
- A.B., College of William and Mary
