Seward Hiltner: Bonsesquilistic Theology for Today

The courage I have needed to prepare and present this address would not have been possible without help from John Calvin and Jürgen Moltmann. In his only recently discovered book, Second Thoughts from Geneva, Calvin wrote, “Theology should be serious but not solemnly without humor.” And in a recent issue of Theology Today, Moltmann said, “Critical faith has achieved a reflective and free relationship with its basic traditions.”

Guided by such considerations, I want to make a plea for a genuine examination of the bonsesquilistic theology of Guido Buonofunacci as of peculiar importance to the ecumenical potentialities of our time. Rightly understood, I believe that Guido anticipated the work of Luther, Calvin, the Council of Trent, George Fox, Jonathan Edwards, Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Harvey Cox, and Sam Keen, among others.

Until the great modem scholarly study of Buonofunacci by J. C. Smith, and some much more modest unpublished writings of my own, it is remarkable and reprehensible that Guido has simply been ignored by both Catholics and Protestants ever since he completed his twelve volumes in the fourteenth century. It is true that the slow development of printing in his time delayed for years the publication of his works in the modern book sense. And his writing Campanola and became Bishop of Pizza, be found time for his potential reading public. His was a relatively tranquil time. After he left his long pastorate at the Church of the Holy Buttons in Campanola and became bishop of Pizza, he found time for his voluminous writing. And by the date when his series was actually published, Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, Ciuto, Gebovitz, von Gliesbar, de Tuil, and others had entered the theological front stage. Without close examination, Protestants wrote him off as a Catholic. Catholics ignored him because he disliked Latin and Italian. Italians neglected him because he had written twelve books.

What a lot of fun–read it all.