This is a bit of a book notice. IVP sent me an advanced photocopy of James Payton, Jr.’s, book, Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings
, and I want to urge it upon readers who have any interest in the signficance of the Reformation for the contemporary Church — and the Reformation reshaped the Church in both good and bad ways.
How is the Reformation talked about in your circles? How do you perceive it? What are the biggest contributions of the Reformation? the biggest mistakes of the Reformation? Overall the right thing or not?
I want to call your attention to an even-handed, balanced, even-handed, balanced, even-handed, balanced discussion of the Reformation.
He’s concerned with misconceptions of the Reformation that are repeated in order to bolster people’s theological or church agendas.
He studies the context (Medieval and Renaissance),
the various reasons folks supported Luther,
Luther’s cantankerous personality,
conflicts among Reformers,
the themes of sola scriptura and sola fide,
the Anabaptists,
the reforms in Rome,
the shift (and he thinks it was not a good shift) of the Protestant scholastics,
the success (or no) of the Reformation,
the normative value of the Reformation (where even the Reformers questioned things),
and then the triumph (soteriology) and tragedy (splintering of the Church) of the Reformation.
A genuinely excellent book we all need to read.
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